Tuesday, January 19, 2010

HRT Regulars, Get A Laugh Out Of This!

I had just boarded the Cutback Outbound 20 at Military Circle at 4:30 this afternoon. A young woman came to the door and asked the Operator if she was going to Cedar Grove. The Operator told her that she needed the other 20 in the lineup. The woman then asked (get this!) if she could take our bus to Pembroke East, then catch the Route 1 to Cedar Grove. I was incredulous, while the Operator calmly and politely redirected her to the other 20. Here's the problem:

1. Sane routing - take the Cutback Inbound 20 in our lineup, slated to arrive at Cedar Grove at 4:59.

A simple, straight 29 minute trip.

2. What the woman wanted - take the Cutback Outbound 20 to the Pembroke East Transfer Center. There catch the Inbound 1 not scheduled to arrive at Cedar Grove until (gulp!) 6:50.

That's a 2:20 trip via Pembroke, the Little Creek Amphibious Base, Ocean View, and Wards Corner, before going to the periphery of downtown.

Why would any rational human being pass up the Cutback Inbound 20 for that bizarre routing?!? I've never even heard of anyone taking such a routing while bus joy riding. I've seen passengers do some stupid things on Hampton Roads Transit (HRT) buses, but that had to take the cake!

2 comments:

Michael Ragsdale said...

Hey, I've taken some bizarre while getting to my destination. Consider:

- Churchland to TCC, Va Beach
Easy Way: 47 --> 45 --> 6 or 13 --> 12 (the 65 would sure help here!)
Fun Way: 47 --> 44C --> 57 (outbound, yes to Sunnybrook) --> 57 (inbound, because I was too lazy to wait 30 minutes at Victory Crossing) --> 6 --> 12
Fun Way 2: 47 --> 44C --> 45 --> 90 --> 960 --> 33

Came from Patrick Henry Mall to MacArthur Center (BEFORE the stupid no teens allowed BS):
111 --> 110 --> 103 --> 967 --> 962
(more directly: 107 --> 106 --> 961 - the 111 + 110 are 2 hours alone)

Finally, sometimes when I'm at Cedar Grove, I will catch that 36 (disguised as a Granby) when I don't feel like transferring; I caught the old 4:24 PM trip from Charlotte Street all the time which got to TCC at 6:45 PM


Yes, I could go on...

Michael Ragsdale said...

Never said I was excusing brain-dead