From: fixmetro

Subject: Re: silver line MIA

Date: July 13, 2012 01:30:30 PDT

To: HorneT@metro.net

Cc: AlejandroF@metro.net, borja.leon@lacity.org, GreenwoodM@metro.net, CustomerRelations@metro.net, BoardSecretary@metro.net, SOTOPA@metro.net, ALARCONR@METRO.NET, Hollandr@metro.net

Since you implemented your "fix" I have only attempted to take the nighttime silver line a few times. This is partly due to vacation and travel, and partly due to obvious trust issues. I think I successfully caught it twice at harbor freeway station after 9 pm in the last couple of weeks. 

Tonight, July 12, the 9:03 bus did not arrive at harbor freeway station. Since my green line train was plenty early, I actually went down to the freeway level first, just to verify that the temporary signs were still up indicating that buses after nine come on the street level (they were). I was on Figueroa at about 8:50 at which time nextbus said the nine o'clock was 17 minutes out. It never came and eventually disappeared from nextbus. 

So I hung around for the 9:33. That never came either. That, too, was on nextbus, but never arrived on the street level. 

Purely out of indignant curiosity, I continued to wait for the 10:02 bus. It arrived at 10:20. I think at that point I was actually hoping it wouldn't show up. At least I was able to write most of this email during my hour and a half wait. I hope you will also be hearing from the poor SOB who could not get his bike on the rack and had to wait ANOTHER hour (you know... assuming the 11 o'clock actually showed up). 

I trust metro is not happy with ~50% reliability, but clearly you're not THAT bothered by it. If I did my job that poorly, it would cost billions of dollars, and possibly human lives. Actually, I'd certainly be fired for incompetence long before it ever went that far. I'm having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around how difficult it could possibly be to keep a bus line running. I'm not even talking about on time. I mean how hard is it just to get buses to show up AT ALL? This ain't rocket science. 

No doubt the drivers are unionized and require 300 completely missed shifts before you can fire them. But what level of dereliction is required to fire a manager? Something drastic needs to happen. 

I must admit you did raise my hopes there for a little while, but I am back to writing just for catharsis. Please do keep me in the loop as to what further half-assed measures you plan to try in hopes of herding your silver line cats. In the meantime, I'll be resorting to the internet and my county supervisor for satisfaction. And I'll probably go back to driving my single-occupant vehicle... not all the time, but a lot more often than I do currently.