Comments (55)

1. Everyday is an awful commuting day. Although not as horrible as your commute in the snow, I live in LA, so LA=traffic for NO REASON. Last night I was literally screaming at people to just DRIVE. I always feel bad when it’s actually an accident though.

   posted by Melissa on 2-13-2008 at 3:24 pm

2. Oh, but my worst commute was when a huge crane fell over on the freeway. It fell across all lanes. We were stopped on the freeway for four hours. But at least it was in the morning, so I missed work…

   posted by Melissa on 2-13-2008 at 3:26 pm

3. My worst commuting incident is when my train stopped for two hours not five minutes away from the nearest subway station. We were not allowed to leave and I missed my one and only class that day.

   The worst part? The reason the train had stopped and we weren’t allowed to leave was that someone had jumped in front of it and died. Needless to say, it was definitely one of the worst days ever.

   posted by marianne on 2-13-2008 at 3:31 pm

4. Worst for me was when I was driving from my parents home to college one weekend, hit a snowstorm and drove off into a ditch. The whole front end of my car was wrecked, and I had to walk miles in a snowstorm to get to the nearest exit. Car was totalled, and I couldn’t afford to replace it.

   posted by Scott on 2-13-2008 at 3:47 pm

5. Took me 3 hours to go 10 miles after leaving a Dave Matthews concert at Giants Stadium. I was SO tired and was fighting sleep since I had to drive all the way back to Long Island. The worst part was one of my friend was in the back, huddled in the fetal position with a bad migraine. I couldn’t even listen to music to keep me awake.

   posted by Jill on 2-13-2008 at 3:53 pm

6. The worst commute I’ve experienced? This past summer I was a bridesmaid in a friend’s wedding in Kansas City. The bride, groom, and 10 of us bridesmaids and groomsmen were in a limo on the way to the reception from the church. What should have taken 20 minutes ended up taking an hour and a half, due to an accident on an entrance ramp. People at the reception kept calling to see were we were, and the reception, dinner, and dance had to be delayed until we arrived. The worst part? The air conditioner in the limo did not work the entire day. I felt so sorry for the men in tuxes, at least the women were in sleeveless dresses.

   posted by Michelle on 2-13-2008 at 4:03 pm

7. Denver had a fantastic water main break directly under I-25 this last week. The wait wasn’t so bad after seeing the *massive* crater in the middle of the road. Most of the freeway has been closed this last week or so. Check out the videos… it’s crazy.

   www.thedenverchannel.com/news/15247491/detail.html

   posted by Josh on 2-13-2008 at 4:03 pm

8. Hurricane Rita took me 22 hours to get from Houston to Dallas - usually a 4 hour drive. Hotel rooms were booked, freeways were jammed and gas was nearly impossible to find, all the while wondering if your home would be there when you got back.

   I hope I never have to go through that again.

   posted by Witty Nickname on 2-13-2008 at 4:18 pm

9. I live 70 miles away from my boyfriend. Most of my journey to his house involves the NJ turnpike and the Garden State Parkway. One summer night I left his house at 7:30 pm. When I reached the turnpike, it was completely at a standstill. A tractor trailer had seriously crashed one exit ahead (I saw medical helicopters fly over), and right after I got on, they closed the highway. It took me four hours just to get past the accident six miles away. And I was still an hour away from home. It’s probably the closest I’ve come to a nervous breakdown. Coincidentally, there was a similar accident on the turnpike this morning in the very same spot.

   After my debacle on the turnpike, my stepdad told me that he once got into a similar traffic jam while driving home from work on the parkway. Except that his looong drive home was in the middle of winter, during snowfall, and everyone on the parkway was getting out every half hour or so to brush off the snow that had accumulated on their cars.

   posted by Liz on 2-13-2008 at 4:23 pm

10. Sure, sure, we all have those stories where it took forever to get home. I once spent 3 hours driving home in a horrible blizzard instead of my normal 45 minutes.

    But I can top you all with simple poor planning.

    When I first got married, I worked in Chicago near Navy Pier. My wife worked in downtown Milwaukee. Google says those cites are 92 miles apart. We lived in Racine, WI. Kinda closer to Milwaukee.

    Every day, she’d drive me to the train station in Kenosha (30-45 minutes) where I’d hop on a train that took about an hour and a half. She’d then turn around and drive to Milwaukee, which was about an hour and a half for her. When I got into chicago, it was another 45 minutes to the office either by bus or on foot. A cab was faster, but too pricey to be able to do as an every day thing. Then I did the same thing in reverse that night.

    That’s right, boys and girls. My day had 6 hours of total commuting time in it. I’d leave at 5am and get home at 8pm. And we kept it up for 6 months until she finally got another job in the right state and we moved closer.

    Ick.

    posted by Jim T on 2-13-2008 at 4:28 pm

11. Don’t know that this is the worst, but it’s pretty bad, and happened last week in the Great Midwest Snowstorm of ‘08.

    The bus I rode was running about 20 minutes late, which is actually not all that bad. However, when we got to the interesction at the bottom of the hill near my apartment, traffic was stopped dead.

    After waiting 15 minutes with the bus literally not moving at all, I decided to walk the rest of the way. New snowfall had already reached about 8 inches by this time, and of course there were some people who had not shoveled their sidewalks at all–no to say that i can blame them, but I did have to trudge through that.

    About halfway up the hill, I found what had stopped traffic–a delivery van that was trying its hardest to get up the hill, but getting nowhere, and was completely blocking traffic. The rest of the 45 minute walk in the blizzard is short on exciting details, but I did beat the bus to the bus stop. (The bus’s usual time from the corner where I got off to that stop is right under 5 minutes.)

    posted by frumpiefox on 2-13-2008 at 4:31 pm

12. Sort of a commuting story, maybe a bit of a travel one. I was on my way to Edinburgh (Scotland) on a bus when we got held up for about 2 hours on the highway. Now, this was somewhat okay, as it was a coach; see, the problem wasn’t so much in the waiting (although we did get in too late to do shite else but goto a pub that evening) but as the conversation on the bus. Get some 50-odd American students, most who are from upper class families in somewhat rural towns, and they just don’t understand a) why the traffic isn’t moving, and b) the driver’s explanation. 2 hours of idiotic “What takes so long to right a truck?” “Why aren’t we moving stillll?” and “Why is it called a lorrie?”-s later, I was ready to jump off the bus and walk it myself.

    posted by Sarah on 2-13-2008 at 4:40 pm

13. not sure if this counts as a commute, but that’s what I was trying to do…

    A couple months ago, a few days before Christmas 2008, an ice storm swept through Wisconsin. I had to start work at noon, so around eleven I ran outside to check if my doors were iced shut. They were. So I tried my sister’s car, figuring I could use her car instead. I managed to get the door open after pulling for a while, but it wouldn’t close since the ice was so thick.

    To knock the ice off, I needed the best angle for the highest amount of force, so I got in the car and pulled the door towards me. It worked-but now the door wouldn’t open again. The opposite door wouldn’t budge either. I kicked with all I had for a good 20 minutes to no avail.

    So I am outside of my warm house, locked in a cold car. I didn’t have my sisters keys to start the car up, only my own. I was still wearing pajama pants and a tshirt. Nobody else was home and my cell phone was in the house. Did I mention the ice storm with -20 degree temps?

