Bus rider weighs in on MTA
This blog gets a lot of email from MARC riders and relatively little from the long-suffering riders of MTA buses. But Ada Orie of Towson wanted to weigh in on the problems of the Route 120 bus. Here's what she had to say:
I would like to first thank you for your honest articles on public transportation. Thank you for not sugar coating anything and being honest. As a commuter is refreshing to read your articles. When I used to ride the light rail, I used to write you every now and again. I have been a daily rider for over a year of the 120 White Marsh Express bus. The concept is a good one. I can park my car and take a bus down 95.
There has been numerous problems with the morning service. Two weeks ago I wrote a complaint about a bus that never showed. The bus broke down and the replacement was on the way. The bus was due in White Marsh at 8:25 and I did not find out this information until 8:45. At 9:00am I got ride with someone downtown. I read about someone's generic response they got from the MTA about the MARC train. At least they got a response.
Today I waited for the 8:30 bus. I called and I was told a bus was pulled off the line. This in turn causes a delay. I was also told a bus was on the way and if it did not come by 8:40, to call back because then it was seriously late. I wrote another letter to the MTA which I am including below for you to read. I hope I get a response. I am on my late bus now as I write you and my driver came at 8:42 and I am already downtown. Have a great day and keep writing the truth.
She added this update today:
I wanted to update you on my bus mess. The 8:10 did not pull off until 8:21. I called and no reason was given for the lateness but the customer service representative was nice. Below is my latest letter to MTA and I have not heard from my previous two letter. I did keep my promise in the letter and wrote our Governor. I asked him or someone in his office to ride my bus and see what I was talking about. Thank you for allowing to vent. I am finally downtown after an unexpected and unexplained delay.
Categories: City bus service, MTA, MTA bus system
Comments
Thanks for sharing your concern. Your complaint is being investigated by the Service Quality Division at MTA.
We'll share our findings as soon as they become available.
Terry Owens
MTA Spokesman
Posted by: Terry Owens | July 16, 2010 1:39 PM
I think that the main reason that you dont get many comments from bus riders is that you dont seem to write many articles about buses.
Speaking as someone who does ride the bus i think that the MTA and the local politicians spend way too much time focusing on Baltimore Metro and MARC.
They spend a lot of time focusing on the systems that upper-middle class people use and very little time on the buses which is what a majority of the public transit users ride.
I can tell you from personal experience that MTA Buses are often so crowded that they cant pick up passengers. I often have had two or three buses in a row pass me by at the bus stop because they were too full to pick up any more passengers.
And yet MTA and our politicians talk about how important it is to encourage MORE people to ride public transit !
Have any of them taken a bus lately?
At least 1/4 of the time the fare box is broken . And often the buses are running late so to save time the bus drivers let people on the buses that show their bus pass without swiping thier pass through the fare machine.
This means that whatever ridership figure that MTA has for its bus system is way off. I would conservatively estimate that the Baltimore bus ridership is undercounted by at least 1/4 to 1/3. And that's a very conservative estimate.
And yet i read articles about how "Americans dont ride public transit".
Then why are the buses so packed? Its like that old joke
"Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore. Its too crowded"
Posted by: Pete from Highlandtown | July 18, 2010 7:14 PM
I agree with the rider above- very few people with cards actually swipe them- I'd guess only 10% or so. I don't know how they get ridership numbers- for example, the Circulator posts ridership numbers and they don't have fareboxes, so maybe they don't count fares but use some other method.
Still, I have to agree- the buses are way overcrowded during peak commutes. I really doubt that the people running the bus systems in Baltimore ever use public transit.
Posted by: Simon | August 23, 2010 9:34 PM
The MTA unfortunately does not have enough driver positions or buses to operate the needed number of buses during the rush to prevent overcrowding.
Posted by: N. Payer | August 24, 2010 2:31 PM