Buses, Trains and the Media

One fewer subscriber

The latest issue of Transit Intelligence (http://conta.cc/tYmpF1) provoked one reader to unsubscribe due to the "negative slant" on the articles that are featured in the newsletter. I try not to editorialize when writing the blurbs for the stories, but it's always a struggle.

Greanias' suspension leaves unanswered questions

Houston Metro's board has suspended CEO George Greanias for one week for accessing "adult content" on his office computer, according to an article in the Houston Chronicle.

I'm not sure how I feel about this, mainly because there's not enough information in the article to draw any strong conclusions. For example, how long did he spend accessing this "adult content"? A few minutes after a long day in the office? Hours, when he should have been attending morning meetings?

Also, what would have happened if he had been caught updating his Facebook page or bidding in an eBay auction or perusing home property values on Zillow? Is it the fact that he was viewing "adult content" that sparked the suspension? Or is it simply that he was using company property in an unauthorized fashion?

I interviewed Greanias back in March for a Q&A that appeared in the Transit Intelligence newsletter. You can read the interview here. My take on him is that he's an extremely intelligent, conscientious man who has a lot to offer Metro, and my hope is that he learns from this mistake and that his transit career is not harmed by what appears to be a relatively minor infraction.

Get on the bus -- or not

A recent column in the Daily Breeze, a newspaper in Torrance, Calif., opened with praise for the sleek new hybrid buses rolled out by Torrance Transit, the local bus operator. The columnist, Renee Moilanen, said she was tempted to try riding the buses.

But her past bus-riding experiences were so horrible that she soon thought better of it. Turns out that Ms. Moilanen commuted for two years from Redondo Beach to Westwood, a distance of approximately 20 miles. The experience forever altered her perception of public transportation.

During my commutes, I witnessed physical altercations, suffered through the most unholy odors, and was - on one occasion - personally accosted. Worse, I started to act like a bus person, muttering to myself, glaring at other passengers, carting old shopping bags aboard. The commutes left me haggard and anxious.

I, too, have ridden local buses, and can attest to the odor problems, especially during the summer. Although I didn't ride daily for two years, I haven't seen any altercations between passengers or death threats against the driver. I've just been lucky, I guess.

My concern about these types of articles is that they can convince people to never try the bus. Although I'm confident that Ms. Moilanen has penned an accurate depiction of her trials aboard the bus, I think many people would have a less repulsed reaction.

I have a friend who rode the bus from Torrance to his office in downtown Los Angeles (about 25 miles) for two years and never saw the types of altercations that Ms. Moilanen describes. Nor did the commutes leave him "haggard and anxious." On the contrary, he boasted that his non-auto-dependent commute was a great perk because he was a federal employee (now retired) and had a full transit pass. The rides also gave him time to listen to the hundreds of songs he had loaded onto his iPod.

So, I guess the moral of this story is that people have a different level of tolerance for city bus travel. It's definitely not for everyone, as Ms. Moilanen makes clear. But other folks, especially those with no travel alternative, learn to make the best of it.

Riding the 'safety train'

Newspaper reporters have a hard time resisting "ride-along" stories, whether it's in a police car or paramedic truck -- or an Amtrak train. Which is why an Amtrak engineer was able to get badly needed publicity about the dangers of walking near train tracks.

A San Francisco Chronicle reporter rode with the engineer, Kevin Gniadek, and got a real-world view from the cab on the Amtrak train:

Shortly after Gniadek pulled out from the Richmond Amtrak Station, a man was spotted walking just to the right of the tracks, never flinching as the engineer honked his horn several times.

A photographer, Paul Chinn, rode along, as well, helping to illustrate the experience.

Other transit systems might also want to invite reporters along on rides on buses and/or trains, especially when safety is an issue.

You can read the Chronicle article here. The Oakland Tribune also sent a reporter, who filed this article.

Until next time.

Steve

A good book, a cup of coffee and a satisfying, uh, bladder break

Bus operators need to remember that the ubiquitous video camera is recording all aspects of life these days. I bring this up because in my daily search for interesting transit news and commentary, I found three articles about bus drivers behaving badly, with the results caught on tape.

In the first instance, a bus driver in Birmingham, England, is secretly filmed by a passenger as he drives down a highway while paging through a small book. To keep the vehicle on the road, he steers with his elbows. He was suspended and his dismissal is "likely."

A coffee break in the workplace is not unusual or generally discouraged, but if your workplace is a city transit bus, you should avoid stopping at Starbucks in the middle of your run with passengers on board. That's what a bus operator in Orlando, Fla., did recently, and, yes, his coffee run was caught on tape. He received a reprimand, but did manage to get downtown on time.

Not to be outdone by his peers, a bus driver in Atlanta stopped by the side of the road, stood in the driver's door of his paratransit bus and peed into the middle of the street. Unluckily for him, a passerby captured a few seconds of the incident on video and called police. He was suspended without pay for three days.

There's certainly nothing wrong with reading, drinking coffee and emptying your bladder, but you've got to choose your spots. Timing is everything.

