Detroit bus drivers ready to protest Monday

**compn** · October-20-13, 05:00 PM

Detroit bus drivers ready to protest Monday, urge riders to seek other transportation

Read more: http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/stabbin...transportation

DETROIT [[WXYZ) - After two drivers were recently stabbed and another had urine poured on her by an angry rider, union officials representing bus drivers for the city of Detroit are set to protest in front of city hall at 10 a.m. on Monday.

didnt see this mentioned. i hope anyone who uses the bus makes alternate plans monday.

**trotwood** · October-20-13, 05:36 PM

Thank you very much for posting this.

**MikeyinBrooklyn** · October-20-13, 06:41 PM

I feel for the drivers; safety at work is important for anyone. However, disrupting bus service [[sick-out, slow down, strike, etc) only harms the riders, who are not the wrongdoers. Further, unreliability of service drives dawn the numbers of people using buses, which makes them less safe directly [[less people on board) and indirectly [[less revenue can be dedicated to things like security).

I support the drivers need to be safer, not to disrupt the buses.

There should be more uniformed officers on buses, random but frequently onboard. The drivers should also have [[I am not sure if they do or not) a panic button, that immediately dispatches police to them. And most importantly, the small number of people who do commit assault on buses need to be put away for a long, long time. Violent criminals do not historically commit crimes only once.

**stasu1213** · October-20-13, 07:12 PM

police reserves and trainees should be on thr busses

**mtburb** · October-20-13, 07:20 PM

Boy, when I first heard of this earlier, I immediately started to visualize SMART buses being vandalized by their own drivers...out of all things...and that scene would play out at the EXACT same time. Would this really happen, though?

Plus, not too long later, I was instead visualizing someone throwing a rock at a police officer about to arrest one of the protesting drivers. What would be the consequence of that?

**wolverine** · October-20-13, 08:05 PM

Is there video surveillance on all buses? When I get on a bus I must see at least 10 cameras catching all angles. Plus a ton of cameras on the exterior of the bus. No angle left uncovered. If it isn't already on Detroit buses, they should be. Not to mention, fare cards are including RFID's to identify passengers so if they commit a crime on a public transit vehicle, they can quickly be identified and arrested.

**canuck** · October-20-13, 08:28 PM

Do buses in Detroit have a special 911 flashing indicator on the bus sign over the windshield? That feature we borrowed from NYC about 20 years ago.

You have to have lot of heart to do that job, even in a city like Montreal, pretty tame, a lot of drivers get insulted and beat up on occasion.

**compn** · October-20-13, 10:07 PM

if i worked in an office, and two of my office co-workers got stabbed, and a third one got urine poured on her, yeah i wouldnt be showing up monday either.

seriously, tell me what kind of job do you have that you would still work there if two people were stabbed and management did nothing to beef up security.

**A2Mike** · October-21-13, 06:37 AM

If there were to be a slowdown in the bus system how could anyone tell?

**nain rouge** · October-21-13, 07:06 AM

While stabbing or pouring urine on someone is completely unacceptable, our bus system is so terrible and abusive that it's no shock to me when I hear that it's driven some people over the edge.

I mean, seriously, if you have to take the bus to work and your job is more than a few miles away, you WILL become a husk of your former self. Yes, that sounds extreme, but I can't imagine a more degrading existence in America. I've been taking the bus from 10 Mile & Hayes to 13 Mile & Southfield, and I'm now in the process of quitting my job.

It takes at least an 1 1/2 hour for me to get to work. In car, you'd be looking at 20 minutes, and I've found through experimentation that I can essentially bicycle as fast as the bus. On top of that, you have all kinds of troubled people riding the bus and as a pedestrian must deal with cars treating you with constant scorn and impatience. Sometimes the bus just doesn't show up, with no warning [[particularly if its the last stop of the day).

It's awful.

That's why I find the Woodward rail talk so crazy. You have the one corridor that gets the best bus service now purportedly getting millions and millions for a tiny light rail route, why the rest of us are left to hang and dry with a dysfunctional bus system. It's obvious that the people in charge don't give a hoot about the poor. That's fine, I guess, although I don't believe that such decisions are wise in the long-term.

All I can is say is in Metro Detroit, if you lose your car [[in my case, because of a FLOOD on I-696, another sterling example of our crumbling infrastructure!) and can't arrange an immediate replacement, may God have mercy!

**Wesley Mouch** · October-21-13, 07:09 AM

Certainly the security situation isn't acceptable to anyone. What they are protesting though is the overcrowding. I wish them good luck getting more busses on the street. A little less resistance to reform would help.

**sumas** · October-21-13, 07:29 AM

The only way I knew of this is a neighbor who lives a few blocks from work switched schedules to accommodate his boss who rides the bus.

