worst trimet experience ever

granted when you ride the bus, you don't have a lot of high expectations about the experience except that you hope maybe the bus will come more or less as advertised, and that eventually you'll get where you need to go.
but you would THINK that if you paid the fare, that would entitle you to at least the above...

Off all the lousy luck I could have, I found my self standing on the side of the road out on east 82nd avenue in the rain wondering which end was up.

Now I'm not what you would call a casual bus rider. I'm not one of those pansy-ass downtown commuters that drives to some comfortable parking garage and climbs on the train with a laptop and a latte for that short but sweet ride to the office, or enterprising thrifty souls who drive to some nearby eastside neighborhood and rides across the river to save several dollars a month on parking downtown. Don't get me wrong, I totally respect these people, but their experience with bus commuting is vastly different than mine. I have to ride the bus a bare minimum of 4 times a day, and often 6. The loop encompasses about 40-50 miles a day and takes the better part of 3 hours and almost always involves a few transfers and usually a good amount of walking as well. So needless to say I am deriving the full benefit from my purchase of a monthly pass.

But lo and behold, the first slipped right by me, and Tuesday morning rolls around and I have to pay a cash fare. But on one of these 50 mile days I figured it would make sense to get a day pass...so here I am about to get on the 72 for a 3 mile trip down 82nd ave. But when I whip out my pass, I discover to my horror, there's nothing printed on it. No date, no time, NOTHING! Needless to say the driver tells me to get the fuck off her bus. Now it ain't my fault I'm left holding the bag, but I got waay too much dignity to argue over $4, so for the rest of the evening I had to pay the cash fare---over---and over---and over. What should have been a $4 day quickly turned into a $10 day, which amazingly is still cheaper than driving...

So I guess the point of this rant against Trimet is that if you are gonna put ticket machines up by the trains especially in a very high traffic area that is used by a lot of tourists, you could at least keep them maintained so that the people who NORMALLY purchase day passes (eg TOURISTS) don't end up in a situation where not only do they get screwed and stuck on the side of the road with nothing but a worthless daypass and a credit card, but instead of merely blaming trimet, they'll end up hating the whole city of Portland as well.

word.

On the plus side, it was a good thing that I didn't just give up and go home. A lot of people showed up for tutoring and boy did they need all the help they could get. poor kids. ;)