Week 14/2026: Just catch the bus

Posted On 12 April 2026

Week of 30 March 2026

This week is Easter week, so it’s the start of a six-day holiday for me.

Easter Tuesday is a thing, and I asked to take the Wednesday off as well. So yay. Six days.

This post is wholly researched and written by me. I do not use AI in my writing. I will always bring you my stories in my real human voice.

Just catch the bus

This week I went to the doctor. It was a trip that would have taken less than 90 minutes if I’d driven, but I took the bus and it took over three hours. I needed to take a whole morning off work to go to the doctor.

The reasons it took so long are many.

1. The doctor’s practice, which was previously on the bus route, has moved to a new location about 20 minutes walk away.
2. The doctor was running at least 20 minutes late.
3. I had a longer than regular appointment to discuss multiple issues (yay).
4. When I got back to the bus route, I had to wait 45 minutes for the next bus because the service I would otherwise have caught was cancelled a couple of years ago in the “temporary service adjustment”, leaving a one-hour gap in a schedule that usually sees buses come every 30 minutes.

It would have been quicker and easier to drive.

But I hate driving, and don’t do it unless I have to.

I didn’t have to, but it would have been a lot more convenient if I had.

The thing about fuel

We are, as you’ll know, in a situation where fuel prices have been steadily increasing due to the US and Israel’s war on Iran.

Governments are encouraging people to drive less if they can, recognising that there is a strong possibility that there will be fuel shortages in the coming weeks and months. Obviously, if we run out of fuel, that’s going to cause massive problems for services like transporting food to the supermarkets, and, I dare say, services like ambulances and fire trucks, as well as farmers who need to run their vehicles to run their farms, and well, basically everything where transport is a component. And if fuel prices remain high, services have to increase their charges and pass that on to customers . . . and the Reserve Bank goes, oh inflation, we need to bring that down so let’s increase interest rates so the 30% of people who have mortgages have even less money to spend . . . and this is not that story.

And as far as I know, most of those industries use diesel rather than unleaded, so maybe what everyday drivers do wouldn’t have as much of an impact on those services. I don’t know.

Short story:

War > High fuel prices > Increased cost of living > Please drive less and we will let you on the bus for free to help you do that.

Cool.

We’re encouraged to drive less

So I didn’t. I caught the bus and it took three hours.

On my 20 minute walk back to the bus stop, I noticed how the petrol prices had dropped since the government cut the fuel excise in response to unleaded prices that had been around $2.50 a litre.

I know dropping the fuel excise is great for people who are forced to drive, but I wondered how that would encourage the people who don’t have to drive to change their behaviour and catch the now-free buses (or stop people panic buying fuel at these lower prices, which is a whole other story).

It also made me wonder how many people who currently drive everywhere would actually be in a position where they could reduce their car use and take the bus for some or all of their travel.

For people living where there are frequent bus services at the times they need to travel that get them to or near where they need to go, it makes sense to catch the bus anyway, and free bus travel is great. That’s me. Thank you, government.

But not everyone is in this situation. People may need to do school runs or have other reasons for multiple stops between their origin and their destination. The buses might not go where they need to go, with no or badly timed connecting services. They might not be physically able to walk to and/or from the closest bus stop, especially if it’s 20 minutes away or if there are hills involved. The timing of the buses might not match with their schedule.

For example, someone I cross paths with a couple of times a week says they would need to catch the very first bus at 6 am and walk from there to get to their work in time to open the business at 8 am. They can’t always count on that bus being on time, so they Uber every day. An expensive way to travel regularly.

We need a better bus service

In order for the public transport system to get better, we need more people to use it, and in order for more people to use it, it needs to meet more people’s needs. And it doesn’t.

So people drive. The roads get congested and more lanes are added and there are more cars on the road.

This is a city with a high level of car dependency. There are so many reasons for this (some of which I mentioned before, some of which relate to the design of the city and I’m sure there are others). It’s not a simple to fix problem, or someone would have fixed it.

But “just catch the bus” isn’t a solution to reducing our reliance on car travel.

It might be for people who are in a similar position to me, but not everyone is.

I’m privileged to be in a position where I can take the bus. I live close to a stop, I can walk if the bus doesn’t take me close to where I need to go, and the buses mostly go when I need them.

They’re often late, but I still get home . . . and let’s not talk about weekends and evenings. There’s a lot I’ll put up with to avoid having to drive and be on the road and find a parking space.

But I feel like it shouldn’t be a privilege to be able to use public transport.

Habit tracker

• 15 minutes morning exercise sequence (7 days): 6/7
• Hip or shoulder sequence exercises (5 days): 2/5
• Walk (7 days): 7/7
• Thinking time (4 days): 3/4
• Morning planning routine (3 days): 0/3
• Mid-day journalling (7 days): 0/7
• Work shutdown (3 days): 0/3
• 9.30 shutdown (6 days): 6/6
• Evening routine (7 days): 7/7

Summary of the week

This week I learned

When movies were shot on physical film, the film was measured in feet. This is why any recorded thing is now called ‘footage.’

This week I noticed

The Windeward Bound on the Derwent.

What’s making me think?

Looking through some old notes, I found this:

“I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung.”

—Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore is one of the writers I’ve been studying in my uni course this semester.

This quote reminded me how much time I spend shuffling notes around and not actually doing anything with them . . .

Reading

• Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Training for Your Old Lady Body by Elizabeth Davies

Watching

• Resident Alien
• Doctor Who “The Abominable Snowmen”
• Deadloch Season 2

Listening

• Bohemia by Van Diemen’s Band
• Dreamworld by Pet Shop Boys
• Legally Blonde the Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording)