Rantings of a Regular C-Tran Rider

Seat Hogs, Door Blockers, Deboarding

2011-06-22T11:25:00.000-07:00

People, people, people-have we lost all sense of common courtesy? It seems like for the past month or so that the seat hogs and door blockers have been getting worse!!!

C-Tran, bless their hearts, has a very visible campaign on their buses "urging" folks getting off the bus to exit out the back door. On busy routes and/or busy bus stops, it's a real problem if you are on a fixed route bus. That said, the door blockers on Max are getting worse!
If I'm deboarding a Max train there aren't really other options like a back door of a fixed route bus. If you ride Max, please take a few seconds to let people get off that train you are about to board. I'm pretty sure that it wont leave without you. This past weekend I was at the Rose Quarter Transit Center waiting for a red line train to Parkrose. The trains were crowded as there were several events going on around town. I tried to not be a door blocker and let people get off the train before attempting to board. Well, you would have thought I was the most awful person on the planet for doing this! There was a man with his wife and kids (the wife appeared to be trying to let people off too) and the man actually got mad and me and in a snotty, rude tone of voice yells at me "Move already, get on the damn train". The number of people getting off this train at the RQ was a Max equivalant of one of those clown cars at the circus. The train when it pulled in had people standing 2-3 deep in the aisles from front to back.
I notice too when taking Max that frequently when trying to deboard the door blockers will all but create a wall making it darn near impossible for anyone to get off the train! They wont even move for wheelchairs coming off!!! Really people? Would it kill you to take 5 or 10 seconds to look in the train to see if folks, or a wheelchair are coming off? If you stand to the side and let folks deboard that train, do you honestly believe the train will leave the station without you? Let's use some simple, common courtesy.

On Max you get a whole other sub-group of door blockers-the bike person who thinks it's okay to block the aisle and/or exit door with their bike! Some people, even when there are empty bike racks on the train refuse to hang them and would rather block the door so that nobody can get off or on! I literally got trapped on a Max and missed my stop (luckily the next stop was only a couple of blocks away and the guy got off)because I couldn't get off the train because some guys were blocking the door with their bikes. I've been on trains where security or fare inspectors have told people to not block aisles or doors with their bikes. This is also a problem with strollers. There are some strollers out there that are HUGE and these people are totally oblivious to everyone but themselves. I've seen them refuse to move for wheelchairs or walkers. I'm not 100% certain of the exact Max policy about strollers. I know on C-Tran if you board a fixed route bus, they expect you to not block the aisles and will frequently request that you take the stroller down and hold your baby.

Sometimes on fixed-route buses, you can't for whatever reason deboard out the back door, if you are waiting to board a bus, take a quick glimpse to make sure nobody is coming off.
I actually saw a guy once at the Westfield Shopping Town (Van Mall) Transit Center who didn't have any patience for the lift. A wheelchair was getting on, the driver activated the lift and left it in the up position while she strapped the chair in, the guy was so very impatient to board the bus that he literally climbed up on the raised lift to board the bus!!! That driver was not going to pull out of the mall without you.

On another subject where courtesy seems to be lacking lately-the seat hogs. I went out to an event at the Fair Complex in Hillsboro a few weeks ago. It was the day of the Starlight Parade in Portland. It was around 2 in the afternoon when I got on the train. The train was very crowded because 1) it was starlight parade day, 2) the train in front of us had broken down so we were picking up those passengers too. When I got on there was a man occupying a seat and he had his 12 pack of Pepsi in a seat next to him. As we travel between Fair Complex and Beaverton TC, the train started to get very very crowded. We had several elderly people get on, including folks with walkers. Mr. 12 Pack Pepsi seat hog, never once moved his pack of Pepsi!!! He made elderly people stand rather than move his Pepsi. If I had been in earshot of him, I would have said something, sadly, nobody else who was within earshot said anything to him!! What is up with not only the guy who was hogging the seat but also the other passengers for not speaking up on behalf of the elderly people?

With the rising gas costs, more and more people are choosing to take public transportation, lets keep mind when we are riding a bus or Max that a little bit of common courtesy goes a long way and makes for a much more pleasant ride for everyone.

Arrested TriMet Bus Driver

2011-05-04T14:29:00.000-07:00

When I was watching tv last night and heard about a TriMet driver being arrested for sexual abuse of an underage girl, when I waited up to see the 11:00 news I half expected to see a photo of a former C-Tran operator who was fired back before the (is it still on?) hiring freeze that TriMet has had for a couple of years. Luckily it wasn't the same guy but it sure makes me wonder how many of these sorts of "relationships" are going on. The only thing that saved C-Tran from the embarrassing road that TriMet is going down is that the age of consent in Washington is 16. So far as I know the parents never called the police to report the relationship. I also don't know if the parents ever called a lawyer and C-Tran "negoiated" their way out of the situation.

