After several days without posting, METRO blogger Mary Sit returned today with a story about running late for a meeting, courtesy of a METRO bus fiasco:
To make an 8 a.m. meeting, I had to arrange for a friend to come spend the night Sunday to manage the early-morning household routine, freeing me to walk out the door precisely at 7 a.m.
I was on time. The 7:07 bus never came.
[snip]
I called the general phone number on the bus stop sign, and got customer service who called dispatch. At least customer service was efficient and informative. Within seconds she told me the 7:07 a.m. bus had broken down, and the 7:25 was late due to passenger overflow.
I boarded it at 7:34 a.m., knowing I would be late. For the past three weeks or so, I had been driving into the office because I could never make the bus on time. The one day I chose to rely on the bus to make an important meeting, the bus system failed me.
For people who don’t have the option of driving, this can be a pretty big problem (one that Laurence Simon documents frequently on his blog).
It would be nice if someone in operations could explain on the official METRO blog what contingency plans METRO has for such occasions, since mechanical breakdowns are to be expected from time to time. We won’t be holding our breath waiting on that explanation, however.
BLOGVERSATION: TBIFOC.
