The Tagging Complaint.

Having found a way to eliminate most of the usual Transperth part of my morning recently, I had thought my troubles diminished. Never mind -- Transperth doesn't fail to disappoint, and how well I should have already known it.

354 bus departing Wellington Street Bus Station at 5:36pm 16th of July, bound for Mirrabooka.

Some guy in a Bob Jane T Mart t-shirt sits down next to me, asks his companion for a piece of chalk and begins tagging the back of the bus seat. I ask him to stop. He leaps up from his seat and stands over me in cliche tough guy fashion, asking aggressively, "D'you wanna get off the bus?", to which my response is, "No, but I'd like you to stop breaking the law." He moves to sit behind me and tries to "argue" his case with predictable grumblings that I have a problem, so I tell him I don't really want my taxes going to clean up his scribblings and he tugs at the Bob Jane T Mart logo on his shirt -- I suppose to inform me he's also a taxpayer and would like his funds to go to cleaning up his own doodles. He then informs me next time he plays with chalk he should do it on my face, so I decide to get up and tell the bus driver -- surprise, bus driver doesn't care! Never mind that almost every second bus is plastered with the anti-graffiti advertising poster Transperth put out.

Upon arriving home I called Transperth and made yet another complaint. They are to review the video on the bus and call me back within a few days.

Why? (fare increase July 1st 2007)

There are time when all the world's asleep when questions run too deep for such a simple mind.

Why - if the Smartrider system was supposed to save us money - are fares being increased now Smartrider has been in place for two months?

I was thoroughly under the impression that Smartrider was implemented to cease the loss of revenue from all the fare evading train catchers. We've now had two months of the revolutionary system and suddenly - surprise! - fare increase. So why does Transperth need more of my money when they've thrown out their net and hauled in all those juicy fare evaders?

This system was touted as a great thing for saving money, making money, claiming money, etc etc... so much so they've successfully convinced me that it's all about parting everyone from their money, be they fare evader or no.

Good evening.

I read the news today - oh boy!

Transperth has been driving me increasingly batty for many years - although, it should be said that when I was a schoolgirl merrily catching buses between 8am and 4pm things were easier. Only when I entered the workforce did I discover the full force of Transperth's mighty suckitude. The terrible scheduling, the black spots with no service at all, those lame "new" buses that only carry 31 passengers as opposed to the "old" buses' 64 - it almost seems like I find something else that annoys me on a daily basis.

And so, to give myself what is hopefully a healthy outlet, and to provide a forum for others - on the eve of the announcement of another ticket price increase - a blog is born.