UPDATE — Now it’s happened again. And to add insult to injury your bus driver passed right by me when he finally did show up…not stoping until I screamed him down. When I got on the bus he looked like he could give two shits. And he looked fucking stoned. Yeah, I said it. True or not that’s the impression he left on me.

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This post was not written at the time of posting. But the point stands and I am going on a journalistic limb of speaking for all affected.

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Here I am once again in the twenty-something degree windy weather at NextBus Stop #1002157, where moments ago in the warmth of my house the system reported that I had 14 minutes to catch the G8 to Catholic Station from 22nd and Newton NE. I live a minute away.

I grabbed my coat and bag, popped on my headphones and started on my way. I arrived at my stop quickly. But what I’m about to tell you next keeps happening enough that I must say something.

I just snapped a picture of the NextBus report on my iPhone that counted down the minutes to arrival and watched it jump to 80 MINUTES. I usually hold back the expletives, WMATA, but what — the — fuck — is going on over there with your system we paid for with those fare hikes you’re instituting AGAIN at the end of this month?

I’m not old yet. I can handle the weather. But I live in a neighborhood where the aging population relies on it’s younger population for help. And when I see them at a bus stop in the freezing cold and have to tell them the bus isn’t coming, I’m adding to their woe in a world where limited budgets might not save them from pneumonia.

People have to get around in DC. We have to work. Our older population without cars who need the bus to operate on time for their own safety need you. So we all rely on you to listen. And you’ve made awesome strides in the past few years. I won’t negate that. But you really need to make sure that when you deploy something it’s been thoroughly tested.

In the words of Twitter, I issue a #NextBusFAIL to you WMATA. I could sooner have walked the 12 block up-hill hike to the station…but many of my neighbors can’t risk that. For shame.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 7:40 pm and is filed under Catching Up.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.