Today I went all wild and crazy and rode a different route into the UA. I took the bus that drops riders at the UA Mall. It is about a half-mile walk from there to my office, and so, race-walking to make it in my door by 8 a.m. has the added benefit of a little exercise. The line goes from the Tohono Transit Center down Campbell and then into the UA Mall. It got me there at 7:48 a.m., about three minutes later than the posted time, but five minutes earlier than the Route 6 has been getting me to Euclid and University ever since the little munchkins returned to the city en masse.

However, riding that sucker home would have necessitated me leaving the office about 15 minutes early and walking in full sun twice as far as my half-shaded 6 minute walk to the Route 6. Still, in a concession to the reality of Tucson’s crowded streets and inability (or unwillingness, lack of leadership, lack of funds, name your excuse) to create bus lanes or give street light priority to public transit, I left work at 4:50 p.m. to get to the Route 6 stop by 4:56, two minutes before the “early” 5 p.m. bus is expected (as opposed to the late-and-getting-later 5:08 bus that I normally before last week’s fiasco). I knew it would be late, but I also guessed (correctly) that I would arrive at the transit center before the final Express shot up toward Oro Valley.

(An aside: Perhaps the city could use some of the stolen parking meter funds for bus lanes.)

The bus arrived at 5:04 p.m. and 10 people piled onto an already pretty packed bus. I took a seat by a young kid trying his best to look tough while also keeping his pants from falling off and said hello. He said hi back, and later, when getting off, said, “Excuse me, ma’am,” which showed he was way more polite than the next folks I’m about to tell you about.

Just north of Speedway, a couple in their late-20s boarded with a days-old infant in a car seat, a pre-schooler and a very large stroller. (Question: What on earth ever happened to umbrella strollers?

A pretty basic fold-and-go umbrella stroller.

Why do parents feel the need to have SUV strollers?)

Anyway, they stood in the aisle for a second until, kindly, a guy in his mid-40s stood and offered his seat to the mom. She took it and then, so sweetly, yelled at her preschooler, “Get your ass over here.” (Doesn’t it just warm your heart to see effective parenting?)

Meanwhile, the stroller was unstable in the aisle and a man standing near the door reached out to steady it, to which the mom, all attitude and unnecessary defensive anger-mouth, said, “That bothering you?” The guy started to explain that he was just trying to help when the woman looked over at another passenger who was – along with most everyone else on the bus was by this time – staring at her.

“Something funny, buster?” she snapped. “Just keep it up and my boyfriend will beat the s*** out of you.” Boyfriend, on cue, puffed his chest and commanded the older gentleman to look out the window.

Now, this is the point at which I would normally have jumped in with my teacher voice and demanded a little civility. But I didn’t. The boyfriend was directly in front of me, and he had a stroller as a weapon. No one else was saying anything, and I didn’t want to make things worse. So I sat there.

And herein lies the problem. Uncivil (and, I would argue, ignorant, which is not the same as uneducated) people make others miserable in a public space and the civil (and, perhaps, scared) majority doesn’t say or do anything. Sigh.

I don’t know if that situation will present itself again, but if it does, I hope I can conjure up the energy and confidence to speak up because, really, we all just need to chill a little.

I think it important to give both sides of the story on any story, but I wasn’t able to speak to any of the Sun Tran higher ups until Friday. I left a message for Michelle Clark early Friday referring her to my post for details so I didn’t clog up her message machine.

I got a return phone call a few hours later and Ms. Clark, Sun Tran director of customer satisfaction, who was very attentive and pleasant, said the staff had been running tapes and time recorders to try to figure out exactly what had happened because of the time I referenced in my post.

She explained that the #6 bus that is supposed to be at the Euclid and 6th Street stop at 4:53 p.m. was indeed at that stop at that time (the buses have cameras and clocks recording their times) and arrived at my stop – Euclid and University – at 4:58. The following bus, which should get to Euclid and 6th at 5:08 and to Euclid and 6th at 5:11 was the one that didn’t arrive until almost 5:17. In other words, the bus that I thought was REALLY late had come and gone before I arrived at the stop at about 5:02, and the following bus, which should have gotten to Euclid and University at 5:11 was only sort of late.

While these are indeed the times in the schedule book, as I said in my prior post, I’ve been picking up Bus 6 at Euclid and University for four months and I always step on that bus at 5:08. So maybe this whole time the 4:53 has been running late. Who knows? What I do know is that if I can get out there a little before 5 (by working some of my lunch hour), I should be able to catch the bus that gets there by 4:58 and make my express connection.

I wondered aloud if Sun Tran could work with the city transportation and/or planning folks to work on timing street lights during rush hour to give priority to buses coming out of downtown, and Clark said she’d look into it. I also suggested, again, that drivers be allowed two-way radios with which they can communicate to the Express routes; she seemed less interested in that.

Clare also told me about the guaranteed ride home program, about which I was unaware. She emphasized it couldn’t be an every day thing, and, according to the GRH fact sheet, I wouldn’t qualify because “lateness of a bus resulting in passenger missing the final Express bus out of the Transit Center” is not listed under the “What is a legitimate emergency” definition. Sigh.

Since writing the original post, I’ve since heard from a number of people about their traveling constantly being a problem due to tardiness of the bus and it makes me nervous to ride. I’ve already bought a semester pass and gave up my UA parking permit because I was so sold on bus travel. It seems that the simplest solution would be two-way radios between buses so they can reach the final Express drivers when the downtown/university drivers are running late. Obviously, trying to go through an overloaded dispatch unit isn’t cutting it. Maybe it is like the disgruntled riders say: You can complain, but nothing really happens. And maybe it is like the drivers say: Until Tucson does something to show they are serious about public transit – like having bus lanes, lights that have preference for buses, etc. – both drivers and riders are at the mercy of a city system overrun by too many cars during rush hour.

