The profits on the bus go round and round...(or is it 'up, up and up'?)

This blog may disappoint many of you given that we are almost mid way through the World Cup, but I am sorry to say it has nothing to do with Football. Rather I turn my attention to generally all-round-good-guy Mike Rann. Mike is a particular favorite of mine but recent decisions, or to be more precise one decision in particular, has rubbed me up the wrong way.

Mike Rann is of good stock (English), and although his eyes are definitely a bit fucked giving him a sort of Car Salesman image, he is the sort of guy that I have always felt some degree of admiration for. In particular his shake up of the legal profession, vis a vis overruling the DPP and the parole board may on first appearances seem to be populist in policy orientation, but a walk down Rundle Mall any day of the week is testament to the fact that there are a lot of weirdos in this town and they ought to be locked up and then left there.

However my rant here shall not concern his many successes, but rather his most recent gaff. You may have heard over the past few days of plans to hike up public transport costs by 10%; the alledged justification is rising petrol costs. Adelaide's public transport system is to be quite honest a shameful shambles, and already the cost is by no means justified by the quality or frequency of service- we are definitely in no need of a price hike.

I am a frequent commuter on the 106 which takes one on a rather mundane run down Magill Road and into town along North Terrace and onto Pulteney Street. It is widely accepted that users of public transport do so in order to be at a certain place at a certain time. This is however a logic that seems to have escaped the brainstrust at TorrensTransit; all too often I am left stranded at stop 14 when the scheduled bus arrives very late (ie. just in front of the next scheduled bus) or fails to materialise at all. Assuming one does actually manage to get on a bus, then one can expect to be greeted by some miserable sod in the guise of a bus driver, with a frown and glare of contempt. I mean if they don't want to be bus drivers then nobody's holding a gun to their head, as my wise old Grandfather says: If your going to do a job (no matter what it is) then do it well. I don't think it is too much to expect a courteous hello occasionally, rather than the sort of death stare that I imagine the Nazis reserved for their most hated Jews.

Coming home is not much better, it is not uncommon to travel home with 2 or even 3 106 buses following each other! Really! The people at TorrensTransit really have their finger on the pulse so far as efficieny is concerned.

My chief point is that until something is done about the shambolic state of the transport system in this city, then no price increase is justified. There is very little coordination of the services, that is to say that very few of the buses connect easily with the trains or the tram or other buses for that matter. Mike's not doing a bad job, but this is definitely a gaff of monumental proportions.