Today’s topic: public transportation… AGAIN!
I really do not understand why it's so difficult to manage the buses, trams, and trains in a city like this. I’m a compulsive organizer and I, who have no experience working in city administration, could list a few hundred things they could do to make the system more efficient and user-friendly. One for example: make announcements when trains are late or cancelled. It’s as simple as that. At least this way, passengers could plan accordingly, take other buses, trains, metros, whatever. But no…
This morning after waiting 30 minutes for my train (which is normally supposed to arrive every 15 minutes) I started to get suspicious because I saw lots of VERY disgruntled looking commuters. I asked around a bit only to discover some of these people had been waiting 2 hours for a train, but nothing had shown up yet. After 1 hour of waiting for my trenino to Tiburtina, not ONE single announcement was made regarding why, when, or what. There were rumors that some Neapolitans had been fined by the Police for not having a ticket, so said Neapolitans got off the train and protested on the tracks at Tiburtina, blocking train traffic for 4 hours… that seemed a little insane to me, even for Italy! I still have NO idea what happened or why the train took forever to show up and when it did show up and I got in and sat down, I overheard passengers saying it wasn’t even going to go all the way to Tiburtina. At that point, my nerves were shot, I was sweating like a hog, and the last thing I wanted to do was try to find another way to get to work. So I called in and said “I’m working from home today.” The end.
7 comments:
Actually those rumours were true! I just saw it on the news - a bunch of people who commute from Naples every day (completely insane IMO - why don't they just move to the outskirts of Rome?) were upset because ticket prices are too high and they got fined. So they had some kind of sit in on the tracks.
One question -if you are a compulsive organiser - why did you chose to move to Italy of all places? This has to be the least organised country in Europe if not the world! Maybe it was some kind of opposites attract thing where you saw lots of scope for your organisational skills in Italy since no one has any? :)
kataroma,
GOOD question, i've been asking myself that recently too! (= apart from being a compulsive organizer i also love, and i mean LOOOOOVE challenges. so at the time (i was fresh out of college), i felt this urge to come here and challenge myself, to try and do well. and naturally, i also adored rome. apart from its lack of organization, rome was a great & affordable city to be in during the mid-90s.
oh, i'm also a big complainer too! what can i say? viva blogs!!!!
I guess I'll never understand the whole fascination with Italy thing. While I like Italy a lot as a tourist destination it's not a place I ever thought about living...until I met Mr Right and he happenned to live in Rome.
Anyway - it does sound like your organisation skills might be of more use to you in a country which values organisation. But I guess only you can be the judge of that.
Makes me miss the TGV, suburban trains, and subways in France. They have an excellent network there. How come the Italians can't get it together?
Caroline - that is the eternal question. Why CAN'T the Italians get it together???
kataroma, yet another very good question.
WHy can't italians get their shit together??? beats me... i mean, i've been to cities in third world countries that had better-organized public transportation. BOH!!!
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