How are the buses getting worse!?

[Scottathew]

I've said this before...they should cut out all but the 15 routes with the highest ridership, increase frequency on those routes to make them more predictable and reliable. Build the confidence back in the system from there.

The system is still spread too thinly...

Also, they missed an opportunity to streamline routes when they installed the new bus stop signs a few years back. There are way too many bus stops on these routes, some only a block apart. There should be no more than 4 or 5 stops per mile. If you can't walk 1/8 of a mile [[660 feet) that's pretty sad!! Nothing worse than one person getting off the bus at one stop then someone pulling the chord to get off at the next stop one block away. Definition of lazy!! And , no, neither one was elderly or handicapped.

Dail-a-ride service should be beefed up for the elderly and handicapped to make up for the reduction in routes and bus stops.

Another thing that slows down the system is the boarding process. Get rid of taking cash. Make everyone get a re-loadable transit card. No swipe, just tap to pay your fare. Again, it's ridiculous to have 20 people waiting to board a bus and everyone's digging in their pockets for change.

This is some of the most solid advice I've seen on here.

I don't like the idea of cutting all the routes, but cutting the amount of stops and getting rid of cash would be huge.

[Gannon]

But on the brighter side I did hear on WDET this AM that they are hiring a new class of drivers.

Sounds pretty classist to me. heh

Let's hope they step up the quality, not just the quantity.


But all buses in town are fucked, not just D-DOT and SEMTA. Anyone ever watch those "First Student" buses as they drive the children around the city to school and back?! I've never seen one drive the speed limit, and am now keeping track of those who blatantly break laws, after the one that ran a stop sign across Vernor Highway a few days ago. There is one fellow who was driving all Mad Max on the way back to their Mack Avenue yard, after dropping his charges off at that school at Vernor and Van Dyke...sixty miles per hour in a 30 zone, tailgating me before that...argh!

[DetroitPlanner]

Let's not forget the bus drivers like all City of Detroit employees have not had a stellar wage history in recent years. Morale cannot be high in what is a very, very stressful job.

But on the brighter side I did hear on WDET this AM that they are hiring a new class of drivers.

http://agency.governmentjobs.com/detroit/default.cfm

$11 - $16 an hour.

[Dumpling]

Unless a bus runs on a steady schedule at fairly frequent intervals such as every
ten or fifteen minutes, I am not in favor of eliminating bus stops. A good many
of the drivers will. not. pick. up. passengers unless they are exactly. at a bus stop.
So, to get home somehow on a cold and snowy day, if the buses seem not to be
running on time [[remember the sickouts?) a passenger can look far down the road
for the bus, then if it is not coming, hike quickly to the next bus stop [[which makes a
transfer no good btw esp if you get a poisoned bus driver) and so on, all the way home.
I would implement a transit card system with the caveat that cards should be very
readily available. Having a Wayne County photo ID card that doubles as a transit
card with two bus round trips preloaded might be a nice start. [[I haven't thought
that one through all the way so please point out any big problems with it).

[motz]

Let's all get out of Detroit right now guys, the old fogy crew has moved in and decided the city is dead, the state is dying and we're all idiots for being here. Pack it up, y'all, buses should be arriving for Chicago, LA, New York, Boston and Texas shortly. Just remember, they aren't publicly funded since that same set decided we shouldn't ever pay taxes at all too.

[middetres]

I'd hate to see any routes cut as well, but the money and resources just aren't there to run as many routes as there are currently.

If you get those initial 15 routes running right, then I, as a rider, can know with certainty that the bus will be there. Yes, I may have to walk a mile or so, ride my bike or bum a quick ride to the closest route, but it will be there with high frequency and on time.

What makes more sense: standing on Linwood for a bus that may never come? Or walking over to Livernois waiting 5 minutes for a bus, and transferring to the Grand River or Michigan bus [[again waiting only 5 minutes) to get downtown?