Woodward does have the only efficient bus system so light rail seems a bit much when every other bus system in the city sucks.

A neighbor works in eastern market, about three miles away. To take a bus to get him near there, He walks a little over 1/2 mile in the dark to catch the bus, wait for the bus which than drops him off 5 blocks away, so another walk. Time frame is about an hour and a half. He usually just walks the 3 miles. Pathetic! All that for $8.50 an hour.

**Danny** · October-21-13, 07:46 AM

YAY!!! Protest now DDOT bus drivers. Make your voice heard. No one will mess the transit unions. Give us respect or no service. Let's show Bing and the city council who's boss.

Solidarity forever!

**professorscott** · October-21-13, 09:07 AM

A few random thoughts about this. First of all, my thoughts and prayers are with both the drivers, who are in a very difficult situation, and also with the people who rely on the buses. To have to rely on buses in Detroit is a terrible thing; I know this from long, personal experience.

M1 Rail is going to be safe and reliable precisely because it is not going to be operated by the Detroit Department of Transportation.

Putting "call 911" signs on buses in Detroit would be a sick joke. Your kindly old professor has, on two occasions long ago [[many years), had to call 911 in Detroit, and is still waiting for a response.

Putting cameras on the buses would only capture information that could conceivably be used in a prosecution after the fact. What the drivers need is protection, which means human beings with authority riding the buses regularly.

What the people need are reliable buses, and this will never happen so long as buses are run by a City department. Detroit's bus service is so shockingly bad in so many ways that when I try to describe it to people, they are sure I am exaggerating, which I am not. By the way I am not just a disgruntled rider; I have studied the operations of bus systems in a good deal of detail.

Incidentally, if you're wondering where I place the blame for all of this, I used to be a corporation director and all failings of all companies everywhere are management's fault, period. If there is a Union running roughshod over management, shame on management for allowing that to happen. If there are bad employees, shame on management for not either retraining them or getting rid of them. Management in this case extends upward to the Mayor and Council, who micromanage the City and make it impossible for DDOT to get parts for buses, among many other failings. But overall, if you put grownups in charge of the bus system, you'd get different results.

**Honky Tonk** · October-21-13, 09:31 AM

Originally Posted by professorscott

M1 Rail is going to be safe and reliable precisely because it is not going to be operated by the Detroit Department of Transportation.

Are they going to stop certain people from getting on the bus? Are there going to be metal detectors and scanners @ the stops? Is there going to be a "No Ride List"? It seems to me that if adults RODE the buses, that too would get diffent results.

**professorscott** · October-21-13, 12:55 PM

Originally Posted by Honky Tonk

Are they going to stop certain people from getting on the bus? Are there going to be metal detectors and scanners @ the stops? Is there going to be a "No Ride List"? It seems to me that if adults RODE the buses, that too would get diffent results.

That's not how transit security works, although, yes, there are "trespass lists" in transit systems, people who simply aren't allowed to ride.

From m-1rail.com:

"There will be an emergency phone and closed circuit security systems at all of the stations. A driver will be present on each of the streetcar vehicles and will have the ability to contact local law enforcement and/or other public safety organizations."

More important, the people organizing and carrying out the M1 Rail project understand that this is important to people and that it needs to be tended to. That M1 Rail does not exist so that drivers and mechanics can be employed and management can have high-paid phony-baloney jobs, but rather so that people can get around.

**Honky Tonk** · October-21-13, 01:56 PM

Originally Posted by professorscott

That's not how transit security works, although, yes, there are "trespass lists" in transit systems, people who simply aren't allowed to ride.

From m-1rail.com:

"There will be an emergency phone and closed circuit security systems at all of the stations. A driver will be present on each of the streetcar vehicles and will have the ability to contact local law enforcement and/or other public safety organizations."

More important, the people organizing and carrying out the M1 Rail project understand that this is important to people and that it needs to be tended to. That M1 Rail does not exist so that drivers and mechanics can be employed and management can have high-paid phony-baloney jobs, but rather so that people can get around.

Sort of like the People Remover?

**professorscott** · October-21-13, 02:10 PM

Originally Posted by Honky Tonk

Sort of like the People Remover?

Indeed. For all the joking we do about that system, the people who ride it are not in any particular danger. I don't know whether or not the City keeps crime statistics specifically about that [[I rather doubt it, in fact), but I know from my own personal experience, having ridden the People Mover hundreds of time, I have never seen a crime nor felt like any crime was likely to occur.

The ridership on the People Mover is quite low most days of the year, but for reasons other than crime.

