The Executive takes a 'shortcut'

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Last Friday morning, getting an executive bus from 'Price Rite' (as the Chancery Street, St Andrew, stop is still known, even though the supermarket which bequeathed the name has changed hands) is not hard.

 Getting onto one with semblance of good seating is another matter, as it is peak hours and the stop is at the terminus for buses going to Red Hills and Rock Hall, as well as a 'walk to' spot for some persons in Meadowbrook.

A reporter settles on one, though, expecting the usual stop and go ride to Half-Way Tree. Surprisingly there is no music - and the morning crowd does not seem particularly conversational. The traffic build-up starts at the T-Junction with Red Hills Road and the intrepid driver is not in a mood to wait for a break in traffic.

With one hand glued to his horn and the other curled around the steering, he barges into the traffic, only to join the line of traffic inching towards St Richard's Primary School. There are no stops at the two bus sheds before the school's gate, although a route taxi manages to squeeze around the bus and make a pick-up across from Price Smart.

The pace picks up after the bus clears St Richards, generating some much needed wind through the bus' open windows, but the driver does not get a chance to work up a good head of steam until after making a pick-up at the bus stop on the road across from Red Hills Mall. Then he heads into the straight towards Lee's Food Fair with the vengeance of one unleashed. And the driver will not suffer himself to wait in the traffic trickling towards Calabar.

It is 'off-route' time and the bus is swung left onto Sunset Drive, speeding through the residential community with disdain for the sanctity of homes, residents and pets. The driver rejoins the traffic about 200 metres further along Red Hills Road than he had been before turning off - and about 80 metres in front of the car he had been behind.

Speeding

The rest of the trip is a mixture of crawling and speeding into Half-Way Tree and the reporter pays the required $80 before coming off at the last stop on the strip of malls along the lower part of Constant Spring Road.

The Sunday Glea-ner news team has observed off-route activity on the Meadowbrook/ Havendale routes previously, with executive buses turning onto Sunset Drive as well as going left from Red Hills Road onto Three Oaks Avenue and re-entering the main road from Farewell Avenue.

On the Whitehall Avenue side the preferred executive shortcut is left onto Leicester Avenue, entering Red Hills Road from Carlisle Avenue.

The return journey to Red Hills Road, going against the traffic, is uneventful.