    Naturally, I began to stress out. My heavy breathing fogged up the windows, but luckily I found a defogger in the backseat which I used excessively to clear up the windows and watch for rescue. I can now tell you not to use defogger in enclosed spaces, due to the fumes going straight to your head.

    We live in a relatively rural area, so cars only drove by every five minutes or so. Honking the horn and flashing the lights at passerbys accomplished nothing. I had no way of telling what time it was, but knew that my parents would be coming around five from a friend’s house.

    Lightheaded and frozen, I decided it wouldn’t be in my best interests to wait that long. I crawled into the back, ready to start kicking a window, when my dad pulled in because they had forgotten something.

    After fishing a key in through the top of the door frame, I was able to drive into the garage where he sprayed the door with hot water for about five minutes before the ice melted. It had been three hours- and I had still had to go to work.

    To top it off, the Packers lost the the Bears the same afternoon. It wasn’t a good day.

    posted by Dan on 2-13-2008 at 4:40 pm

14. Hmm, no nasty commute for me. I drive 20 minutes to work without a single stop sign!

    posted by Lynnie on 2-13-2008 at 4:43 pm

15. A few years ago, I was taking the train from a small suburb outside of Philadelphia into the city for school. About halfway into the trip, the train stopped and sat on the tracks for several minutes as all the conductors were pulled into the driver’s booth. Fifteen minute later, the conductors emerge and the drive announces that the city’s largest train station, just a few stops away, had been closed due to “an unidentified object.” The conductor told us that in order to get into the city, we’d be dropped off at another major station and could then take the subway.

    In post-9/11 America, this causes panic and my fellow commuters responded accordingly: hysterical phone calls, saying goodbye to loved ones, the woman across the aisle from me even started crying and reached out to hold my hand.

    When the train arrived at the subway stop, everyone tumbled off the train, only to discover that — despite paying between $5 and $10 for the initial ride — we had to pay another $2 to get through the subway turnstiles. Once the subway came, frantic passengers pushed and shoved each other to get on and I even saw a teenager push a little old lady out of the way to get a seat.

    By the time we arrived in the city (two hours after the train had left my station, located about half an hour away from the city), officials had named the “unidentified object.” It was an empty gas can pointing out from under a homeless man’s blanket.

    posted by E. on 2-13-2008 at 4:45 pm

16. My family was driving down to Nashville for Thanksgiving in 2005 when we noticed the number of cars driving the opposite direction decreasing rapidly. For about an hour the other side of the median was deserted. Finally we drove past an absolutely immense four-car pileup, in front of which landed an emergency helicopter. Traffic going north was backed up for (I heard) six hours. Thankfully the roads going south were clear!

    posted by Laura on 2-13-2008 at 5:03 pm

17. My worst commute story comes from one of my many trips to the motherland aka India. Basically, instead of busing it from the airport in New Delhi to my uncle’s house, a trip which usually takes about 5 hours, my father agreed to let my uncle pick us up and managed to extend our trip to 8 hours! Keep in mind that we’d been flying for pretty much 2 entire days as our travel agent, also an uncle, was obsessed with getting us only the cheapest of flights regardless of the amount changeovers we had to endure.

    By this point I’m tired, I’m smelly, and, to my growing frustration, I have to pee like nobody’s business. However, instead of letting me just pop a squat behind a bush or something, my uncle insists that I hold it until we get to his house. Apparently my mother, who had arrived earlier, had instructed him to not let me drink, eat, or pee anywhere that wasn’t the home of a relative for fear of me catching “the fever.”

    This means that for 8 entire hours, while we traveled many of India’s bumpy, dirt roads, sharing the path with not only other vehicles but assorted livestock as well, I had to sit in my seat and just clamp down the urge to pee my pants. For EIGHT HOURS, in case you missed it.

    By the time we finally made it home, instead of hugging my many relatives that had accumulated around the car upon our arrival, I jumped out of the car, grabbed my toilet paper, and sprinted for the toilet.

    I don’t even joke when I say I cried a little after peeing.

    posted by Darcy on 2-13-2008 at 5:17 pm

18. Aside from sitting on 66 outside of DC in the summer with no AC for months, I’d say the worst was this past summer driving from Florida to Virginia to pick my son up. I was getting to Charlotte NC when the traffic just stopped on 85 north. Not very many cars heading south. After what seemed like FOREVER I started seeing helicopters. Then after creeping like a foot an hour it seemed (it took a few hours to go about 15 miles), I came over a hill and saw the tour bus accident which had tied up traffic. It was on the south bound side so I’m still not sure why we were sitting for hours. It involved the bus, a few big trucks and some cars. It happened during a really heavy, but short rainfall. Not only had I been driving all day but I had to pee real bad, needed to put gas in the car and I still had a few hours of driving to go. That day for the most part just sucked!

    posted by stef on 2-13-2008 at 5:54 pm

19. So, I bike commute. Some may not consider this a true form of commuting as it typically doesn’t have the same “sit in traffic until road rage replaces the blood in your veins” feel to it. I disagree. I live in Denver and have various commute times, ranging from an 8 minute ride three days a week to a 28 minute ride once a week. On one such 28 minute bike commute, I found myself making fresh tracks in powder along the streets. It had begun snowing over night but this could not deter me as I’m committed (for some ridiculous reason)to riding instead of driving. I always take a certain bike path which is below street level and today would be no different. The City of Denver is typically quite good at keeping the bike paths clean (thanks guys!) so I didn’t worry much about my travels. As I descended the ramp and began to make the 180 degree turn necessary to continue along in the right direction it suddenly became quite apparent that the path had been cleared - only to reveal a major layer of ice underneath! The slick tires of my road bike didn’t stand a chance against the icy black goodness that awaited them and I went down - Hard. Being a winter bike commuter, I go down often (more than I would typically admit) but this time was most embarrassing as the group of homeless folks who inhabit the bridge just by my “on ramp” were awake and lively that cold morning and found my spill to be the humorous highlight to their day. The rest of the ride was mostly uneventful (other than almost running over a pigeon - they are DUMB!) but I did receive a ticket on my bike for parking it under an awning at my office building. Silly me - it was too close to where all the smokers get their fix and the super was afraid someone was going to be hurt by it. I’m the only one, man - don’t worry!

    posted by Sara B on 2-13-2008 at 6:36 pm

20. I’m from Portland, OR and attended college at Portland State University, which is downtown Portland.

    After work, I would typically ride the light rail downtown. The light rail stopped approximately one mile from my college and I would usually walk the mile unless the weather was bad. With bad weather, I would catch the local streetcar (trolley) which actually passes through PSU’s sprawling campus.

    One particular day, I had gotten out of work late and decided to catch the streetcar to save some time. The streetcar stopped at the end of the line which was no more than 100 yards from my classroom. When I stood up to exit, the conductor wouldn’t let me out.

    “This isn’t a stop, you’ll have to wait for the first stop after I change direction.” he stated.

    I’d ridden the streetcar to the end of the line plenty of times and had never heard this before. I figured that good manners would get me what I needed.

    “I didn’t realize that this wasn’t a stop. Other conductors have let me off here before and I’m running late for class. Do you think you could let me out here please?” I asked.

    “No, you’ll have to wait for the first stop.”

    I was frustrated at this point. While I’m sure that the conductor was explicitly following the rules, I wasn’t sure why he was being unreasonable. We were of the same ethnicity and I was dressed conservatively, so I didn’t suspect discrimination. Additionally, the end of line was in an area with no through traffic and there was a curb to step onto.