Bus drivers get groupies. These groupies come in all ages, shapes, sizes, hair color, races, etc. They need to be careful and use common sense when it comes to the groupies. If regular passengers can figure out someone is a groupie, surely if you are the coach operator in question, you should be able to figure it out too. A lot of these groupies on C-Tran are girls between the ages of 14 and 17, they develop these "crushes". I know everyone likes to have their ego stroked from time to time but remember that old saying "16 will get you 20"!
There's a big difference in two consenting adults entering into a "dating" relationship and a grown man taking up an underage girl on her sexual advances. I've talked to enough coach operators over the years to know that make no mistake, a lot of these underage girls/groupies are very sexually aggressive and are pursuing the bus drivers. I've personally witnessed some of these "girls" sexually aggressive behavior. Guys please have enough sense that no matter what sort of proposition she offers you or how attractive she is, how old she might look - remember that she is still underage! You are opening yourself up to potential criminal charges and opening yourself and your agency up to lawsuits. Not worth it. You are the mature adult and she is underage and while she might think she has fully developed emotionally, she probably hasn't.

The former C-Tran operator who I was sure I would see his picture? From what few facts we have about the arrested TriMet driver, there seem to be a lot of similarities in the stories. Turtle (yes that was his nickname-very bad, slow bus driver, passengers gave him the nickname, long before we knew he was a sleezy perv) had driven for C-Tran for many years, was married. He was kind of a mousy guy. I'd had some of his co-workers tell me that when they had met his wife at company/union functions that she seemed to wear the pants in the family. He had no criminal record, in fact he was an honorably discharged military vet. There was nothing at all there to suggest he was anyone to watch out for.

It started innocently enough, she was a regular on his bus, she'd get on at the same stop almost every single day. She was the typical underage girl who looks up to a bus driver and develops a crush. It developed to the point where if she was at the bus stop early and knew he was driving the next bus, she'd wait for the bus rather than catching the one right in front of her. It continued on until there were cell phone calls during layovers at transit centers. It eventually led to a sexual relationship. When C-Tran became aware of the sexual relationship she was 16/17. Now this is just heresay so I don't know how true this part is but I've been told by more than one C-Tran operator that she was 14 or 15 when the relationship began. Since nobody knew for sure when it began and since neither the young lady or the coach operator were exactly cooperative about those details, it never made the police blotter let alone the newspaper. To C-Tran's credit as soon as it was brought to their attention that something might be going on, they immediately investigated and when they found proof of the sexual relationship, he was fired as soon as his bus pulled into the next transit center for a layover.

I can't help but wonder how common are these sorts of relationships? Are they going on at all transit agencies or were C-Tran's Turtle and the arrested TriMet operator just isolated incidents? How many of these things get swept under the rug like C-Tran did with Turtle? If things get swept under the rug and there's never criminal prosecution, these guys could go and get a job at any transit agency that is hiring and the poor public and transit agency would never know they'd hired a skeezy perv who liked underage girls.

I know the union has a brotherhood code but if you suspect or know that one of your co-workers is having a sexual relationship with an underage girl (or guy) please report it! If and when these guys get caught up to it will make all of you look bad!

I'll give C-Tran the benefit of the doubt that this girl was of legal age to consent when they became aware of the sexual relationship. I would question though why C-Tran never called the police? Why did you not turn that dvr over to Vancouver PD? It's not up to you to determine if the girl was legal when your operator was in the relationship with her. That's a call for the police to investigate and determine. I could argue that by you just firing this man that you violated a public trust. Since you never reported this to Vancouver PD, there was never an investigation and he was/is free to get another job with a transit agency so long as he has his commercial endorsement and a good driving record.

Passengers literally put their lives in the hands of coach operators every single time we board a bus. When you are putting your life in someones hands you need the ability to trust that person, you need to trust their judgment, not just when it comes to their driving ability but also their mental judgment. When a coach operator enters into a sexual relationship with an underage girl he met driving the bus, it's about as bad a violation of public trust as you can get.

Fare Increases

2011-04-28T14:38:00.001-07:00

This is an issue that C-Tran has been wrestling with for the past couple of years and I see that it's coming up for Tri-Met now.

I notice a lot of the same complaints from citizens who use both agencies. You have the low income folks who even an extra $5 a month for a bus pass really is a lot of money. Then you have the people who just don't want a fare increase period.

I notice the people who don't want a fare increase period people inevitably complain about the bad attitudes of the drivers who never smile or say hello, snap off at passengers who dare to ask a simple question (this sounds like my blonde buddy-Psycho Tinkerbell at C-Tran :-) ) and that instead of raising fares the agency needs to add service.

A couple of things come to mind-do these people realize that the agency is raising fares because revenues are down, which leads to cuts in service? C-Tran has gotten into a financial bind for some different reasons than Tri-Met but the results are the same. Maybe the drivers are grumpy towards you (Psycho Tinkerbell being an exception-she's always cranky and thinks everyone is out to get her) because this attitude you give them is like you come off when you post on a news website, Facebook, etc.

I've seen some of these folks get on the bus, they are the ones who complain everytime they put their money in the fare box. If you had to sit on that bus driving it all day and had people complaining about the fare, the fact the bus doesn't do this or that or go here or there-8 hours a day, 5 days a week of that-who among us wouldn't be cranky?!?!?

As for the low income folks-I wish the decision makers with the transit agencies would remember for even 5 minutes that there are people out there whose incomes are so fixed that even the slightest .40 cent a ride fare increase is a lot of money.

