Waiting for the 89 that never came

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

When I got to the Davis Square T this past Saturday, I waited awhile for the 89 that was supposed to come at 5:08pm because it lets me off close to where I live, rather than having to walk 15 minutes during the snow storm had I taken the 88. It never came. I called someone nearing 6pm to ask if they could look up with the Next Bus application when the 89 would actually arrive, which turned out to be at 6:08pm. The 89 bus scheduled to arrive at 5:08 on this snowy day wasn't late--it just never came.

I finally saw an MBTA official and asked them what was going on. They gave me a number to call. I called the number and followed the prompts to register a comment/complaint, but no one picked up. I called a second time. No one picked up. The next time I called, I pressed 1 rather than 3, which was for bus fare information. I told the person I called that I'd tried calling and registering a complaint, twice, but that no one picked up until I called and pressed 1. He said a couple of things that seemed to contradict--the first was that someone should be there to pick up until 8pm, and the second was that there were about 10 folks in the office and they picked up all of the calls. So. That leaves the question: why did no one pick up twice in a row? No real response.

With regard to what happened with the bus, after waiting on hold for a bit, I was told there was a mechanical failure, and that it would have been an hour before they could have sent another one, so they just waited until the next hourly 89 was supposed to come. And I am left wondering, as I saw at least 4 87 buses, and several 88s, pass in the time that I was waiting, why couldn't one of the more frequent routes take on the 89 route rather than make us wait for hours, wondering when the next one would come, when we could choose between standing inside the warmer station and be accosted by the smell of pee (I guess maybe it's worse when it's snowing and folks try to wait it out inside? Or maybe it just became more pronounced because I was there for so long, I don't know) or outside in the snow storm? Or walk home in the storm. Or take a cab. Goodness, could someone not have communicated to the person on call at the Davis Square station that they should at *least* make an announcement?

It was suggested that I call the MBTA and register a complaint. I did that once, years ago, and got something in the mail a little less than a year later that said my complaint had been registered and someone would get back to me when it was (which, need I say? NEVER HAPPENED). I have been told since that there are folks who are actually there to respond to you now and give a call back. Hoping someone might answer me today since it is a weekday during business hours, I just called and did, in fact, talk to someone, who took down my complaints about how this was handled and told me to expect a call back. Anyone here done that? Do they actually call back? And if they do, is there anything they do to explain how the problem is being considered, or do they just rely on the "well, sometimes we have breakdowns and that's that" excuse?

Comments

[cos]

Yes, I've twice talked to people to make complaints, and both times someone called me back within a week or two and they really had handled my complaints. Both of these times were more than ten years ago, and I only clearly remember what one of them was about (a bus driver who wouldn't stop for me when I was clearly there wanting to get on the bus).

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

I used to commute via bus and I would say that if you threw two darts at a clock you'd probably have a more accurate bus schedule for the MBTA.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

"I saw at least 4 87 buses, and several 88s, pass in the time that I was waiting, why couldn't one of the more frequent routes take on the 89 route"

Unfortunately the T is not very good at doing last-minute swaps.

"could someone not have communicated to the person on call at the Davis Square station that they should at *least* make an announcement?"

I've never seen a subway station agent make an announcement about a service delay, especially a bus delay. They're not set up to communicate such information to them.

A bus inspector (T-speak for supervisor) would be the one to do this, but I don't think there's one regularly on duty at Davis.

And something else I found out the hard way: Dispatch only gets in touch with station bus inspectors by landline phone. (Presumably inspectors have some sort of radio when they're driving their SUVs.) So if the inspector doing anything besides sitting in the booth by the phone, such as dealing with a problem on a bus right outside the booth, they'll miss the call.

I agree that it would be nice if they could make swaps and get the word out about problems, but the reality is that the T is not set up to do it.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Next question: why isn't it set up?

Online form

[mjrocks98.livejournal.com]

I have filled out the online complaint form twice in the last year & both times I received a T ticket in the mail for one free ride. Here is the form: http://mbta.com/customer_support/feedback/

[fefie.livejournal.com]

This is why NextBus was such a godsend.

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

No, but seriously, there's a strong argument that AHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Sorry. I just can't.

Is that really not a rhetorical question?

It's always been done this way. The job descriptions are part of contracts and can't be rewritten. Nobody's got money for 2-way radios, which probably wouldn't work that well anyway.

There's no funding. There's no political will. The right blames the unions. The unions blame lack of funding. Everyone blames the Big Dig and the Turnpike Authority.

Any attempt to raise funding is met by howls of opposition from Western Mass, which sees all the transit money poured into the gaping maw of the $4 billion dollar maintenance backlog of the T, and not into the gaping maw of the $4 billion dollar maintenance backlog of the transit systems outside of 495.

Grabauskas could fix the RMV, but he couldn't fix the T. New Commissioner Whatshisname actually got stuck on a broken-down train going to speak at a conference about train maintenance.

Anyone else?

[gingicat]

So you're saying that we need a minor deity here in order to get anything done.

[freckles42.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I lodge my complaints on twitter directly to @MBTAGM and I'd say I have about a 75% success rate in at least receiving an acknowledgement. I get the generic "We're very sorry about that and will look into it." However, I've noticed an improvement in the specific concerns mentioned (water leaking on the seats of the bus/T, rude drivers, buses that blow past stops, "phantom buses" like the one you encountered). I obviously can't say if the two necessarily correlate, but my observation is that tweaking the ear of the GM via twitter has worked reasonably well.