    I sat down and watched as the conductor exited the streetcar. I smiled, thinking that he’d been teasing me and headed for the exit. My smile quickly faded when I saw the door close as I walked toward it.

    I was shocked when I saw the conductor pull out a pack of cigarettes and light up. There aren’t any windows to open on the streetcar, so I asked through the glass what he was doing.

    “Taking my break.” he replied.

    “Are you serious? If you were able to exit the streetcar, why wouldn’t you let me?”

    “Because this isn’t a stop.”

    “You’re being unreasonable!”

    With that, he turned around and spent a few minutes finishing his cigarette.

    During this time, I eyed the little red metal hammer that could be used to smash the glass that covered the compartment for the emergency door release handle. I wondered what would happen if I smashed the glass and let myself out. Would he try to tackle me? Would I be arrested? Being pulled out of class for deboarding the streetcar would be quite the scene.

    I decided to exercise patience and tried to read my textbook, though I was fairly angry at this point. It’s common knowledge that the conductors/drivers of the transit system in Portland have somewhat of a “god complex” going on.

    Buses will regularly pull into traffic after flashing their “yield signal” for only a second. Light rail drivers will close the doors as people are obviously running to catch the the stop. I’ve even witnessed somebody pushing the button to open the light rail door only to have the conductor state “Step away from the car.” rather than open the door for them.

    “All set?” the streetcar conductor asked as he reboarded and moved to the cabin at the opposite end of the train.

    “Yes.” I seethed.

    To add insult to injury, the conductor did not stop at the first stop. I rang the bell and he stopped at the next stop. I wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of seeing how angry I was.

    As I exited, he commented “I didn’t stop at the first stop because you didn’t ring the bell. I thought maybe you had changed your mind.”

    I had some choice words ready at a moment’s notice, though I kept them to myself. Instead, I sprinted the two blocks to class and arrived just in time for class.

    Had I walked the mile from the light rail stop, I would have arrived in class with several minutes to spare and wouldn’t have had to deal with a surly streetcar operator.

    posted by Daniel_37 on 2-13-2008 at 6:55 pm

21. I would say the worst commute I have yet to endure was one day on the second leg of my journey home. I was living in San Francisco at the time and taking the notoriously late Muni bus system. I had already taken the first bus and got off at the cross street to take the second. As I approached the bus stop I noticed several things: first, that there was a van stopped in the middle of the intersection, and second, that there was a man lying face-down in the street with his pants around his ankles. I had apparently got there just after the accident, because there were still no police or emergency vehicles to be seen. The man was pretty obviously dead, being as he was torn up and lying in his own blood. After a few minutes the ambulance and fire trucks came and cleared everything up, but the road was closed for the next couple of hours, leaving me stranded during that time. I later found out that the victim was a homeless person, though I never discovered just how he had come to lose his pants.

    posted by Kyle Gunn on 2-13-2008 at 7:14 pm

22. I went to a Catholic high school where part of our uniform was a kilt (for girls, of course). The majority of the students took the bus to school and unfortunately for me I had to transfer buses multiple times along my route. On a particularly wet, rainy day I had cleared out my locker which meant that my backpack was unusually heavy and my arms were full of junk that didn’t quite fit in my bag. The way the bus schedule works out made taking my route very frustrating because the buses at the transfer point are scheduled to arrive a minute apart. Being that this route serviced annoying, loud high schoolers, I was never surprised to see the drivers purposefully speed off when the crowd of kids approached from the connecting bus. This meant that I would often sprint to catch that bus and avoid a cold wait and sweaty ride home. On this locker cleaning day I saw my connecting bus approaching the intersection as I got off the other bus. Naturally, I ran. I definitely didn’t take into account the rain and my heavy bag, and I ended up wiping out about 6 feet from the bus door which was slowly hissing closed. I was horrified because my bottom felt particularly exposed (which it was considering my kilt had flipped up in the process) and I had managed to rip a large hole in my hose that was quickly filling with blood.

    As I got up I prayed that the bus had left, but I still heard the engine close by and after I had finished gathering my strewn belongings I made my way onto the bus. Obviously the driver had some pity for me and decided against leaving me in that state, but there was nothing I would have wanted more at that moment than to have him leave. On top of the humiliation of getting onto the very bus full of people that had just seen my bottom, I was repeatedly asked by some well meaning people if I was OK, and if I knew my knee was bleeding… And since this bus had waited for me it was now filling with my peers who had witnessed everything from across the street.

    posted by Anna on 2-13-2008 at 8:41 pm

23. My worst commuting experience was with Eurorail. A friend and I decided to go to Europe for two weeks, mainly London and Florence. We spent the first week in London, and it was spectacular. To get from London to Florence, our “wonderful” travel agent talked us into flying to Paris, spending the day there, and then taking an overnight train to Florence. She said all we needed for the train was an Eurorail Youth Pass and that we could store our luggage in the station’s lockers for the day.

    So we finally make it to the train station in Paris two hours after landing. It is deserted and there is not one locker in sight. After searching, we find another area of the station where there is a long line of people and one attendant. We stand in line for an hour, get to the front and ask about the lockers. After the attendant finally understands us, we find out that there is no lockers and if we want to store our luggage we can leave it at the other station 20 minutes away.

    So my friend and I discuss and decide to go ahead and get our tickets signed, just in case we’re late getting back to the station. Once again we wait in line, and by the time we reach the front it is after noon. Come to find out we can’t use our Youth Passes on this particular train ride, because there is limited seating available; however, if we would like to purchase tickets they are 200 euros each. Luckily, we had both exchanged the pounds we had into euros at the Heathrow Airport and we were able to purchase tickets.

    After we bought the tickets, that we were told we wouldn’t need, it was after one. My friend and I realized that we would have about two, maybe three hours to see Paris - after storing our luggage, finding where to go, getting our luggage back and making our 7 pm train. So we decide to play it safe and stay at the station. While we’re there we discover the vending machines don’t work and there is no place nearby to eat.

    About 6:30 were finally able to board the train and we’re in the last compartment. My friend and I eat the last of our emergency supply of granola bars and try to sleep in our 4 x 6 compartment that we are sharing with four other people - none of who speak english. With the door shut and a broken air conditioner at the end of May, needless to say, our compartment was extremely hot. About 10:30 the next morning we finally arrive in Florence, after not showering and having a real meal in over 36 hours.

    Since we were planning to make day visits to Venice and Rome while we were in Florence, we decided we would be smart and buy our tickets ahead of time.

    The rest of our visit was superb, until our last full day in Europe - the day we were going to visit Rome. We called the cab company the night before and scheduled to have a cab come pick us up at 5:30 in the morning to make our 6 a.m. train to Rome. The hotel manager let us out of the hotel, locked the door, and disappeared. So we stood outside in the cold rain for 15 minutes and our cab didn’t come. We decide to walk to the station and pray we make it in time for our train. My friend and I walk around the corner of our hotel block and I hear a honk. My friend runs back (this may be a good time to let you know that I couldn’t run at the time since I had severly broken my foot about 7 months before)and sure enough, it’s our cab. He speeds to the station and gets us there on time.

