A circuitous trip and a famous joke from time past

In the late 1990s — the same time I first studied Socialist Alternative, Socialist Worker and Green Left Weekly and was startled at how they demonstrated political reality as completely different from what I learned in school — I briefly collected bus timetables in Melbourne. I was quietly appalled by the quality of service vis-à-vis what books like Environment, Capitalism and Socialism or even the more moderate Public Transport Users’ Association demonstrated as requisite for sustainable transport in Melbourne.

At the same time, my brother was critical of my interest in travelling on buses — an interest that has continued to this day. I often joke that

“if you want to understand global warming, ride on Melbourne’s bus services”

because it is clear to me that the woeful quality of bus and other public transport serves is a critical reason why Australia is rated the worst-performing nation in the world re greenhouse gas emissions. (At the same time, ecology increasing demonstrates Australia is required to be by far the best performed nation, as far ahead of the pack as Port Adelaide in the 1914 SAFL or Yorkshire in the 1901 County Championship).

Yesterday, after a brief conversation with my mother, I was allowed to spend my first day riding buses since the COVID pandemic. Before COVID, I would often spend days riding buses around Melbourne, and enjoyed it even though there often is not much to see from inside a bus.

I had had a plan to go on a bus route that I recall laughing about with my brother a great deal during the late 1990s — the bus from Moonee Ponds to Niddrie via Strathmore. My brother called that route, then numbered 501,

“a classically circuitous route”

at the same time as he complained a great deal about how circuitous almost all bus routes were vis-à-vis trains or trams. When I took this “classically circuitous route”, I was taken by what I thought was a joke saying (as I strongly recall it):

WHY IS THIS BUS
THE 501?
BECAUSE THAT IS THE PROBABILITY THAT IT WILL
BE EARLY OR LATE:
5/1

When I first read that, I presumed that meant the odds of it being early or late were 5 to 1 — which means it was on time five times out of six. My brother, however, said that it is much more likely that the old writing I had seen — if I recall correctly near Strathmore shops — was not a joke but an angry response to a user’s experience. That is, it was either early or late five times out of six, and on time only one time out of six. Actual experience does not tell me which is right, although I have ridden on buses many times, and they are often late though rarely outright cancelled as trains sometimes are.

At the same time, of course, the 501 could not plausibly have actually received its route number from being early or late five times out of six!

Yesterday, my first plan was to ride on the “classically circuitous” route, now part of the 469 alongside a modified Niddrie to East Keilor section from the old route 475. When I did this, I scanned reasonably carefully but could not see the old 501 writing noted above — it may well have been removed long before the route was modified — but I did find the long circuitous trip and the beef burger at Milleara Mall quite interesting. The terrain around Strathmore Heights is quite steep, even scenic, as is the lake area to the south of the Calder Freeway.