Repeat Post: The Gestapo Franchise

Hello to my blog, people who have just come from Facebook! This is a special repost for you.

Again I am on public transport.

I don't know why I stick with it - I could drive - but perhaps it's out of some kind of environmental (and now socio-political, given the war in Iraq) responsibility I feel to support mass transit; or perhaps it's due to some quaint notion that Melbourne's public transport actually provides some service. That's more weltschmertz to deal with, as Melbourne's system disappoints me at every turn.

So my sister and I catch the 477 10:50am bus from our home. A strange, totally empty bus passes us, unmarked and the driver doesn't look us in the eye. We wonder why. Is it late? Was it canceled? The unaccountability of buses is bloody amazing. They can cancel buses at whim and never have to announce it, all the while still calling their lacklustre bus line a "service" - how Orwellian! The actual bus is over 5 minutes late, being driven by the rudest driver I have ever had the displeasure of knowing. This guy has also driven off on me twice, while I was clearly standing there right in front of the door, waving at him to keep the fucken things from closing on me. This guy doesn't ever look you in the eye, doesn't bother to answer your questions about how much a given ticket is with full sentences, and enjoys waiting past the due time at time checkpoints and then driving the bus, Keeanu Reeves in Speed style, in an attempt to drift the long vehicle down the back lanes of Moonee Ponds.

Jay Chow stars in Initial D II: Revenge of the Bus Driver's Union!

We found out why the bus was late. It was packed with mums with prams and teenagers rocking their Motorolla RAZRs and iPods. Run more buses, Tullamarine Bus Company.

For the first time ever, I saw bus inspectors! Yes, that's right - you heard it here first. The Gestapo are now working on all of Melbourne's public transport systems.

They got on at the depot, resplendent in their regulation uniforms and imperious manner. Surely they knew the bus was running horrendously late. They actually announced to us to all "get our tickets ready for inspection." Also of note was that fact that there were five or six buses just sitting there, so lonely, without anyone to drive them. I said:

My ticket for inspection? You mean the one I had validate to get past the driver to get on? Like the one my sister had to to buy off the driver when we got on?

God, I hate running through rules imposed arbitrarily, like some poor show dog jumping through hoops repeatedly at its owner's whim.

He said yeah: "And I don't give my permission for you to take a photo of me, and put it on your blog or youtube, or whatever."

Yes sir.

There is surely some kind of broken logic working here. Perhaps the government regulators of our system live in a parallel universe, where logic is not logic. Why else would the transport minister ask her colleagues not to forward complaints from regular citizens regarding her portfolio?

I get to Essendon (or Moonee Ponds?) train station. Trains canceled. Connex apologies for my inconvenience for the eight-thousandth time. The next thing must be SEEN to be believed. They make us wait 20 minutes, with the "time till train arrives" changing with no regard to the real time, moving backwards and forwards ALL ON ITS OWN. 20 minutes later, when the next train is due, the announcements says that the original train has come. 20 minutes late - it's actually the NEXT train - I wonder if they get fined less for late trains rather than canceled trains?

Maybe this fuxn thing happened:




From the heart of hell I stab at thee! Comment if you hate Connex.

The Gestapo Franchise

Again I am on public transport.

I don't know why I stick with it - I could drive - but perhaps it's out of some kind of environmental (and now socio-political, given the war in Iraq) responsibility I feel to support mass transit; or perhaps it's due to some quaint notion that Melbourne's public transport actually provides some service. That's more weltschmertz to deal with, as Melbourne's system disappoints me at every turn.

So my sister and I catch the 477 10:50am bus form our home. A strange, totally empty bus passes us, unmarked and the driver doesn't look us in the eye. We wonder why. Is it late? Was it canceled? The unaccountability of buses is bloody amazing. They can cancel buses at whim and never have to announce it, all the while still calling their lacklustre bus line a "service" - how Orwellian! The actual bus is over 5 minutes late, being driven by the rudest driver I have ever had the displeasure of knowing. This guy doesn't ever look you in the eye, doesn't bother to answer your questions about how much a given ticket is with full sentences, and enjoys waiting past the due time at time checkpoints and then driving the bus, Keeanu Reeves in Speed style, in an attempt to drift the long vehicle down the back lanes of Moonee Ponds.

Jay Chow stars in Initial D II: Revenge of the Bus Driver's Union!

We found out why the bus was late. It was packed with mums with prams and teenagers rocking their Motorolla RAZRs and iPods. Run more buses, Tullamarine Bus Company.

For the first time ever, I saw bus inspectors! Yes, that's right - you heard it here first. The Gestapo are now working on all of Melbourne's public transport systems.

