Rant:

I think I'm going to boycott the bus for distances less than 15km for awhile. Today I spent nearly an hour and a half getting from Bathurst and Steeles to Dufferin and Lawrence. According to Google Maps, that's 11.2km and takes 14min (by car, obviously).

Here's what I went through:
* 10 minute walk to the bus stop (that's normal)
* Caught the #7 Bathurst bus
* The #7 stopped for about 5min before turning south on Bathurst
* Took the #7 down to Lawrence, this took about 30min.
* Waited for the #34 Lawrence bus.
* I first saw the #34 after 10 minutes of waiting
* After three green lights it finally made it across the intersection
* Two stops up we waited a few minutes before moving because people weren't behind the white line
* Arrived at Lawrence West station, waited 5min there.
* 5min later we got to Dufferin.

I came up with a list of frustrations while during my trip:
1) Why is there bus stops on both sides of an intersection? All this does is cause the bus to be stuck at extra red lights. In most cases the bus stop should be after the lights, to help avoid getting stuck at them.
2) The bus is a lot slower than I remembered. It really sucks when it takes half an hour to go from Steeles to Lawrence.
3) It's difficult to estimate how long it will take to get somewhere unless you do it on a daily basis. To arrive on time you usually need to give yourself a lot of extra time, which often ends up making you really early!
4) Buses get really crowded.
4) The things mentioned above cause a huge amount of frustration for me.

I think one of the reasons the bus is more frustrating now is because I'm in the far north of the city. When I was living closer to Bloor I don't remember it being this bad.

For now, I'm going to use my bike whenever I can. I'd forgotten how nice it is to have control over your mode of transportation.