    We find our platform and the train arrives. My friend makes her way to our compartment, which is difficult because of construction on the platform, and an Italian man stops me to ask if this was the train to Rome. I try to catch up with my friend who is almost to our compartment. Next thing I know the train starts to move and my dear, dear friend makes a running leap onto the train. As I mentioned before, I could not run and there was no way I was going to try for the first time on a rain dampen platform onto a moving train. So my friend and I just stare at each other as she heads to Rome and I stay in Florence.

    I stood there for what seemed like an hour, trying to process what had just happened. Then it dawns on me that my friend has my map (she’d forgotten hers in our hotel room), both of our tickets, she spoke Italian not I, and I have no sense of direction. So I pray that my friend is continuing on to Rome and not getting off at the next station to come back to Florence. I go into the station and wait an hour for the ticket office to open. I find out from the ticket attendant that the morning train to Rome is only in the station for 30 seconds instead of the usual two minutes. I purchase another ticket to Rome on a train that leaves in an hour and will get me to Rome in three hours, while my friend’s train will get here the in an hour and half.

    The whole way to Rome I wonder how my friend and I are going to find each other. I pray that she is watching the trains come in and she’ll be waiting on my platform. I reach Rome a little after 11 and see no sign of my friend. For the next two hours I wonder around the Rome station searching for a thin, short brunette in a bright green skirt. I finally found her in tears, sitting against a magazine stand. After her apologies and my immense relief of finding her, we decide we just have enough time to see the Sistine Chapel and get back to the station for our evening train. Now our adventures in trying to find the Sistine Chapel is another story for another day.

    Anyway, I will hopefully never have to use the European train transportation system ever again. I’m sure some have had very good experiences with Eurorail, but mine was horrible. But on the positive side, I got a good story out of it. At least I like to think so.

    posted by Ash on 2-13-2008 at 9:51 pm

24. My story is not a work commute story, but it’s worth telling.
    My Husband and I recently went to El Salvador to visit some friends. One our friends,tour guide, told us that he was going to take a couple on a tour in Sonosante, which is about an hour away from where we were staying. He told us that we could tag along free of charge because there was extra room in the car.
    Apparently we weren’t the only ones he extended an invitation to; because the next morning when he picked us up in his little izusu van thing,there were about 5 people already in the car. Oh well, We all crammed in and headed up to Sonosante. I say up because it was on top a mountain. about halfway up the mountain. The car starts smoking and then eventually dies. We all climb out and just stare at the car. our friend starts thinking about what should be done and tells us to hop on the next bus we see. For those of you who have never been to El Salvador it’s a whole other world. We were all tourists who knew very little spanish and we had tourist written all over us. we eventually flag the bus down and pay God know how much to get a ride. We were getting laughed at for our broken spanish and whispers flew across the bus. It was a long bumpy ride. WE had a lovely day hikin and what not until we had to go home. The car never got fixed and the owner of the surf camp that had arranged the tour came up to pick up his two clients. Unfortunately since we were never suppose to be on the tour, we had to take the bus home. We got really lost and confused at the main terminal, (due to our language barrier.) but we finally found a bus that took us to the beach. We had to stand in a packed bus that stank to high heaven and played techno music the whole way. Don’t ask me why but all the buses are painted to look festive and they have techno or dance music playing full blast. Two hours and one massive headache later we arrived at the beach, only to realize it was 20 miles from the beach we needed to be at. So we called around (thank God for friends.)and were able to get a ride. Worst Commute ever, but the best bonding and cultural experience I’ve ever had.

    posted by downchez on 2-13-2008 at 10:02 pm

25. side note, i live in west orange, right by shp (which i now realize isn’t all that interesting, but i got excited when i realized i knew where you were talking about) but i digress, my ride home from work as a bartender last night was one for the books. After having my car completely slide through what i hoped was a lane on 287, 80 AND 280, i was almost sideswiped by 2 trucks and then apparently made all of northern jersey angry because i had at least 26 horns honk as i continued to drive 15 miles an hour. All in all, a normally 20 minute commute took an hour and a half and ended w/ my mother crying from the stress of thinking i died in the snow a la that terrible ‘dont do drugs commercial’ where the couple dies because they are stuck in a blizzard..she apparently missed the part where they were on meth..
    AWESOME

    posted by Jen on 2-13-2008 at 11:34 pm

26. A 5 mile commute home across the 520 bridge. The 520 bridge is not too long, but has no pedestrian lane/shoulder/bike path and only two lanes for cars(read NO ESCAPE). Grandparents in car, have to pee. Snowstorm in Seattle where they don’t prepare for snowstorms. Four hours on the 520 bridge. People abandon their cars, grandparents won’t. This was, in fairness, what happened to a friend of mine, but it is hands down, the WORST commuting story I have ever heard.

    posted by Jenna on 2-13-2008 at 11:40 pm

27. I too have a San Francisco Muni bus commute story: I was leaving Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco after having surgery on the back of my right shoulder. The anesthetic was beginning to wear off and I just wanted to take a painkiller. I caught the 38 Geary (not the Limited but the one that stops everywhere) and began my ride to catch the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train home to Berkeley. I managed to get the last seat sitting facing the aisle at the front of the bus.

    I was trying not to sit back and touch the injured shoulder but more and more people entered the bus. An older gentleman (and I use the word loosely) holding a paper sack stood in front of me almost between my legs. I tried to move back to give him enough room to stand.

    The bus jerked and moved forward slowly, crawling toward downtown. The man’s crotch was at shoulder level and every time the bus swayed, he moved forward and bumped my arm. I shifted positions a little but there wasn’t much room.

    More people got on and few got off. The bus moved forward and rocked from side to side. The man kept banging on my arm. Suddenly, I realized he was humping my shoulder while the bus was moving and making it look like it was the motion of the bus causing it.

    OK. I’ve been on crowded buses in the rain and in the snow and in the heat of a summer day. But I’ve never been on a bus biting my lip in pain while some old pervert humped my arm.

    So I did what any other frustrated person would do under those circumstances: I rang the bell with my good arm, elbowed him in the crotch with my other arm, stood up and oozed out the door at the next stop. I walked the remaining mile to the train, popping a pill and trying to imagine how I was going to disinfect my arm when I got home. Yuck!

    posted by Adrienne on 2-13-2008 at 11:44 pm

28. My sister had an awful story about her commute from evanston to chicago. One day on the Ell this old homeless lady sits next to her and keeps talking and murmuring things to herself (which isn’t that weird considering all the crazies that ride public transportation) but then she just up and started talking to my sister, wildly shoving something that she was holding into my sister’s face. Turns out it was a dead baby bird and to top it off my sister hates birds to the point of fear. Fortunately it didn’t have bird flu.

    posted by Allison on 2-14-2008 at 12:55 am

29. I have so many bad commuting days that they’ve sort of all run together. Once I even had a train not show up because it was too cold.

    It’s not like I’m in Canada or anything. This was in Paris, France!

