At bus stops, inside buses and bus terminals, you come across adverts urging public to buy “Go cards.” It allows you to take an A-1 route bus from Isa Town-Airport every 10 minutes, X2 and X3 every seven minutes to Budaiya Road etc. Definitely such offers must have benefited the company as it must have sold more cards – but I don’t think commuters have been benefited at all.
Zuhair Tawfiqi, in his column (GDN, July 31), said he has not met anyone praising Salmaniya Medical Complex. Likewise I have not so far enjoyed a single ride from Isa Town main terminal.
At intermediary bus stops like Khamees, American Mission Hospital and Manama Post Office, a bus not meeting a 10-minute arrival-departing deadline due to vehicular congestion and bad road habits is part of the process. But from the “starting point” at Isa Town, buses not leaving in 10 minutes as announced, is nothing but a commercial hype.
On Monday at 7.50pm, I disembarked from a route 70 bus at Isa Town main bus terminal to catch an A-1 bus to the airport. The bus was there – but displaying “Sorry, I am not in service”. It was not a surprise as it is a common sight at this place. It would have been a surprise not to see this sign displayed!
There are different lanes at this terminal. Within four minutes there were four buses smiling on waiting passengers with the sign, “Sorry, I am not in service”.
In lane for A-1, there were two buses; one “I am not in service” and the second waiting for its driver to end his enjoyment in the rest room. The first bus departed in 28 minutes after my arrival, at 8.18pm, not counting the time when the earlier one before my arrival, left.
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