Friday fun poll: have you ever found a lost item on transit and turned it in?
January 21, 2011
Friday fun poll: have you ever found a lost item on transit and turned it in?
January 21, 2011
This poll is inspired by VanTransient.ca, which is a lovely local blog devoted to transit stories, with an emphasis on storytelling! In August of last year, they ran a poll on lost items which I thought we could pay tribute to here :)
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Have you ever found a lost item on transit and turned it in?
Total Voters: 102 |
Feel free to elaborate on your experience in the comments, as usual!
Also, if you’re curious about our lost property office and what it collects, check out these past posts:
I lost my videocamera on the Sea Bus during the Olympics and it was turned in and I picked it up from the Lost Property office!
Never found anything but one time a girl sitting next to me got up and left all her ID on the seat. I flung out my arm & smacked her (lightly) as it was all I could think to do to get her attention on a noisy bus!
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by The Buzzer, iSkytrain. iSkytrain said: Friday fun poll: have you ever found a lost item on transit and turned it in? http://ff.im/-wFYW0 […]
I’ve turned in a few things over the years. About two years ago, I found a U-pass in a bus shelter at Granville and Pender, and turned it in to the Lost Property Office. Six months later, I left mine on a bus, and someone else was kind enough to turn it in — I got it back! So, TransLink, we’re even on that front. :3
I’ve lost my wallet on the bus once. not the best feeling in the world. Luckily I got it back though.
During the Olympics, upon exiting the Skytrain, a girl forgot her umbrella. As she was leaving, we tried to let her know, but she didn’t hear us. Someone decided to toss her umbrella on the platform just as the skytrain doors were closing (this analogy is for football fans, he basically threw a perfect completion in tight double coverage). She looked up, smiled and waved. Awesome moment.
These are some of the more bizarre items that have been found on London Transport: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2009/feb/13/london-transport-lost-property-items
I have never found any lost items, but I have seen about a million transfers on the floor of the bus and skytrain.
I paid attention to a cyclist who boarded a bus near Metrotown and went to sleep in the seat across from me in the back. At Cambie, he opened his eyes and ran out the open back doors as the bus was stopped. He went straight into the SkyTrain station. As it hit me that his bicycle was still in the rack up front, I watched him go down the escalator. Too late to shout after him. The bus stayed stopped for another minute or so and I hoped I would see him running back up so I could alert the driver.
It was rush hour and there’s a good chance he was already on a train. The bus started to leave and I lumbered up to the front, ready to break the bad news.
“Hey. I think that bicycle’s owner just ran off at Langara”, I said.
“Oh shoot! He wasn’t running up the side of the bus to get it, was he?”, She was horrified.
I explained what happened and the horror quickly turned to lighthearted speculation. “Oh to be a fly on the wall when it hits him!”
She said it happens from time to time and because this bus would be turning around at UBC, Both owner and cycle would likely reunite back at Cambie Street. “They always do”, She quipped.
A few years ago, my daughter left her jacket on the bus on the way to a gymnastics class. A little over an hour later on the way home, we caught the exact same bus back, and the exact same operator had the jacket hanging behind him, ready to hand in to the Lost Property Office. We were happy to relieve him of the chore.
A number of years ago I had a roommate who was a little absent minded. I answered the phone call from lost property when she left her small purse on the bus again (I was also laughing and asked if we could make an account for her).
I had no trouble picking it up as I could list off her vital stats, what her purse looked like and what was likely in it. She didn’t even know she’d lost it until after she returned home and I gave it back to her.
During the Olympics, my wife and I (collectively) left a camera on the Seabus. A few days later, we got a phone call from the Lost Property office informing us about it and where we could pick it up. Luckily we had attached a little thermal-label-maker label with our name and phone number to the camera strap. We hadn’t even realized the camera was gone by the time we received the phone call.
Great stuff!
Lost Property was pretty excited about it: they said that they get a lot of cameras turned in, but they often don’t get returned as there are almost never any names or phone numbers on a camera that can trace it back to its home. They highly recommended putting labels on stuff like cameras.
You need not have a label printer to make waterproof labels—you can make them easily enough with tape, paper, and some sort of marker (or printer).
I’ve turned in a few items over the years. Just a few months ago a passenger that was sitting beside me on the skytrain dropped their monthly pass as they got off the train. Right away I picked up the pass and ran out of the train, just before it left the station hoping to find the owner. Lucky I managed to find the owner at the bottom of the escalator, and returned the pass to them telling them that they had dropped their pass on the train.
About two weeks later I found an eco bag on the bus that contained some textbooks and a laptop. Right away I picked up the bag and gave it to the driver telling them that someone had left a bag behind.
I lost my backpack on the bus once and I realized it right away once I got home. I happened to remember the bus number and route number of the bus where I left my backpack. Right away I called the customer information line and through some checking and GPS locating the customer service representative happened to find where the bus I had left my bag was and I was able to get it back within about 45 minutes.
I’ve found a few wallets while riding the night bus and I’ve returned them. Although, I haven’t had to “turn them in”; I tracked down the owners on Facebook.
Ha, speaking of this, the lost property office is a way to get free stuff. Just go there and tell them you think you lost a black umbrella on the last week, but you don’t remember. There is bound to be a black umbrella lost somewhere in the week. Though I’ve never tried it, I bet it would work.
Also a question, does the stuff found on transit get donated after a month, or stored for 5 years at stadium?
Jacob: There’s no way we have storage space for all of it, so stuff gets donated after a certain time period. Here’s what I wrote up in one of the lost property posts:
[…] week I asked if you’d ever found a lost item on transit and turned it in. And after 102 votes, the poll was split right down the middle: 50% have turned a lost item in, and […]
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