    Suicides, people rendered “sick” by the crush of bodies in the train, and lord help me, the strikes. Ze French love to strike.

    posted by JChevais on 2-14-2008 at 3:31 am

30. I remember back when Morgan Freeman was president, I was stuck in a traffic jam for 45 hours. Luckily, my friend came riding by on a dirt bike and I caught a ride with him to the top of a mountain. It was a good thing I did because two minutes later a meteor hit the Atlantic Ocean and everyone on the Eastern Seaboard that wasn’t at the top of a mountain died in the ensuing Tsunami.

    posted by Kevin McDonald on 2-14-2008 at 6:12 am

31. Neither of these are commuter stories, but they’re both worthwhile. Really… it’s not the delay, but rather, what you make of it that counts. ;)

    My roomie, her boyfriend and I took a mini-roadie up to the Columbus Whole Foods (1 hour from our house in Dayton) one labor day. I was supposed to be back by 1:30 to film for a student ad to get volunteers for a promotional table that one of my student orgs did on a weekly basis on campus. So we hop in the car at noon, on a warm, warm day in a car completely laden with yummy organic grocery goodness. about 1/2 an hour into our pleasant drive, traffic stops. dead. For miles. So now, I and the groceries are in the back seat, Mike is weaving to see what’s causing the stop and Kat’s on the cell phone. No air conditioning. Oh and the gelato’s melting. So we patiently sit for… two hours. Nothing. I’ve called the kids back at campus and let them know I’m going to be “a little late” then I call them again and let them know I’m goign to be “a lot late.” finally I tell them to “do your thing without me.” Meanwhile, we bust out the rapidly going bad sushi, take a look around at stopped traffic. Open all doors on our car. Bust out some chopsticks and have ourselves a Sushi Picnic right in the middle of I-70. Good times. It took us three hours to get home. A tractor-trailer had wrecked.

    One spring break, two carloads of us were caravanning down to The University of Kentucky to help build up their Chi Alpha org as part of a mission trip. Now, I know that spring break usually illicits an idea of warm sunny weather and bikini-clad women. This was not us. It was ICY. The roads were nasty and we had a four hour drive ahead of us. about two hours in, we hit a two and a half hour delay caused by a massive pile-up. We theorized from the look of the accident that a car had actually slid OFF an overpass and smashed into the pavement. It was ugly.

    But before we got that far, we, again, had a fabulous time playing in traffic. Since there were two carloads of us caravaning, we wrote messages in the slush accumulating on our cars, met some friendly Canadians who joking offered to race us to our destination, and vogued for pictures in and out of our cars. I think one of our guys rode for about 5 miles standing on the side of the van in front of us.

    Heh. If only we’d had sushi.

    posted by Ashley on 2-14-2008 at 7:47 am

32. I used to commute out of NYC by bus too… I’d take the Bloomfield Ave route to Caldwell… one time it took an extra 45 minutes or so because in the dead heat of summer, the heat below the surface was blowing off the manhole covers on Bloomfield Ave… so I was ok with that.

    Another time, I ended up next to a man we’ll call “Bob”, who many years ago had purchased our old house. I was in 7th grade when he moved in, and worked in NYC right after college. Over those oh 10 years, he never ceased to annoy me. Very inappropriate, annoying man. Well on this particular day he was next to me…

    And the bus filled with smoke and had to pull over. I pulled the neck of my shirt over my mouth and SHOVED my way off that bus… my thinking was “I am NOT going to die next to Bob.”

    We sat at a gas station until the next bus going to Caldwell came, and then I had to fight to get on as well. We made it about an hour late.

    posted by Kelly J on 2-14-2008 at 7:50 am

33. This is just one day of hugely bad luck. It was my second day with a learner’s permit and my first day on a highway. We (Me and Dad) were about to drive onto an overpass, when the din of helicopters, sirens, and honking halted traffic. A man, naked and holding an aged copy of a 1982 TIME magazine with David Bowie, was contemplating suicide. Of course, we got out of our car and listened in on the negotiator’s conversation with the man. The man was depressed because he had just been fired and his wife had left him for a younger man. He had burnt his house down, only saving the magazine which he clutched. After FOUR hours and one woman going into labor, the man was talked down from the edge of the overpass. Me and Dad, thankful that that ordeal was over, drove home; a record breaking three and a half hours late for dinner.

    posted by Brady on 2-14-2008 at 8:06 am

34. I have two stories of worst commutes; I was driving home from college, and had to go over the grapevine (just north of LA in California.) A week before, a huge flood had washed away the supporting mountainside, so there was 1 lane going either way. There were no bathrooms, no gas stations; people were getting out of their cars and walking along side of them. Cars were running out of gas, so then we had tow trucks trying to squeeze by to pick up these cars… a 40 mile section took 5 and a half hours!!!
    The other commute was returning to Oakland from San Francisco. They were repairing the bay bridge (which is of course the one I needed.) They only had 1 onramp open, and it was around 2 am on a friday night - everyone was leaving bars and clubs to go home. It took my truck 2 hours to go a single block! I literally had a panic attack, but that may have been because of the drunken idiots in my car.

    posted by Sarah on 2-14-2008 at 8:22 am

35. How could I forget the time when a six car wreck happened directly in front of me (literally, the car in front of me was the last car involved) on a walled section of interstate with no shoulder? The road was completely blocked; I could see freedom just on the other side of the wreckage but I wasn’t able to experience it for about three hours, and I had to recount what happened to the Highway Patrol. So what should have been a half hour drive home turned into a four hour hellride.

    To top it all off, all the drivers walked away with nothing more than whiplash. Am I the only person who secretly thinks if I have to wait more than an hour to get past a wreck that I had better see some severe carnage?

    posted by Ira on 2-14-2008 at 8:45 am

36. I was visiting my sister in Chicago when I was a junior in high school. She had to work pretty much the entire time I was there, which was ok, cause she set me up with a bus pass and a CTA map. It was awesome.

    One day I was coming back from town, only to find that the blue line, that I’d been taking every day, had been shut down. I had no clue what to do. It was starting to get dark, and I had a Cricket phone, so it didn’t work there. Since I only had the pass, I didn’t need much money, and therefore, only took from the house what I would need for the day.

    So there I was, 16, downtown Chicago, lost, with no money, and no phone. Scary - especially if you’re a kid from Pittsburgh (worlds smallest “big city”) like me. Oh yeah - did I mention that the neighborhood she lived in was, hmm, not so good, so normally I’d try to be home by about 5 if I was taking the bus.

    I made it back to the apartment after about 12 transfers, because every cta driver has a different perspective of where the other buses go. Not fun. Ever since then, I’ve truly kept that motto of prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

    posted by Sarah on 2-14-2008 at 9:36 am

37. Oh yeah, then there’s always that time I was coming back from work at 2AM in Morgantown to my house 20miles east of there, over Coopers Rock.

    In a blizzard.

    When my wipers froze.

    Again - my cell didn’t work.

    Apparently I have bad luck with remote winters, because there was yet another time that I was in the boyfriends ‘84 Dodge Ram when it ran out of gas in the valley between two huge hills. That were covered in ice. I had to rock it out to get the gas in the lines to the engine. Then it was totally done. Luckily, the creepy weird litte cottage (did I mention REMOTE? Think that movie Wrong Turn…) had some chainsaw gas on their porch (seriously, I couldn’t make this up) which I was able to dump into the engine to at least get it to the gas station - like forever away.

    I’m totally bad luck.

    posted by Sarah on 2-14-2008 at 9:44 am

38. One year ago, on Valentines Day, I woke up to see that Washington DC had been covered in snow and ice overnight. The Federal Government was only-half open. All the universities were closed. Delighted at spendint this most romantic of days with my boyfriend (whose classes were all cancelled) I called the office to discover: we were open.

    So I trekked the two blocks down to the busstop in a skirt and two layers of stockings and snow boots. And waited for a bus. For an hour. Finally some guy trudging through the unplowed streets informed me that the buses weren’t running at “non-essential stops.”

