Your tax dollars at work;
Before penalizing the city $12,500 this week, inspectors with the Canadian Transportation Agency counted five instances when bus drivers didn’t call out stops.
Marc Comeau, senior communications advisor for the transportation agency, said there were three times that inspectors, posing as regular riders, asked OC Transpo bus drivers to say when a certain destination was reached, but the drivers didn’t call the stops.
“It was actually cases where the stops were requested,” Comeau said.
Oh, the humanity.
h/t Jamie
For the first time in my life,I'm ashamed to be Canadian! I'm moving to a kinder,more gentle Country where they call out the bus stops.
Mexico?
but we are running a massive bureaucracy. How do I get a 'fake' job riding a bus? We would all be better off if the Fed's stayed out of the provinces. More provincial autonomy would please!
but we are running a massive bureaucracy. How do I get a 'fake' job riding a bus? We would all be better off if the Fed's stayed out of the provinces. More provincial autonomy would please!
Actually, I'm on the side of the transport agency.
These bus drivers are all well-paid, unionized, with excellent wages, benefits and pensions. Their role is to provide service, and if a service is asked, i.e., calling out a specific stop, this service should be provided.
Such a request would obviously come from a newcomer to the area who, on their own, doesn't know the route. Why shouldn't such a request be met?
Moving to automated announcements is a good step. Finally, the overpaid and bloated TTC has done that. But, even so, automation can get glitches. I recall one interesting experience in Dresden when the automation got two stops ahead of reality.
This like the guy dad told about....
He wanted a job on the railway.....going along with the guy who hit each wheel to detect faultly wheels.....this dude would help him listen......
Actually, I bet the problem is that they didn't have enough time to call out stops in both official languages, pick up passengers, strap bicycles to their grill and drive a bus through downtown traffic. Most people I've seen that ask about stops usually sit up front and almost always told where to get off (no pun intended).
So where does one go to become a bus stop call out inspector? I know a young autistic that loves to ride buses and it would be a perfect job for him. Of course he would do it for free but to not pay him union wages would be exploiting the handicapped.
If I asked a bus driver to tell me when a particular stop came up because I wasn't familiar with the area, I'd be pretty unhappy if he failed to do so. I might complain to the transit authority.
That said, are there really federal transportation rules that require municipal transit operators to call out the names of bus stops? Do they have to call them out even if the bell cord is not pulled and there are no people waiting at the upcoming stop? Is the $12,500 coming from the transit union pension fund? That last is rhetorical, of course.
Ottawa is in the National Capitol Region so who knows who is in charge of what. OC Transpo does appear to be a municipal system.
This is another in Kate's continuing series. The federal, provincial and municipal bureaucracies are hideously bloated with people who are doing "busy" work. I'd be willing to bet that you could take a group of 20 regular Canadians from across the country, give them a year to look at all the places the bureaucrats have put their fingers and they could cut at least 10% without us noticing any real service loss at all.
Ya, and tell Brad Wall he better buy his car made in Saskatchewan, his houses, all the building materials, the tires to his car, the coffee beans, the contaminated water with Uranium in it.
All of it!
And, btw, Saskatchewanians expect him to live up to the legacy of Tommy Douglas and start that massive Saskatchewan first Eugenics policy that we've all been pining for. Start with the Roughriders and clean out all the Alberta and Eastern stable boys.
Go GREEN! Only Saskatchewan banjo pluckers need apply.
Buckley Belanger? That sounds like some type of weird tryst between William F and Bridgitte Bardot.
Oops.
Dumped my comments in the WRONG thread.
Sorry Kate.
BJG, this is OC Transpo we're talking about. It's not a municipal or provincial agency. It's an agency of the National Capital Commission, ie. the federal government, and runs an integrated transit system covering both sides of the river, ie, two provinces. No, I'm not defending this particular exercise of federal authority, but it is such an exercise, and you need not fear anything comparable at the TTC.
If a bus passenger is not sufficiently alert to check the route map and monitor where the bus is in its travels, perhaps that person should not be allowed on a bus without adult supervision.
What next? A fine for not pointing out significant landmarks and historic buildings as the Number 10 bus rumbles through the warehouse district?
In a private company they would discipline the bus driver for not doing his job. In government they Levey a fine which will then be passed on to the riders. Does anyone else see the irony.
