Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Bus Report #378

It took me 2 hours to get home last night.
It usually takes an hour, tops.
I got on the 10 Townsend as usual, and we headed out, going at a pretty steady clip until we got to Townsend and 2nd Street.
It took 5 minutes to get through the intersection and turn onto 2nd. What happened next, well... I am still thinking about it.
We were stuck on the block between Townsend and Brannan for forty minutes.
No one (the driver, the other passengers) knew what was going on, but the bus barely managed to crawl a foot every time the light changed. The traffic in both directions was bad. Buses were starting to stack up behind us and in the opposite direction, too. People started to get out of the bus and walk.
I was listening to an episode of Radio Lab about stress. Funny, huh?
It was 5:45 PM and we still hadn't moved. There were only three of us left on the bus, me, an elderly lady and a girl who I see on my 38 almost every night.
It was dark and rainy out. I took off my headphones and stood up. "Excuse me," I said to the girl. "I see you on the 38 all the time, do you want to walk down to Market together?"
She recognised me too and said yes.
The driver opened the door and we got out. He apologized to us, and I said, "not your fault, good luck tonight."
On the sidewalk, the girl introduced herself as Tammy. I introduced myself, too, and we started to walk.
There was what seemed like a huge exodus of people walking down 2nd Street, people from other buses and from office buildings.
We wove through the traffic that clogged each crosswalk and dodged puddles of muddy water.
We hit Market Street and headed for the 38 stop.
Something was not right.
All the Market Street buses that were headed to the transbay terminal were backed up all the way down Market and nothing was moving. Our bus stop was extremely crowded, and by this time it should have been emptier. I looked at her and said, "I'm going to try my luck on the 1 California."
She decided to come with me, and we walked down Sansome, still dodging puddles, people and cars. At Sacramento we got on a crowded 1 California and rode up to Presidio, where the bus went out of service.
So we got on a 2 Clement.
I got home at 7 PM.

Anyone know what the hell was going on?

Please go vote today.

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