I’m still ahead. But would you believe that, on the very day of my previous post about the go card, the go card machine in the bus failed to work when I needed to get off the bus at Forest Lake? How’s that for coincidence? Exactly the same thing happened again last night when trying to touch off.
What happens is this. I get on the bus at Indooroopilly, touch on, the light goes green and says something about a continuing journey. This is correct, as I change buses at Indooroopilly on my way home from NICTA’s new location at UQ. But then, as I’m exiting the bus at Forest Lake, the go card machine says “Please wait…”. I walk down the front of the bus to speak to the driver, who tells me (on both occasions) “but the machine wasn’t working at the start of the route, so you don’t need to touch off.” I tell him, “No, at Indooroopilly it was working. The light went green and everything was normal.” Rather than holding up the other passengers any longer, I just hop off the bus and call TransLink to make sure I’m not overcharged (except that I haven’t got around to doing that this time).
The thing that irks me even more is the consistent lateness of the 460. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was always late by the same amount, but it’s not. Although my Twitter page records the many occasions the 460 has been late in the evening, it’s my morning trip that really frustrates me. I have not known 8:10am 460 from Forest Lake E to run within 10 minutes of its scheduled time ever since I’ve been catching it. This is quite unbelievable given that the bus is supposed to start at Inala at 7:58am, and couldn’t possibly be getting caught in traffic between there and my stop.
I think overall Brisbane’s public transport is improving. But, jeez, it still sucks so badly, and I’m not sure it’s keeping up with the growth of our population.
Proceed with caution: Ricky writes about fashion!
