BUS STORY # 140 (Shorts 11)


A construction worker boards the bus after a hard day’s work. Whatever job he’s been working on, it’s obvious from his work clothes he was doing the dirty work. He picks a seat facing the aisle, climbs up on the platform, carefully brushes off the seat, then sits down.

***

We’re stopped on red on Central at University. I’m sitting a few rows behind the driver. A partition blocks my view of him. I hear his voice boom out: “Where’re you headed?” I hear nothing. Then the driver again: “You want to go that way.” I see his right thumb poking out from behind the partition, pointing south. I look out my window. I see a white car with out-of-state plates in the lane next to us, even with the driver. I see someone leaning out the window on the passenger side, looking up at the driver. Then I hear the driver: “Go ahead on the light. I’ll wait on you.” When the light turns green, we don’t move. I follow the white car after it turns in front of the bus and heads south down University. We begin to move.

***

He boards the bus carrying two plastic bags. One has a big rectangular box inside, like a large kitchen appliance of some kind. The other looks like it has a few household or grocery items. He carries both bags in one hand, and the heaviness of the one bag makes his movements awkward and clumsy. The appliance bag bangs his leg a couple of times on his way down the aisle. He and the bags more or less crash into place in an empty row of seats just ahead of me. At the next stop, he gets up with the bags and crashes his way three rows forward. It seems like way too much trouble to get that little bit closer to the front door. Two stops later, he moves again, back two rows. A stop later and he moves to the last row at the back of the bus, bumping and thumping and almost losing his balance. He exits at the next stop.

***

Overheard: “My girlfriend gave a cell phone to her nine-year-old. I tell her what’s up with that? She says ‘Trust me – I know what I’m doing.’ So a couple a weeks later, she tells the kid her teacher called and said she hadn’t turned in some of her assignments. Then she says, ‘Give me the phone. You can have it back when your homework is done.’ That was a year ago, and it’s still working!”

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The photo above features last year’s Poetry On The Bus second place winner in the adult category. The poem is Ganado, by Ray Reeder. Click on the photo to enlarge.

BUS STORY # 139 (Who Moved My Bus Stop?)


Back on April 12, Phil posted an observation on DukeCityFix’s ABQ Bus Riders Discussion board that began:

“Starting today there were signs up at about every third Route 5 bus stop along Montgomery announcing that service at that location was being discontinued and moved to the next stop."

http://www.dukecityfix.com/group/abqbusriders/forum/topics/consolidating-bus-stops

The Albuquerque Journal picked up the story on April 27:

“WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BUS STOP? That's what Dwight L. Crabtree wants to know.

He writes that "Montgomery — Route 5 — has numerous stops with red tags marking closures" and "there was not any information on the Transit Web site or on the bus about this. Does city management know about this?"

It does — and those aren't closures. The city is in the process of determining if they will be.”

http://www.abqjournal.com/traffic/272236356955traffic04-27-09.htm

On April 30, KOB.com posted its story on the evaluation.

While the DCF forum has drawn few responses, they have been articulate and thoughtful. Concerns include the impacts on the elderly and disabled – longer distances to and between stops, and intersection crosswalk signals timed for the hale and hearty. There is also the increased risk to all riders limited to catching the bus on the far side of a busy intersection: having to walk through one or both busy streets of the intersection (“Albuquerque Roulette”) to get there.

On the other hand, the KOB story has drawn a whopping 88 responses. Unfortunately a large number of them seem to have been written under the influence of testosterone.

While Greg Payne certainly explained the city’s rationale for evaluating bus stops in the Journal and KOB stories, it wasn’t until May 5 that ABQ RIDE put up a page explaining its “Bus Stop Evaluation Program” and listing its goals:

1. Provide better service and make ABQ RIDE a more attractive alternative mode of transportation. By reducing the number of underutilized stops in high bus stop density zones, as well as stops preceding a controlled traffic intersection, we can reduce the time it takes our buses to go from point "A" to point "B," resulting in faster service.
2. Better utilize existing bus stop infrastructure. Infrastructure such as shelters, benches, signs and garbage cans that are currently in use at underutilized stops will instead be relocated to stops where these amenities are lacking. This will also result in fewer stops that need to be maintained.
3. Increase fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. Each time a bus accelerates after making a stop, it uses fuel and causes additional particulate and carbon emissions to be released. To the extent that we can pick up the same number of passengers at fewer stops, we can minimize unnecessary stops and idling time, reduce our fuel use, and achieve an offset in our overall carbon footprint.

http://www.cabq.gov/transit/routes-and-schedules/abq-ride-to-consolidate-some-bus-stops

Despite the seeming logic, some critics want to see the data supporting these claims. It's a reasonable request. In the meantime, the city promises “ABQ RIDE would appreciate your input regarding the stops being evaluated. Your input will be used to make our decisions!”

