Public Transport Woes in Poland

Posts moved from another thread

But Harry - the fact remains - this transport thing is a definite problem in today's busy Poland as you know, and yet the thread was binned. By the Mod/owner - who doesn't appreciate that while this is not the epitome of Polish social issues, it is non-the-less a right royal pain in the butt.

He would rather we talk about whether Polish women have lager genitals than African women et al.

Weird, and annoying.

Yep, best thing to do would be burn every bus, or get a car and never have to deal with the public transport losers again. You'll only have to deal with crazy drivers then, but at least you won't have to put up with smelly armpits on the bus. Tis the season for that.

That's just not a viable option in Warsaw: finding parking spaces is a nightmare.

There are plenty of parking spaces in Waw most are mainly paid in the centrum...

I am using Warsaw public transport since many years on a daily basis. What irritates me is (based on me daily commuting to work by ZTM)

1. People with prams using this as a nuclear weapon to get space in the standing area, whatever how many people there are on the bus / tram

2. People (mostly pensioners) occupying a seat on the aisle side, blocking access to the window side which is empty. They do this on purpose
3. People insisting on buying from the driver a ticket and slowing down everything, even when there is a ticket machine on the bus
4. Perfectly healthy pensioners thinking they have God's given right to about any place on the bus /tram. Less on the metro because somehow they avoid that mode of transport

5. People with shopping carts, using them as a weapon to get a place double as they should get

And the smelly ones - somehow they always find money to buy their alcohol but not for bar of soap - which is cheaper.

As inspired by Pam:


I have decided to answer/moan about the topics mentioned:


1. In their defence, the open spaces on buses and trams is there for wheelchairs and prams. I do get annoyed when it's filled with bicycles, if you have a bike, why don't you cylcle it instead of taking up a load of space on the bus/tram??

2. I hate this...seriously, because you're old it means you can't follow common courtesy and your bag somehow needs a seat because, what, it's got a pension pass too?

3. In Kraków they have combatted this by only offering hour tickets for sale by the driver, which means if you can't use the machine or don't have a ticket you need to pay 5PLN for one off the driver. Although, in saying that, sometimes the automats are out of order and I think they do that on purpose to raise funds so people have to buy a more expensive ticket.

4. I will always give my seat up to someone that I feel deserves it, however, I am not going to feel like a terrible person because someone who's just turned 60 (or whatever age it is, it's a long while before I need to worry about it) and got their pass wants my seat.

5. I don't want to single out the older people with their little shopping carts, but people with huge backpacks that refuse to put them at their feet and go wandering about bumping everyone and taking up two people's spaces on a crowded bus deserve to pay double!

True. Very annoying. Then can, however, be pulled from behind and removed from the bus without being able to resist. This has the added benefit of being highly amusing to other passengers.

My personal bête noire is mobile phone calls. I mean loud, hour-long conversations which prevent you from reading your book or even thinking.

Yup, again, old people are bad offenders for this. Screaming into their phone like it's a long distance call in 1902 and not realising that, just because they can't hear so good, they don't need to shout!

I have no problem with people picking up their phone on public transport, but don't disturb everyone else. Keep it brief and quiet...

I'd quite like to see a signal blocker on public transport, if there was any way of blocking voice calls and allowing the internet. Annoying though when people (usually very young people) play pop music from their phones. One thing I notice a lot on the Warsaw Metro is people with headphones playing music so loud that other people can hear what they're listening to.

Another odd thing in PL is people allowing children to sit while adults stand.

Seen that loads of times here, and I also agree with everything Sobieski said in that original post.

As for signal blockers, in London they are going to make mobile calls possible in the subway trains! All I can say is please someone stop them, it was one place of escape.

From this morning's trip to work, why oh why do schools taking kids to the cinema demand to use standard public buses to transport an entire classfull of screaming brats during rush hour??