Full Buses
To get home from Carnegie Mellon, I typically take either the 500 bus or the 71D bus, and in the evenings, they're consistently very full. People are crammed into the bus, often standing in front of the yellow line which delineates the parts of the bus in which it is legal or illegal to stand while in motion. The drivers allow this, seemingly because they just want to move as many people as possible at once. Simultaneously, only a couple people are allowed on the bus, while everyone else is left at the bus stop to wait for the next bus.
This problem is exacerbated by the fact that buses become progressively later than their schedule dictates, as the evening grows near. And, occasionally, a bus just won't appear for its scheduled run, leaving us, the passengers, to wait another 20, 30, or 45 minutes for the next bus, also off schedule, to turn up. The inbound 71C bus left me standing in the rain for 45 minutes on Monday, for example, despite scheduled stops 20 minutes apart.
I do not pay fares on the buses because my Carnegie Mellon ID card is the physical manifestation of the transit fees included in my tuition, but the fare is $1.75 per ride for everyone who does not have a similar exception. This is a bit above American standards, as far as I can tell, and the service is far below American standards.
If thousands of people per day are paying $1.75 for their bus rides, I'd think the buses could get a bit better -- at least to the point of not being horribly off-schedule sardine tins.
What gives?