[frotz.livejournal.com]

I've registered a few complaints about this but haven't gotten a meaningful response. They've even started posting a list of advisories every rush hour of the form "route ### has 15-20 minute delays due to traffic", but they still keep quiet when they can a run entirely. (Also in explicit contradiction to their Customer Bill of Rights. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.)

I'm not completely cynical; for specific complaints, especially about unusual circumstances, they've actually been pretty good about responding to me and fixing things and so forth. For complaints about systematic problems, though... good luck with that.

[trtls.livejournal.com]

I have called many times to report a complaint about the buses and have gotten someone every time. They take my complaint to varying degrees of completion, but I can at least complain about a specific bus # or driver and feel it's being recorded. Now, what they do (or more specifically, don't do) with that information is a different, probably untraceable story.

Re: Online form

[ron_newman]

Unfortunately, the T discontinued that refund program earlier this year.

[belladonna.livejournal.com]

Yep. A couple of months ago I crankily tweeted about the disappearing trash can at Alewife (I don't want to take trash on my shuttle home and have to hold onto it, damnit) and cced @mbtagm just for the hell of it. He responded and within 3 days, the trash can was back. This was while Richard Davey was GM, though a quick glance at the @mbtagm profile shows a lot of tweets out to people regarding complaints so I'm reasonable assured that Jonathan Davis is doing as good a job.

[42itous.livejournal.com]

That is the one thing I hate about winter here: when buses don't come. I've started walking everywhere, because at least then I'm not standing still and shivering.

I've always thought that the "get a free ride if your bus is more than half an hour late" was ridiculous. A free $1.50 ride doesn't make up for the kindergartener whose mother is late picking her up, or for the job lost because the employee is late *again.* The only way Boston is ever going to deal with traffic and pollution and crumbling roadways is to *first* make public transit reliable.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Word. Last winter, when I was pregnant and not about to risk my safety on poorly-shoveled, icy sidewalks walking to Davis when the 89 was late or didn't show, I essentially told my office that I'd show up when I showed up and that's the way it would be. Fortunately, I have a job where I could get away with that.

[kalimba21.livejournal.com]

agreed. the bus will never be a useful form of transit until it is reliable. I sometimes need to take the 86, and it often never comes at all; I'll wait an hour for a bus that's supposed to come every 20 minutes; I was told that when someone calls in sick mid-day across the system, they typically just pull a driver off of the 86 bus route and cancel that part of the run for the rest of the day.

My other peeve is that the 86 is supposed to have bike racks, which I use when I take that route; However, 20% of the runs don't have the racks and they won't let me put my bike inside the bus, which I can understand, but how can one plan without the info? I was told that they ran out of funding 80% into the project. I wish the bus tracker services could note if the specific bus has a bike rack..

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

Minor?

[dial-zero.livejournal.com]

During HONK my boyfriend waited over an hour for a 66 that never came (he got to the stop 10 minutes before the bus was scheduled to arrive; 66's were still running in the opposite direction). The 66 was scheduled to be detoured during HONK, however this was a good 2 hours before the detour was scheduled to start. He was late to work because of this, and it was a temp job, so that was a bad thing. I emailed MBTA on his behalf, and they basically said they would "look into the problem." Yeahhhhh, that makes us feel a lot better.

Also, what's up with there being a scheduled detour and NO notices on the bus on the days leading up to the detour, or signs at the bus shelters? I guess you really have to check mbta.com EVERY time you plan on taking a bus, in case there's a secret detour.

[greyling.livejournal.com]

Anyone who can fix the MBTA bus system would be a godsend.

Several bus systems out there (one in Christchurch, NZ, for example) have little plastic boxes by their bus stops. They have a bunch of LEDs that light up and show you, depending on which button you press, a) how long before the next bus, and b) how long before the next bus to a specific destination. This sort of system, plugged into NextBus, would be fantastic.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Where did you hear the 86 is supposed to have bike racks?

It's not listed at http://www.mbta.com/templates/popup_help.asp?eid=19424 . Though that page has no date, so there's no way of knowing how current it is.

There used to be a bike symbol on the schedules of routes on that list, but not any more.

It would be nice if all of the long routes and routes where biking isn't allowed had racks. (Hello 111 -- why the heck isn't that on the list, when there's no other way to get a bike to Chelsea without going miles out of your way?)

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

http://dailyfreepress.com/2011/03/02/mbta-looks-to-make-room-for-cyclist-commuters/ says *all* T buses will have bike racks by 2012. That will be nice, if it actually happens.

Also, http://www.mbta.com/riding_the_t/bikes/ says they relaxed the rules for bikes on the Blue Line. They're now allowed in the reverse-peak direction, and the peak restriction is shortened to 7-9 am and 4-6 pm. I'm surprised I didn't hear about this, since I try to keep track of this stuff. (The Red and Orange lines ban bikes in both directions from 7-10 am and 4-7 pm.)

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that part of it is that advertising on buses is sold based on bus line, and that is part of the reason they cannot switch buses easily.

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'm really jealous of Christchurch, NZ at the moment. That is awesome.

[arrowintwolakes.livejournal.com]

My running route takes me into Boston on Tremont and back out to JP on Huntington. Last Saturday, I had run what I'd say is about 95% of the entire 39 route (which runs essentially from Back Bay down Huntington to Forest Hills, aka, the exact course I was running) before I saw a Forest Hills-bound bus. In the meantime, I counted 6 Back Bay-bound 39 buses. Definitely kept me amused for the back five miles of the run.