This morning I was waiting at the Lacewood terminal. I had a five minute wait for my bus. So I stood there, eating an apple, looking at the out of service bus at the curb and wondering if it was going to turn into the 16. Then the bus driver changed the sign. I saw that it was indeed the 16, so I turned around to throw my apple in the garbage (no food on the bus, you know), and in the time it took me to do that the bus pulled away from the curb!
I chased after it, waving my bus pass, and fortunately he stopped, but not without giving me a dirty look.
“Well,” I said, “You don’t give a person much time.”
His look got dirtier. “I’ve been sitting here for 20 minutes!” he barked.
“Yes,” I said reasonably, “but how would a person know what route it was?” He just rolled his eyes at me, and I decided to let it go.
I am generally supportive of transit drivers. I know that their job is stressful. But it is behavior like this that makes the public less than sympathetic.
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2007.
And they wonder why the drivers have been targets of youth violence…I am not condoning it in anyway, just that teenagers generally respond to that kind of disrespect with violence. The drivers make calls to the public pleading their innocence and it’s funny because 1 in 2 people have been treated rudely and worse by the MT drivers! I think it’s time to have Driver numbers so you can report the bad apples…and adjust the Union rules for termination of employment to include a 3 offense limit, you get caught treating the public (which as far as I know is the only “client” of MT) then you should be turfed out on your ass with no pay.
yeah, some of them have problems…to quote the movie “there are schedules to be maintained…even in Columbia”. Schedules appear to be cosmic in nature, print or electronic, go time or not, the bus flies by on its way into town 10 minutes ahead of schedule (hello..we’re being green but we have to be at work and waiting half an hour because we’ve missed you enroute to your bagged breakfast waiting downtown isn’t a big selling point). Sometimes they are so engrossed in why their life sucks, that they just don’t bother to pull over and stop, ah, reverie… I guess that explains why a certain person driving the 80 at a time of the morning that is obviously too early for him, is not a surgeon.Call the city and fill in a complaint by phone. It won’t go anywhere but call you city counsellor too.