Dear evening female bus driver Sunday June 14,
I just wanted to let you know:
It was really irritating when you took extended stops to chat on your cell phone at the Spryfield Mall, Mumford Terminal, the Oxford Theater, and Scotia Square.
No one on the bus wants to listen to your inane conversations about your weekend, who got fired, etc.
Your Star Wars Theme song ring tone is ridiculous
Loudly commenting on “Gramps” in front of you slowing you down on Robie is so not cool… especially when it’s YOUR fault you’re late from sitting at stops yakking. Perhaps I would not bother bitching about you if you had bit your tongue… or if you let the young lady on at SMU who didn’t have enough change, but instead I’m left thinking you’re a real Catch U Next Tuesday.
—7:30 pick up
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2009.
hmm..I think I know the driver this is about.
Dont bother reporting it to HRM because bus drivers get away with everything and I mean everything!
Last week or so I was on the 52 at lacewood waiting patiently to LEAVE and get home and there were a group of drivers who were buddies and the driver of the 52 decided to take an extended break to chit chat/horse around with his co workers…we ended up leaving 5 minutes late and we had already gotten to lacewood 7 or 8 minutes early to begin with!
Fuck sakes. I understand the busses aren’t always going to be on time all the time, but that was just ridiculous, and not the first time it’s happened. Some of us have places to be/go and some of us have transfers to make and I’m sorry but that’s a bit more important than bus operators’ chit chat time.
They get away with it because complainants won’t put their concerns in writing and don’t follow up on the issue. I can assure you that the written method works best as letters of critism or complaint can become part of the driver’s employee file and the driver will also receive a copy of the complaint if it makes it to the discipline stage. Most often a driver (or any employee) will smarten up if a valid complaint is presented to them that could lead to sanctions.
If you decide to call in complaint to HRM’s call centre then make sure to demand a call back from a supervisor, get the file number from the call centre worker and call them back in a few days if you haven’t heard back from Metro Transit, and keep up the pressure by doing this until you get satisfaction.
Written complaints can be sent to the General Manager, something HRM frowns upon but it works, mark it personal/confidential to her attention so the drones won’t get ahold of it:
Patricia Soanes, General Manager
Metro Transit
Halifax Regional Municipality
200 Ilsley Ave
Dartmouth N.S., B3B 1V1
Star Wars theme ringtone….classic.
Well Bon, they don’t get away with everything……Think back a couple months……
There’s a bus driver who looks like Johnny Depp? I need to get back on the bus more often!
What ever happened to knocking on the window loudly and pointing to your watch or the clock on your cell phone?
Do people really point at the clock on their cell phones to indicate someone is late? I think I’d understand people pointing at their naked wrist far more than someone tapping their phone, that to me means I have a phone call.
I don’t wear a watch so I point at my blank wrist (or watch if I ever wear one). Picked it up watching Happy Gilmore actually.
PDG you dont scare me and you are not a transit driver to begin with, maybe a stalker.
I reported Bon’s comment too, PDG.
Campbell doesn’t even work at transit any more!!Hes been gone for months! As a Buzz D River myself there are times when you do arrive at a terminal a lil early but that doesn’t mean you can leave early. There is a timetable for a reason. Now I know ur going to say “but Buzz what about talking to other drivers after its time to leave?” well some drivers who know their route well know they can make up time on route to their next terminal. If these drivers left on time every time you would be pulled over at every TIME POINT waiting for the clock to catch-up to you. Then it would seem even worse if you waited at every time point for 2-3 minutes. I know this is hard for some to understand but thats OK! Most drivers are thick skinned (&thick headed)we can take it! Go ahead VENT! We’ll still love yas.
I wouldnt say a hot version of jhonny depp though
But Buzz — what about those of us who need to get somewhere between time points? Like we’re SO close and we have to wait an extra 5-10 minutes because you guys wanna chit chat. C’mon! blah. Sometimes we just want to get the fuck home.
If that new go-time tracking system is working then passengers can simply look at the screen (overhead and easy to look at on the NewFlyer’s), if the letter L plus a number (ie. L2) is showing then the bus is 2 minutes late, E2 would indicate early by two minutes and the driver can’t leave that timing point until it reverts to on-time.
So the drivers are outside talking and you see L5 on the screen, go outside and point it out.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OMG voice of reason: I love that idea.
” If that new go-time tracking system is working “
its not!! If a driver leaves a timepoint even 30 seconds early/late it screws the system up. Plus sometimes the system reads a bus as outbound and not inbound, as they pass the same spot in both directions, and will give a wrong time. So ya in a perfect world the whole L2 or E2 thing would work. And Pretty Kitty “But Buzz — what about those of us who need to get somewhere between time points?” I don’t want to come off like a smart-ass cuz I’m really not, but if you “NEED” to be some place between time points and 5 mins makes a huge difference you really should take an earlier bus.
hmm, yeah 5-10 minutes isn’t a big deal, but half an hour to an hour in freezing ass cold weather SUCKS! but that’s just my opinion.
Buzz – It has to be working to a certain degree as I watched the driver of a #1 leave the bridge terminal with the display reading L4. I timed the lead-footed trip back to Scotia Square and he’d gotten back on time when he reached the stop at Metro Turning Point. The display showed he was a minute early when he pulled into Scotial Square.
Can the drivers just admit it when they are wrong??? Leave the timing points on time and give us a fair chance at making connections.
Come on VOR it’s GPS it is not exact. It is fairly accurate when working 100% but its not perfect. Just as every watch doesn’t keep the same time they are all off some what!! How are the drivers wrong?? Admit what??
