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A fellow transit traveler, Robin Broms writes about the lack of human factors testing in the train-bus interface, why a person cannot catch the bus when the train drops them off at the same time. The bus is every half hour which is a good level of service if you want to discourage train ridership using buses as feeder lines.
The main point of the article though, is the social status of a transit rider and the asymmetrical power a transit user has compared with the managers of the transit system. So note is that there is really no where to fix usability problems. No public forum, no internal Metro Transit usability group that is charged with smoothing out the friction of transit. Instead, it seems there is another agenda in place to drop ridership and destroy our public infrastructure.
by robin_broms@hotmail.com
Can't tell you how glad I am to be commiserating with you on this issue. I think it was Tuesday evening that I came down to eastbound Lake Street bus stop after getting off the train. It must have been around 6:40p.m. There was a young gal waiting with her baby, wrapped in a blanket, in her arms. The baby was big! (About half the size of the young woman.) She asked what time it was and I told her from looking at the clock up above at the station.
Then she said she was waiting for the #27! The 27 arrives at that bus stop at 6:26 p.m., exactly the same time the train arrives up above. Repeatedly, myself and others have been stranded there as the bus leaves just before we can get to it. One friend (a woman my age ...shall we say middle-aged) has taken to riding the train down to the 46th street station and taking the bus back to Minnehaha and 33rd so she won't have to wait and possibly getting mugged. I have complained and complained. One driver is nice and arrives at the stop in time to collect the people from the 6:26p.m. train. She'll also wait. The other driver, a regular, a male, drives as though he's shot from a cannon and always leaves before any people from that train can catch him. I believe that's what happened to this poor girl.
She said the baby weighed 30 pounds. I asked if she had a stroller. "Oh, yes," she said. "We got one from an agency. The front wheel falls off. They knew that when they gave it to me." Is there a more blatant, graphic example of social engineering? Because she's poor, she has to be victimized again and again. I would like that stupid bus driver to have to stand holding her baby in the cold, with no place to sit, for half an hour waiting for a bus! A while back I got so disgusted with the supervisor (any time I call, the driver is always right - no matter what), I decided to let loose with sarcasm, "Forgive me. You're so right. It's so unfair for the metro transit to have to provide service for vermin such as us. You poor, poor things....." She started to sputter and stutter. I hung up.
I've decided that anyone who isn't a professional, riding the bus during the height of rush hour, is as a gnat or fly to Metro Transit. If the door to the bus opens and we manage to get through it and board, they have to tolerate us. They don't like or want us there, but they have to put up with us as a fact of doing business.
I have lots of other examples. I think the one about the mother having to hold her child is the epitome of how the callous Metro Transit does its best to make peoples' lives miserable. They've become expert at it.
Robin