Public Transportation

This is why I like public transportation.

Public transportation

I have already written about public transportation in San Diego. It is pretty depressing reading and today's trip to get a drive license documents it well.
First, the line has changed, so it does not stop where it did before, but nobody bothered to cover the number on the bus stop, and nobody told Google. After finding the right stop, it took me about 20 minutes of waiting for a bus with 15 minutes intervals. On my way back, it actually took 30 minutes of waiting. Then two of them came. Both were unsurprisingly empty.
The drivers in general (and this one in particular) cannot drive. That's an interesting (side?) effect of a regulation. If you want to get a permit to drive a bus in Czech Republic, you need to drive a large truck (lorry) for a couple of years. Not so in the California. Anybody can get a license pretty easily and it is not unusual to see students driving (UCSD) school buses. The outcome is tragic. Moreover, the buses are probably not well suited for local roads and they have to fulfill rather strict conditions, which is good because they don't smell, but it is also bad because they are terribly noisy.
But that's still not the worst. The biggest problem is that there is very few lines and intervals are long, so traveling anywhere is a hassle. Thus, nobody rides a bus. Thus, it does not make sense to have buses (or PT in general).
I was wondering whether there is a way out of this vicious circle (no) and what is its cause. The cause is surprisingly simple - low population density.
Even in a largish city like San Diego, there are virtually no apartment buildings as we know them from Europe. Everybody (except students and tourists) lives in a house. It does not matter how small and badly build is the house, how small is the parcel (1m stI have already written about public transportation in San Diego. It is pretty depressing reading and today's trip to get a drive license documents it well.
First, the line has changed, so it does not stop where it did before, but nobody bothered to cover the number on the bus stop, and nobody told Google. After finding the right stop, it took me about 20 minutes of waiting for a bus with 15 minutes intervals.
The drivers in general (and this one in particular) cannot drive. That's an interesting (side?) effect of a regulation. If you want to get a permit to drive a bus in Czech Republic, you need to drive a large truck (lorry)ripe around the house is ok).
I will explain in later posts why I think this is so. The point is that in low density area it is extremely (prohibitively) expensive to have a reliable public transportation. And that's why there won't be any in California. (Yes, even LA looks like houses randomly placed between highways).

Bus

It took me two weeks to gather courage to use the public transportation, especially after warnings from my landlady Patricia. She actually said that her sons never used public transport in their life.
I found out that I can use it for free (parts of it sponsored by UCSD), and that the bus should take my bike. I went to the other side of the city to get a Social Security Number (see other post) and I needed to change once. Well, the buses are coming every 30 minutes but they are always late (I mean ALWAYS). The drivers are nice and even though they do not help you to put the bike on the rack in front of the bus and secure it properly, they can at least explain. Moreover, once you do it properly, it is actually very simple. The down side is that the bus can take only two bikes, so sometimes you have to another 30 minutes for the next one.
The passengers are mostly poor, often black, unemployed and sick (sometimes mentally) people. They tend to do all kinds of things in the bus (eat, make-up, etc.), but they are very friendly and easily start to talk to each other (about absolutely uninteresting things).
The other "funny" thing is that all stops are "on-demand", and you request a stop by pulling a "cable" on both sides of the bus. I guess the point is that you don't need to stand up before the bus stop, because, you know, this is too much work. And of course, you have no idea what stop is next...
Except of all these shortcomings, it was great to use the bus instead of bike. Especially when you go to the public office and shop.