I’m going to predict this will end up being a tempest in a bus shelter. It would have been smarter had the city been the first to break the news on the ABQ RIDE website, and included some data supporting its goals as reasonably achievable.

Based on past experience (Bus Story # 17, parts 1, 2, and 3, and Bus Story # 29, parts 1 and 2), the city has been responsive to the ridership. It has also been committed to expanding public transportation. I don't think the bus stop evaluation signals a change. I do think we all understand the need to preserve fuel consumption from both an economic and environmental perspective.

I just hope the first morning I go down to my regular stop and discover it’s missing, I’ll have had enough coffee to remember it’s just down the street.
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The photo above features last year’s Poetry On The Bus fourth place winner in the youth category. The poem is Where Is My Train, by Aleyna Donaldson. Click on the photo to enlarge.

BUS STORY # 138 (Apology)


A dad and his little girl board the bus and take the aisle-facing seats in front. They share a three-seater with an old guy. He’s been nodding on and off the whole ride.

Dad’s wearing a white Dallas Cowboys jersey and a faded blue baseball cap with the bill curved. His daughter is wearing a purplish-gray sweatshirt and pinkish-gray sweatpants. The old guy is wearing a red jacket and blue jeans.

Dad directs his daughter to the middle seat. They’ve just settled in when the daughter begins rubbing her hands up and down the old guy’s jacket sleeve. He looks over at her. She’s looking up at him with a big smile. He grins back. Dad sees the whole thing and quickly jumps in.

“What are you doing? Keep your hands to yourself. Apologize to the man.”

The little girl, still smiling, pulls hers hands back and says, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” the old guy tells her. And then he adds, “Thank you.”

Dad says, “I don’t know where that came from.” He shakes his head. “Just curious, I guess. She’s three years old.”

“It’s a good age,” replies the old guy.

“She’s got a one-year-old brother at home. They’re a handful.” He shakes his head again.

The old guy laughs and says something I can’t make out.

They ride in silence until they reach the old guy’s stop. He sits forward on his seat as if to stand, then turns toward dad and daughter.

“You two have a good weekend.” And then looking at the dad, he adds, “I know they’re a handful, but don’t forget to enjoy them.”

Dad says, “I do – every single minute.”

The old guy gets up and moves toward the door.

“Tell the man goodbye,” says dad.

“Goodbye,” she says to him, and waves.

He turns and waves back. “Goodbye.”

And he’s out the door.
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The photo above features last year’s Poetry On The Bus first place winner in the youth category. The poem is Lavender Blue, by Sophie Kelly. Click on the photo to enlarge.

BUS STORY # 137 (Poetry On The Bus II)


Well, it’s Poetry On The Bus time again.

Last year, ABQ RIDE sponsored it’s first-ever Poetry On The Bus contest, and featured the poetry of the winners and many other entrants on the overhead advertising space on all the city buses.

I thought the graphic matches with the poetry were exceptionally well done, and I plan to feature some of last year’s panels on my postings for the next several weeks.

The current promotion notes that the first year contest drew 465 submissions, so it is undoubtedly back by popular demand.

The theme does not have to be the bus: “Poems must reflect a theme chosen by the writer (you!)” Still, I kind of like having a bus theme. Something like:

One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock rock
Taking the Rapid Ride comes as a shock
Cuz you get around town so much faster
Sure hope it puts the cars out to pasture

Just sign it “W.S.”
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The photo above features last year’s first place winner in the adult category. The poem is Morphestra, by Charleen Madill. Click on the photo to enlarge.

BUS STORY # 136 (Portrait # 3: Brit)


He sits in the back, on the driver side, usually on the bench facing the rear doors. Sometimes he reads. Sometimes he just looks at the rear door.

Late 60s, tall, spare, impeccable posture – never crosses his legs. Always wears a driver’s cap. Today’s looks like dark leather or moleskin. He has several – tweeds, corduroys, solid wools.

An unlikely purple muffler hangs down either side of a dark green car coat. When the weather is warmer, he wears a suit jacket or sports coat. For all I know, he’s got one on under the car coat.

White shirt, solid burgundy tie this morning. I can’t tell from here, but I’d guess wool rather than silk. Dark blue pants, dark socks, thick-soled black shoes.

His skin doesn’t look like it’s seen a lot of sunshine.

The first time I checked my recollection against the real rider, I was surprised he doesn’t have a moustache. I’d given him a William Powell, in white.

