Duggan Fires DDOT Chief - Declares Population Will Be Growing By Next Election 2017

**Gistok** · January-08-14, 12:46 PM

Whatever your feelings about Duggan, he will hold his subordinates to a very high standard.

My brother-in-law was a midlevel mgr. at DMC while Duggan was there... and he was very tough on his managers to show results. They didn't much care for him. However, no results? Buh-bye....

Detroit has waited long enough for excuses... time for action....

Whatever the merits [[or lack thereof) in this decision... Duggan fired a warning shot for all of the people in City Government... show no results? He'll show you the door...

**bailey** · January-08-14, 12:54 PM

Originally Posted by Gistok

Whatever the merits [[or lack thereof) in this decision... Duggan fired a warning shot for all of the people in City Government... show no results? He'll show you the door...

all well and good. Just questioning the axing of someone on the turn around job for less than 6 months and during a once a generation storm. Should Duggan be fired if he hasn't rectified all of detroit's problems in 6 months?

I mean there is a difference between lighting some fires under some asses and being a knee jerk reactionary...

**professorscott** · January-08-14, 12:56 PM

It does appear that Mr. Toliver was making progress on some fronts, but having said that, it is completely routine for a new mayor to want to choose his own department heads. Mayor Duggan will want to bring in someone who, in his estimation, will be able to rapidly attack the biggest problems DDOT faces. Given the amount of money available to DDOT, which admittedly isn't nearly enough, it could be doing much better than it is doing.

DDOT needs to accomplish several things. Roughly in order of importance:
1. Get as many of the broken-down buses repaired as possible, in order to have 227 available for service every single weekday without exception. As a practical matter this means you need to have 250-260 expected to be operational, so you have spares to put in mid-day when breakdowns happen.
2. Put in a system of preventive maintenance to get off of the roller coaster envisioned in problem 1.
3. Put together a contract with the employees so that it becomes actually somewhat predictable as to how many people will show up for work on any given day.
4. Rehire line supervisors. [[Bus systems do not run themselves.)
5. Get more reliable fareboxes so you can actually collect all the money the riders are supposed to be paying.
6. Restructure the routes completely, in coordination with SMART, M1 and the RTA, so the routes reflect the reality of the situation of 2014 [[where and when people work, live, go to school, go to the doctor, etc.) rather than keeping the route structure of 1927 and just cutting back a bit every year.

Of these, the first five could be accomplished very quickly; the sixth will take more time. It will be interesting, once we see who the mayor has hired, what that person's stated priorities are.

**bailey** · January-08-14, 01:06 PM

Originally Posted by professorscott

It does appear that Mr. Toliver was making progress on some fronts, but having said that, it is completely routine for a new mayor to want to choose his own department heads
....
It will be interesting, once we see who the mayor has hired, what that person's stated priorities are.

Agreed... but that isn't what he did. He fired the guy for cause.... and that cause was for not having the buses running on time even though 40% of the drivers couldn't actually get into work to drive them.

it will be interesting to see what Wayne County or DMC crony gets appointed over the guy who was brought in less than 6 months ago as a specialist who spent a career running transit systems all over the country.

**rb336** · January-08-14, 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by professorscott

It does appear that Mr. Toliver was making progress on some fronts,

I'd like to know what fronts.
Increased violent incidents on buses? Check
More disruptions in service? Check
Worse relationship with DDOT drivers? Check

**Gannon** · January-08-14, 02:23 PM

Originally Posted by rb336

I'd like to know what fronts.
Increased violent incidents on buses? Check
More disruptions in service? Check
Worse relationship with DDOT drivers? Check

I had my worst D-DOT driver experience last year.

Didn't know of the recent dude's installation, this is all starting to make some sense.

Hope Duggan doesn't come after me now for the lost fare.

Cheers!