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The bus driver and the blind woman
By adamg on Fri, 10/21/2011 - 6:24am
Maggie reports on 93 bus driver 69999, one of whose passengers yesterday afternoon was blind and who asked him to let her know when they got to her stop - only he didn't, which led to this exchange:
Operator #69999 replied "Well I stopped and you didn't get off."
Andrea: "You didn't tell me."
Operator #69999: "Was I supposed to pick you up and carry you off?"
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Comments
If the automatic stop
If the automatic stop annoucements were working, perhaps the bus driver felt that was aedequate notification.
The automated stop
The automated stop announcements are a useless annoyance. I would never depend on them.
Sometimes drivers forget to tell someone when they've reached their stop. It happens. What drivers should do in this instance is apologize, and let the person off ASAP, even if they're not at the next stop yet.
Operators are required to
Operators are required to accommodate any reasonable request. A visually impaired woman asking that an operator notify her of her stop, even when the TransitMaster is working (particularly given that the GPS can often be off-track, and particularly given that there are often discrepancies between stop names as they appear in MBTA published schedules/data and as they are actually announced), is excessively reasonable. It's a serious procedural and civil-rights violation for an operator to ignore the passenger's request just because he didn't feel like doing it, and absolutely egregious (not to mention a separate serious violation) to treat the passenger rudely subsequent to that.
That's pretty stupid
I mean, a blind woman tells you what stop she wants to get off, you supposedly stop...and then what? She didn't get off the bus, buddy. Did you think the blind woman changed her mind and didn't tell you her new stop? Was she playing hide-and-seek?
Congratulations, bus driver, you did the minimal work allowed. Very helpful.
Of course, it could be worse. I was on an #86 bus about a week ago where a woman requested the next stop and we blew through it. As we did, she called out for the driver to stop and he said "That's not a stop any more." Of course, I asked the MBTA GM account a few minutes later via Twitter and they apologized and assured me it's still a bus stop.
Actually ...
He didn't do the minimal work allowed. The automatic stop announcements were put in after the T got busted on an ADA requirement to have the driver announce every stop - which the T fought and fought and fought, of course. If the automated system isn't working, the driver is REQUIRED to announce all stops.
Looks like this guy is from the old T school of thought: you need permission to be disabled, and don't inconvenience me with my job duties!
69999 is old school?
I understand your point I'm just curious where this guy got his "old-school mentality" given that his badge number indicates he's only been on the job a few years at most.
Just to lift spirits. I live above an 86 stop in Brighton close to the end of the line. Over the summer I witnessed a wheelchair passenger unable to board a bus because the lift was broken (It was an RTS, I forget the number). The driver felt awful about being unable to pick up the passenger and was very apologetic. Just as he left, the next bus was heading in the opposite direction to Cleveland Circle. When the second driver asked why the passenger wasn't picked up by the first, the passenger explained. The second driver then said. "Hold tight buddy, I'll get here as quick as I can."
May have been trained improperly, too
There was a longstanding issue on the commuter rail with one particularly dense conductor who insisted up and down that bikes had to jam a wheel into the thing meant to hold a wheelchair wheel because "that's the way she was trained". She also nearly got combative with one chair user who refused to jam an electric chair wheel in there because the chair had its own brake system and the wheels were too wide for the mechanism anyway. She also had a whole bunch of other "special rules" for cyclists and chair users that were not only NOT T policy, but went directly against the statements in the cyclist's brochure on the T website. (well, I never seen that ...). A-fucking-hem?
It turned out that one particular toxic person who was training new hires who hated both chair users and cyclists, and was propigating his ablist bigotry, bullshit and nonsense through the training system. I know this because Massbike and a disability rights group complaints zeroed in on the jerk, who was removed from training duty.
Hopefully the original
Hopefully the original operator, aside from apologizing, also immediately called Dispatch to inform them of the situation and to get an ETA on next available transportation, which he would be required to do in that situation. I could see him maybe skipping this step if both he and the passenger saw the second, outbound bus passing before he departed, but it sounds like that happened after he had already closed the doors and was pulling away. (Plus ops really should get in the habit of doing it, especially since it's easier to forget otherwise to report broken accessibility on your checklist after the shift.)