My advice to the whiners-if you don't like the bus drivers attitude, consider your own attitude and demeanor towards the driver. And if you are unfortunate enough to get on a bus driven by Psycho Tinkerbell you have my sympathies. When it comes to fare increases-Tri-Met riders make yourselves heard loud and clear, don't let them piggyback fixing their financial woes on the backs of the fixed income users of the system. For those of you in C-Tran country-the entire Board of Directors are Clark County area elected officials.

Hitting a nerve!

2011-03-09T09:00:00.001-08:00

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.

Safety and C-Tran, Tri-Met

2011-03-07T14:24:00.000-08:00

I've treaded lightly on the topic since the tragic accident last April where five pedestrians were injured and two were killed.

Perhaps it is finally a good time to comment.
It shouldn't take people dying for transit agencies to react and take safety seriously. Even if nobody dies, safety should be just as important as that bus getting to each stop on time. Too often both C-Tran and Tri-Met are guilty of this. After the C-Tran bus hit and killed that pedestrian near the Parkrose Transit Center years ago, did C-Tran conduct any sort of safety review? After a C-Tran bus was involved in a fatal accident with a pickup truck on Andresen Road a few years ago did C-Tran conduct any sort of safety review? After that 2008 FTA study came out regarding bus-pedestrian collisions in intersections did C-Tran do any sort of safety review? The study found that 60% of bus-pedestrian collisions at intersections involved turning buses and that an astounding 70% of those collisions were all involving a left-hand turn! That sounds like a trend that should have been looked at in 2008.

I was on a C-Tran bus in 2008 a few months after the report came out. At the time C-Tran was detouring their express buses across the Broadway Bridge from the Rose Quarter and down Broadway. This was a sunny, summer day, the bus was driving down Broadway, we were southbound on Broadway when the bus was faced with a sharp left-hand turn onto Everett; making the sharp turn from Broadway, required the bus to sweep across adjoining traffic lanes. Just as we made the turn and got to the crosswalk there were three pedestrians right in front of us. The driver had to slam her brakes and it took evasive action by the pedestrians to not get hit by the bus. The poor driver was visibly shaken for not only the rest of the trip through downtown Portland but all the way to Fisher's Landing Transit Center. She had followed C-Tran's training procedures for such turns and it wasn't enough. I was looking out the front window at the exact time of the turn, I didn't see the pedestrians until they were right in front of us. A couple of blind spots in the form of pillars had blocked my view of them. When I first heard about last April's accident, my incident from two years before came immediately to mind. The location and certain aspects were so similar it literally sent a chill down my spine.

I'm skeptical the C-Tran bus I was on that July 2008 day and that Tri-Met bus last April were the only two buses who have had similar experiences on Broadway. Maybe if management of both transit agencies had addressed incidents like I was witness to in 2008 when coach operators would report them, those two pedestrians would still be alive today.

So far as I am aware C-Tran management has never done anything to address the dangers of left-hand turns. In fact, as I pointed out in my previous post, I've seen them add left-hand turns.

Last May I asked Lynn Halsey, C-Tran's Director of Operations what sort of safety reviews they undertake and if they had done anything differently in light of the Tri-Met tragedy. His reply was "On a regular basis, C-Tran reviews our safety procedures". That seemed rather vague and when I pressed him for additional details he said that "periodically we will send out bulletins to our operators". When I asked if anything had been done specifically in light of the Tri-Met accident, he gave me a flat out "No". To me it comes off as the transit agency wants the coach operator to take most of the responsibility and blame when something goes wrong. Yes, the bus driver is responsible because they are where the rubber meets the road but many times they are simply following the procedures of the agency they are working for. If they don't follow those procedures, if a supervisor sees them, they are subject to discipline by the agency.
In the case of Sandi Day, at least one of the items she was found guilty of in court, sweeping across other lanes to make the narrow turn with the large bus-that's what Tri-Met trained her to do!

Regular readers know I've had my issues with the ATU but I will give the ATU complete credit and wish that the management of both C-Tran and Tri-Met would listen to the union when it comes to safety issues. For years the ATU has complained to Tri-Met about mirror location and other blind spots. The agency has largely ignored these complaints. If you are ever in downtown Portland some evening, waiting to go home and have a few minutes before your bus home arrives, I urge you to cross 5th Avenue and compare the mirror location between a C-Tran bus and Tri-Met bus. It is noticeably different. I'm not saying the C-Tran mirrors are in the perfect place but it looks better for the drivers ability to see than the Tri-Met mirrors. The ATU has complained for many years about the numerous blind spots and nothing has changed.
Come on C-Tran, Tri-Met, do something about blind spots, change your training, take safety more seriously! Hiring a "safety director" wont change anything if you don't change certain long standing policies/complaints. Listen to your coach operators or union representatives when they make you aware of safety issues.

Always remember, when you have a flawed training procedure it's not the operations director, the training staff, the CEO or anyone else in management who have to live with the sometimes tragic consequences of those flawed procedures, it's the poor coach operator.