They got on the depot, resplendent in their regulation uniforms and imperious manner. Surely they knew the bus was running horrendously late. They actually announced to us to all "get our tickets ready for inspection." Also of note was that fact that there were five or six buses just sitting there, so lonely, without anyone to drive them.

My ticket for inspection? You mean the one I had validate to get past the driver to get on? Like the one my sister had to to buy off the driver when we got on?

God, I hate running through rules imposed arbitrarily, like some poor show dog jumping through hoops repeatedly at its owner's whim.

There is surely some kind of broken logic working here. Perhaps the government regulators of our system live in a parallel universe, where logic is not logic. Why else would the transport minister ask her colleagues not to forward complaints from regular citizens regarding her portfolio?

Connex is the worst example of the abuses of monopoly I have seen in my life.

For those of you who may not know, the current fractious and gloriously inefficient Melbournian transport system is the result of Premier Jeff Kennett's privatisation of what was formerly a unified, state owned and operated industry.

The grand old days of the Met featured elderly, genial tram inspectors, who helped mothers with prams get into the quaint green vehicles, who would sit down for a chat with little children like myself, and manually staple a hole your weekly, monthly or yearly ticket to track your patronage. Trains ran on time, and were rarely canceled. When they were, the reason was announced, and it was generally a good one, not this "signaling error" bollocks of the current day. Buses were not the best, but at least they came on time and the drivers were nice enough people who just tried to do their job.

Flash forward to the woeful, government subsidised crap of today. This system, running late and often with chronically canceled trains, could not even survive on it's own without Sate government subsidies. Ticket inspectors and real staff have been replaced with humming machines that only take change.

Dozens of stations formerly manned by government employees were turned into dead stations, filthy and dark places lit by insufficient lighting and "monitored" by a single camera who usefulness is questionable. There are big red buttons at these stations, manned by grumpy, unseen bureaucrats who explain with as few words (and as little actual explanation) as possible why all trains on the Upfield line have been canceled for the night.

These places are places that I would never like to see my younger sister or grandfather at, yet both of my family members regularly travel through these places.

I'm going to put up pictures of Jacana, Moonee Ponds and Merlynston Station at night to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

On top of that, today (16/09/07) I witnessed a travesty. I alighted upon the 9:25pm Broadmeadows Train to Flinders Street. As I walked down the empty carriage, I attempted to find a seat that was not covered in grime. Newspapers, discarded drink bottles, sticky remnants of chewing gum, mysterious patches of dark matter that I can only describe as "rank" filled the carriage. I walked down the entire length of three carriages of the empty train, and could not find one seat that was not dirty, settling for a little bit of rank beside a discarded Mc Donalds drink.

The train left 2 minutes late, as per usual, making up its driver's lazy time by offering the narrowest possible window for which the doors remain open at any given stop. An of course, there were the prerequisite ticket "inspectors", who came and checked my ticket. I showed them the ticket, and of course, came the additional: "Where is your concession card?"

Concession card?

Oh yeah. The card that we paid up to $20.00 for, the little piece of paper form a corner or some bureaucratic form to prove I'm a student. Despite the school uniform that I was wearing for four years of Melbourne High. Despite both my high school and university student cards. I still could be "faking" my student status to save a measly $10 on a ticket - so you charge me $20.00 to prove it. Nice little money maker you got there, considering the tens of thousands of students who use public transport.

Instead of the genial elderly gentlemen of my youth, we have big, unshaven Gestapo in trenchcoats, trudging eagerly toward commuters who have dealt with sub-par service and non-functional ticket machines to "check their tickets". Not once, but twice did this occur to me, both on the first train and on the 10:50pm Flinders St train to Alamein. I mentioned to the first bunch of Gestapo: "This train is bloody filthy, mate.", to which he glibly replied "Yeah, I know. They're all like that."

They're all like that. And you know it.

Let's see. In most developed (and by developed, I mean civilised and reasonable) cities, inspectors sell you a ticket if you don't have one. In Japan, one can "buy the cheapest ticket indicated on the vending machine and pay the difference due at the fare adjustment office at your destination station before you go through the exit wicket."

Wow.

I got on the train to Mary's house, and some poor sop runs to make the rapidly closing doors. I move to help him, but he helps himself with a heroic lunge, forcing open the door for just a second and getting into the train.

The Gestapo don't like that. Three of them, prowling like some pack of wolves, they corner the poor fellow and talk down to him, Law & Order interrogation style, telling him that getting on a train by forcing open doors is an offence.

Connex. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.