There is a certain happiness sighted when your bus comes along. It is of course a small specialized form of happiness and will never be a great thing.

-Richard Brautigan, The Old Bus

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Drop rules

Children (and the men the wife marries who refuse to grow up) have a three-second rule for dropped toast. Sacramento Regional Transit has the APP AR rule for bus drivers. Either one is guaranteed to annoy the wife.

Tonight, the wife was standing at the corner of White Rock and Prospect Park in Rancho Cordova at 5:39 p.m., waiting to cross the street to meet the No. 74 bus.

As she waited for the light to change the No. 74 bus arrived at the intersection.

The wife waved. She waved excitedly.

The bus slowed at the corner.


The wife waved. She waved even more excitedly.

The light for the wife was red. The light for the bus was green.

The bus turned the corner and drove down White Rock Road, past the empty bus stop. The bus wasn't scheduled to arrive until 5:42. The bus was early. Not to worry:

APP AR — An abbreviation for “approximate arrival” time point. RT's operating policy permits driver discretion to depart these time points up to three minutes earlier than specific time noted in the schedule.

And the wife watched week No. 2 of her commute using Sacramento Regional Transit roll on. The next No. 74 arrives at 6:42.

2 comments:

FLUBBER said...

just one of the many reasons i don't like to ride the bus...biking to light rail is so much easier
props to the wife for not going postal after the 1 hour added wait

Unknown said...

Getting the wife on the bus is one thing. Getting the wife on a bike -- well, that's not going to happen.

As for going postal, the wife actually ended up arriving home at her regular time because a co-worker gave her a ride to the Sunrise light rail station in time to catch the train she would have met with the bus at Mather. Her luck still holds, but RT is sorely testing it.