Left-hand Turns and Buses

2011-03-07T09:40:00.000-08:00

I'd like to talk about buses and left-hand turns today.
First of all, I hope the pedestrian who was hit by a C-Tran bus at Broadway and Evergreen this morning is okay. I also hope that the coach operator is doing well mentally. My thoughts and prayers are with both the pedestrian and coach operator. Having been hit by a car myself, even if the physical scars are not that serious, the mental aspect takes much longer to heal. I can't imagine being hit by a bus.

Speaking of Broadway and Evergreen, let's bring up the topic of buses making left-hand turns. After the tragic accident in downtown Portland where a Tri-Met bus struck five people, killing two of them in April 2010 a lot has been made of buses making left-hand turns. One of the things that came out in the local media as a result of this accident is that left-hand turns are much more dangerous than any other type of turn a mass transit bus makes. There is a 2008 federal study that found bus-pedestrian collisions are more than twice as likely to happen during left turns. The danger is so much greater that several transit agencies all over the country have eliminated some left-hand turns in busy urban areas including Des Moines,Iowa, who eliminated many left-hand turns in the downtown core and Cleveland, Ohio who have eliminated some left-hand turns and taken other steps to make the necessary left-hand turns safer. Other transit agencies, where it isn't feasible to eliminate left-hand turns have adopted honk and turn policies, where the operators are required to honk before making those turns. There are several agencies, including Tri-Met who are experimenting with a new automated call-out from a bus making a turn.

At a time when transit agencies all over America are cutting back on or eliminating left-hand turns, what does C-Tran do? They add a left-hand turn in the heart of downtown Vancouver! Not only did they add a left-hand turn, but they added it on one of their highest frequency routes-the 37 Mill Plain, which runs every 20 minutes. Before the change the eastbound 37 would continue down Broadway to Mill Plain and turn right. The reason C-Tran changed the routing as I understand it is that they felt too many buses were stacking up, northbound on Broadway at 13th Street. This change was made I want to say in September 2010.

I understand not wanting buses stacking up on Broadway BUT was pedestrian safety EVER considered when C-Tran made this routing change? Does C-Tran consider pedestrian safety anytime they make a routing change? Were all other options considered, including jockeying arrival/departure times by as little as five minutes considered before changing a right-hand turn into a more dangerous left-hand turn? I have a feeling that C-Tran never considers pedestrian safety when they make these "slight" routing shifts.

What makes this routing change especially dumb,is that they did it 6 months after a Tri-Met bus hit and killed pedestrians and after a LOT of local media attention on the dangers of left-hand turns. It's not fair to the pedestrians who are potentially at danger and it's not fair to the coach operators who have to live with the knowledge that they've hit and injured a pedestrian.

I certainly hope the pedestrian who was hit by a C-Tran bus this morning wasn't hit by a 32-Evergreen or 37-Mill Plain bus making a left-hand turn onto Evergreen from Broadway.

Coach Operator Opening

2011-02-03T14:19:00.000-08:00

If you are looking for a part time coach operator position, C-Tran is hiring! They have a very small window for applying-they posted it last friday and it closes this friday.

Here is the link: http://65.165.109.76/careers/Careers.aspx?adata=Q%2fhMgU9ioOU2Q2IBMeDlPzojZaM309CBtHV%2b%2bLtKWW0PRb6H39%2fWK4hiwgS3QLR6dvwqIVTrFzs%3d

If for some reason the link doesn't work you can go to C-Tran's website, find the link to employment opportunities and from that page link to current openings.

YES, this is the same C-Tran that was laying off coach operators less than a year ago. The same C-Tran that I spoke out against laying off those operators because several folks would be retiring and pointing out that there would be normal attrition such as folks quiting, losing their jobs involuntarily. But what do I know.....:-)

Funny thing, I've heard through the grapevine that all of those operators they let go last year have ended up being brought back....

Now if only they'd get rid of psycho and replace her with a normal, sane coach operator!

C-Tran Seathogs

2011-01-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

After the commuter column in the Oregonian the other day a discussion ensued about seathog experiences on C-Tran buses. It was funny that the subject came up in the paper this week because I had been talking to a friend about some of the seathogs I saw over the Holidays. Make no mistake though, seathogs are an issue year round on buses all over America.

The express buses are 11 months out of the year 97.5% commuters 99% of the time. During the Holidays though for as long as I can remember the demographic changes slightly. Starting around Thanksgiving and through the days before Christmas you start getting the occasional people who don't want to drive into downtown Portland for the tree lighting or to shop at Macy's or other downtown Portland stores. A lot of these people are "older", some aren't so old but have kids and such with them. Frankly if you live in Clark County and want to go into downtown Portland during the week, an express bus is a GREAT way to go. BUT the seathogs can be quite rude and turn what should have been a fun experience into a pain.

I've seen these commuter seat hogs refuse to surrender seats to elderly folks bogged down with packages. Even when they are sitting in the seats that are clearly marked reserved for elderly or disabled passengers. I've seen them refuse to move their bags of crap that they haul back and forth with them. There's a sub-issue for another day-why do some folks feel a need to take what amounts to a big old suitcase back and forth to work with them every single day? It takes up tons of space on crowded buses and I'd wager that less than 50% of the time these folks are carrying anything for actual work, it's personal stuff.