**KJ5** · October-21-13, 07:47 PM

I don't blame the bus drivers one little bit. People always bitch about how mean they are, but how can you do that job and not be mean? Even if you're in a good mood you best maintain a tough persona. Me, I'd want bulletproof glass like they have in taxis to drive a city bus. If it takes raising fares a quarter or two to make busses safer and less overcrowded I say do it. It'll help keep some of the riff-raff off anyway.
And how big a POS newspaper is the Free Press for having nothing at all about this in today's paper? Guess some real news that's vital to people trying to get to their jobs or around town isn't as important as 30 pages of sports coverage spilling over into section A. Corporate Gannett garbage!

**JenniferL** · October-22-13, 12:31 AM

I must take issue with those who say that Woodward has an efficient bus system. It HAD an efficient bus system when SMART was still operating regularly in Detroit. But now that SMART only goes into Detroit on a limited basis, everyone is stuck taking the DDot. In my experience, this means waiting at the Fairgrounds for up to an hour. Once you get on the DDot bus, it's standing room only, even if you get on at the first stop. By the time the bus gets to 7 Mile Road, there is NO standing room.

Another time, I wanted to ride the bus from Midtown to downtown. I stood out there for an hour, but no bus came. This was right on Woodward Avenue in the middle of the afternoon. I gave up on downtown and waited another 1/2 hour, by which time the SMART bus was running in Detroit again, and took that bus home.

**sumas** · October-22-13, 02:20 AM

I'll stand corrected. Still beats the hell out of the rest of the bus lines.

**Wesley Mouch** · October-22-13, 08:40 AM

Originally Posted by JenniferL

I must take issue with those who say that Woodward has an efficient bus system. It HAD an efficient bus system when SMART was still operating regularly in Detroit. But now that SMART only goes into Detroit on a limited basis, everyone is stuck taking the DDot. In my experience, this means waiting at the Fairgrounds for up to an hour. Once you get on the DDot bus, it's standing room only, even if you get on at the first stop. By the time the bus gets to 7 Mile Road, there is NO standing room.

Another time, I wanted to ride the bus from Midtown to downtown. I stood out there for an hour, but no bus came. This was right on Woodward Avenue in the middle of the afternoon. I gave up on downtown and waited another 1/2 hour, by which time the SMART bus was running in Detroit again, and took that bus home.

Fighting the EFM is a fools errand. If a fight is needed, its to kill all these politcal and territorials wars that really hurt people daily.

Two bus systems is so stupid. No bus to airport is so stupid.

OK, let's all fight the EFM, and then do nothing. Everything will just fix itself if the State help would just go away.

**canuck** · October-22-13, 09:40 AM

Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

Fighting the EFM is a fools errand. If a fight is needed, its to kill all these politcal and territorials wars that really hurt people daily.

Two bus systems is so stupid. No bus to airport is so stupid.

OK, let's all fight the EFM, and then do nothing. Everything will just fix itself if the State help would just go away.

A bus to the airport is crucial in an age where travelers to Shanghai take a maglev shuttle that does the speed of sound thing from airport to downtown.
Detroit has a world class airport, one of the best pieces of infrastructure the city has, and a great one to keep building on. But the idea that even hotel/airport shuttles are not available to an average traveler is weak at best.
It may be though that at present, the taxi shuttles are sufficient to handle the load and just as practical.

I am not so worried about there being more than one transit authority. It may not be a bad thing per se. The political and territorial disconnect though, is more worrisome.

**Danny** · October-22-13, 01:29 PM

Attention Detroit bus Patrons!

DDOT officials, Amalgamated Transit Union and Detroit and Transit Police force will compromise of having hidden security cameras and STRESS-like non-uniform Detroit and Transit Police officers in all DDOT busses. Most bus patrons know your DDOT bus will be late or very early. So don't complain or take vengence against your DDOT bus drivers, you will be caught RED HANDED! So be nice to your DDOT bus drivers. They will do their best to get you to your destination. When you get to your bus stop be patient and courteous and brace for overcrowding. Make sure you get a bus schedule so your don't have to wait longer at the bus stop. Make sure you have fare ready and correct change. Be courteous to other bus patrons. Give your seat to the disabled. Please enjoy the ride and thank-you for patience.

WARRING!

Any disrespect from and patrons and the next day all DDOT bus drivers will NOT be called to work on the following day! Don't let this happen again.

**JenniferL** · October-22-13, 04:22 PM

Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

Fighting the EFM is a fools errand. If a fight is needed, its to kill all these politcal and territorials wars that really hurt people daily.

Two bus systems is so stupid. No bus to airport is so stupid.

OK, let's all fight the EFM, and then do nothing. Everything will just fix itself if the State help would just go away.

SMART cut down on its Detroit bus runs before the EMF took over. They don't have enough money to run the buses into the city round the clock, so they dump all their passengers at the Fairgrounds or in other border locations and expect Ddot to pick them up. The problem is, Ddot did not have the wherewithal to accomodate all those extra people. They couldn't manage the ones they already had.