I think generally, though, your anecdote does reflect the attitude of quite a lot of operators: they're good people who want to do the right thing. The assholes among them are fewer but just GIANT assholes. I also tend to agree that the newer-older operator dichotomy is probably a false one as far as that goes.
eh
Looks like this guy is from the old T school of thought: you need permission to be disabled, and don't inconvenience me with my job duties!
Eh. There's a guy who does one of the forest hills routes and every time the automated system was down, he'd give the most enthusiastic announcements of each stop. Not every old-timer is a jerk. Some of the older guys are pretty at peace with the job. Meanwhile, some of the newest employees have the biggest seem to have the biggest sense of entitlement and the biggest mouths.
Sit at Ruggles some time and watch all the, ahem, public transit employees trying to jockey around their personal cars in the spaces that are supposed to be for busses...and then the mess resulting from not having enough space for the busses. Also, it's fun to see how expensive some of the cars are.
The only shame is that they don't actually wear badges. Every T employee's uniform should have their badge number embroidered on the right-hand shoulder in inch-high numbers. Or have a photo ID on the front of their uniform, like London police.
Badge numbers are on their
Badge numbers are on their caps
yeah, and guess who the only people are that wear them?
The nice, happy, pleasant drivers. And MBCR conductors.
I was actually stunned the first time I saw one of the caps in use.
Caps?
Bus drivers have caps as part of their uniform? Do they ever make it out of the plastic sleeve I imagine they come in?
I've *never* seen any MBTA employee save for a police officer wearing a cap.
Then your not
Then your not looking
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/art...
and on the automated scroll on buses
Which is where I get it when I need it, since I rarely see a bus driver actually wear a cap while driving.
how much do you want bet this guy was not old school?
sounds moe like a new schcol guy to me.
Which 86 stop?
Kaz, was it opposite Leo Birmingham parkway on the way to Cleveland Circle? I ask only because I noticed that the sign was downed after Hurricane Irene. Given that it is such a remote little patch of dirt next to a parkway interchange, I have been very curious if scenarios like the one you described are occurring.
I ask because I have seen this kind of thing happen before. On Boston Ave in Medford there is a very minor stop at Farimount Street in both directions. The inbound stop sees very little usage being quite close to a major stop (Boston Ave at Winthrop St). One day about a year ago I noticed the sign removed from the pole and stuffed in a trash can. I have now provided the sign with a loving home, but there is no new sign. This is after repeated calls to inform the MBTA of the damaged/missing sign. So it's now a stop that doesn't exist on the surface. If you're waiting for the bus, you had better flag it down in a resolute manner. It's not really an exit stop so I don't know if anyone has rung the bell only to have the bus speed by.
See below
You were close, but Nonymouse got it right. It was Market and Beacon inbound. The woman ended up having to get off at Faneuil and walk back.
Disappearing stop
Did that happen to be the stop at Market and Guest, right by the WGBH headquarters? That was my stop for the 5 years I lived in Brighton and every once in a while a driver would just decide it was no longer a stop and argue when I insisted there was still a sign, the website still listed it, etc.
You win!
Bingo. That's the one.
Nice
I moved out of Brighton over 5 years ago and they still haven't gotten that straightened out. This is me pretending to be surprised.
Other phantom stops
Sometime in the past year the sign at the inbound stop at the corner of Washington and Beacon on route 65 vanished, and I overheard a driver telling a passanger the stop no longer existed. I found this somewhat plausible since the next stop is just beyond Connoley's on the otherwise of the intersection, but seemed to be an odd one to take out. Sure enough, a few weeks later the sign, and therefore the stop, reappeared.
What I find concerning about this is that the drivers should know which stops exist, regardless of signage. Stops don't actually just vanish; there are all sorts of meetings and community notification. Rather than just blowing past downed signs, the drivers should be reporting them.
vanished in plain sight
Last night the outbound route 65 stop at Monastery Road vanished, because it was dusk and the driver didn't see the sign. I assume that's what it was, anyway, since the sign was there to be seen. The traffic light was green and the bus kept right on going to the Snow Street stop.
Bus driver issues
I was thrown off a #66 bus once because of a similarly-minded bus driver. People were hitting the 'stop requested' button for every stop, yet we would only stop at maybe every 3 or 4 stops. I didn't know if my upcoming stop would be one of the skipped ones or not, and generally had no idea what was going on, so I approached the bus driver.
Me: hey man are you running some kind of express service today?
Him: Sit down
Me: Sorry?
Him: You got a problem with the way I'm doing my job, buddy? That's your problem.