You get a lot of older veterans who take C-Tran year round to downtown Portland to head up to the VA hospital. The 105 runs between Salmon Creek, downtown Vancouver and downtown Portland all day 5 days a week and is a nice alternative to driving to Marquam Hill. Again you will see commuters who will refuse to surrender a seat to an elderly or disabled person. I've spoken up at times and I've had them look at me like I was nuts for bringing it up and sadly they still refuse to move.

I have a co-worker who is in her late 50's/early 60's., who has a physical disability that requires her to get around with the aid of a cane. She used to be a regular C-Tran rider for over 10 years but got fed up. A couple of years ago one morning she boarded the 177 at Evergreen Transit Center for her trip to work. There was a perfectly healthy lady on the bus taking up all 3 of the elderly/disabled seats. My co-worker asked her to move her bag so that she could sit in 1 of the 3 seats. The lady told her that no she wouldn't move her bag and told my co-worker that there were plenty of empty seats on the bus and that my co-worker could take 1 of those seats. My co-worker got upset and ended up picking the woman's bag up and tossing it into the floor of the bus. The seathog ended up calling C-Tran and filing a formal complaint against my disabled co-worker. In spite of the coach operator defending my co-worker along with numerous passengers phoning C-Tran defending my co-worker, she the disabled person who requested the disabled seating ended up getting excluded for tossing the bag on the floor!

It's my understanding from the story in the Oregonian that while Tri Met doesn't enforce seathog rules when it comes to elderly/disabled seating that at least a rule actually does exist. If Tri Met wanted to push it the rule is enough of an actual law that they can write a ticket if you refuse to move.

I can only assume by the fact that my co-worker was the one who got excluded and by the fact that coach operators most of the time don't speak up that C-Tran does not have any sort of formal rule about surrendering seats to elderly/disabled. On C-Tran it appears to only be a "suggestion".

Personally I'd like to see Tri Met start writing tickets for this when there's a fare inspector or someone else with ticket writing authority on a Max and frankly I'd like to see C-Tran make this an actual rule rather than suggestion and see the coach operators start speaking up more often.

December Citizen's Advisory Meeting

2010-12-20T15:39:00.000-08:00

Anyone who reads this blog and who might attend the C-Tran Citizen's Advisory Committee meetings that are normally held the last thursday of every month, please be advised that the December 2010 meeting has been cancelled for the Holidays.

The C-Tran Citizen's Advisory Committee will hold their regular meeting on January 27, 2011.

C-Tran Paint Scheme-5

2010-12-20T15:35:00.000-08:00

This one is you either love it or hate it, I've ran into very few who are in between. It is "affectionately" known as the prison bus. It's not half bad on the hybrids but on the older coaches...ugh. It's also hard to see in the dark and fog.

More on the Pierce County bus accident

2010-11-22T15:20:00.000-08:00

Here is the link to the story from the Tacoma News-Tribune. It includes a great shot of the poor operator climbing out of the front of the bus where the windshield was before it got blown out. It's nice to see that not only is the operator safe and physically healthy (mentally, is probably a whole other story) but to hear that none of the passengers were seriously injured.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/11/22/1434795/report-bus-overturned-at-south.html

A very bad day for a Pierce County Transit Bus

2010-11-22T15:08:00.000-08:00

I was just checking out Seattle news and came across a story about a Pierce County Transit bus that got into a very scary looking accident in Tacoma during today's snow storm. Here is a link to the story on Kiro's website: http://www.kirotv.com/video/25880837/index.html, the link to the regular story is: http://www.kirotv.com/weather/25850281/detail.html.

I've been on C-Tran buses that have wiped out bus shelters, in fact I've heard that one incident in particular to a TriMet shelter on Sandy Blvd., led to TriMet telling C-Tran our buses wouldn't be allowed in Portland unless they started chaining them up.

To those of you new to C-Tran and the metro area. Many years ago it was an old joke that C-Tran only actually owned about 10 pairs of chains for the entire fleet. They just hated chaining up their buses. You would get some very treacherous and dangerous conditions but they were quite stubborn. Between ATU 757 and TriMet, they now not only have chains for all of their buses, but that automated system where you just push a button and the bus is changed up is pretty cool.

C-Tran Paint Scheme-3:

2010-11-08T09:28:00.000-08:00

This is the "original" paint scheme that C-Tran used. I liked the old logo much better than the new "C" logo. If I were the one deciding on new logos/color schemes, I would have kept the old logo but used the new colors! Update the light blue and lime green to the current darker blue and gray. The old logo with the new colors would have been more attractive and distinctive.

Media Bias

2010-11-08T08:59:00.000-08:00

Today I'm not going to rant about any coach operators, management, boards..no today's rant is against the local media and the way they portray not only Max but public transportation in the Portland-Vancouver metro area in general.

Anyone who has been a regular reader of The Columbian newspaper in Vancouver over the years is well aware that they've been very anti C-Tran for many many years.

If you listen to the local tv stations you'd think people were being robbed, murdered, raped, etc. on Max every single day of the week. Unfortunately far too many otherwise intelligent people now have a perception that Max is the "crime train" and that public transportation in general is full of miscreants.

