Bus News I

So, I have been thinking and thinking about this topic a while now and thought I would write about it because it is very personal to me. 
  About a year and a half ago, Long Rock was telling me about how the city Mayor of Çorlu, Turkey had decided that the city of Çorlu, instead of using the buses they have had for the last 12 years, they would spend 10 million lira on 65 new buses and then he decided to make the bus system owned by the government of Çorlu and not privately owned. This is the buses that have been the mainstay of transportation in Çorlu.
You might be asking what this has to do with me. 
  The Long Rock's Dad whom I call Baba (meaning Dad in Turkish) drives a bus that looks like that one ever day now for the last maybe 15 years. He is retired from working and yet, this bus driving job is not just something he loves to do, he gets extra income coming in so we have no stress for extra things. Baba loves doing this job too, and he is a very good driver. 
  The city decided that the old buses can no longer operate. There are many political things that I do not understand but apparently,The Mayor of Çorlu is personally responsible for the smooth transition, and was supposed to be fair. He was supposed to be non partial to the new buses and for the first couple days he had the appearance of it
  As of April 23rd of 2011 the new buses were supposed to operate. I had a strange feeling the next days to come as I would see them on my way to and from my classes. 
The Trafik Polise would come and make sure that people were able to safely board both types buses. I felt uneasy about that because I thought what kind of problem could there be?
 Apparently some people  working for the Mayor of Çorlu just do not want those blue mini buses to run. 
    The Prime Minister of Turkey right now is saying that is was OK for the mini buses to run, and even many people are looking into the Parliament Laws of Turkey to see if the Mayor is breaking any laws by acting like this to the Blue (old) Bus drivers.
 There are many disadvantages to the new minibuses.
   First, the new buses are longer. this city is very narrow streets and no where to walk. Wider and longer buses although you can carry more people is not feasible. 
    Second, the new buses require all passengers to get a ticket before riding the buses. Instead of coins, you are supposed to hand over a ticket. Well, what if you do not have one and it is 11 pm and a blizzard outside and everything is wet and cold and Zombies are chasing you and the only way to get away from the mad hungry zombies is to get on a new bus. Sadly, the zombies will have to eat you because no way will you be able to get  on the bus because you do not have a ticket... And forget that many foreigners will come and have no idea what the heck is going on because they do not speak Turkish, and they will not understand you have to buy a ticket to get onto a bus... really stupid. 
Third: They are more expensive. 
  A couple weeks ago the Blue bus drivers thought things were doing to get better but , sadly the Mayor of Çorlu was just funking around



  Want the latest? 
Right now they are getting fines for petty and not true things like being operated with out a license, when of course they have one, saying the can not function in Çorlu because they look to old, and even went as far as saying they were not safe and when the owner said OK I will buy new ones the Mayor said you can not buy new ones you have to keep the old ones.  One day, ALL Blue Bus drivers in Çorlu got a ticket. If they get 5 they will get their license revoked! But they did nothing to get it. 

    REALLY??  So now he is tying the hands of the Blue Bus Drivers and then being somewhat of a Bully.
 It seems like the mayor of this city feels like he can dictate this section of Trakya aka Thrace)... 
 I hope it gets better for the Baba here. He deserves to be able to work and not worry about money in his age! I encourage all to throw a tomato at this bus:

     
  So, there have been stand offs and one bus window was smashed... and many other things happening with this bus news... 

The following are more pictures of Bus News:  

This is the Mayor of Çorlu. He looks nice enough, until you find out he wants to do away with all blue buses.

Standoff with police because the Mayor got new buses

The Head of the CHP Party. I do not know why, but he does not like blue buses.

Snuggle never said I could not post a pic of him. He just said he did not want to have his real name in my blog. 

 I took down a pic of "the boys". I don't want to hear how I "violated any rules"