I understand that Metro Transit buses need schedules. I also understand that the drivers have to abide by these schedules – so no fault to them, but these schedules are ridiculous. I travel past the Portland Hills Terminal everyday, and all three buses that follow that route have a common problem. The departure times on the schedule are too far apart. Maybe during rush hour they’d be accurate.. if rush hour also included several road blocks, low visibility due to fog that rivals the Bay of Fundy, and a White Juan 2.0. Metro Transit, maybe in one of your many route and schedule adjustments, you could make an adjustment that actually benefits your passengers – you know, the people that keep your company in business and pay your salaries? —Yep, still waiting
This article appears in Mar 6-12, 2014.
Passengers = business afloat? Last time I heard, passengers paid about 40% of the cost of transit, the remainder paid by the taxpayer. Scheduling still sucks though. Would be nice if there weren’t 3-#1’s and a #58 going down Spring Garden all in a row….
Close down main routes to buses only – especially during rush hour – this encourages bus ridership.
Increase the single fare to $4-$5 per ride, per direction so as to encourage the purchase of passes (ergo a regular ridership).
And finally, hire courteous drivers. The current ones think they own the road and are Kings/Queens of the bus. Attention driver: you serve US, the public.
There ought to be a bus rider surtax on anyone that doesn’t own a vehicle. You bastards are a burden on the taxpayer.
Well look on the bright side, Tim Hortons has a bonus roll on their cups now. Twice the chance to lose.
Or possibly win 2 cars…
“2 cars, One cup”
Parody in the works?
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHEDULING
: “I understand that Metro Transit buses need schedules. I also understand that the drivers have to abide by them, but these schedules are ridiculous.” Yep, still waiting
What is the philosophical subtext here? That’s right. Can human behaviour be reduced to an abstract, quantitative measurement as embodied in a schedule? Put differently, is such behaviour at all amenable to empirical analysis such that its predictive power is conclusive? The question is not restricted to bus schedules.
At the moment, as you might have guessed, I am reading “To Read or not to Read: Decoding Synthetic Phonics,” a paper by Andrew Davis of Durham University’s School of Education in the latest edition of “IMPACT: Philosophical Perspectives on Education Policy” (Vol. 20. 2013), an English scholarly journal devoted to “making a difference” in the classroom by directly engaging the powers that be.
Davis takes issue with the current ascendancy of “Synthetic Phonics” in the teaching of reading to those just learning to read. Synthetic Phonics consists of the abstract, quantitative approach to the teaching of reading which involves the “blending” of letters and sounds in isolation from their meaning. He writes of children taking home boxes of letters and practicing the sounds they make independently of any comprehension. He rejects Synthetic Phonics out of hand, claiming that teaching reading independently of comprehension is ridiculous.
We can see the conceptual overlap, can’t we. Any artificial, rigid letter-sound equivalence in the teaching of reading has its counterpart in the rigid scheduling of Metro Transit buses. Both are ridiculous.
Thank you very much.
New Avatar Alert! A Henry VIII Groat
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Prurient Photobucket Alert! How did King Henry VIII protect the Royal Scroat
With this magnificent codpiece, of course.
http://files.myopera.com/CultureSurfer/blo…
The #58 no longer travels across the bridge to Mumford terminal, hasn’t for a while now. Do you people actually think we drivers have any control over traffic, accidents, weather, incidents with unruly passengers, etc, etc. All this contributes to schedules not being able to be kept. I agree that the schedules could be better, but that would require more busses, more drivers, and probably more overtime. Overtime is a big issue with MT. They are making the public suffer to keep overtime to a bare minimum.
As to our salaries (which are way too low for the amount of bullshit we have to put up with), the public does not pay them because the public (not all but many), rip the system off by millions every year. Transfers are used for months after they have expired, passes are fabricated by individuals and sold to fatten their own pockets on the backs of the honest. I could go on, and on.
We drivers are taxpayers as well and keep the welfare bums who make these passes and use these transfers for months alive until of course some driver actually checks them. The reason why so many drivers don’t check is because we are not backed up by our supervisors or management, so why should we bother? We don’t need the extra aggravation to argue over $2.50. So before you blow about something you know nothing about, think. Maybe that is asking too much of the general public.
Yors truly.
OP if you are talking about the 59, 61 & 68 Mon-Fri they are on 10 min service between the Bridge and Portland Hills, and on Sat and Sun they are on 20 min service.
RSVP
: Ivan Sonofabitch (03/08, 10:05A M)
Re: Henry’s “magnificent codpiece.”
Yes, by the look of things Henry was very well hung. A magnificent codpiece for a magnificent pair.
But, paradoxically, Henry’s magnificent pair failed to qualify for the accolade of “the family jewels.” With the exception of the ineffective Edward VI (1547-1553), Henry turned out to be the last of the Tudor male line which was to be replaced by the Stuarts in 1603. (Mary and Elizabeth, while no doubt engaging in vigorous, sustained and orgasmic copulation, were without issue.)
What is the lesson here? What does it mean? It means get out of that bloody armour, let them all hang out, and get to work!
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
didn’t they stuff their codpieces?
Yes Molly, but where? That is the question.
my ex brother in law was a taxidermist. he coulda mounted them nicely.
i, myself, have bagged a few in my younger days
THE STUFFED CODPIECE
RSVP
: Good dog Molly (09/03, 11:46AM)
Yes, as a matter of fact they did stuff their codpieces in days of yore. The objects of choice were usually appropriately-shaped fruits. I will leave it to your imagination just what they were.
Like the peacock’s tail, the stuffed codpiece was considered an essential item of male display and, as a not inconsiderable side-effect, it served to inflame female desire.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!