Holiday Schedules Revisited

I mentioned in an earlier post that the older daughter once nearly got stuck without a bus to take to school because of the observance of New Year's Day and the Sunday/Holiday schedules for the day as a result.

As I'm writing this, it's five days out from Memorial Day, and buses (and trains, presumably) will be running under the same schedule. Odds are good that the older daughter doesn't need to go to school that day (I suspect most college campuses are closed).

I, on the other hand, may have to go into work, at least for a while, on Memorial Day (such is the glamorous life of working in the IT industry, and for a small company to boot). I'm hoping that it won't be necessary, but planning ahead for the possibility.

I digress: If I have to go in, that's gonna be a bit of a pickle for me.

My normal commute is to take the line that comes closest to my house (within a couple of blocks) to one of the larger train-stations on the line. There are three such along the route, and one at each end. From there, it's one train-ride downtown, and a walk of a couple blocks to get to the office. Even if my normal morning bus runs late for some reason, I'd be able to catch the next train after a 15-minute wait.

On the Sunday/Holiday schedule, though, that first bus doesn't even go to that train-station. It doesn't even go as far along that part of the route to get to my normal bus-stop. The only "reasonably" quick way I can find to get to the same train line (at the next large station along it's route) is to take my normal route in the other direction, then transfer to another bus to get to that station. From there it's pretty much business as usual, at least. Getting to the bus isn't going to be horrible either, but it's maybe a quarter-hour walk as opposed to a three-minute one, and the tipple effect of different times and routes means that I'll be spending close to 2½ hours commuting if it comes to that.

And buses only run once an hour on the Sunday/Holiday schedule. Hopefully I won't miss the first train, because it looks like it'll be running every ½-hour, and the window to get from the bus to the train may be pretty tight.

On further reflection, it seems to me that my house is right on the edge of a black hole for public transit service on weekends (well, Sundays, at any rate) and holidays.