On an aside, anyone interested in alternative travel in Tucson should check out the Tucson Bike Lawyer blog, at which I found the link to Michelle Clark, and where you can read about a bus driver that was aggressive with the writer and see a photo that illustrates that the city of Tucson/county of Pima – no matter what leaders say about encouraging public transportation – really could not care less about those riding public transportation. (more…)

Welcome to today’s rant about local public transportation. Before I begin, let me say that I’ve been riding the bus now for about four months and this is the first major problem I’ve had. That said, it was a major problem. Thus, my need to do what my Google+ profile says I sometimes do: raise a ruckus.

Today, the Route 6 Sun Tran bus heading north was about six minutes late to the Euclid and University bus stop. This may seem like small potatoes to folks who are unfamiliar with bus exchanges, but it was a make-or-break issue for me. You see, I have to catch the 312 Express bus going north at the Tohono Transit Center near the Tucson Mall – and the final 312 (there are a paltry three in the morning and three in the evening) leaves at 5:40 p.m. If I get picked up on time at the Euclid and University (on time being between 5:06 and 5:08 p.m.), I arrive with no more than three minutes to spare before the 312 takes off for Oro Valley. Which means, natch, if I get picked up six minutes late, I will miss my connection.

(Just in case anyone from Sun Tran actually reads this post, let me say I’m fully aware of the “time stop” rule. There is no time stop for Euclid and University, but there is for Euclid and 6th, the stop before Euclid and University. That time stop is 4:53 p.m, meaning – as I’m sure you know, being Sun Tran officials – the bus is supposed to leave that stop at 4:53 p.m. If said bus does leave then, it arrives at Euclid and University between 5:06 and 5:08, depending only on if it hits the red light or not. There’s no reason moving up two (admittedly long) blocks would take more than the 15 minutes from 4:53 to 5:08. In fact, it should take far less. But I’ll accept the 5:08. Just not one second later.)

When a bus arrives excessively late and threatens your Express connection, the solution is to have the bus driver of the late bus call the bus driver of the Express bus and ask him/her to wait. I asked the driver of the 6 to call, and, he said – as he dropped me off six minutes late at the Transit Center – that he tried three times to get through to dispatch but the lines were busy.  When I asked him what I was supposed to do to get home, he shrugged. When I asked him why he was late in the first place, he said, “What am I supposed to do? There’s traffic, there’s people getting on slow, I can’t help it if I’m late.”

Really?

A train at rest in Paris. They rarely rest.

Frustrated and unsure what to do – but remembering my time in Paris  bravely navigating, in a language I could barely read, trains (that ran on time and frequently) – I got on the Route 16 Sun Tran because it said “Foothills Mall” and I figured that was about six miles closer to my home.

I spoke with THAT driver, who told me the prior driver should have hit the “priority” button when calling dispatch. Wondering if this simple solution would have saved me such trouble (and wanting to alert Sun Tran of the problem with the 6 so it doesn’t happen Friday) I called the Sun Tran customer service. I was eventually connected to a person who told me that the priority button is only for emergencies.

“So me having to walk nine miles home because your driver was six minutes late isn’t an emergency?”

“Well, I’m not saying it isn’t an emergency, but it isn’t a real emergency. Like an accident, or someone hurt on the bus.”

Maybe. Probably, in fact. But it is more than an inconvenience – if I didn’t have a husband to come fetch me, I would have had to hoof it home. Many of the folks I’ve talked to on the bus depend on it as their only form of transportation and they do not have a spouse with a car. I registered my complaint and asked if the driver could be told immediately that he needed to get his tail in gear and get to his stop on time tomorrow so I wouldn’t have a repeat of being stranded.

No, said the customer service person. He could write up my complaint, file it for investigation, and then – this is the part that really stood out in the conversation – due to the BUS DRIVER’S UNION – the investigation takes three days before any disciplinary action is taken against the driver. Three days? C’mon union guys, this is a quick phone call.

“I don’t want disciplinary action,” I said, “I want a solution for tomorrow.”

“Well, ma’am, we do our best.”

No, Sun Tran, you don’t. And because most of the people who ride are poor and are at the mercy of the drivers and the system, no one ever really raises a ruckus. (Unless you’re known for that sort of thing; see first paragraph above.) You want people to use public transportation, Tucson? Make it work for us. Will it cost some money? Absolutely. Will you have to fight off the naysayers about high speed trains or super bus lines or Portland Metro-like coolness? Yes. But my goodness, people: Just do it.

“That’s the one thing I miss about being back east,” said a woman on the Foothills Mall bus after she overheard my complaints to customer service. “They ran buses every 6 minutes on every route during peak hours.” Then she explain how ridiculous it was that there were only three express buses in the morning and three in the evening. “They only have three because they say there aren’t enough riders, but they don’t seem to get that if they had more frequent buses and more of them, people would ride more!”

Sun Tran has frequent buses on many of its routes, but not the Express ones, the ones that go to the parts of town that – let’s be honest – are home to many of the upper-middle class and higher income folks. Folks who could – and would – support public transportation if it provided what they want: reliability, decent comfort, and frequency. So the people who would (and should) ride buses don’t because, dang it, if you miss your connection, you have to wait an hour for the next Express. Unless, like me, you’re catching the final Express. Then you’re SOL.