Rhymes with Fart

Our sucky subway system messed up my whole day.

I headed into the office a bit later than the crush hour this morning, happy I'd been able to take care of a few things at home before going to work.

All seemed normal as I parked my car & headed towards the station. As I went through the gates, everything still seemed fine. I heard a train approaching & ran up the escalator hoping to catch it before the doors closed, which I did. Looked like my timing had been perfect - I'm so clever.

Once on the train, everyone was chattering - something was amiss. A woman next to me had heard about a fire on the tracks in the Embarcadero station and because of that, no trains were going into San Francisco. The SF train we were on was going only as far as MacArthur. Great.

Another woman was concerned about how she would get to SF, so she asked the train operator, who replied, "I have no idea." What a tool. The woman next to me who was doing a great job of communicating what she knew got up and asked the train operator to please announce what was happening & what they were planning to do about the situation. The delay in SF meant no trains were headed there for 30 minutes or so, which meant system-wide delays. It could mean an hour or more waiting for a SF train.

I jumped off the train at the next stop & headed back on another train, hoping I could drive to work & avoid the mess altogether. I called my boss to give her an update and from where she sits in the building, she could see that traffic was a snarled mess on the bridge, so I went back home.

By noontime, the trains were running on schedule again, so I headed back to the station. I drove up & down around the garage and surrounding parking areas for 20 minutes looking for somewhere to park. Nothing. I ended up borrowing one of the dedicated police spaces, frustrated at the prospect of driving all the way to SF only to circle every block looking for parking there.

I wrote a note to the Molicepan, asking him to please not ticket my car, that all I wanted to do was to finally get into work and that I wouldn't park in his spot again. I hoped for the best.

Once on the platform waiting for a train, I realized I'd worn the wrong coat. Instead of checking train status online, I should have been checking the weather. I was freezing. The radio folks mentioned chance of showers, but nothing about teeth-chattering wind chill. I was wearing a light button up shirt under a feather weight rain coat. Dammit. I was standing on the platform swearing out loud.

I finally got to work and thankfully, the afternoon was trouble free. By the time I left, it was raining - still cold - but at least I was headed home where hopefully my car was still parked in the garage.

I managed to get a seat on the train, which almost never happens, but that didn't mean everything was going to go my way. Lo and behold, after running through the chilly rain from the station to the garage, there was my car - and no ticket on it.

It wouldn't have been such a hassle this morning if the stupid transit system had a communication method that informed you of problems before you get into the station or before you're already on a train.

The fire hadn't just happened - they knew about it as people were filing into the station. The station agent was talking to people as they came up to the booth & asked her what was going on. But there was no public announcement.

Yet, they've gone to the trouble of installing flat panel TV screens outside the station that show pretty photos of buses and when the next one will come.

Those TV screens are positioned where you can see all the buses, and every bus has its own stop with a published schedule on it. But nothing about what's going on with the trains that are upstairs & out of sight. Nice work people. Nice work.