Reliability needs to be proven before the system can expand again.

[nain rouge]

Let's all get out of Detroit right now guys, the old fogy crew has moved in and decided the city is dead, the state is dying and we're all idiots for being here. Pack it up, y'all, buses should be arriving for Chicago, LA, New York, Boston and Texas shortly. Just remember, they aren't publicly funded since that same set decided we shouldn't ever pay taxes at all too.

It isn't dead, but Metro Detroit is a place for auto engineers that love suburbs. Why a person that highly values an urban lifestyle would torment themselves by living there is beyond me. You have to fight so hard for so little in Detroit - it's ridiculous. You can go to Milwaukee or Minneapolis and already have everything that people are bragging that Detroit might have again in 20 years.

IMO, those that stay either generally a) don't actually care as much about an urban lifestyle as they profess, b) are unable emotionally to leave home, or c) use Detroit's low rent to live a slacker urban lifestyle.

[nain rouge]

I'm just too disgusted by the majority of the attitudes in Metro Detroit to care anymore about what it's attempting. It's like jumping for joy because your deadbeat spouse of 30 years switched from hard liquor to lite beer. I'd have filed for divorce a long time ago.

I deal with my bitterness by giving Detroit a hard time. There are feelings there, sure.

[canuck]

Gary Brown is in charge of the DDOT and was placed in that position by the Governor and Orr. He is probably screwing up the system.

Definitely crappy results to be expected down the road. Montreal's mayor Denis Coderre) did the same following his election. One if his star candidates [[Philippe Shnobb) left his 30 year career as a TV reporter to enter the race in the downtown borough of Ville-Marie. He lost, and was given the reins of our transit system's council. He has a high school diploma and no knowledge of public administration or transit. This is an excellent recipe for prolonging the status quo... There are very few qualified people to do this type of job and it is a travesty to leave us in the hands of highly paid unknowing individuals. There is no question in my mind that an urban planner or someone with specific knowledge base attained via higher studies is needed here. The salary tells the story too doesn't it? Prerequisites...

[masterblaster]

I can attest that the reliability of the buses has declined in the past 6 months, especially the Woodward and Grand River buses.

I use the Woodward bus late at night where it begins its trip downtown at the State Fairgrounds. After 9:30 pm, the bus runs every 1/2 hour. At least one day week, a regularly scheduled bus just will not show up, so you have to wait 40 minutes to an hour for a bus instead of 10-30 minutes.

Alot of buses at the transit center do not start on time. The bus drivers start the routes when they feel like it.

And I really hate when you're waiting for 45 minutes - for a bus that is supposed to come every 20 minutes, and then you see two buses of the same route on top of each other...

...or you're waiting for a bus for 50 minutes, and you see 3 buses along the same bus route going the opposite direction during that timespan.

A asked a Grand River bus driver why service is so erratic, and she said there aren't enough functioning buses. Another time, I asked a DDOT employee at the Transit center why the Grand River buses were so late on a Saturday, and he said that several drivers had called in sick.

[morebread]

Along with hiring new drivers, Detroit was just awarded $26M in federal grant money for 50 new buses. I really hope this helps.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/new...rant/16066241/

Do new buses really cost $500k each?

[mtburb]

And it's not just DDOT that'll get new buses:

https://www.smartbus.org/About/News/...Purchase-Buses

However, I still remember back in 2011 when I waited nearly a half-hour in a bus shelter in downtown Lincoln Park for the next #125 because the previous one had already went by moments ago when I walked off the connecting #140.

[Detroitnerd]

Do new buses really cost $500k each?

To start, and they go up from there.

[nain rouge]

However, I still remember back in 2011 when I waited nearly a half-hour in a bus shelter in downtown Lincoln Park for the next #125 because the previous one had already went by moments ago when I walked off the connecting #140.

SMART was/is notorious for that. Extremely poor synchronization of routes. I got screwed like that so many times I hard to force myself not to care. I just had to laugh as the bus I needed to transfer to sped away while I stood haplessly at an intersection.

