The Ultimate Paradox
Wait wait don't tell me
An excerpt from the Trolleybus of Happy Destiny:
Before a meeting with a friend, he inspired me with a title for this chapter, and he had already come up with an acronym for this common occurrence heard trip after trip in his cab, and on my bus: C.H.S., Compulsive Honking Syndrome, or as I jokingly added, a part of a person's Compulsive Horn Disorder, C.H.D.! A person with C.H.D. may develop C.H.S. if they do not catch the infection early on in their behavior pattern. For once set in the firing pattern of neurons, only through a meditation routine not unlike followed by a Master Jedi such as Yoda, can the disease be remitted. Or, perhaps, by now reading the Dao of Doug.
The good news, just in: each one of us can change our habits by awareness of staying true to who we really are, and not reacting to a perceived slight by an effing moron or douche bag. In slowing down my body movement by quiet time each evening, I get answers. Find your time. Can you do it in the morning, or is before bed better? In this case, I am an evening person. My do list check off is an up and atom energy best suited to the morning hours.
I never would have known this had I not stopped to question and analyze why I was jumping to conclusions or rushing to judgement about a person, place or thing that at first appeared to be in conflict with my path. In fact, there are several common flow patterns that lead to Compulsive Horn Syndrome, and once understood and quantified, can provide the Dao (the Manner of Living) of non-reaction to breaking Compulsive Horn Disorder. Below are the situations that can trigger CHS and lead to permanent disability with CHD.
Merge and Feed
The horn will not be needed if you change lanes when spacing and pace are even. Cranking the wheel hard in stopped traffic only blocks two lanes instead of one. If you want to avoid being honked at, make your lane change early, or when the gap in cars is created when traffic starts moving and an inattentive motorist hasn't looked up from their phone.
Indeed, texting by others has it's advantages when they delay in moving when the light turns green. You can use this advantage to change lanes safely and become a Jedi Master. This is the Dao of Doug on the Trolleybus of Happy Destiny. An interesting visit:
https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-improve-bus-driver-health-2798639
Zen Zone
Everyone asks me what the bad lines are. And my answer is that none of the lines are bad. Timing is everything. Which is true for a stand up comic, a worker on an assembly line, and as a waiter or cook in a restaurant. So here is what most riders don't understand: its not what line you are driving, but when. For example, do I really want to be leaving Clay and Drumm on the 1 California line at 5:02 p.m., as Embarcadero Three's elevators are filling up to capacity, dropping hundreds of workers to the city streets to pick up a bus to go home?
Or should I be at the other end of the line at 33rd Av and Geary, hours after school has let out, to be headed inbound in non-peak direction, only to arrive downtown an hour after most people have gone home?
Do I want to be the first 22 Fillmore leaving after the bell at the Marina middle school, where hundreds of hyped-up middle schoolers with more hormones than they know what to do with, after hours of being cooped up in school, be knocking on my door as I try to pull away from the inbound terminal at Bay and Fillmore? Or would it be better to be leaving Third and Twentieth in Dog Patch, around 3 p.m., hours before all the blue collar workers around Potrero Hill start clocking out? And so it isn't what, but when that makes or breaks a good run choice at Muni.
Re-route in Effect
In the Star Trek movie, “The Search for Spock,” the famous line, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one,” is no more self evident in the Muni schedule, especially during special events. Some regular bus stops have a rider alert bulletin posted on the bus shelter, or on a utility pole. One of the failures about re-routing buses seems to be that the needs of the many are dismissed for the needs of the few, or the one. It makes no sense to send a bus around an area that is congested from a special event, thereby throwing off the schedule and creating irregular headway between buses.
When the Castro neighborhood streets are blocked off for Halloween, or New Year’s Eve, the 33 line is sent over one block to 19th street, which is up a steep hill with lot’s of parked cars, and is gridlocked due to traffic blocked from driving through, and forced onto the same nearby streets like Sanchez and Eureka as the bus, and everyone else, gets stalled as the bus tries to make turns which are stressful and difficult to make without violating the four foot space cushion around the bus.
Recently, our new expanded sidewalks in the Castro allowed our electric trolleybuses to go straight through the village without any re-route at all. Our planners listen to us at our barn meetings, and re-routes now flow smoothly around the Castro. This is another step in the right direction since first publication of this missive in 2013.
In our last re-route for the Castro Street Fair, cars were blocked from parking on the street, and we had help making the turns with DPT holding oncoming traffic. No delays were apparent. Perhaps this message got through!
'Find out more' button below links to Balboa Press, and my hardcover and softcover full versions-- public transportation
