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redreader posted:I did it last year on Caltrain in the USA. I he-man'd the doors open as they were closing, the conductors did not expect it and were loving dumbfounded. As soon as I got in they said 'never, ever do that again'. Apparently it really isn't ok here at all. I can't speak for Caltrain but muscling the doors on BART can and will flat-out break them. Which means the train has to go out of service, which given the way BART is set up can completely gently caress up the commute for everybody. My worst public transport experience was on a Muni Metro car with a homeless crusty punk kid couple. They were spread out on the floor reorganizing their backpacks, with probably eveything they owned in the world laid out around them: ratty t-shirts, a beat up toothbrush, some Trix cereal in a ziplock sandwich bag, that kind of thing. They weren't hassling anyone other than kind of being in the way but the smell their stuff gave off was both overpowering and very, very specific: spoiled milk...and potato chips. It was a rough ride but at least I knew there would be a roof over my head at the end of it. 
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Oct 1, 2014 06:41
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| # ? May 4, 2024 10:30 |
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Hydrolith posted:I was on a bus a while back and overheard some guy having a conversation with the bus driver. They were discussing how poo poo Melbourne's new public transit smartcard is, and how much it cost (literally $1.5 billion, and it barely worked for the first few months it was installed). I still don't understand why they changed the ticketing system. Metcard worked fine and there was none of the bullshit with being unsure if your ticket signed in or not that you get with Myki. If they were desperate for a modern system they should have just copied one of the existing ones other states have instead of trying to build a bug free system themselves. gently caress Myki. Content, I was heading home and a really tall bloke and a woman got on the train, then started having a quiet conversation. I wasn't paying attention until the woman loudly says "No, say it in your girl voice." "I won't have you in my lesbian harem until we get you the surgery." "I said speak in your girl voice, we want the people to hear how pretty you sound." Then they got off at the next station. I just looked at the bloke across from me and we had a quiet chuckle before I went back to my book.
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Oct 1, 2014 12:48
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Few years back was riding the subway to a Black Keys show. Semi-crowded car, so my friends and I fill into the aisle and a few people grab seats. There is a group of kids about five years younger than us already taking most of the seats around us and a scattering of people in the rest of the train. I had been drinking and getting weird. After a stop or two, I hear someone saying, "Yo - get your rear end out of my face. Yo - get that rear end outa here. That rear end stinks". After the rear end stinks comment, I realize that he is talking to me. Fearful of the possibility that my rear end may indeed stink, I went on the offensive - spinning around and yelling, "What, you want my dick in your face instead?!" As I gyrate my crotch in this kids face, all his friends are laughing, the rest of the car is laughing. There is no come back. Only thing he can do is shake with rage until they hop off in 2 stops. After they left, everyone else in the train starts talking about what happened. It was at that time, I realized I really was at home in the city.
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Oct 1, 2014 13:19
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When riding the tram I prefer the seat right at the front because it has the best view. I'm a bit of a train and tram nerd and I like figuring out what all the buttons on the console do. The modern Combino trams even have a ride quality indicator that uses a grading system just like those in schools, where 6-10 is good and anything 5 and below is bad. I was wondering why the driver was so interested in his crotch while driving. He kept looking down a lot. I didn't realise why until I noticed him put his phone there. I've caught three different Amsterdam tram drivers using a smartphone while driving. These trams drive on the streets filled with other traffic that shares their track, including hordes of cyclists. Doesn't exactly make me feel safe, the potential for a serious accident is huge, it happened in Boston on a track not shared with other traffic: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/11/tram_crash_texting/ I've always taken pictures and reported as many details about the tram and driver as I could to the public transport company, who gave me a generic "we'll contact the driver about it", but I caught the same driver doing it again weeks later
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Oct 1, 2014 14:30
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When I was in college there was a bus driver that would flicker the lights if you started chanting "party bus, party bus!" One time we had a bus full of Aussies and did it and they were hanging by their legs from the upper hand rail, singing songs, and generally being raucous as hell. It was fun. Same bus driver always stopped at a gas station while running the route for 10 minutes to shoot the poo poo with the gas station employees and get himself a mondo sized cola.
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Oct 5, 2014 05:30
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Didn't actually happen to me, but to my ex, who was a piece of poo poo. It was funny then and it's even funnier now. He got really high on some mystery drugs he got off "some guy" (he liked to "experiment"), passed out, and ended up in the end-of-the-line trainyard. He woke up to a bunch of guard dogs biting and barking at him and some very angry security guards. IIRC the reason he didn't go to jail was because he had a school ID and said he fell asleep from too much studying. My personal story happens all the time in that people give me crazy looks and think/treat me like a homeless person because I carry a lot of bags for my job. Not garbage bags, legitimate, fancy ones, not that it makes any difference apparently. So many times in winter on a packed bus there's a seat on both sides of me because people are scared of me. My puffy coat doesn't help, but it's cold, you assholes. And no, I don't smell. Gives me an interesting perspective on how "abnormal" people are treated.
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Oct 7, 2014 03:12
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Most unusual thing I ever saw on public transport was a pair of junkies who looked like they were high on heroin getting on a bus and flat out conducing oral sex with each other. Thankfully I was at the back of the bus and they were near the front so I couldn't see anything explicit but it was obvious from the head motions of the girl that junkie man was having a slobbery fun time.
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Oct 9, 2014 11:11
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Psychobabble posted:He also sells weed and porn! Or did, I haven't seen him in a few weeks.  http://www.bkmag.com/2014/07/18/mynypd-an-unarmed-black-man-was-choked-to-death-by-a-cop-yesterday/ quote:an unarmed black man was choked to death by police yesterday in Staten Island. The man in question was a “400-pound asthmatic Staten Island dad” named Eric Garner, who screamed over and over again “I can’t breathe!” as “at least five NYPD officers took him down in front of a Tompkinsville beauty supply store when he balked at being handcuffed.” Garner had a history of arrests for the crime of selling loose cigarettes (yes, you read that right) but didn’t appear to be doing anything at the time of his murder (yes, you read that right too). Police claim that he had been selling loosies, but none were found on him at the time of his death.
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Oct 9, 2014 14:12
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I went to England a long while ago and while I was tooling around in the Underground during a very crowded time I saw a woman in a really nice, very well tailored tuxedo walking around the platform wearing a backpack and carrying an oar. It was a big, plastic orange and grey oar. Other than the usual drunks and smelly people I didn't really see much that caught my eye but that's an image that I will always remember and always be confused by. I'm sure there was a reason for it but it's not every day you see a very well dressed woman preparing to go out on the river via the subway.
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Oct 9, 2014 15:04
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Jack the Lad posted:
Wait - was garner the same guy who was selling weed and porn on the train?
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Oct 9, 2014 23:00
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I saw some Klingons getting rowdy on the trolley through Chinatown, SF.
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Oct 10, 2014 08:24
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I used to take a bus to UCSC campus early on Friday mornings. Somehow, my schedule coincided with that of a friendly schizophrenic Hispanic man (not sure if he was actually schizophrenic). When people got on the bus he'd always say, "Oh!" in a comically jovial way, like he was really happy to see them, and would point out a seat that wasn't taken for them to sit in. Whenever there weren't any open seats (and believe me, he looked) he would make a sad face and say, "Oh..." He would try to talk to people but he would just look at them and make sorta exaggerated facial expressions while he made no noise. Also he would talk to himself very quietly; but of course the only word he said even above a mumble was "Oh!" I grew to like seeing him in the mornings. 
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Oct 10, 2014 17:22
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