It’s the very nature of inflation that prices rise; over time we have to pay more for things. This is not a new concept, it’s been happening for years. I thought – apparently somewhat foolishly – that we all knew about inflation, but apparently this is a dirty, foreign alien concept to bus passengers.
This morning my usual morning commute had one change to it: it was not the overcrowed bus, nor was it the soggy Metros which coat the floor, nor was it even a change in the usual eau d’sweat that clings to every molecule of air in the sweat box on wheels. No, it was the price of the journey.
For the past couple of weeks I’ve seen signs on every single bus indicating that fares would be changing; the posters clearly indicated what the changes would be – they were well set out so all you needed to do was to find your current fare and there – right next to it – was the new fare. The line at the top of the poster told you when the change would take place, there was really no clearer way of explaining this.
This morning, the side of every single bus that I saw had a new decal on it explaining the new fares – it even came with a brightly coloured space-hopper theme. In short, this change in fares was so well advertised that had you not realised what was going to be happening then you really shouldn’t be allowed to ride the bus unaccompanied.
Bus passengers of Glasgow, apparently, think they are immune to the fares that are charged to bus passengers of Glasgow. On just the one journey this morning the range of their reactions ran the gamut from irate: “This is an outrage”, to bartering “I’ll give you £1.60 and get off a stop early” and one particularly strange woman who refused to buy a £1.80 ticket and instead bought two 90 pence tickets insisting that they allowed her to travel further (no luv, they don’t, you’ve just paid twice for a shorter journey).
I don’t understand how people can think this behaviour is acceptable; you know the cost of something and therefore you have the choice to buy the goods/service or not. If the cost of a pint of milk went up would you start shouting at the acne-riddled-bored-as-all-hell-cashier? No, I don’t think you would, you’d pay the required amount, take it home, pour it all over your Crunchy Nut cornflakes and go about your day like a even-tempered individual. Why does that change because it’s a bus journey instead of milk?
Isn’t it usually the beginning of April when bus fares go up, so shouldn’t passengers have remembered from last year? And surely that passenger doesn’t imagine that the fare has always been £1.60. It must have gone up at some point in the past.
Also means you will have the same joy to look forward to next April