    Fantastic.

    I then followed him through the streets for half a mile to an “essential” bus stop where, a mere half-hour later, a bus showed up.

    I finally get to work and discover that, with the exception of the receptionist, no one else is there. No one. “People usually just call sick on days like this,” she said. “But the lawyers will be working from home. So I guess you’ll be the only secretary today.”

    So after a day of answering every little whim for forty attorneys, I decided to head home. The head of HR, snug in her bed, said they’d pay for a cab. Only there were no cabs. So I ended up walking the six miles home in the snow.

    By that time, of course, my boyfriend had already left to go to his night job, which was also inexplicably open. And that was how I spent my Valentines day.

    posted by Annie on 2-14-2008 at 10:26 am

39. Actually my worst commute didn’t take place too far off from where you were.

    I was driving home from work and we’d had snow/bad weather. It was a 13 or so mile commute. For the most part it wasn’t too bad.

    I head up the 280 hill. Still good.

    I get off at Exit 8B (at the top of the hill). The exit is exactly 2.2 miles from my home.

    It took me nearly 2 hours to go that 2.2 miles.

    (This tops my old story of working 6 miles away from home and it taking me 3 hours to get home straight on Bloomfield Ave).

    posted by Beth on 2-14-2008 at 11:03 am

40. I commute from New Jersey to New York on the train, so usually it’s a little late and then there are days like this: The night of our company holiday party, it started sleeting/raining around 3pm. I was in the city, so it was only a little gross outside and not too slippery. My friend and I left the party in time to catch a 7:30 train home.

    While there was just sleet in the city, apparently it had been snowing and then raining ice since 3pm in jersey, so the train was inching it’s way along. Then it just stopped completely, about 150 feet from a station. They didn’t tell us anything for 1 1/2 hours, then they inched forward to the station and said people could get off if they wanted to, but that we shoul dbe moving again soon. 20 minutes later, we pulled out of the station and just stopped again.

    After 3 hours, they told us there was a tree down at my station and that we would get moving again soon. Did I mention that my car was at that station and we weren’t stopping there? I called a friend, who drove to get me at the station before mine, but it took her 45 minutes to get there because of the ice and the station had no waiting room. So cold!

    I finally got home around midnight, frozen and cranky. Then I got up at 6 to do it all again.

    posted by Kate on 2-14-2008 at 11:58 am

41. For a little over a year, I used to commute from near Columbia, MD to Arlington, VA mainly on the B-W Parkway. During G.W.B’s 2nd inauguration (an awful event in and of itself), there was a little snow event, not to mention that several routes in D.C. proper were closed due to the inaguration. My normal 45 minute or so reverse commute turned into a 3-hour epic journey whose highlight was being stuck between RFK Stadium and the 14th Street bridge for nearly an hour. As anyone who has ever driven this route knows, there is really NOWHERE to get off at that point and you sure don’t want to get out of your car. Fortunately, I had a bath towel in my car. I needed it.

    posted by kary on 2-14-2008 at 11:59 am

42. I doubt this is the worst, but when I was in New Orleans, LA doing mold remediation for the relief work effort, a 20-minute drive turned into 4 hours.

    Every morning I got up around 5:30 so that I could be ready to carpool to the relief center. I then worked in 90+ degree weather inside of a mold suit, complete with mask all day long. My job was demolition, taking the houses down to the studs to be cleaned of mold. I must admit, I really enjoyed it.

    However, one Friday afternoon, one of my roommates picked me up to go home. He worked in the auto repair department and was testing a truck. Guess what - said truck was overheating, and we couldn’t use the air conditioner. We worked on one side of the Missippi and lived on the other. Because of numerous accidents, the poor planning of NOLA road engineers, and people’s general tend to get selfish in the heat, we were completely stuck in traffic. No moving. It took us about two hours just to move a quarter of a mile. We were still doing better than the man driving the garbage truck that turned over. Twice.

    I have never been so miserable. After a long, hard day of volunteer work, the commute was just simply too much. I am glad I live in rural Oregon, where a traffic jam only occurs when a tractor is driving on the highway or someone’s cows have escaped.

    posted by Manda on 2-14-2008 at 12:54 pm

43. I used to live in Savannah, GA on a barrier island. It was really nice, but it also meant that I my commute involved crossing six sets of railroad tracks and a drawbridge. Every day one week, on either the trip to work or on the way home, at least one(usually more than one) of those blocked my way for upwards of ten minutes at a time. On Friday, I told my co-workers that if they wanted a really good show, they should follow me home that day. If something got in my way, they’d be treated to me out of my car beating on the offending obstruction with a tire iron.

    I had a really good scare another time while commuting in Savannah. It was about 5:30 in the morning, and I was approaching one of the myriad railroad crossings that littered my commute route. This particular crossing, though, was right next to an entrance ramp for the Truman Parkway. That meant that most of the tracks were obscured. A lone streetlight illuminated the scene. Right as I crossed the tracks, I and my little car were transfixed by the blinding glare of the single headlight of the train engine not 10’ from the edge of the roadway. Until that moment, it had been hidden by the ramp. Every muscle instantly tightened to brace for the imminent crash that never came. It was parked. When I arrived at work, it took several minutes before I could exit the car. Evidently my butt muscles had clenched so tightly that several folds of the upholstery were very nearly permanently trapped.

    Finally, several years ago, I lived in Iowa during the coldest winter in 90+ years. Now, I’m from West Texas. Out there, we have those signs that read “Caution: Bridge Ices Before Roadway”, but they don’t really mean anything. In Iowa, they do. I, however, was not really aware of this. I was employed as a route driver for a water company. My vehicle was a big Ford extended van pulling a 14’ tandem axle enclosed trailer. It wasn’t snowing, but the wind was strong enough to make it look like it was. The roads were relatively clear as I approached an overpass. I didn’t notice that everyone else on the road took the exit. I cruised on up the overpass, for once not speeding. Right as I got onto the bridge portion, the rig immediately began jackknifing left. Just like they teach you in driver’s ed, I steered into the skid. It straightened briefly, then jackknifed right. I gathered it up again, and that must have been when I cleared the black ice. The wheels must still have been turned because it jackknifed left again, whipping into a complete 360 and snowplowed down the side of the overpass. I am convinced that the only thing that kept me shiny side up was the suction generated by my sphincter tightening up. The rig was good and stuck, so I caught a ride back to Cedar Rapids with a deputy returning from a prison transfer.

    posted by Anthony on 2-14-2008 at 1:10 pm

44. Last winter I worked about 25 minutes from home and was dating a guy who lived about 20 minutes in the opposite direction…
    So, at my house, we wake up to a snow storm. We drive (very carefully) to his house, to drop him off, as I had a ‘very important’ retail job at the MALL. S0, after dropping him off, things go downhill, fast. The interstate starts filling with snow and stranded cars. Because I’m from the midwest, and am used to more snow than this, continue on. Now I’m an hour late for work and nearing the usual ‘20 minutes more’ point, when my boss finally calls and says ‘Never mind, go home, they’re closing the mall’. I’ve been in the car for 2.5 hours by now. And I’m stuck in an area where I can’t really turn around to head home. SO I take a loopy way through a downtown area to head back to my neighborhood, doing about 5 miles an hour and sliding all over the place. Everything is white.
    Did I mention that my horrid phone is beeping with a dead battery and my car is almost out of gas?
    So… I end up trying to go through a hilly neighborhood on the other side of the highway from my apartment. I go past the exit I need, sit for a few more hours trying to get onto the highway, and end up looping back to get to the exit I want. Now it’s dark out, and I am sitting in traffic with my car turned off, shivering and hoping that I have enough gas to make it to the exit.