I'm not saying that buses and trains don't have their share of the less than desirable members of society BUT it's no worse than your average suburban shopping mall parking lot, local New Season's Market parking lot, etc. I come from a family of cops so from an early age I was taught to see things happening that an awful lot of people don't realize is happening in front of them. If you go to the Fisher's Landing Fred Meyer and sit in your car long enough and watch what's going on, I can just about guarantee that there will be a drug deal of some sort occurring right in front of you.

What we have with the local news media is a situation where if for example a stabbing or domestic dispute happen within a mile of a Max station, somehow the news story comes out that the stabbing happened near Max. I've seen stories where you've had some sort of shooting or stabbing that had ZERO connection to Max, yet for the stand-up report that aired on the local news, the reporter stood in a location that the Max platform was clearly in the background.

A couple of weeks or so ago some transients at an hour when Max doesn't run got into some sort of fight along some of the paths/trails out towards Gateway and I-205. One of them stabbed another one. So how did the story appear on the news? "A stabbing at Gateway Transit Center".

You had some sort of fight out in Hazel Dell in the Vancouver area a month or so ago and there was a stabbing. For some reason this got connected to a C-Tran bus stop along Highway 99 (this was on Channel 2, they chose to show a C-Tran bus stop) or 134th Street Transit Center (the other tv stations in town linked it to 134th Street). There was ZERO evidence that any of the men involved in the stabbing had ever been on a C-Tran bus let alone at 134th Street Transit Center. C-Tran looked into the incident and the transient camp where these guys had been staying was several blocks from 134th Street Transit Center!

One of the most well-known Max violence incidents was the older man who got beaten with a baseball bat in Gresham a few years back. First of all, I'm not justifying the actions of the poo bag who beat him-I hope the guy who did it rots in hell-BUT how many people who have heard the story realize it happened after 11:00PM? I gotta be honest, my neighborhood is very safe other than kids doing the occasional tp'ing of some trees BUT I wouldn't want to walk around or feel safe necessarily walking around my own neighborhood that time of night! The isolated yet hightly publicized incidents of crime that actually are related to Tri-Met or C-Tran, if you read or listen to the ENTIRE story and not just heard what you want to hear, you would realize that the OVERWHELMING majority of these incidents have occurred late at night or early in the morning(like 2am early).

One reason why crime on a bus or Max gets so much attention is that it is in fact RARE. People for example getting stabbed or beaten at local establishments happen many times a day, every single day of the week. It's so commonplace, it's not considered newsworthy unless of course you get multiple casualties of some sort or they can connect it to gangs.

Buses and trains run on busy roads, highways that have many different types of businesses that attract many different types of people. If 2 guys get into a fight in a bar along a busy road, it stands to reason there might be a bus route that runs passed the bar. The news media needs to take this into account and stop making it look and/or sound like these crimes have anything to do with a bus or train. News media-let's take some responsibility here!

C-Tran Paint Scheme-2

2010-10-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

This is the patriotic paint scheme. It's easily my favorite of all the various schemes C-Tran utilizes. For a bus, it's actually very pretty to look at. You can find it on 1 40-foot Gillig bus and on 1 Opus bus.

Light Rail-High Capacity Transit

2010-10-08T10:49:00.000-07:00

Max is part of my commute routine more often than not. I don't mind the train. Max and the light rail stations are not nearly as bad as the media makes them out to be. The same crap that is happening at Max stations is happening in the parking lots of people's neighborhood stores; or for those of you in the burbs, drive by your local elementary school parking lot some friday or saturday night between 9:00pm and say 2:00am-there's some pretty colorful stuff happening. As someone who walks a lot, I can tell you that first thing in the morning, in even nice local neighborhoods, you find syringes on the ground on a regular basis. Fred Meyer parking lots, such as the Fisher's Landing or Chaklov stores in Vancouver, there's drug deals happening just about every single day of the week in them.

One reason crime near a light rail stop gets so much attention in the media is that it is in fact unusual compared to your local neighborhood strip malls. The other reason is that the media loves to freak people out and dumping on public transportation is always a good safe bet for the media.
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The second part of my rant....

I can appreciate that Tri Met likes to put up light rail lines. What I do have a problem with is that they seem to like to build light rail lines to the detriment of fixed-route buses!! This is my biggest fear about extending light rail into Clark County, not crime. I could see C-Tran, since they will be responsible for Max on the Washington side of the Columbia, working with Tri Met to figure out how to extend a light rail line say, out SR-500 towards Van Mall. You see some red flags in the 20-year plan. They would be replacing the current 4-Fourth Plain bus with High Capacity Transit. Nothing wrong with HCT but when it comes to actual service stops along a given street/highway, it amounts to Max on wheels. I don't know about you but if I live along Fourth Plain, I don't think it's right that I would have to walk 12+ blocks to get to a bus stop. As it stands today, the HTC that is in the 20-year plan (that will be part of the funding package for Max that will face Vancouver voters in 2011) the new and improved 4 route will NOT go the the VA medical center campus!!!!

