It has been a while since I had to head up to SFU during the morning rush (ie. the need to get up to Burnaby Campus by 8:30 for that insanely early morning Calculus class or various other departments that think you should get classes at such absurb hours in the morning, or in my case, work). Just thought I would share some ways to beat the rush and get up there on time.

Start your trip early!

This is really one of those things that is easier said than done. Yes, you can wake up and leave the house earlier to catch some of the earlier buses, but that means leaving the cozy comforts of your nice warm bed, which constantly proves to be difficult time after time again. So what can you do to still make it on time?

Know the bus routes and catch the right bus.

There are four buses that go up to SFU Burnaby. Know their routes and note that with enough planning, you can find alternative routes on the not-so-well-used buses!

Since my route involves hopping onto the Millennium Line, there are two transfer points that I can make use of to get to SFU: Production Way (via the 145) and Sperling/Burnaby Lake (via the 144). Since you don’t get the ridiculous issues that appear with the 145 (see next point), I tend to catch the 144 these days, with nearly guaranteed seats.

Just know the schedules and you’ll be safe and on-time!

Line up properly.

This one really applies to those at Production Way waiting to catch the 145 up to SFU. The 145 employs a multi-door loading policy (unless the driver who pulls up is a door Nazi and refuses to open the other doors despite the fact there are transit employees checking fares right outside).

So you see that huge long lineup that extends to the staircase to the Skytrain station? Well, there’s one easy way that you can get onto the very next bus AND get a seat! (double bonus!) Just walk up to the bus shelter and line up for the other doors! It’s a perfectly legal move that no one during that morning rush makes use of (mainly because the huge line mostly consists of clueless first years..).

So I hope these tips will help various people beat the morning rush by transit up to SFU. Alternatively, you can just get a B-Lot pass and drive up, but that kinda gets expensive, don’t you think?

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 9:01 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.