Riding Mass Transit Is Like Inviting 30 Incompetent Bureaucrats Into Your Car

Roadkill 38 Comments

Financial Post;

[Montreal city buses are] so simple when it comes to controls, readers of the Montreal Gazette recently learned, that they don’t have fuel gauges. Drivers are supposed to keep track of their mileage (which implies there’s a mileage indicator, at least) and calculate when they need gas. Welcome to the 14th century! Let’s see, the sun has fallen back down to tree level: Time to feed the yak. When do you figure fuel gauges became standard on cars? 1935 maybe?
 
Unfortunately, it appears Montreal bus drivers aren’t such great calculators. At least a bus a day runs out of gas and has to be towed back to the garage, where it joins the one-third — one-third! — of the fleet that on an average day is waiting for repairs.

h/t Joe

38 Replies to “Riding Mass Transit Is Like Inviting 30 Incompetent Bureaucrats Into Your Car”

  2. Montreal bus drivers aren’t such great calculators

    Say, wasn’t Felix Maduro a bus driver at one time? Just asking….

  3. Who on earth would ever build a vehicle without a fuel guage? I’m confident that even the Soviet Moskvich or GAZ of the 1940s had a fuel gauge. Sheesh.

    1. Few motorcycles have fuel gauges. (It is standard to have “reserve” setting on the fuel tap, so you seem to be running out of fuel, rotate the tap, and refuel as soon as possible. Motorcyclists tend to know the range of their bike’s fuel capacity and to pay attention to their tripmeter. )

      For urban mass transit buses, I suppose the manufacturers installed tanks that hold more than a typical day’s fuel supply and it is expected to be normal procedure of transit operators to require drivers to check that the tank is full before taking a bus out on the road. (Not an excuse for drivers who take out or take over a bus without knowing how much fuel it has.)

      1. Back in the day, did have a Volkswagon which did not have a fuel gauge. However, it did have a little switch I could flip over to provide me with enough fuel to get to the next gas station. Needless to say, I kept a close eye on my mileage.

        2. Yes, it worked well enough, except for the time my brother borrowed the car, flipped the reserve fuel switch, and didn’t tell me. I didn’t realize it until I was far from home after midnight. I calculated I most likely could not make it back. So I drove to a gas station (closed of course) and spent the night in the car. Sometime in the night, I was woken up by the flashlight of a policeman, who wondered what the heck I was up to. He let me be when I explained the situation.

        3. I had one of those VW’s too, back in ’59. Ran out of gas at 2 AM in the hills of North Dakota while driving from Alberta to Montreal. It was 25 below zero (F). Flipped the switch and ran out of gas again in the middle of nowhere. Had to leave my new bride in the car and walk two miles to a farmhouse for fuel. Fortunately he was also a bulk fuel dealer who supplied surrounding farmers with gasoline for their tractors. That was a lifesaver.

  4. They don’t want fuel gauges. Easier steal gas from the taxpayer when its not accounted for. Someone is making money from this and chances are they are Liberals.

    1. L-Montreal politics are famous for construction and other city contracts being skimmed off the top by the Mafia. The Charbonneau Commission was a high profile investigation, included looking at connections to political financing.

      When Liberal operatives were involved in AdScam, that was only a surprise to those outside Quebec. There political corruption is so common, it’s a “comme toujour”(as ever, typical, as per usual) reaction from the citizenry.

      If there is a fuel scam going on, no one on the inside wants to squeal and lose their share.

      But, of course, the Trudeau Liberal machinery is beyond reproach. His riding is where?

      “Follow the money!” “Follow the money!” “Follow the money!” – that would be a popular t-shirt in both French and English Canada.
      ———————————————————————————————————————————————————–
      After 261 days of hearings, the Report of the Commission of Inquiry on the Awarding and Management of Public Contracts in the Construction Industry (the “Charbonneau Commission”) was tabled and released to the public on November 24, 2015.

      “The mandate of the Commission was to inquire into the existence of schemes that could have entailed activities of collusion and corruption over 15 years (1996-2011), including any possible connections with the financing of political parties; to paint a picture of the possible infiltration of organized crime into the construction industry; and to examine potential remedial measures to identify, eliminate and prevent collusion and corruption in the awarding and management of public contracts in the construction industry, as well as its infiltration by organized crime.”

      The Report of the Charbonneau Commission, which includes 4 volumes and 1,741 pages, sets forth 60 recommendations to prevent collusion and corruption in the awarding and management of public contracts in the construction industry, as well as its infiltration by organized crime.

      Those involved in the construction industry will learn with some relief that the problems of collusion and corruption in the industry are not unique to Québec. The Commission admits candidly that it was inspired by solutions put forward in different countries to eradicate corruption and that these problems are not confined to any one player but are the affair of all those involved in the industry– from the clients, as well as engineers and contractors, down to and including the workers and the labour unions.

      The Commission looked and identified various causes for the illegal activities it found to be pervasive throughout the construction industry…

      http://blg.com/en/News-And-Publications/Publication_4317

  5. My second car was a 1959 V W Beetle which had no fuel gauge but instead had a reserve level that you had to reach down to the floor to switch over to when the engine started to die. After that you had around 30 miles left to find a service station. Running a modern diesel engine out of fuel is a much more serious issue. I believe that Beetles finally were equipped with gauges in 1961. Almost 60 years later, it’s seems unfathomable that a modern bus still lacks one.

    1. If you have an idiot light then the tank has a fuel level sender and you could just install an actual gauge. Any mechanic worth his salt could install a gauge.

      If there is no gauge its because they don’t want it.