His expression is fixed, but hard to read. I can’t tell if he is enduring having to take public transportation, or if he can’t believe who they’re letting ride the bus these days. Maybe it’s just that he still has to go to work. I run through a gamut of stock phrases and come up with “stiff upper lip.”

He gets off at the University, and he carries a dark blue cloth briefcase with him onto the campus. I’ve made him an English professor –British literature, of course. But I’m gonna have to contrive a greeting one morning to find out what I really want to know. And I’ll be amused if, as I suspect, he turns out to be from this side of the pond after all.
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Thanks to KG in Albuquerque for This Week's Feature story.

BUS STORY # 135 (Ex)


It happened one day after work. I climbed aboard the bus, took a seat, and there she was: my ex-wife.

I don’t mean physically. My ex would no more ride the city bus than she would pump her own gasoline. I mean her picture was on the bus, across the aisle on one of the advertisements lining the overhead display area.

I tried to remember the last time I saw her. It had been a few years ago, and she was looking her age. She had those grandma arms she always worried she’d end up with when she got older, and I was surprised she was wearing short sleeves where they were on display. She'd always been hypersensitive about her looks, especially about those things she believed were flaws, and she took pains to hide them.

Up on the bus poster, I could see she’d lost the last 30-odd years. She looked exactly like she did when I first met her, right down to the expression.

I could also see she’d changed her name to Carrie Rodriguez, and that she was performing at an upcoming city-sponsored concert called Q-Jam. This was a big change, too, because, when I knew her, she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.

For the next several days, I’d see her every time I rode the bus, and I couldn’t help staring at her. I thought about going downtown to the Civic Plaza to catch her performance. I was curious about what kind of music she was making these days. After all, in addition to that second glass of wine, it was the astonishing revelation she not only knew who Leonard Cohen was, but was actually familiar with his music, that gave me the courage to ask her out.

The marriage was not made in heaven. But she bent my life’s course toward where I am today and with whom, and she introduced me to the music of Tom Waits and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. What else is there to be but grateful?

I had some misgivings about explaining all this to my wife when she would inevitably ask why I wanted to go see this particular performer.

It’s not that my wife is the jealous type, thank God. My ex was, and because she was, I’m still to this day feeling grateful for my wife’s trust. But something told me that telling my wife I wanted to see some young woman perform because she reminded me of my ex-wife and would she like to join me would not be the brightest relationship enhancement strategy I’d ever come up with.

As it turned out, my boss took the matter out of my hands. I ended up working that weekend. No concert, no rendezvous with the ex, for me.

It was Sunday afternoon, a day after the concert, when I decided to google Carrie Rodriguez. Her web site opened with the same photo I’d seen on the bus, except it was now gracing the cover of her latest album. The title of that album was Carrie’s way of setting me straight about who was who:

BUS STORY # 134 (On The Importance Of A Good Bus Story)

This past Monday, a group of transportation workers came to the city council meeting to accuse ABQ RIDE director, Greg Payne, of retaliating against anyone complaining about problems in the department, and to ask for an independent audit. Payne (who must have known they were coming) defended himself by showing a sensational series of bus surveillance tapes capturing bus drivers behaving badly, retorting that some employees were not used to being held accountable for their conduct, and asking the council to understand what he was up against.

According to most local news departments covering the story, the confrontation was an unsettling surprise to the councilors, and some councilors thought Payne’s showing the tapes was inappropriate.

One story reported two of the counselors as having said they are regular riders and have never seen anything but professionalism and courtesy from their drivers.

I’ve been riding a little over three years now, and while I’ve seen a few Circle K stops, and once got bypassed at a stop by a driver on a cell phone, I don’t recall a single episode of reckless driving. Further, it is my impression that over the last year and a half, there has been a noticeable improvement in the professionalism, courtesy, and timeliness of the drivers.

Which doesn’t mean there aren’t a few bad apples still in the barrel. On one of my regular routes, several co-riders have told me one of our drivers has exhibited fits of aggressive and dangerous driving. One of them told me he’d called it in, but nothing has happened that he knows of.

To be honest, I’m not terribly shocked to learn that some bus drivers drive their buses like the average Albuquerque driver drives his or her car. I find myself wondering why anyone in his or her right mind would drive a Smart Car out there, never mind a scooter.

But I digress.

The evening following the city council meeting, local NBC affiliate KOB ran this story along with the tapes:

http://mx.truveo.com/video-abq-bus-drivers-behaving-badly/id/3573113690

At the same time, ABC local affiliate KOAT ran a council meeting follow-up story featuring American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees union local president, Andrew Padilla, protesting the release of the tapes to the public.

