TPG does it again!

So, every year about this time, the 2nd or 3rd Monday in December, usually the one after the Escalade weekend, the TPG (Transports Publics Genevois) changes the schedule and routes for the buses and trams.  They put the changes on the website, all the paper schedules posted at the stops have the expiration date fairly clearly printed, and the screens on the buses and trams carry the announcements as well.  Now, you know from reading my previous posts about the TPG that the screens don't always work.  And, putting the changes on the website? Well, that would require effort on the part of the customer that most probably won't put forth. 
I did look up, on Friday, the forthcoming changes to my daily commute, so I've been irked since then.  Still, it was funny to watch the reactions this morning of the commuters who didn't know what was coming.  I take the number 9 to the station and then the V or Z up to school.  This past Fall, it's been not too bad.  I get on the 7.20 or 7.26 bus to the station and then the 7.43 (though sometimes if the 7.26 is running late, I miss this one) to school.  Or the 7.58.  Either way, this allows me to be in a good headspace to start my day. 
The 9 bus route still gets me to and from home and station.  Last December, the TPG shortened the 9 route, ending it at the station instead of it continuing on to CERN.  This, they did not publicize well and I spent a week looking for the 9 bus stop that would take me home not realizing that I should just get on the bus exactly where I got off of it that morning.  Whatever.  Water under the bridge.  The 9 bus still got me where I needed to be more than any other bus line in the city.  Partly because it stops just about outside my door.  BUT, now the number 9 no longer goes through Bel Air.  They say it's because of construction, but there are other buses that are continuing through Bel Air, so why can't the 9? Instead, the 9 is being routed across the Mont Blanc bridge.  Now, I don't have a car, but even I know that the Mont Blanc bridge is pretty much exactly where you don't want to be between the hours of 7 and 9 in the morning.  We stopped three times on the Mont Blanc bridge this morning, pausing for minutes and minutes and minutes.  The bus stops at one fewer bus stop than before, but it now takes longer to get to the station.  To the TPG's credit, they announced right before the Metropole bus stop (the last stop before the bridge) the change in the route.  But the TPG didn't take into account uncaffeinated and not totally awake commuters.  I listened to the announcement and snorted because I knew the moment we turned right to cross the bridge, there would be chaos and confusion.  And sure enough, right on cue, half the people on the bus converged on the driver.  He opened the door and let some of the people off, but when the light changed, he had to go so that we could sit in traffic on the bridge.  People were not happy.  I don't really blame them.  I knew about the change and I was annoyed.
I got to the station in what would normally have been plenty of time to catch the 7.43, but of course, I knew from looking it up on Friday, that there was no longer a 7.43.  It is now a 7.35 for which of course, I did not arrive in time.  Between the 7.35 and 8.00 there is nothing.  Nothing but an F bus that doesn't go as far up the hill as I would like.  There used to be a 7.2? (which I almost never caught), the 7.43 and the 7.58.  These were all fine and good, but now, now, ugh.  I hate the new schedule.  It's like the TPG was out to screw me personally.  And I know that that's not true, because really, I think they were out to screw a majority of their daily riders.  I know that I'm better off without a car.  I know that my bank account is better off without a car, but the TPG is not making it easy for me to love taking the bus.  I like public transport, I want to like public transport, but every December around this time, I'm really not so keen.

All right, fine, I looked it up.  The TPG is routing all sorts of other public transport away from Bel Air.  They have just made getting to G's a whole lot harder than it needed to be.  Re-working the tram line at my inconvenience?!  Who do they think they are, making life easier for a whole lot of other people? ;)  I really just wish the TPG would communicate the changes better.  The change to the 9 bus route should have been made into a poster and stuck on every single stop on the 9 line for at least two weeks before the change.   It's not like they decided this overnight.