So were the Inspectors complaints included in the 350 OTHER compliants or not? And did they need an inspector when they had 340 or so complaints from real people?
So the OC Transit discriminate against deaf mute union bus drivers. What's next, firing the visually impared supervisors?
Ah, the story does not go far enough. In order to prevent the $12,500 fines, the city is planning to spend $12 million on an automated stop-announcement system, and apparently it has to be in both official languages. Even if this fine was levied every day by the wonderful CTA, it would take over 2 1/2 years to accumulate the sum total of what the remedy will cost. And don't forget, the software will have to be upgraded. But what the heck? They'll just raise fares to cover the cost. all this, and dome people ask me why I drive to work.
Ah, the story does not go far enough. In order to prevent the $12,500 fines, the city is planning to spend $12 million on an automated stop-announcement system, and apparently it has to be in both official languages. Even if this fine was levied every day by the wonderful CTA, it would take over 2 1/2 years to accumulate the sum total of what the remedy will cost. And don't forget, the software will have to be upgraded. But what the heck? They'll just raise fares to cover the cost. all this, and dome people ask me why I drive to work.
I'm not seeing the problem here, except that the fine should go to an individual driver (and be smaller.)This is like a company that subcontracts work checking on the quality of the work.
B.Humphreys - do you think that all visitors to the capital have those bus route maps? Are such maps always available?
And do you think that a visitor, who doesn't know the area, can on his own, read the street signs (which are often missing) as the bus whizzes by each street?
It is a basic communication service, to call out key stops or streets, and, if a customer requests such a service, to comply with it.
A visitor does not know the route, does not know the streets, can't gauge how long it might take to get to his destination, doesn't know which stops the bus has not stopped at - and such a request seems to me both reasonable, rational, and ought to be acknowledged by the driver.
In the world of make-believe government jobs, this one is hard to top.
"What did you do in the war Grandpa?"
"I had a dangerous job son - I spied on bus-drivers who forgot to call out stops"
"Did you get hurt Grandpa?"
"Many times son - when people laughed at me."
ET - this is not a problem that calls for federal tax dollars. It's a municipal issue. Let cities police their own services.
Kate - I understand that; my comments were only directed to those posting here who objected to the drivers calling out the bus stop names.
ebt, was your reply to me a back-handed jab at Toronto? Any jab at Toronto is good IMO and for any reason.
Actually, given what you've told me, we have a federally owned entity that is operated by a provincial municipality (if you want to work there, you contact the city, not the NCC).
It's much, much worse than I originally thought.
Well, this is obviously for the benefit of the blind and stupid, but I have to admire a transportation system which actually inspects the behavior of drivers and enforces rules.
The San Francisco bus system is operated by felons on work release who threaten passengers with physical violence, speed, run red lights, stop and start unnecessarily quick, and are generally rude, uncooperative, and unsafe.
I used to live in Ottawa so I can explain this. OC Transpo rides into Quebec so it doesn't fall under city or municipal authority, but federal authority.
As feds, the FTA has an obligation to monitor transportation methods for disabled people (blind, physical, mental, etc) and this is one of the ways they monitor for compliance. Fines are imposed to limit infractions by fed agencies.
You can disagree with the process or not ... but it is what it is.
B Humphries obviously doesn't ride buses often, if ever.
If you're crammed into a bus anywhere in the GTA during rush hour, the chances are good you're in a position where you can't even look out a window to get your landmarks. Even when the bus isn't that crowded, if you're not sitting in the very front (and those seats are specifically reserved for the elderly and the handicapped), it's very difficult to see road signs, let alone read them.
Personally, I don't think it's that difficult to sing out the stops - drivers don't seem to have that much difficulty carrying on conversations with friends or other transit workers - but most systems in the GTA now have the automated announcements. And I'll admit, there are times when I'm engrossed in a magazine article or by the cryptic crossword, and the announcement makes me realize my stop is coming up.
is this a picture of the union donating to the NDP? if it is, too funny
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4947799&id=41660126494#!/photo.php?pid=4940630&id=41660126494&fbid=396281271494
The fundamental flaw in public transportation that the econazis never mention: people don't use it because they want to; they use it because they have to.
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hmmm... i remember sitting in the belleville emergency room with a
sick, fevered child in my lap for seven and a half hours.
when are they gonna send in the inspectors from the "canadian
hospitalisation agency"?
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