I’m in love with my bus: Meet the die-hard 144 fans who fostered a community out of a bus route

Do you love the 144 bus route? 

You are not alone. An instagram page dedicated to the bus — ifuckinglovethe144somuch — has accumulated more than 22,000 followers over the last couple of years.

I sat down and had a chat with one of the page's two administrators, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity, to find out what’s so special about this humble bus line running between Chatswood and Manly.

How did the idea for the page come about? 


I grew up catching that bus to school every day, so I kind of, in a weird way, had that nostalgic connection with it.

In 2022, it was my first year of uni. I got the bus home from class one day and it was really late and I was stuck in traffic because I think a water pipe burst on the Spit Bridge. It was really backed up, I was there for hours, but I remember I got off the B-Line at Spit Junction and I got on the 144, and I was stuck on there for ages. So eventually I just started texting my friend and I was like, ‘I love the 144’.

I was just like, I fucking love the 144, and I found it quite funny, they found it funny too, and it just became an inside joke between my group of friends that way.

Then, the other admin of the page, he was suggesting the idea of starting a meme page about it, because we both had previous meme pages in the past, growing up. So I was like ‘You know what? Sure’.

So we started sharing our own 144 memes, shitposting together, and started spam posting, and that’s how we got our start.

ifuckinglovethe144somuch

22K followers

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The 144 tribute seems to have inspired other bus pages across the country. How do you feel about them — imitators, rivals or part of a larger community?

I think it's definitely a community. It's actually quite nice because, to me and to my friend, we feel like we accidentally created something. It's cool to see how we started this chain reaction of other people with the same humour as us, the same passions.

Do you guys have beef with any other bus routes? 

There's an account that popped up in the early days of starting the account, called @Ifuckinghatethe144somuch. That was a bit of a fun rivalry. We also like to joke about hating the 199, because both me and my friend, who also runs the page, have had really bad experiences on the 199. So we also like to have a bit of beef with the ‘I love the 199’ page, but we don't think it's real, we're not actually beefing with people, we’re just having a bit of fun.

What's your favourite dead bus route? 

I guess I'm kind of biased, but I remember the 143 was definitely my favourite as well, because when I went to school it was either the 144 or the 143. I also remember the 132 that took you around Balgowlah. During high school I'd always catch the bus to my friend's house, that's a bus I really miss.

How did the process of privatisation hit the 144 community? 


I got a few DMs about it. A lot of the people in my community were upset about, for example, bus routes being axed. I think there was a time in early 2023 where all the bus drivers were on strike and there were no routes going into Manly, and people were upset. It’s not good for the 144 community.

Should we buy back the buses?

100 percent. I think because the Northern beaches don't have trains, I definitely think we need more buses, more bus routes.