Just a comment on scheduling van rides - its their job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If most businesses let the drivers and contracted agencies get away with what they do in LA - they would be terminated..... They are paid by the county to do the work - and the contracted agencies should be held much more accountable then they are.... Out here also only the disabled can use Access - even if a senior citizen - the rest are left to their own resources with just in town transit during the day supplied by the city, others must use taxies, etc.... As the population is aging I think we are going to see a big change here - one can only hope!

kmeb:

I will never forget when the elderly gentlemen came on the Acess-a-ride and starting banging the driver with his cane. The driver must have been used to getting caned because he calmly said "sir, please don't hit me". I jumped out of my seat, took the cane and said 'sir, it's not the driver's fault, they don't give him enough time to go from Point A to Point B, so that's why he's two hours late. I also waited two hours in front of Cornell.

The guy didn't want to be told anything. He was livid. It was like 20 degrees and he was ice cold. He had been waiting outside. We got him into his seat and we calmed him down. Then we picked up 4 more people (who also came on yelling at the driver). That poor driver. See people often blame the driver.

The people who are to blame are the people who schedule the trips. The drivers often show me their manifestos and sometimes they are given 5 minutes to get from Queens to Brooklyn. That is completely impossible.

Also the drivers can't call you on the phone. They have to call their dispatcher WHO IS SUPPOSED TO CALL YOU AND TELL YOU THAT THEY ARE GOING TO BE LATE.

This has happened to me only once in Staten Island. It was midnight. Alan and I were at an engagement party. It was all the way at the end of Staten Island, in the woods practically. No highways, Just dark, unlit roads and plenty of trees. I thought I was in the boondocks.

So Alan and I are waiting (some of my family members waited with us before they got into their cars to go home).

Well, the manager of the restaurant came running out and said "who is Melody?? and I piped up, Here I am". I get on the phone and it's the driver (he used his own cell phone). He said 'where the heck are you, I can't find you". HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHERE I AM, I DON'T LIVE IN STATEN ISLAND. So I put the manager back on the phone, they start talking, all of a sudden the manager runs into the middle of the road and starts waving his hands. Down this dark desolated road, an Access-a-ride bus appears. We all start waving him down. You have never seen a group of people SO HAPPY TO SEE THAT ACCESS-A-RIDE VAN.

That was also the last time Alan and I went anywhere at night.

We simply can't afford to be stranded, left in the dark.

And when we do go anywhere we carry water, because you never know.

Oh, one more thing. have any of you noticed today's headlines about our lovely Governor, Elliot Spitzer???

Thank god I didn't write to him!!! He's a dead man after what he did.

But the guy who will take over for him , David Paterson, well, he'll be the acting govenor. And he's disabled. Legally blind from birth.

I shall write to his office and tell him of our needs.

If anyone can help the seniors and the handicapped, it has to be this guy.

I love the idea of having a senior or disabled bus run on the regular route. I too live in NYC & if I don't know in advance where I want to go, I have to take a cab. I cannot ride those NYC buses, especially at 3 PM when all the school kids start to board, pushing one another & generally behaving as you expect teenagers to behave.

The one bright spot is that the hybrid buses have no front steps so if the driver is nice enough, he'll lower the bus so you can roll on board but that doesn't mean he won't start the bus before you're settled in a seat. But I think we should start some kind of campaign to get special buses for old or disabled people who don't reserve Access A Ride vans ahead of time.

Gotta give credit when due, and blame when due! The buck stops at the top of each organization, I dont care what it is... If your drivers are overscheduled, then its the schedulers who need to be hung to dry or the system reworked, or funds increased, or riders told that told that time period is full..... while our local senior (in city transit) transports large numbers of people - they are are always on time) - Access drivers use their own vans, I have often been the only rider, have called their contracted agency to find out where they were - and been told they called them and they were "on their way" - to find out from a hospital guard once that the van had been sitting down the street out of my sight for over an hour - doing absolutly nothing.... depends on funds, management, and accountability - like any job - and yes, again, its up to riders etc to campaign like you are.... sounds like you are getting good issues together- if you get an overwhemled driver - get his story!!!!! He's not gonna want to loose his job - but maybe you can find out how often this happens, etc.....

Kmeb:

Here's an interesting tale about what happened to me one time on the Access-a-ride.

I was the only passenger. The driver had to go to the bathroom. He pulled up at an Access-a-ride bus depot. He was gone a whole 5 minutes. Turns out, he was not supposed to leave the vehicle with a passenger on it. I'm sure he knew this, but nature called and what the heck was the guy supposed to do?

Well, as I'm in the vehicle waiting for him (again, a whole big 5 minutes), this important looking guy comes over and speaks to me through the window. He asks me "where is your driver"?. What the heck was I supposed to do? I said "he'll be right back". Well, you should have seen the look on his face when he saw me alone in that Access-a-ride Bus. He was livid. He starts to pace back and forth. I'm thinking, "for god's sake the guy had to go to the bathroom, we're talking 5 minutes here'.

The driver comes back and gets yelled out (and I mean yelled at), by the important looking guy. Turned out that the guy was the supervisor.