Max trains can be good, but they generally should not be favored over fixed-route bus service. MOST people do NOT live within 1-2 miles of a light rail line, no matter how many directions you send light rail lines out!!! It doesn't matter how many times Tri Met is told this or that people who actually use the system explain it to them, they still don't get it.

The back bone of any transit system isn't light rail trains, it is those fixed-routes that tie a community together. Those fixed-routes are out there in the neighborhoods, the smaller communities. You can get so obsessed with putting in light rail lines everywhere that you start to lose sight of the forest for the trees.

It is irresponsible of Tri Met to keep pushing on this Milwaukee light rail line so hard when they have a rapidly aging fleet of buses, when they are asking the union members to sacrifice benefits and pay, and MOST importantly when they are having severe financial issues that have caused them to completely eliminate routes and cut service hours even on busy routes.

Readers of this blog know that I frequently take issue with some of the actions of the ATU but really, insisting on putting up this Milwaukee light rail when you want to cut work hours, benefits, etc. to your employees? If Tri Met is typical of most companies, they probably gave the operators the nice benefits packages over the years, in lieu of actual cash raises on their paychecks.

This Milwaukee light rail line, I know public transportation users who live out there and they just don't see the line being used as much as the existing lines.

Clark County, watch this closely, there's a very good chance this could be your future!

Follow-Up to Bad Bus Drivers

2010-10-04T11:49:00.000-07:00

To those new to this blog or who don't remember, please google the name Sandie Olosky. She was the Seattle Metro driver who had a file full of complaints who eventually was involved in a fatal accident when she crossed the center lane of a busy highway with her bus and ran head-on into a pickup truck, killing the driver of the truck. Prior to her driving being the cause of this fatal accident she had been fired by Metro in Seattle twice, only to get her job back.

Here is a sampling of the complaints against Sandie Olosky:

http://www.nwscape.com/md/s.htm

Once again, I would welcome comments from a union member who can give me or anyone reading this a valid reason why it is appropriate to always work so hard to get these known bad bus drivers reinstated when they get fired.

Given history, I can't help but think that there's a decent chance that Lahcen Qouchbane (the Tri Met driver who got caught doing what appears to be reading a Kindle while driving on I-5 and who was subsequently fired) will end up getting his job back with Tri Met.

I get that far and away most bus drivers are very good at their jobs and that the Bozos are few and far between but these Bozos reflect poorly on all of you. The general public does not know that most of you are good to great at your jobs. They end up stereotyping all of you and lumping you all in with the Qouchbane's and Olosky's of the world.

Bad Bus Drivers

2010-10-04T09:05:00.000-07:00

I was reading Joseph Rose's "Commuting" column in today's Oregonian with interest. I don't think that he is anti bus driver or even anti union, I think he shares a frustration with me-why does the union insist on protecting some of these folks? As readers of this blog from last year know, I pointed out that all too frequently these bad bus drivers who end up being involved in some high profile incident usually have been involved in several other incidents, some of which met the criteria of the termination policy for their transit agency before the high profile incident.

The vast majority of C-Tran coach operators are very very good at their jobs. They get "it". They have the customer services skills, patience of Jobe, driving ability, and common sense to successfully drive a 40-foot, almost 40,000 pound bus safely down the highway. That said, some of them have no business being allowed behind the wheel of a public transportation agency vehicle. Any C-Tran drivers reading this, think about your co-workers and tell me there isn't at least one or two whom you know are a danger to not just the passengers but even you!

I'm not anti union. My father is in fact a member in good standing of ATU 757. He happens to drive a school bus. Unions can be wonderful things. They can and do protect the masses from being taken advantage of by companies, government agencies, etc. There are however times when their loyalty to one another seems more than a little misguided.

I respect that when it comes time for contract negotiations that the union protects you from being taken advantage of by C-Tran, Tri Met or any other transit agency. What I don't get is why you do not seem to grasp or want to understand that the handful of menaces behind the wheel of your buses make ALL of you look bad. Making this situation even worse is that there have been some high profile instances with Tri Met operators that the media has jumped on. When I have a co-worker who is a total Bozo, I'm not afraid to say it. Some of you on the other hand are.

How many times now has Psycho been called on the carpet for this or that issue? I know for a fact that the Union rep has gotten involved a few times. This person not only get's into disputes with passengers, doesn't make sure wheelchairs are secured properly, but also doesn't hesistate to complain to their supervisor if one of you offends them and has on at least one occasion told one of you off in a tirade, that may or may not have included obscenities, in front of a bus full of passengers at 99th Street Transit Center all because one of you dared to poke his head in the bus and warn this operator about a traffic problem.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the coach operator who got told off at 99th Street-didn't bother to report this to his supervisor!!!! Many of the drivers know about it, many passengers know about it but the bosses don't. Gotta be loyal to the brotherhood...

Why was this not reported? If one of my co-workers did this to me and was known to be as mentally unstable as Psycho is, I'd report them. There are some people who are not worthy of your most vigorous defense when they commit some act that gets them brought up on a formal complaint.

