It’s crazy. At the beginning of each and every month students line up by the hundreds in University Centre to get their hands on a bus pass for the next month. Even in the frigid winter months you can expect to wait in a congested line for your pass.

It is not exactly hard to realize why hundreds of students stand in line for bus passes; for the majority of students, the Winnipeg transit system is the only way for them to get around. Whether going to or from work, home and school alike, the transit system is readily available for thousands of students to utilize.
But busing around Winnipeg in the winter time can have its fair share of problems. From slippery conditions, freezing temperatures to delays, the list seems to constantly grow.

The Manitoban will now attempt to outline some of these problems and ways to cope with them.

1. Freezing temperatures
   We all know that Winnipeg winters can be vicious and unrelenting. While some people may say that our winters are warming, I tend to disagree. I can count time after time where my legs, hands and cheeks have frozen while walking to, or waiting at, my stop. But this was cured relatively quickly, as I took a lesson from my Grandpa: long johns. There is no doubt that wearing extra layers underneath your regular clothes will keep you warmer. If you have an extra few bucks lying around, pick yourself up some thermal underwear. They will not let you down.

2. Delays
   This is perhaps one of the biggest problems to combat while dealing with Winnipeg public transit. It is often the case that when one bus is delayed the majority of buses are delayed. It is not uncommon to miss your transfer as the result of a delay. As unfortunate as it may be, it happens. To combat this, I recommend attempting to catch the bus in an earlier time slot whenever possible. You may find yourself arriving early, but if better late than never truly applies so does better early than late.

3. People
   While I believe that it is fair to say that nobody is normal, there are definitely some individuals who make you rethink the definition of strange. Wild behaviours of all sorts and by all sorts of people on the bus seem to manifest during winter; people get pushy, irritated and just act weird. Not that summers are all that much different, but people are people after all. If you are up for an enlightening conversation then by all means strike up a conversation with one of these folk, but if not, keep to yourself and you should be good.

4. Having to pee
   Having to pee at an inopportune time can happen to anyone, anywhere. But there is no worse place for this to happen than on a bus in the middle of winter. You have to be somewhere at a certain time, so you can’t get off at the next stop. You are forced to wait until your stop, squirming the whole way there. There is one simple solution to this problem. Pee before you get on the bus; find some way to free up some time so that you can save yourself the discomfort of holding it.

While you travel by bus this winter be sure to take a few of these tips into consideration. We are just over half done with our freezing temperatures, so you don’t have you wait much longer until a large amount of your busing problems are done away with for another six months.