[mtburb]

SMART was/is notorious for that. Extremely poor synchronization of routes. I got screwed like that so many times I hard to force myself not to care. I just had to laugh as the bus I needed to transfer to sped away while I stood haplessly at an intersection. [/COLOR]

However, in my case, I didn't have to cross any streets-got off on the south side of Southfield, the shelter was on the west side of Fort Street.

Though when it finally showed up-it was crowded and it stopped every few blocks. In fact, it was still crowded when I got off at Eureka.

[nain rouge]

Yeah, the buses can get pretty crowded, which is shocking when you consider how the bad the service is. Hard to believe that many people are still depending on it. Truth is, I believe there is a lot of pent-up demand in the inner ring suburbs and outer neighborhoods of Detroit for good public transit. Those people make up a large and vital component of the workforce and are on very tight budgets [[especially if they have children).

BUT, of course, those people don't have the big wallets, so they're ignored. Plus, most of them have lived with bad public transit their whole lives and don't understand what good public transit could do for them. They'd rather drive beaters than depend on a bus.

[Pontiac6000]

I walked from Hamilton and Collingwood to Hamilton and Clairmount, because the 4:28 south didn't show. When it finally showed, she made a right on Clairmount and picked me up. I asked her 'what's wrong- are the streets blocked off north of the Lodge- she said no'. What happens to the Senior who was waiting with me at Collingwood, he probably waited till 5:15 or so for the next one [[if it showed on Hamilton at all.) What went wrong "AGAIN" today I was standing at the Lodge and the Blvd at 4:59, and the Dexter just went by [[loaded). I remember drivers who used to step out and make people move to the back of the bus. It didn't help that of maybe 50 seats, surely 10 of the double seats had no one in them, and the teens lots of times prefer to stand --making the driver think the bus is at full cap. Then I had to walk all the way to Grand River with 3 loaded bags, a hot suit on [[cause it was cold this morning), and watched a seemingly coming Dexter bus that apparently was on the way to the terminal on 14th and the Ford.

1. If the bus left downtown at 4:30, and they know its gonna be full, where is the one 5 min later?
2. What happened to those extra large buses [[the real long ones) that held 100 people [[seating)?
3. Why is a 4:30 bus leaving downtown extra crowded? I didn't get off at 5, but isn't peak time 3-5?; and do they account for after school programs for football players, musicians and clubs?

4. And why is it the same way in the morning? --i feel bad for the security guards, medical people, retail workers, etc. with staggered shifts.

5. Why can't they pick up people who can't walk great flagging it down; and shouldn't all the drivers be cognizant to WAIT, FLAG or HOLD buses within 3 blocks of an intersection if another one is coming?

6. Why does the schedule have to be planned with 1 1/2 hours grace for a 45 min trip; etc etc. When the Fall/Winter schedules come out ----MAKE IT ACCURATE EVEN IF SOMEONE CALLS OFF.

7. Do it TODAY. Put a fire under the PTB [[Powers That Be), reconfigure routes, rezone areas, make THRU runs --get it done.

[mtburb]

2. What happened to those extra large buses [[the real long ones) that held 100 people [[seating)?

DDOT got these in 1989 and got rid of them completely in 2003. However, SMART does operate two buses that fit into this category-and they're two of their eight current hybrids. Those arrived in 2010.

[That Great Guy]

I would like 24 hour a day, 7 day a week bus service with a bus every 10 minutes at the minimum. I think the taxpayers should pay for this for me because I live on a major road that needs this service. Multiple tax mechanisms, revenue sources, high ridership, full fare boxes and putting safety first by removing cars from major roads 24 hours a day every day are all essential to make SMART and DDOT work.

Instead of talking about this, people should just go out and get the job done already.

Nearly everyone knows Detroit needs good public mass transit. So, it's now time to act.