I have just had a very lovely time seeing people who I met in highschool, as the years of our collective youth have trickled away and the ceaseless noiseless steps of time carry us all inevitably and inexorably towards the grave. Hmm, yummy - Death is hungry - feeding time is all the time.
Stepping out into the night and into the relatively affluent suburb of Bella Vista, I am immediately impressed by the absurd dependency that we have chosen to build for ourselves around the motor car.
Can we just talk for a minute about the transport desert that is Western Sydney? In theory I am at a Metro station which would normally have services running six times an hour but when you add those mythical magic words "Replacement Bus Service" then who honestly knows?
The unlimited abject horror of a "Replacement Bus Service", is that there is no timetable. There is no indication of when a bus will arrive or indeed, if. There is also no Nightride service to speak of. I can stare into the abyss and expect... nothing.
Not only is it impossible to predict when or if any kind of bus is coming along, it is also pointless in trying to make any kind of plans with the 131500 website. The 131500 website assumes that there will be a normal operation of timetabled services; when this is simply impossible. Oh the irony.
Standing at the bus stop with no-one else around means that I have the option to scrape away at the silence by putting in a pair of earphones and blasting it away with music, or the radio, or perhaps a podcast. However, as I am stranded in the silence with my own internal monologue briskly nattering away with all the force of a thunderstorm, then music or the radio just doesn't seem right. Left with my own thoughts yelling loudly into the silence, I also attempt to turn them off but to no avail. Instead I turn my thoughts to what I can observe.
I like the very faint smell of some unknown flower in the air, the atmosphere just barely on the edge of damp, the occasional but faint russell of leaves, and the distant low rumble of traffic. The cacophony of the silence is far more pleasant than a room full of live music which I don't know the words. How many times do we get to just sit with silence in a world that wants to do violence to it?
Meanwhile at this time of night, the advice which comes from the repository of all knowledge that is Uncle Google, is to go to Tallawong and then walk the 2.2km to Schofields before making the connection to the trains. This sounds silly. Nevermind that that walk is 51 minutes long and by the time that you get to Tallawong, the last train will have already left.
My choice to get home from Bella Vista Station with no trains running, is to take the Replacement Bus Service to Rouse Hill Station and then roll the dice of fate to see what we get. All possibilities on an unknown number of dice with an unknown number of sides are in play.
When the 11M bus (the Metro Replacement Bus Service) did finally arrive, it was packed to the gills with a very very sad subset of humanity. These are people who would have normally expected a six car Metro service every few minutes but instead have been crammed into a bus. These people who will have had their fun, are now their most irritable selves, and carry expressions of gloom. While the 11M bus isn't quite as tipped on the edge of anarchy as an N70 Nightride service from the City to Penrith will be, it is still not a happy place. At least it does not smell of spew.
Making the connection at Rouse Hill Station is where the fun begins. On a regular weekday, I would have the choice of the 730, 731, 732 to Blacktown, or the 752 via Quakers Hill, but as there is no real time information and this is a weekend, actually knowing when and if buses will arrive, is like staring into the abyss. So I wait around a bit; knowing that whatever the first bus out of here to Blacktown is, is the correct choice.
Waiting for a bus in Western Sydney is a different experience to waiting in the middle of the City. There just isn't the number of drunken people staggering around at all. At this time of night, there is mostly a small army of tired looking people, some of whom are still dressed in the uniforms of the gig economy and the national colours of doing real work: orange, fluoro pink and yellow; with reflective stripes. The corporate logos of the gig economy and the art of making poor people fetch your food because you are lazy are all here - Hamburger Taxi, Hungry Armadillo, and Lazy Panda are all represented.
When the 752 bus did finally show up, I flagged it down and apart from one lady who was dressed in purple scrubs (likely a nurse from a private hospital in the Hills), I was the only other passenger on board. She got off at a stop out the front of St Cyanide's School for the Criminally Catholic. The very big video billboard out front is showing a slideshow of Mary; with the gesture as though she is trying to order two loaves of bread. After our tired nursing practitioner friend has left the bus, I am alone as we wend our way through streets which seem directionless. I am reminded of the word "Omnibus" which means 'for, by, and with, everyone' and the irony therein. Perhaps 'everyone' has been replaced with 'everywhere' in this case.
Now it's time for some massive pieces of statistical irony:
The distance from my house to where we went, is 8.5km. That means that to drive that same distance would have taken 13 minutes. To walk that distance would have taken 1hr 48mins. To take public transport has taken 1hr 49mins by the time I have reached my destination. It is madness that public transport is marginally slower than walking the same distance.
None of this part of the evening would have happened had the state government connected the Metro to Schofields. The 11M world have gone right through and I would have taken a T1 Richmond Line train home.
- 11:19pm
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