And this is not the only C-Tran driver who has been protected. There is a male driver who women know better than to say their phone numbers out loud for fear of getting obscene phone calls. There's another driver who is just an odd duck, that his fellow drivers have always found more than a little strange. This guy got romantically involved with a passenger, got her pregnant and has subsequently married her. He still acts as odd as he ever has, so his new marriage hasn't stabilized him. I've seen him taking some sort of pills behind the wheel of his moving bus, they don't look like vitamins. I tried reporting it to C-Tran only to be told that there aren't any cameras that see the driver behind the wheel, so they have no way of knowing if he was taking pills or not.

I do not understand how for example it would weaken the ability of the union to defend a driver not deserving of termination or suspension to let some of these bad drivers who do deserve termination or longer term suspension slip through the cracks. You need to draw some lines of distinction. It shouldn't be all or nothing. Common sense needs to enter into the equation sometimes. It's my experience with jobs I've worked at and in talking with C-Tran operators, keeping the Bozos around does cause morale issues.

Make no mistake, thanks to the handful of high profile Tri Met drivers who've gotten themselves on the news over the past year or so, you are all now under a microscope when it comes to your behavior. How long is it before Psycho goes off on one of her well known tirades and someone whips out a cell phone with video/sound capabilities and calls Fox 12? When this does happen it is going to make each and every one of you look bad. Not just passengers but the general public will pass judgement that you must all be like her. Considering in a little over a year from now that same public is going to be asked to vote to save many of your jobs, is defending this operator or any others who might do something especially bad really worth it?

Ballot Measure

2010-10-01T10:26:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure how many folks out there are aware of it but at the September board meeting, they voted an intent to put a ballot measure on the November 8, 2011 ballot.

The proposed ballot measure will be a two-parter. One part will cover preservation and a certain level of expansion of fixed route and C-Van service, the other part is to cover C-Tran's portion of maintenance/operations cost for the proposed expansion of the Max yellow line into Vancouver as well as the Bus Rapid Transit transition of the 4-Fourth Plain route.

A yes vote on the preservation/expansion ballot question would mean a 0.2% sales tax increase (two pennies on a ten dollar purchase).

A yes vote on the light rail/BRT ballot question would mean a 0.1% sales tax increase (one penny on a ten dollar purchase).

The board did the responsible thing here. They wanted the light rail as a stand-alone measure. They wanted the voters of the Vancouver C-Tran boundary to be able to say yes or no to light rail.

The thing that I like about this approach is that even if voters don't like the idea of light rail in Vancouver, they can still support the preservation of C-Tran as we know it today. If the light rail portion of the measure gets a no vote but the preservation part of the measure a yes vote, service will stay the same and in some instances increase.

The part that should scare those folks in Vancouver and Clark County who are dependent upon C-Tran and C-Van is that if the preservation/expansion part of the ballot measure fails, we are looking at a minimum of 40% cuts in the service levels we have TODAY!!!

If you think C-Tran is bad now, wait until you see what happens if that measure goes down to defeat!

I think it's great for users of C-Tran/C-Van that their service wont be dependent upon the light rail ballot measure passing. I know C-Tran had an extensive survey done this past spring and the results overwhelmingly said that Clark County residents support C-Tran and light rail expansion. But I've gotta be honest, when it comes time to mark their ballots, I'm not 100% convinced voters will support light rail into Vancouver any better in 2011 then they did back in 1995. 1995 was the last time Clark County voters had light rail on the ballot and it was overwhelmingly defeated.

True or not, there is thanks to the local media and their sensationalism a very very negative image of Max in the metro area. I ride the red line most days back and forth to work, the vast majority of the riders are other commuters, kids heading to school, elderly folks on their way to appointments. The train is not full of muggers and rapists. I've been riding Max for over 15 years and have seen very little crime on the actual train. Yes, things happen BUT those same things happen (in MUCH greater numbers) each and every single day in your local Winco or Fred Meyer parking lot.

C-Tran Paint Scheme-1

2010-10-01T09:26:00.001-07:00

The Opus. These buses are generally speaking hunks of poo. The ride is rough for passengers, I've heard a lot of drivers complain that it's just as bad if not worse on them. Making the rough ride even worse is that C-Tran uses these on some of Vancouver's worst bumpy roads.

The Many Looks of C-Tran

2010-10-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

For those of you new to this blog, one of my more popular postings from the past was my look at the various paint schemes on C-Tran buses. They may not be the largest transit agency, but they sure have "many" different paint schemes.

So in an effort to get this thing going again, on the right foot, the feature is being reborn, I will post all of the various paint schemes, one-by-one.

Return-This Time For Good

2010-10-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

It has become all too clear that many BIG issues have or are coming up that affect both C-Tran and Tri Met. These issues affect the coach operators as well as riders.

After dealing with a family crisis for the past few months and after a bit of soul searching, I've decided to bring the blog back. When this blog was originally created, it was never my intent to anger any of the coach operators or managers at C-Tran. Some folks on both sides felt "threatened" by my exercise of free speech. So in the interests of fairness, whenever an incident occurs,I will not name any specific coach operators, even when I am aware of their name.

If you have any problems with a posting and want it changed or something removed, PLEASE feel free to email me at notoriousctr@yahoo.com.

The same thing goes for if you have any story suggestions, email me and I can look into it or post it so you don't hafta worry about taking the heat.