The transit workers are still on strike.
I know it's only been a week and I've seen strikes last a lot longer than this, but it's still incredibly frustrating. I'm lucky I live near my school so that's not putting me out. But in the run of a week, I only have about 10 hours worth of class time. And let's say I get roughly 10 hours of sleep each night. That's 80 hours in total that I've used up for the whole week, leaving me with 88 hours of stuff to do! I mostly sit at home, but I do need to get groceries once in a while. I'd usually take the bus, because the hill I have to walk up to get there is massive and windy; a royal pain in the ass. That would only take about 15 minutes.. and for this instance, it only really takes 10 minutes more to walk there. So again that's not a big deal. It's just getting the groceries home that leaves me in a bit of a dilemma. I walked to the grocery store this past Sunday. Wasn't so bad. I bought all my usual stuff, which included a box of 12 diet pepsi cans. I had planned to take a cab home anyway. But the cab didn't show for more than a half hour, and when it actually came to the half hour point, I was fed up, so I decided to walk home.
I was shaky by the time I actually did get home because it's hard to get the bags to stay in one place when you're trying to walk. And they were super heavy. It took me almost 40 minutes to walk home just because I had to stop and adjust my bags every few minutes or even every few steps.
The only thing I really worry about is getting to my dance classes. They are in the downtown core of the city, and I live on the outskirts. Normally a bus ride would take about 40 minutes. It's less by car but I don't have one of those. But walking from where I am living right now is close to 2 hours. That's assuming Google Maps gives me the quickest route to walk.
And I'm most definitely not the only one put out by this. It's been reported that this strike leaves 55 000 people at a loss for getting places each day. (It's a small scale city).
There were talks yesterday, and both sides took in new offers, but the union walked away this morning without striking a deal. And I won't get into too much detail... instead I'll just leave a link to a news report from today: CBC News report on Metro Transit Strike.
It's just frustrating and I can feel my blood boil. There was an elderly lady shown on the news cast this evening who relied on the bus service to get places. She has a wheelchair and she was crying when the reporter asked her opinion as the taxi driver was trying to fit her wheelchair into the vehicle. It's stories like this that break my heart. I know I'm not terribly at a loss during this strike, but these other people are.
I should go to bed. I'm just making myself angry now thinking about this. Sorry for the vent session tonight! I just needed to get it off my chest.
I finally got my bicycle working again, and I retrieved my bike shoes and lock from storage. Now I get to Dal in less time than it took on the bus. I was reflecting this morning as I was biking up a hill, that without my bike shoes, such hill might just be too onerous. But that is what I would recommend for you if you have the resources to buy into it: Get the matching pedals and shoes for your bike ( assuming you have one) and you'll find that you can used the stronger half of your leg for riding.
ReplyDeleteAnd it might even make the trek into the city for your dance lessons do-able
Daphne
I agree. I would love to have my bike here. It's just sitting at my mother's place in the basement right now. Collecting dust and possibly rust.
DeleteI'm hoping they make some kind of deal soon. There's been news of binding arbitration and now conciliation.