Sunday, July 23, 2006
Bus Drivers Ignore People About to Transfer
Another thing, believe it or not, but it is, another thing that sucks about the current MTA.
There is no concurrence between buses that stop versus buses that take off; they're all left to chance.
Wow, We Made the First Boxing Round, And Here Comes Another:
There's a whole long list of issues about the Los Angeles transit system that bus riders may have to go through, before they get to this, yet another issue that adds to them: Once you get off a bus (after having had to maybe wait for it long, maybe rub elbows with a packed crowd on it for 40-plus minutes, and so forth), and when it's time to transfer to a second bus, even though the drivers (and MTA certainly has had plenty of time to figure it out) know that a bus with prospective transferrers is dropping them off, just across the street from these drivers, they don't wait for these customers, but ignore them and head off, so that the transferrers will have to wait another unpredictable period of time for the next bus.
This is arrogance. It's a slap in the face, yet another one, of bus riders. What the hell is the issue with them that they can't stop for a few extra seconds to let the new customers on? They rather ignore people and let them wait for the next bus, even if that means a 15-30 minute extra wait. This is on top of all the other issues. A bus rider may have had to ride standing for 30-60 minutes--regardless of their age-- some women are even pregnant or are holding their babies/infants, but have to stand up in a packed crowd in unsafe conditions for sometimes close to an hour, only to be freaking ignored by the next bus driver and thus must wait for another wasted period of time before they can get to their freaking home, or wherever it is, in a city that is too large to expect people to navigate it on foot.
What is the big deal about synchronizing the buses so that when one bus lets riders off, the next bus waits for them before taking off? It is this stinging arrogance that makes it possible to devote a daily blog to an issue as fundamental to the public as the grocery store, because it's so bad.
And the drivers, seemingly anything between 30-50% of them, are lazy bastards who don't deserve the salary they receive. They don't do their job. Some people work for less than $7 an hour and don't even complain. Yet these idiots can't even live up to common decency and basic human respect, let alone do the job they're supposed to. They keep giving the finger to bus riders, over and over, and the MTA doesn't care. Yet they expect to convince people to abandon their cars in favor of their overall lousy service.
Clearly, the MTA can't even take care of even basic, easy things, such as not being an ass when it's avoidable. It's not even an issue of doing a basic service; it's about not being an ass in cases like these. Between being polite and a jerk, MTA chooses, apparently deliberately, to be the jerk. They choose to not hold the door for the person behind them even it doesn't save them any money.
There is no concurrence between buses that stop versus buses that take off; they're all left to chance.
Wow, We Made the First Boxing Round, And Here Comes Another:
There's a whole long list of issues about the Los Angeles transit system that bus riders may have to go through, before they get to this, yet another issue that adds to them: Once you get off a bus (after having had to maybe wait for it long, maybe rub elbows with a packed crowd on it for 40-plus minutes, and so forth), and when it's time to transfer to a second bus, even though the drivers (and MTA certainly has had plenty of time to figure it out) know that a bus with prospective transferrers is dropping them off, just across the street from these drivers, they don't wait for these customers, but ignore them and head off, so that the transferrers will have to wait another unpredictable period of time for the next bus.
This is arrogance. It's a slap in the face, yet another one, of bus riders. What the hell is the issue with them that they can't stop for a few extra seconds to let the new customers on? They rather ignore people and let them wait for the next bus, even if that means a 15-30 minute extra wait. This is on top of all the other issues. A bus rider may have had to ride standing for 30-60 minutes--regardless of their age-- some women are even pregnant or are holding their babies/infants, but have to stand up in a packed crowd in unsafe conditions for sometimes close to an hour, only to be freaking ignored by the next bus driver and thus must wait for another wasted period of time before they can get to their freaking home, or wherever it is, in a city that is too large to expect people to navigate it on foot.
What is the big deal about synchronizing the buses so that when one bus lets riders off, the next bus waits for them before taking off? It is this stinging arrogance that makes it possible to devote a daily blog to an issue as fundamental to the public as the grocery store, because it's so bad.
And the drivers, seemingly anything between 30-50% of them, are lazy bastards who don't deserve the salary they receive. They don't do their job. Some people work for less than $7 an hour and don't even complain. Yet these idiots can't even live up to common decency and basic human respect, let alone do the job they're supposed to. They keep giving the finger to bus riders, over and over, and the MTA doesn't care. Yet they expect to convince people to abandon their cars in favor of their overall lousy service.
