As I will have to return to being a patron of the Vancouver Public Transportation system very soon, I thought I would spend a moment to reflect on my last experience on the bus, which was during the midst of the blizzard of 2008.
I took the bus a total of 6 times, and on no less than 3 occasions, I was forced to abandon the bus because it was stuck. Was the bus stuck because it was caught in the snow? No. Was the bus stuck because a car/bus/truck/etc. was stuck or had an accident ahead of us? No. Was the bus stuck because a trolley bus broke down ahead? Hell yeah!
On all three times the bus driver forced me and my fellow passengers to abandon the bus, a trolley bus had broken down ahead. More specifically, the cable atop the trolley bus had snapped off. One time when I was on the 99B-line, I actually witnessed a cable snap off a No. 17 bus while it was making a right turn. I feel that I have experienced enough trolley bus failures to make the generalization that they break down faster during a winter storm than Sarah Palin during a sit-down interview (zing!!!!!!…..oh no he didn’t!).
I wish I had been able to take a better picture, but the scene is invariably quite chaotic when a bus is abandoned. My fellow passengers and I are scrambling about, elbowing each other, yelling into cellphones, as we try to find another means of conveyance. It is reminiscent of the scene from The War of The Worlds when everyone is rushing to catch the last ferry, except Dakota Fanning isn’t screaming in the background, and instead of huge alien robots, everyone is running from a 2-inch thick piece of cable lying motionless on the ground.