Buzz – I took 7 different buses today and 6 of those drivers followed the early/late time on the screen to the letter when getting to time points on their paddle card, even I can accept a minute or two late leaving said points as its a lot better than running a minute or two early and missing people.
The seventh driver however was at Mumford and I had to ask him when he planned on ending his cell phone conversation and get back on the bus – the display was reading L4 at that point.
If your display says its 12:15pm and your paddle card or schedule booklet says you should have left x point at 12:10 and you are still on your phone or chatting with buddies then by all means passengers have a valid complaint. I figured the L5 that would be on your display would mean something… perhaps some drivers need a supervisor holding their hand.
Metro Transit needs to consider a guarantee system like the system in Laval QC has, you can expect drivers & transit personel (and management) to be held accountable for situations that arise under normal operating conditions. The link to their English page: http://www.stl.laval.qc.ca/gq/garantie-en.…
The other thing that needs to happen is to convince ATU Local 508 that passengers are not the enemy and that we are tired of being held hostage everytime management tries to do something that might improve the system for all involved. This could include bringing in a private, contracted-out transit operation company when the next contract can’t be agreed to. Many systems in North America are operated as management/operation outsourced contracts and it works just fine, most often to the benefit of the riders.
Perhaps HRM could start looking into this before the current contract comes up for negotiations and tell the union “this is how it will be”. Work out a suitable agreement in a timely manner or we can shut the system down for 72 hours, lay everyone off, transfer buses and assets to a ready-to-take-over company and then let the private company rehire who they want, or hopefully HRM had the private company working in the background for the last 60 days or so and have new drivers ready to take over the first day.
If ATU pickets go up at the garages then have the cops pick em up, former employees can’t picket someplace that is not longer connected with their former jobs.
Buzz, it’s not so much needing to be somewhere at a certain time moreso than the simple frustration of having a long day and wanting to just GO HOME and having to wait around on a bus after it’s supposed to have left, and where’s the driver? Outside carrying on with a group of other drivers.
You gotta admit, if you were in our situation, you’d be a little annoyed too (as was everyone on the bus who were commenting on how the bus should’ve left by then and who were looking at watches, etc…).
“This could include bringing in a private, contracted-out transit operation company “
Just like Stock and the school board right…cuz that was smart???? Cuz under paid drivers would be soooo much better, and do such a better job, cuz they would really care about their $11/hr job.
VOP & Kitty I agree I would be pissed too I’m sure but i think if the drivers take a few minutes to chit chat and don’t leave right on time its not a major problem.
Actually Buzz, if a driver leaves 5 minutes late, that usually makes them late 15 minutes getting to the terminal (this being in normal/heavy traffic). I take a bus every morning that this happens on. It’s supposed to leave at 735, doesn’t leave till 740, 745 and doesn’t arrive downtown until almost 830 or 825. The bus is supposed to arrive at 815. Now, while I admit that those times are not an exact science, but after riding that bus for the past 4 months, I’ve got enough information to make an informed decision. 15 minutes is the difference between me getting to work on time and me not being on time and given that the buses that I can take are either way too early or too late, I can’t even alter which bus I take to ensure a more consistent result.
Buzz – I only said outsourcing, never said anything about low-ball wages. The city can easily add a clause to a contract telling the contractor what the minimum acceptable pay rate would be. The contractor in turn would adjust their bid to reflect this. You could still have drivers making $15 to $22 an hour but the difference would be accountability to their employer, which doesn’t exist at the moment thanks to your union, a portion of your drivers and HRM bureaucrats.
HRM contracted out their school buses to save money which led Stock to bid low and the drivers are the ones that paid for that. But HRM isn’t innocent as the HRSB forced Stock to cut millions a few years back to keep the contract and the drivers had wages rolled back and lost pension and other benefits.
Contracting out transit while paying decent wages might actually bring in people who are happy to do the job, thats something that many of your co-workers seem to forget and come to work expecting to get away with purposely running late / missing connections or trating passengers like crap. A private operator wouldn’t tolerate that kind of behaviour from drivers. The public would be the ones benefiting.
Fever — I think I used to take the bus you’re describing when I worked in Dartmouth. It’s NOTORIOUS for getting DT late. I had to start taking the 7:05, which was ridiculous because I didn’t have to be at work until 9 (I had to cross the bridge and the 7:35 bus would JUST make me miss the 51 at the bridge terminal because it was LATE LATE LATE). Seriously a 2hr commute from Clayton Park to Dartmouth (not even deep in dartmouth — I worked on Windmill just past the dockyard annex) is ridiculous.
Seriously leave on time and we won’t be complaining about this.
buy a car and avoid this shit
Just what HRM needs: more traffic.
Also: I have a car, dipshit, but 60 bucks a month is A LOT cheaper than gas/parking (esp DT).
Jesus.
*facepalms* I take one day off from this and look what happens to the thread. Wow.
Well then PK, you get what you pay for. If you want to be on time then you can only count on yourself.
I don’t see why it’s so unreasonable to bitch about drivers fucking around instead of doing their jobs.
I agree PK. I do understand if they have to run to the washroom but to stand around chatting would piss me off too.
Probably, it usually doesn’t get to the bridge till 8:20 or so. I wouldn’t give damn normally, but it’s not unreasonable to expect a transit system to stay within 15 minutes of a designated time. All because the guy reads his paper those extra 10 minutes. I’m all for those guys taking a break (they sure as hell deserve it) but at the designated times. If their union can negotiate a 20% wage increase, they can negotiate a proper break time.
XOX and Basil — yeah, you do get what you pay for, congestion, 120 dollar a month parking, insurance, lease/loan payments and gas. Sounds like you’ve got more money than brains. Also, still no guarantee of being on time.