Well, when the driver got back and started to take me home, he confides in me "I'm a dead duck". I said "but you had to go to the bathroom" and he goes "yeah, but it's against the rules to leave a passenger in the vehicle". I said 'well, you should have taken me with you, we both could have gone'. (see where my humor goes in situation like this??.

He laughed and said 'I'm going to be in trouble when I get back to the depot".

As we are driving, he gets a phone call on his walkie talkie thing on the bus, and the guy at the other end is really giving it to him saying "did you leave a passenger alone on the bus".??

I'm shouting into the walkie talkie thingee "I'm just fine, don't take it out on this guy". The driver laughs and says: "nothing you can do, but thanks anyway".

He drove me home, thanked me, and I have no idea what happened to him.

My god, a person can't even go to the john, without getting yelled at.

They either get hit by elderly people with canes, or they get in trouble for going to the bathroom.

Me???? I keep my mouth shut.

I'll complain the legal way, TO THE MEDIA!!!! lol

After driving buses & then tour coaches for around 25 years, i know a little bit about public transport, believe me, the driver himself does not want to be running late and get all the abuse off the passengers, but things do happen to cause it, which are not the drivers fault.

Buses just like cars do breakdown, even new ones, the driver has to wait for a replacement bus to be brought out to him, this can take ages in some cases depending on a lot of different circumstances.

Drivers do get sick and usually there is only 1 standby route driver available to use, if 2 or 3 drivers ring the depot on the same day which has happened to me when i was the depot manager, it's a complete nightmare swapping drivers around and calling in other drivers that have a day off, it all takes time but the driver cops the abuse off the passengers, probably the same guy who probably was good enough to come in on his day off.

Other vehicle accidents on that buses route is another problem, most of the time you can't just do a u turn like a car can do and cut back in, the side streets may have branches off the tree's will either scratch the top of the bus or damage the air conditioneer, or the power lines are to low or there around concrete roundabout that you can not get the bus through, so they have no option other than wait it out until they can get through again without risking their job, if the bus gets damaged or pulls down a power line its a sackable offense.

Going to the toilet whist driving on route is something that is not in the drivers control, we all know that, but if that guy that Mel speaks of, didn't turn the motor off, put the air brakes on and take his fare money with him, he would be real lucky not to have get sacked on the spot, that is a definite no no.

One of the most common holdups are the passengers themselves, not having the correct fare ready, if it takes a minute or so to load them and happens at another 20 stops, that is 20 minutes behind time that the driver has to make up usually in peak hour traffic on usually a very tight schedule and the further the bus gets behind the more passengers accumulate at the bus stops, another holdup which can't be helped is helping the elderly up onto the bus and sitting them safely, this all takes time and on a tight schedule which gets the driver behind time, there are many more reasons why they can run late.

Whilst the majority of drivers are pretty good there will be always what we call cowboys, rude & thoughtless drivers, but they don't last very long.

I have seen a new driver get bashed by 2 drunks, using fists & smashing beer bottles on his head whilst he kept the doors locked and keep driving to a police station, smashing into sign posts along the way, he did get there and held his hand on the horn until the police came out and got these 2 guys, i had go over there that night, what a mess this poor guy was, his eyes were like 2 slits that were that swollen & a cracked skull, once we got him looked after i jumped into the bus to bring it back to the depot, inside the bus the blood and broken glass was every were, it was all a sickening sight.

Brian

I'll never complain about Access-a-ride again.

These poor guys.

Holy Cow! I had no idea it was that difficult. What an awful story.

Hi Liza Jane:

The actual benefit (to me anyway), of going ANYWHERE on any access-a-ride is the fact that many of the drivers are from Haiti, so.....they speak french.

You should see their faces when I get on the buses, I hear their accents and I start babbling in french. You should also see the faces of the other people on the bus who do not speak french.

I usually pass the 2 hours or so just re-learning what I have forgotten in french.

One day, (true story), I returned home from Cornell and I had been speaking french for 3 hours because we had to pick and drop off some people.

So my brain was in french mode. Or ooo la la mode, as Alan called it.

I come in the house and start talking to Alan in french.

He dead pans me and says "English my dear, English."

I never laughed so hard.

Today Alan went for physcial therapy. I am in the gym room with him, and I'm doing the stuff for my rotator cuff. I mean, he had the appointment, but I have the frozen shoulder so whenever I'm around physical therapy stuff (I've done this many times before in my own phys therapy appointments), so I just did the over-head stretchy things, and the little weights, and the arm things. Helped to pass the time and it helped my shoulder.

Then a lady comes in who didn't speak english. I'm italian, recognized her accent and we started speaking. That's when Alan says; "oh, god, now I have to hear italian for the rest of the day??". We laughed.

You should have seen the lot of us, various ethnic backgrounds, all exercising, and all of us watching the tv and hearing Elliot Spitzer resigning. Wow, did the women in the room have things to say to the tv screen. lol

Hi Melody

I would love something like this for my father. He lives in Wareham. Still driving but in my mind not much longer. Power of the pen!