Transit Twitter - April 18, 2010

jelizxo: i always sit next to crazies on public transit. ALWAYS.

justtemple: I love that I'm seeing hybrid public mass transit vehicles in the city more frequently.

gusholtz: Really liking Metro Transit's website re-design. http://metrotransit.org/

DNAsturges: Transit hubs along high-capacity transit system could be called "Cityports"

mattkummer: Indy ranked 1 of U.S. most wasteful cities. Shocker... NOT! Recycling made difficult, and nearly non-existent transit. http://ow.ly/1zWSQ

Spartanburgwire: Local SPARTA Transit Authority Hires Elderly Bus Driver... - http://fwix.com/a/187_69f1f67b54

WardMaps: Authentic Mylar Line Signs from decomissioned B Division subway cars of the NYC MTA. http://www.wardmaps.com/vintage-transit-nyc.php

OpinionZone: WTOP: Quantico Marine base promotes public transit http://bit.ly/aJJ3DA (expand) http://goo.gl/fb/dAPHR

Safety is in the eye of the beholder

How safe are the buses operated by San Francisco's Muni? Depends on who you ask, of course. Mabel Jimenez of the Mission Local blog in San Francisco posed the question of safety and security to several bus passengers and got several different responses. Here is her video:

In the interviews, men were inclined to say they felt safe, while women generally said they didn't feel safe. I'm sure Jimenez could have tipped the tables in the other direction if she wanted to interview enough people. So, what do these on-the-bus interviews tell us?

From a statistical and analytical standpoint, not much. But it's still interesting to see and hear passengers talk about their experiences while they're actually riding the bus. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a 2-minute video worth?

How a plan to add audio surveillance got scuttled

A couple of months ago, I received an e-mail from an employee at the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) who was wondering about the legality of recording conversations on MTA buses using onboard surveillance equipment. He said his agency was considering recording audio on buses to enhance safety and security.

I wasn't sure about the legality of this practice, so I told him I'd check around and get back to him. Figuring that the manufacturers of video surveillance equipment for the transit industry would have some practical knowledge in this area, I sent an e-mail to the marketing director of one of these companies. In turn, he forwarded my request to his sales staff and asked them to respond directly to me. Never heard back from them.

My next step was to post a note in the American Public Transportation Association's members-only online forum. Specifically, I posted my request in the Safety and Security category with the subject line: "Do any agencies record audio aboard buses?" I guess the answer is no, because no one responded.

Anyway, I have to admit that I didn't expend a whole lot of energy trying to track down the requested information, but I was disappointed that I couldn't help out my acquaintance at MTA.

Then, today, I discovered that the MTA has scuttled any plans to augment its video surveillance with audio recording. An interesting article at Journalism.org explains how it happened. It seems that bloggers and a Baltimore Sun newspaper reporter helped to bring about the final resolution. The action that triggered initial public interest is explained in the article:

As a first step, the [MTA] wrote the state Attorney General’s office asking for a legal opinion about the idea. The Attorney General’s office posted the MTA request on its website. In time, an enterprising blogger saw it and set off a chain of events that led the transit agency to suddenly drop the whole thing.

The Sun reporter, Michael Dresser, deserves the most credit because he actually took the time to pick up the phone and ask for a comment from the Maryland Department of Transportation.

As the article explains, Dresser called the department's acting director, Beverly Swaim-Staley, who was not aware that audio recording was under consideration. Upon learning about it, she scuttled the plan.

UPDATE: I just received an e-mail from my contact at MTA. He says the audio recording plan is not dead. Stay tuned.

APTA webinar gives new meaning to fare collection

I got a phone call from a staff member at the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) a few weeks ago reminding me that the association was going to be holding a webinar on Nov. 10 called "Investing in the Future of Public Transportation: New Workers - New Perspectives."

I welcomed the reminder because, as the operator of a job board for folks in public transportation, I'm very interested in how the transit industry is going to attract the next generation of professionals, especially with so many current employees approaching retirement age.

So I fired up my computer and went to the APTA website to register for the event. The ubiquitous Bill Millar was slated to provide the opening remarks and the line-up of scheduled speakers, nearly a dozen, was certainly impressive. I was looking forward to sitting in on this webinar.

There was only one problem: APTA was charging a $195 fee to attend (for members and non-members). I had to read it twice to make sure that it wasn't a mistake. As far as I know, APTA has not charged members to attend webinars in the past. Yes, I understand that producing a webinar can be expensive. That's why you sign up sponsors like AECOM and Bombardier Transportation, as APTA did.

At the end of the day, however, your goal should be to attract as wide an audience as you can, especially for such an important topic. By charging $195 per connection (APTA encouraged agencies to gather folks in a conference room to watch on a single connection), APTA ensured that the dissemination of information and live interactivity would be limited.

I'm hoping that APTA will archive the webinar and make it freely available to all members and non-members. Although experts say that the recession ended earlier this year, I suspect that many people in the transit industry probably disagree, based on the hardships they are facing. Charging nearly $200 to attend an industry webinar is a poorly timed decision.  

OK. Now that I've vented about this, I can get back to work.

Thanks for your time.

Steve

Top Transit Tweets - Nov. 6, 2009

quesoqueen: and another thing...dont judge me because i refuse to take public transit

northoaklandnow: Transit riders wooed by Bay Bridge closure are not back in their cars: http://bit.ly/1yqgML

musicgeoff: I love to drive but am thinking of getting a Metro Transit pass

shmooth2: some transit takers are monsters, too! http://j.mp/qZW5G

ohaijoe: RT @Innocentamanda: gold line is awesome, reasonably clean, fast, comfortable.Everything public transit should be (agree, best in LA prolly)

heanster: Haha. 2 for 2. same angry dude on both bus rides getting into squabbles. so tame compared to chitown transit!

apocalypsepony: Note to self: trying to explain transit subsidies and farebox recovery in line draws blank stares.

_nicolemurray_: Waiting for the bus and I feel a lot safer being that there is a transit person parked right in front of me!

kaitlinwithak: nj transit should probably get a website that doesn't go down every other day. just sayin.

bw_punk: Noticed a guy had fallen asleep on the bus. Can't help but wonder how many times he's circled this town so far, courtesy of Pullman Transit

jotulloch: Transit journey begins... CalTrain to Muni to BART. 10 minutes longer, but $0.60 cheaper than BART alone... More types of transit = more fun

Atrios: if nothing else people are getting a taste of what this city (And driving in it) would be like without public transit