    7.5 hours in the car, made it to a gas station and finally made it home.

    Screw the ex, the ex-job, and snow.

    posted by E on 2-14-2008 at 1:18 pm

45. My worst commute actually happened on tuesday night. The weather people had said that there would be a small “weather event” that would probably start around 3pm and would probably slow down the evening commute. Living in the DC area, I was used to this and so I am always prepared to sit in traffic on my busride home. Unfortunately the “weather event” turned out to be an ice storm. I checked the bus system website before I left work and found out that all the buses had already been sent into the city so the Emergency backup plan could not be activated. (That would be when instead of catching a bus in the city, people took the Metro to an outer station and then would be bused to the commuter lots.) I left the office at 615 PM and walked to the bus stop. There were A LOT more people there then usual which sort of worried me. Evidently I-95, I-395 and I-66 had been closed and traffic was stopped dead in both directions. A lady next to me in line was talking to the customer service line for the buses to find out what was going on. She was told that we should sit tight and the buses were going to be coming soon. One hour later ( and one annoying guy next to me who talked incessantly about how this could have all been avoided with proper management, which of course he could provide and by the way he didn’t even want to work in the city and it just wasn’t worth it.Dude, I get it) the buses still were not there. It was still icing badly, people in line had to periodically de-ice their umbrellas because they were freezing open. Another hour passes by til we find out that contrary to what we were told, we should head to the Metro since they were now picking people up there. So our little band of brothers, (We had all bonded in our shared experience) head out to the Metro. We get on and have a 45 min trip to the station where the bus system is going to pick us up. So we get there and guess what? No buses are there. Actually that’s not entirely true. There were plenty of idle, empty and warm looking buses waiting. They just weren’t the ones we needed to get on. So we all wait another hour for ONE bus to get there. As the passengers get off of this bus we start hearing how it had taken 3 hours for them to get here. this is normally a 20 minute trip. By this time there are probably 50 to 60 people wating to get on this one bus. Needless to say there were some very determined people who WERE going to get on the bus.(me included!) Luckily by this time (10 PM or so) traffic going south had started to move a little. It only took us 45 minutes or so to get to where my truck was parked. By this point my feet were frozen, coat and sweatshirt soaked and I was somewhat worried about the fact that I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore. So imagine my excitment when I walked to my truck and found a 1/2 inch of ice encasing it. I spent another 20 minutes to get it de-iced. Finally I was on the home stretch!! I stopped at a gas station to pick up a couple of big Heinekens (I really needed a drink at this point.) and drove home slowly. I get to my house and walk in the front door at 11 30 or so. Oh and that’s when I realized I had forgotten to pick up dog food for my dog who had been stuck inside for 15 hours. So I had to head out again! Needless to say, the Heinekens were a welcome relief when I finally made it home and huddled in front of my heater. The only good thing was that work was delayed for two hours the next day. Total time on the trip was 5 and 1/2 hours, 4 hours of which we spent outside in the rain and ice. I would complain but found out that there were people who had spent 8 hours and more stuck in traffic on roads. At least that wasn’t me.

    posted by Marv on 2-14-2008 at 1:35 pm

46. I worked in India for several years. Sometimes the travel would mean travelling like the link attached to my nick.

    Enough said.

    posted by Travelwoes on 2-14-2008 at 2:33 pm

47. My worst commute ever was the single largest cause of Gov. Hodges of SC to fail in being re-elected. Doing his duty he ordered the coast to be evacuated bc Hurricane Floyd was charging at the Carolina Coast. I live is Charleston, SC and the only way to get away from the coast is I-26. Every other highway goes up the coast. With so many ppl leaving at the same time it took people 10 hrs to get to Columbia (a 2 hr drive tops) and it took other 24 hrs to get to ATL and Charlotte (6-4 hrs respectively). It was a parking lot. It was hell. My friend is a nurse and she was in a bus full of mentally ill people with no meds, they had only brough along enough for a 5 hr ride. And the Hurricane did not come. Everybody remembered their experience two years later when they voted for the next Gov.

    posted by stephW on 2-14-2008 at 2:34 pm

48. The worst commute EVER was right after my grandmothers funeral in the 7th grade. It was the day before the make-up date for the Gateway test, which I had to miss. The plan was, me and my dad would leave RIGHT after the graveside service and rush home, hopefully getting there around midnight allowing me just enough sleep to pass the test and avoid summer school. Needless to say, we ran into not one, not two, but THREE major accidents, and I didn’t get home until 4 in the morning.

    it was awful!

    posted by Rachel on 2-14-2008 at 3:07 pm

49. Once upon a time I was a teenager without a car in a high school 45 minutes away from my house. Apparently anyone south of the mason-dixon line has absolutely no concept of what to do when it snows so, as the first gentle flakes began to fall in my bustling southern city, the county decided to send us all home early.

    Thus began the nightmare 14 and a half hour commute from hell.

    At first everything seemed to be fine. It was noon and traffic on the beltline was a little congested (it took us twice as long as it should have), but nothing to write home about. We got off on the exit towards North Raleigh and reality faced us square in the eye. The entire city of Raleigh had been turned into a traffic cataclysm. Nothing moved, traffic lights were meaningless, and our tiny teenage souls were shattered upon the realization that this was no longer a snow day, this was our new definition of hell.

    Its important to keep in mind that this “snow” only amounted to less than a quarter-inch. We inched along the major byways and nervously whittled away the time. Closer, ever closer to the first stop our spirits brightened, three hours after we had left the school we were ALMOST there.

    No, no… that would be too easy wouldn’t it?

    A voice came over the buses radio
    “We’re going to need you to take route to Ligon, you’re the closest bus currently and everyone else is jammed.”

    Everyone fell silent. We were literally less than half a mile away from the first stop and we had to turn around. Delores (our driver) started to cry. Literally break down and sob. We knew what this meant; we had to go through downtown.

    I’ll skip the finer details of the FIVE HOURS it took us to get to Ligon (a middle school). What I will tell you though is that when we finally got there (at around 8 at night) all of the students had already been told that they were staying the night, no questions asked. Point being, there was absolutely no reason for us to be there.

    We set off, downtrodden and praying for some freak accident that would require that we be lifted by helicopter to safety. Three hours later, we were back where we started before the Ligon call. Inching and inching, we made it to the first stop… over half the kids got off the bus nevermind the fact that usually only three or four did. They had the right idea, it’ll be quicker to walk home at this point.

    I was stubborn. I had faith that it would be wiser for me to stay. A sort of camaraderie grew between me and my fellow prisoners. We were being brave (that and I didn’t want to have to walk five miles in the snow with an ankle brace).

    No, traffic only got worse. We weren’t moving at all. There was no hope. There was no bright light in the future. Delores could do nothing, we couldn’t get off the bus because she would be held responsible for whatever happened. Home, at five miles, was further away than ever.

    People abandoned their cars on the side of the road everywhere. They knew that otherwise they weren’t going to get anywhere. For God’s sake there was less than 1/2 an inch (at the most) of snow on the ground and it wasn’t even snowing anymore. Why were we all stuck here?

