Hitting a nerve!

I have apparently hit a much bigger nerve than I had anticipated when bringing up left turns. As a concerned citizen of C-Tranland, please allow me to further explain my opinion. Keep in mind these are my personal thoughts and opinions. Thank you.

If a bus has an accident of any type (serious damage and/or injuries or not) making a left-hand turn, it is the operator who is cited, who potentially faces criminal charges. The bus driver is the one who could lose their cdl (and ability to earn a living with it) or even face a criminal sentence of some sort. I get that the coach operator should face some consequences, but it should be remembered that these operators are frequently following the written or verbal/physical training procedures that they have been ordered to follow. When that driver gets into an accident, if they are following a C-Tran or Tri-Met procedure, that transit agency is just as much to blame. Yet, unless something so egregious has occurred that they are taken to civil court, the transit agency faces no consequences. The driver has to follow the procedures of their transit agency or run the risk of reprimand or termination. I've been told that Tri-Met actually had/has some procedures that drivers are expected to carry out, that are actually moving violations under the law. I do not know if this is true or not. Maybe the ATU needs to lobby legislatures to change state laws so that a transit agency can face some sort of fines if a coach operator gets into an accident following a formal agency procedure that is a moving violation?

If a coach operator is actually in a court room with their attorney and/or the union attorney, when it is pointed out that the driver was following the formal procedures of their transit agency or that there are unavoidable blind spots with the bus, I am not aware of any judge who has ever cut an operator slack under these circumstances. Is anyone out there aware if any judges have taken these defenses into account when handing down fines/sentences and not held a driver 100% at fault?

Pretty much anyone who has ever driven any sort of vehicle or been a pedestrian on a regular basis knows that left-hand turns are dangerous. Couple the fact that these turns are dangerous with flawed training procedures/policies, add in bus design flaws, poor mirror placement and pressure to maintain schedules that are frequently unrealistic and you're bound to have problems.

Sometimes following the general procedure of scanning for pedestrians, checking for oncoming traffic and re-scanning still isn't enough, this is where you find out one-size does not fit all operators when it comes to mirror placement or A-pillar blind spots.

Let's take the 2008 C-Tran incident I was witness to at Broadway and Everett in downtown Portland. This was an experienced coach operator who had driven a school bus for several years and who had driven for C-Tran for two years. When she got to the intersection she scanned for pedestrians before beginning her turn, checked oncoming traffic, began to swing the bus around as she re-scanned for pedestrians, checked for oncoming traffic and pedestrians again and yet when the bus got to the crosswalk there were pedestrians inches from that bus! So far as I know at a minimum she followed the exact C-Tran procedure for such turns, if not gone above and beyond the minimum. Yet, had she hit the pedestrians she is the one who would have been facing criminal citation/charges, not C-Tran. She also would have had to deal with the mental consequences of being involved in such a traumatic event.

I have a hunch that if Tri-Met and/or C-Tran had a free and open dialogue with their drivers and those drivers were listened to about problem areas or felt comfortable reporting near misses, that long before that tragic night in April 2010, Tri-Met would have known there are issues with left-hand turns on Broadway in the Old Town section of downtown Portland.

You are never in a metro area like Portland-Vancouver ever going to eliminate all or even most left-hand turns but I think Tri-Met should look at eliminating as many as realistically possible in the core of downtown Portland. I think C-Tran should look at eliminating as many as realistically possible in downtown Vancouver and if they have any in Portland work with Tri-Met to eliminate them on the Oregon side of the river.

Too often on the transit mall Tri-Met has put more (too much?) consideration alone into how many buses are going up or down 5th or 6th Avenue at a given moment, than they have pedestrian safety. I've seen some of the same behaviors exhibited by C-Tran.

The route planners and management at both C-Tran and Tri-Met need to learn to listen and ask questions of passengers and coach operators about safety issues, dangerous spots along routes, procedures that aren't realistic on the streets. Drivers should be able to report near misses to dispatch/supervisors without fear of it being used against them. If they find a pattern of near misses at certain intersections, then maybe they can work on figuring ways to make things safer. The key is the ability to have an open dialogue between operators and management, without fear of reprisals and listening when the operators or passengers tell you this intersection or bus stop is dangerous.