      1. “If there is no gauge its because they don’t want it.”

        Indeed, with something so lame-brained as this, one strongly suspects there was intent to influence the behavior of the drivers. What on earth that could be I have no idea, but it would seem to be in line with a multitude of historical leftist idiocies.

  7. https://montrealgazette.com/sponsored/mtl-375th/from-the-archives-montreals-last-streetcar-rolled-49-years-ago

    … as Watson says, what’s a million bucks? Yes, that city probably perhaps wants billions, from the Feds. You and me, that is. I smell a rat.

    The link enclosed is about the final ride in 1959 of tramways in that city. I bet they want to go ‘green’ again and are making the case against those stinky gasoline powered busses.

    Mark my words.

    Incidentally : as a pip squeak I went on that final ride, that final day. It was neat because I remember being happy to go somewhere, anywhere, but I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was about. I guess Montrealers were fond of their old ‘streetcars’ as they called them.

  8. There’s a simple solution to this, and I’m surprised the City or Transit Worker’s Union didn’t think of it: every bus should have an on-board engineer with a calculator to keep track of fuel consumption.

    As an additional safety measure, they could have a five gallon “jerry” can of fuel in a locked box on the outside of the bus for emergencies such as when the cold weather freezes the engineer’s calculator.

    The answer is always more government.

    1. I don’t imagine the transit drivers go anywhere near a fuel dispensing station, a wash bay or a broom. After all, they are unionized drivers so they drive and that’s it. Any simple maintenance duties are carried out by other unionized staff. I’ve always maintained that public transit drivers are on par with school bus drivers albeit with quieter passengers, less responsibility, less non-driving duties and a way more pay.

  10. Those Kaybec Socialists have it pretty good, I wonder if THEY will ever run out of other peoples money. I sure hope it happens pretty soon. We will see if they are around to help us in Alberta rebuild. Ya didn’t think so.

  11. I love the following paragraph by the author of the article William Watson, “Do you really think the people who bring us buses without fuel gauges, air forces that don’t fly and navies that sail mainly in dry dock and on drawing-boards should be given charge of the entire economy, as more and more of them seek to do, with their “supercluster” and other big-vision development strategies?”

    Priceless and so true. In regards to our government, speaking of cluster…..

  12. Perhaps it would be simpler for Montreal to have electric buses? There is lots of room under the bus floor for lots of batteries. Solar panels could go on the roof.

    It could be made by Bombardier. Not sure when the buses would be delivered, or how many would run (some cities are having trouble with Bombardier subway and train cars), but surely the repair rate would be less than the current daily average of 1/3 of buses being in the repair shop.

    1. The most efficient electric busses are the old style trolly busses with the arm contacting the wire. Vancouver still uses them.

  13. Could be why the potential separatist youth are walking the streets of Montreal; building up their Credo for having Ontario give more Regionalization now that Ontario has a Conservative Government

  14. https://www.amazon.com/Bosch-SP0F000056-Style-Electrical-Level/dp/B00UM9X6O6?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00UM9X6O6

    Really? Somebody thought it would be smart to omit a $20 fuel gauge? AYFKM? Ohhhh yeah some … green energy bureaucrat … calculated how much petrol would be saved by removing 20oz of fuel gauge from the instrument cluster. Yep. But they forgot to calculate the petrol used by the tow trucks. And you WANT these people in charge of carbon taxation? They can’t think their way through the … obvious.

      1. Ha! + your fee to do the install! A fellow shade tree mechanic? We are a dying breed. Millennials don’t know how to do Jack!

  15. Public workers aren’t.

    It is as simple as this. All this proves is that they need more money from taxpayers so taxpayers can afford less cars and be forced to use more transit. All according to plan. Works as intended.

    What? You thought that the purpose of mass transit is to move people efficiently. LOL. That is what cars and roads are for. Why do you think liberals plan cities to be congested and with insufficient parking space?

  16. In judging government competence at all levels, Quebec first nations eagerly wait until all the regulations and price determinations regarding pot are established before taking complete control of the under-the-table market which has been well established with cigarette sales. It’s not related to building buses without fuel gauges, but it’s constant confirmation that government screws up everything it comes in contact with. So, ……. kinda related after all.

  17. A trucking company in the US once had MACK highway tractors. They had the required legal minimum. A speedometer, an air pressure gauge, an alarm buzzer, and ONE large red warning light for low air pressure, low oil pressure, and high engine water temperature. If it came on, it was up to you to diagnose the problem. No fuel gauge, if you fueled up before you left the yard, you had enough to get to the next terminal. No passenger seat either.

    1. Same as the Farmall M tractor I used to drive on the farm long ago. An oil pressure gauge and engine temperature gauge was all it had. Don’t recall ever running out of gas in the field.

  18. Measuring devices could interfere with graft. If you know how much each bus takes, and how often, then you can add those up to see what the total should be. If no one knows the quantity sold then no one can check the invoices for incoming fuel.

  19. Let us see.

    This is a conundrum, a dilemma, a tight spot if you please.

    Normal people in their daily life have to, of necessity, look after their needs. So it happens some time that you miss, forget. Ok you will think about it the next time.

    In a union there is no such thing as responsibility. Everything and anything is someone else’s fault. Member of union is not paid to think, they are paid to drive and driving is secondary to a paycheck. This is a socialist think.
    Then you have the other union characters that keep a job pulling the empty buss to the depo instead filling the damn thing with fuel. Takes more union characters to tow it fill it and possibly some other tasks that the unions create. Maybe file a report and have supervisor to sign it and on, and on ……

    Remember, union is mind killing confab.

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