    We hit the second stop. Delores told everyone to just get off, she was going to pull the bus over and personally walk everyone to their houses (if need be). Thankfully it didn’t come to that. Most of the neighborhood side streets were clear of traffic and various friends and boyfriends and family came to get us. By the time I had gotten to my destination (which wasn’t even home at that point, I ended up getting my boyfriend’s sister to get me). It was 2:30 in the morning.

    14.5 hours. In that amount of time I could have driven to Portland, Maine. No, instead I was stuck on a bus with the unabridged version of Les Miserables (which I am proud to say I read in its entirety).

    The website included is a link to site with some videos of the hell that happened that day.

    Apparently even though everyone from the Triangle area is (usually) a Yankee transplant, they all simultaneously forgot how to drive in the snow.

    posted by Rose on 2-14-2008 at 3:26 pm

50. This past May, my friend Scott and I went to Beijing and we decided that instead of going directly from Beijing to Shanghai, we’d stop for a few days in Hangzhou. This requires a 22 hour overnight train. So we booked tickets for the next week as soon as we arrived in Beijing, scored the last two tickets on the last available train for that week (May holiday is a bad time to travel in China, apparently). Our day to leave for Hangzhou arrived and we checked out of the hotel, took a 40 min cab to the bus station and waited in a crush of about 8000 people in 120 degree heat for 2 hours. When the train came, we managed to find our compartment and we got settled in, only to have the ticket girl look at our tickets and tell us that they were for the next day. So out of the station we went, got a cab, went back to our hotel and got a smaller room for the night at double the price we paid for it the night before. The next day, I decided that since we had nothing planned, I was going to get my tattoos that I wanted for months beforehand. We found a place and I spent the day getting two large tat’s on my back and stomach, not realising… When we went back to the station and got on the right train this time, and four hours into the ride, I realised there was no A/C (of course, stupid me for thinking there would be) and my tattoos were starting to feel nasty and second degree burn-like. I apologised to Scott and whipped off my jeans and shirt/bra, took some ibuprofen, locked the cabin door and tried my hardest not to let the sweat dripping off me get onto the tatts for the next 18 hours.

    Man that was a rough day. Never again will I travel/get tattoo’d in China during either Newyears, National week or May week. Pure Chaos.

    posted by Cassie on 2-14-2008 at 3:48 pm

51. Whaen I was a lad of about 17 I had just discovered that for the small sum of 35 cents the bus would take me wherever I wanted (I didn’t have license at the time.) This was glorious news, I couldn’t have been happier. Then one day,(as most onimous stories begin) I was coming home late from the mall, and our bus breaks down. this was the last bus of the day, and, driver informs me that there were no replacment busses to be sent. This meant that I had hike home for 5 miles, which usually wouldn’t bother me, except that this was during one the rare freezing cold, rainy days that pass for a winter here in San Antonio. I have never been so numb in my life. My denim jacket was soaked completly through, and I could barely walk as I approached the front door of my house. This was the worst traveling experience of my life.

    posted by Gilbert on 2-14-2008 at 4:40 pm

52. The year was either 1990 or 1991 and I was living in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, CA at the time. A huge rainstorm caused the Sepulveda dam and surrounding streets to flood. It was rush hour (to add to the traffic) and I was trying to drive home on Ventura Bl. through Encino. The traffic was so bad that it took my 2 hours to drive 1 block. With my car overheating, and my patience as well, I pulled over to the side of the road, got out and walked the rest of the way home (which was probably about 3 miles away). Ever since that day, when I drive past that same block, I am instantly reminded of that horrible experience.

    posted by summerjway on 2-14-2008 at 5:22 pm

53. On my way to Iraq (Marines) the commercial flight I was on broke down once in Maine, then again in Ireland. Flying from Kuwait to Al Asad Air Base Iraq was spent in a C-130 aircraft with about 200 other Marines, each with full gear on, a backpack, and their personal rifle with them. We were so tightly packed that it was impossible to move and the only way of relieving ourselves was by climbing a ladder and strapping yourself in standing up while the plane was in flight. Right before we took off one Marine started throwing up into a plastic bag.

    Flying from Al Asad to Al Qaim Train Station was spent in a CH53 helicopter with a constant drip of oil on my head, again packed like sardines, with an open door in the back that one could easily fall out of into the open hostile desert. At least no one died on the way!

    posted by Josiah on 2-14-2008 at 9:20 pm

54. Wow! Some great stories here, but they make me very thankful I live in a relatively small town, where you can get most anywhere in the city in 15 minutes, even in “traffic”. It reminds me of a story; it isn’t my story, nor is a worst commuting story, but it is funny.

    A good friend of mine was living in Fargo, ND, and taking classes at UND, just up the road a piece in Grand Forks. The drive would take a little over an hour, and the road was flat and straight (no exaggeration there) so he just got in the habit of propping a book on the steering wheel and studying while he drove.

    One day though, he looked up from his book and didn’t recognize where he was; turned out he’d driven about 40 miles past his exit. By the time he got there he’d missed most of his class. That was 20-some years ago, but he still catches grief for it, mostly because he thought to tell everybody about it!

    posted by Dave on 2-14-2008 at 10:19 pm

55. My college has a subway line that goes right under it, and I take that subway and three more, as well as a bus to get home. I had stayed late for classes one night, leaving around 7, towards the end of rush hour. This particular night saw crowds of people in the subway (it was a friday). As I entered the subway, I saw the train I had to take leaving the station. Figuring that another one would be coming shortly, I waited. And waited. And waited. After about 25 minutes of waiting, a garbled announcement said that the trains weren’t running downtown due to an accident. The announcer then said that there was an uptown train approaching. The crowd all moved to the other side, but after about 15 more minutes, the announcer said that the trains also weren’t running uptown because of a police investigation (this most likely had to do with the first announcement, but I’m not sure). Yet another announcement said that slips would be given to commuters to take the buses that ran vaguely near the subway line. We stood in line to get our slips, which took another 15 minutes due to the sheer volume of people who had been in the subway on both sides. Up the steps to the buses, which were mobbed with people from the stations that had closed uptown. More waiting. I got on one of the buses, but having little knowledge of the public bus system, I got on an express instead of the locals. I don’t know how I made this mistake but I did. We were crushed on this bus, and although the heat was on (it was the dead of winter), a window was broken and slammed open and closed several times a minute, blasting us with freezing cold air. The express bus took me about 30 blocks and 3 avenues from where I normally got on. I walked about 12 blocks to another line that connected to the one that I take. I then proceeded to get very lost, ending up at the terminus at one of the lines. Again, more time lost. By now, it was about 9:30. I figured out the connection, and decided to hop on the express. But the express was going slower than the local, due to construction work. We literally inched past the people in the trenches, stopping every five minutes due to train traffic ahead. I finally transfered to the local, which was the least harrowing train to take that day. When I got to the end of the line, I had to run down a very long set of steps to the connecting bus, which was not the bus that I normally took. The bus ride didn’t go too badly but it left me at the top of a large hill by my apartment that I had to walk down. Altogether, a commute that averages around an hour and a half took five hours and some change.

    I’m very glad that I’ve only had a handful of horror stories about public transportation, to say the least.

    posted by Tess on 2-15-2008 at 9:25 pm

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