Padilla’s objection was two-fold. First, the tapes “are wrapped up in lawsuits or grievances and were not meant for public viewing.”

The second, and by far the more interesting of the two, was that those tapes came from security cameras put there for the protection of the drivers. One can’t help finishing the sentence with “comma, not the riders.”

He also accused Payne of wrongfully firing some drivers.

The last thing busboy is going to do is make a judgment call here. Consider that, if every story has at least three sides, this one has a bunch more: the union’s side, management’s side, the councilors’ sides, the employees’ sides, the riders’ sides, the reporters’ sides of everybody else’s sides, and, finally, God’s side. As usual, God is the only one not talking.

What does interest me, however, is the contest for the hearts and minds of the citizenry. I believe the winner of that contest is the side with the better bus story. And right now, management has the better bus story.

As one news account noted, this is just the latest battle in what has been an ongoing war between the union and Greg Payne.

For some background, consider this KOB undercover investigative report from two years ago, done as a response to viewer allegations about bus driver misconduct:

http://www.truveo.com/4-Investigates-Bus-drivers-behaving-badly/id/3705863318

Two years later, things are better. Ridership is way up, but complaints have actually gone down. Who gets the credit for that? Greg Payne and management. How did they do it? Defining expectations and holding slackers accountable. Oh, and fighting union opposition every step of the way.

Great bus story for management, terrible bus story for the union.

The latest battle at city hall allowed management to emphasize its story line. Whether appropriately deployed or not, Payne scored by releasing those tapes. The next day, those images dominated the conversation around the water cooler. The episodes were graphic, memorable, and emotionally provocative.

The union continued to muff its story line by missing the opportunity to express its dismay over non-compliant and dangerous drivers and to jump on the public safety bandwagon.

Instead, the union is unwittingly telling us a story about how its primary goal is to prevent Greg Payne from firing bad drivers. In the story-telling process, it has also managed to make Greg Payne and management look like the only people in ABQ RIDE who care about our safety and the quality of our service. ¡Hijola! These folks need some serious story-telling help. In fact, the story is so bad, one might be forgiven for wondering if maybe the union leadership is actually in bed with management.

One of my co-workers told me one of the clips featuring an ABQ RIDE driver texting behind the wheel was included in a national news story featuring several “caught-on-camera” videos from around the country. Texting is a particularly effective story line. Consider these:

Last September, 25 people were killed and 135 injured when an engineer drove his commuter train into another train because he was texting and missed a crucial signal. California quickly passed a law making it illegal to text while driving. Of course, this law prevents mass transit operators from texting as effectively as laws making it illegal to drink and drive prevent drunk driving.

On April 29, San Antonio news stations broadcast graphic front window, driver, and passenger views of a bus plowing into the back of an SUV on a freeway because the driver was texting and hadn’t noticed the traffic had stopped.

A couple of weeks ago, in Boston, an operator was texting his girlfriend when he ran a red light and rear-ended a train, injuring 49 people and doing over $9 million worth of damage.

To its credit (enhancing management story lines everywhere), management at the T didn’t just make it an offense to text. It actually addressed the problem by flat out banning all cell phones, iPods and paging devices for drivers while on duty.

Incredibly (weakening union story lines everywhere), the Boston Carmen's Union is fighting the ban.

That, in turn, seems to have sparked a call for Congress to ban possession of all mobile devices by all mass transit drivers while on duty. The call came just this past Thursday on NBC news from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, and from acting National Transportation Safety Administration chairman Mark Rosenker. This from a decidedly pro-union administration.

This is why I think management has the better bus story, and this is why it continues to own public opinion – even that part of the public which is texting and emailing and number-punching and conversing away behind the wheels of its own private vehicles.

As long as the union story line remains how mean and nasty management is to the poor, downtrodden workers, and ignores what the rest of us are seeing and thinking and worrying about from those videos, it will continue to have no credibility, no respect, no audience.

Look at all the union issues in this war. They’ve all but disappeared from the public consciousness. The video images of a few bad drivers haven’t. Those drivers have effectively sabotaged whatever legitimate grievances their honorable and responsible fellow employees might have. And that’s a very sad bus story indeed.
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Here are links to the rest of the stories from which I’ve put together my own.

May 20 Albuquerque Journal story from McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

The Alibi’s coverage of the city council meeting

Union Officials Protest Release Of Bus Driver Tapes

San Antonio Driver Crashes Bus While Texting

Conductor in Boston Trolley Crash Was Texting His Girlfriend

Union Fights MTBA Cellphone Ban

Mass transit officials want law banning drivers from having mobile phone devices on the job