Clearly, the MTA can't even take care of even basic, easy things, such as not being an ass when it's avoidable. It's not even an issue of doing a basic service; it's about not being an ass in cases like these. Between being polite and a jerk, MTA chooses, apparently deliberately, to be the jerk. They choose to not hold the door for the person behind them even it doesn't save them any money.
Comments:
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Actually, one the biggest problems MTA has is recruiting new drivers. Bus trips are sometimes cancelled because there aren't enough drivers to fill the assignments. The salary just isn't enough to make qualified people put up with the crazy hours and stressful working conditions. The fact that you don't understand this suggests that you don't know much about the bus system.
Management was forced to institute a larger pay raise for this contract. They will have to put in even bigger raises if they want to keep their work force. (Let's face it, people who work for seven bucks an hour are people who don't have the skills to do anything else. Bus drivers don't fall into that category.)
Drivers are advised to wait for transfers when they can. If a bus is running more than a few minutes late, waiting is not feasible. The people who are already on the bus have to get where they're going too.
Passengers like yourself are typically irrational about this point. They never realize that if the bus was running strictly on time, it would have passed by before they got there. On high ridership lines, another bus is coming in ten minutes or so.
Management was forced to institute a larger pay raise for this contract. They will have to put in even bigger raises if they want to keep their work force. (Let's face it, people who work for seven bucks an hour are people who don't have the skills to do anything else. Bus drivers don't fall into that category.)
Drivers are advised to wait for transfers when they can. If a bus is running more than a few minutes late, waiting is not feasible. The people who are already on the bus have to get where they're going too.
Passengers like yourself are typically irrational about this point. They never realize that if the bus was running strictly on time, it would have passed by before they got there. On high ridership lines, another bus is coming in ten minutes or so.
# posted by 
: 7:39 PM
: 7:39 PM
If drivers feel they're overqualified for the salary they receive, it doesn't justify them acting in arrogant ways toward the customers who have nothing to do and no say in the salary they get, period.
On many lines, such as La Brea, the bus doesn't come very often. The implications on transfers not being congruent with eachother, can be severe on those lines, yet they keep happening, and I'm tired of you and other's excuses. When you see everyone from children to the elderly stand for 20-30 minutes in uncertainty and you Know the frustration they feel (since life can be tough as is, without a damn bus agency compounding it), you don't go and say it's ok because the drivers get too little pay. Then, it's the MTA, the focus on this blog, that needs to Raise those salaries. I'm tired of the riders having to take all the punches for their incompetence. Public transportation is about life, it's not some "extra" or some topping commodity. They treat it like it was.
It appears that drivers NEVER wait for transferrers. You guys need to understand that there are other transit systems in the world (i.e. Los Angeles transit system isn't the only one) which can easily be used as backdrops for comparison.
And there's something about arrogance, don't care what it sais on paper, but on the ground, there is arrogance. Sometimes the driver had a matter of seconds to wait for transferrers to catch up with the bus, but chose to drive away anyway. That's not because they "had to". It's because they chose to.
Also keep your smug attitude away. Aren't you transit-advocate disguised as anonymous? What's your true agenda, is it to inform or just be self-righteous?
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On many lines, such as La Brea, the bus doesn't come very often. The implications on transfers not being congruent with eachother, can be severe on those lines, yet they keep happening, and I'm tired of you and other's excuses. When you see everyone from children to the elderly stand for 20-30 minutes in uncertainty and you Know the frustration they feel (since life can be tough as is, without a damn bus agency compounding it), you don't go and say it's ok because the drivers get too little pay. Then, it's the MTA, the focus on this blog, that needs to Raise those salaries. I'm tired of the riders having to take all the punches for their incompetence. Public transportation is about life, it's not some "extra" or some topping commodity. They treat it like it was.
It appears that drivers NEVER wait for transferrers. You guys need to understand that there are other transit systems in the world (i.e. Los Angeles transit system isn't the only one) which can easily be used as backdrops for comparison.
And there's something about arrogance, don't care what it sais on paper, but on the ground, there is arrogance. Sometimes the driver had a matter of seconds to wait for transferrers to catch up with the bus, but chose to drive away anyway. That's not because they "had to". It's because they chose to.
Also keep your smug attitude away. Aren't you transit-advocate disguised as anonymous? What's your true agenda, is it to inform or just be self-righteous?
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