St. Patty's Nightmare

After yesterday's trip home from work, I decided to avoid the rapid all together today. Mostly because I drank to much celebrating a neighbors new job last night and needed a little extra rest this morning, and a little because yesterday's commute home was full of too many people who drank too much at the parade. Drinking too much seems to be a general theme for St. Pat's. That's a whole new blog. Either way, the drunk crowds pushing and shoving on the rapid platform did not mix well with the hard working (so we can exaggerate) businesswomen and men. It would not have been a pretty site had the drunk girl next to me puked all over my new trousers. For me it was not a reminder of my crazy college days. Even I did not behave the way these crazy animals were behaving. I do have to admit the ride was far more tame than any ride to a Browns game on the rapid. What can I say, we love our Brownies. We just don't have to ride home from work with the crazed fans. Hopefully the empty beer cans and bottles will be cleaned up from under the seats before I board tomorrow.

Off with a bang!

So today started off pretty well from a commuting standpoint. I did not find myself rushing out the door at the last minute as in most days, traffic was light on the way to the station and the rapid even came on time!! 3/4 of the way into the trip however our train had slowed to snails pace. Upon reaching the next STOP, well, stop is exactly what we did. After sitting idle for a handful of minutes on the tracks, the driver announced we would be held up just a few minutes due to traffic up ahead. Traffic, on the rapid? Isn't that the point most of us ride the rapid? To avoid traffic? As we resumed our snails pace, the driver modified her announcement, we'll be moving slowly due to a malfunctioning train up ahead. AGAIN!?! This malfunctioning business has been going on for about 3 weeks now. Considering the Cleveland Regional Transit Authority has huge posters in the windows of its headquarters claiming to be the country's number 1 public transit, one would assume that they'd have this malfunctioning crap under wraps by now. Maybe not. So today I can't decide if it's worse to be held up because your train has malfunctioned, or if it's worse to be held up because the train in front of you has malfunctioned. I bet this doesn't happen in Rome!

So it begins

I'm no stranger to public transportation. I've been riding Cleveland's Rapid Transit to get downtown every now and then for a handful of years now. I've traveled by every method of public transportation in Chicago and I've been on the subway in many major U.S. cities, I've even mastered the subway in Rome. One would think that the public transportation experiences I've had in Cleveland couldn't hold a candle to my experiences in major U.S cities. One couldn't be more wrong. I started working downtown about 6 months ago and about 3 months ago I decided to forgo the commuter nightmares and excessive gas prices. I've had many adventures since embarking on my paratransit journeys. After months of laughing about my experience with co-workers, I've decided it's time to share my stories, sometimes nightmares, with a larger group of people. Stay tuned for hilarious happenings that I couldn't make up if I tried!