Me: No, I just wanted to know if my stop -
Him: You listen to me you go sit back down right now and stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong.
At this point I was livid, and I said something admittedly rude:
Me: All right, whatever you jackass
Swear to god I didn't say anything worse than that. I go sit back down and he stops at the next stop, looks back in the mirror and tells me that this is "my stop", even though we were 3 stops away from mine. I told him sorry, no, I'm not getting off because I didn't do anything wrong. At this point, an older woman who was sitting behind me and clearly didn't understand what was happening starts screaming at me to get off the bus, and starts yelling in support of the bus driver, saying that me and individuals of my generation are "way too entitled". It still pisses me off that I did it but I got off the bus at the stop.
I then called MBTA customer support, described the entire situation to them, and thankfully they were wonderful. They told me they would look into the issue, and lo and behold about a week later I got a call back from the same customer support representative telling me the driver had been reprimanded and removed from that route.
How could you get off? I
How could you get off? I would have put the old hag in her place and told her to STFU.
Inconceivable!
An MBTA driver acting like a total douche??!! It's unprecedented!!
I think most bus drivers are
I think most bus drivers are nice, but they all have to be a little crazy because it is such a crazy job. Would you be interested in ferrying about a bunch of Bostonians?
Piss-poor service
Although not surprising at all, this is very frustrating. This despicable behavior taints the reputation of the entire MBTA workforce. I would say most MBTA operators are pleasant people. Problem is, the few dickheads leave such a lasting impression on the general public, they forget the ones who smile and say hello.
Other bus fails . . .
I live near where the 94 and 96 part company at Winthrop St and Boston Ave, and a year or so ago, the 94 driver forgot that he was supposed to go straight up Boston Ave, and accidentally turned down Winthrop Street. In an attempt to get back to Boston Ave, he went down one of the friendly neighborhood side streets and got wedged between parked cars. Oops.
Last night, the 96 driver forgot to turn onto Winthrop, went a couple blocks up Boston Ave and banged a youie using one of the side streets. Without taking out any parked cars. One of the passengers stood in the street to help direct traffic.
94 ... 96 ...
... don't get me started ... they got better when Carl Sciortino wouldn't stop organizing community forums around their poor performance and the mysterious random removal of buses to save money.
However it seems that a month doesn't go by that I have to call the complaint line and ask "why the effing HELL did that bus have "out of service" on it and fail to stop to pick up my kids, yet pick up their friends two blocks down??????" or "what happened to the 3:30 bus THIS TIME???". My kids even stopped using the closest stop because the drivers are so intent on blowing through winthrop circle at speed that they simply didn't bother to look for passengers waiting at the well marked "bus connection" sign.
From the other side of the road where I pick up my bus, I've many times seen them scoot by passengers at Rural Ave. and High St. with their pedal to the metal and barrelling through the rotary. Fail.
I was once on an 87 bus whose driver forgot ...
... to fork right onto Elm Street from Somerville Avenue at Wilson Square. I ended up directing him up White Street (next to the Porter Square shopping center) to get back onto the proper route. The cars going the other way had to back out to let the bus through.
Wait, what?
You directed a bus to go the wrong way up White St.??
Better than sending the bus through shopping center parking lot
which would have had a lot more potential for trouble. If there was anyone waiting for the bus across the street from the shopping center I didn't want the bus to bypass that stop.
RE: Disappearing stops. The
RE: Disappearing stops.
The MBTA has done a series of meeting this year on the "key Bus routes" including 66, 86, 77, 1, 57 etc.
A whole bunch of stops are being removed next year to improve service, so get ready for complaining from people who didnt involve themselves in the process.
Stops being removed are obviously minor stops, or stops that are very close to other ones.
Oh, you can expect a lot of
Oh, you can expect a lot of complaining from people who did involve themselves in the process, and were ignored.
Why, yes, I attended the meeting on the 77 at the North Cambridge Senior Center. How could you tell?
Discontinued vs. Diappearing
There is a big difference between a stop which has gone through the process and been officially discontinued, and a stop which has disappeared due solely to a missing sign. Drivers should, but clearly often don't, know the difference.
The T should post a "bus stop
The T should post a "bus stop moved" sign at officially removed stops for a month or two. That would clear things up.
Years ago, they used to do this
when a stop was relocated. The only problem was that the sign didn't tell you where the bus stop was moved to.