MORE PRETTY WORDS FROM METRO AND A FEW WORDS OF MY OWN

Metro sent me some more "feedback" on my suggestion that they provide toilets.  It's the same thing they said in the last post, about my first post on this subject.

Here: http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/04/metro-says-bathrooms-are-to-expensive.html
and
Here: http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/03/metro-bus-and-train-stations-need-more.html

Metro executives, and people in power generally, I would like for you to understand something.  People like me are tired of "business of usual."  I get that you are just "doing your jobs" and "this is how it is" but you see, THAT IS NOT WORKING.  FOR MOST OF US.

Not just bus riders in Saint Louis, Missouri, but on every part of this planet, and in every section of society.  That the BASIC NEEDS of humans are routinely ignored in favor of profit, and that our entire world has become a "for profit" venture, designed to benefit only a small percentage of the population.

Now, it might be working for you.  That's great.  As I have said many times before, if you all had to ride the bus every day, everywhere you went, your perspectives would be a lot different.

But the real bottom line is: Public Transit Agencies should NOT BE ABOUT BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT.  If the funding for necessary structures is not available and your customers need it, someone on your staff should be looking into it.

Truly powerful people do not accept limitations.  Truly powerful people do what is best for everyone, and not what is best for themselves alone. 

Metro SHOULD be in the business of getting better facilities and street services because their riders depend on it. 

FROM ANY POINT OF YOUR SERVICE THERE SHOULD BE A TOILET WITHIN-minimum- 90 MINUTES.  And 60 minutes would be better.  Now, you could have a lot fewer facilities if your system had more Metrolink services in the areas with the most transit riders.  But this needs to be part of your overall plan.

I HOLD YOU ACCOUNTABLE FOR NOT BEING A FORWARD THINKING HUMAN BEING, WITH THE INTERESTS OF THE PEOPLE YOU SERVE AHEAD OF YOUR OWN JOB COMFORT.

So I am going to continue to send my requests for better service, regardless of how tiresome you find them,  I find the lack of toilets tiresome. 

I find the fact that your agency- and everyone else "in power"-- does not have an ideal that it is working from, and only deviating from that ideal when all possibilities have been exhausted. 

The solutions are out there.  Apparently you cannot see them.

Metro's response:

In response to customer requests, Metro has begun to integrate public restroom facilities in select MetroBus and MetroLink facilities. I believe I discussed this with you, but to reiterate we currently provide public restrooms at Riverview and Hall Transit Center; Clayton MetroLink Station; and Belleville MetroLink Station. In 2015 we anticipate opening one new transit center (North County Transit Center) and opening an expanded Civic Center Transit Center. Both of these new/expanded facilities will include public restrooms.

Metro is not in the business of providing public restrooms throughout the entire region, or even at all MetroLink stations and MetroBus Transit Centers. These facilities, even the pay facilities we have explored, are expensive to purchase and maintain and in some locations present public safety challenges. Resources devoted to constructing and maintaining public toilets reduce available resources for operating public transit. Metro’s policy moving forward is to integrate public restrooms at new or reconstructed facilities where they make sense from the perspective of customer volume and public safety, and where funding permits.

Thank You,

Jessica Mefford-Miller
Chief of Planning and System Development
Metro
707 North First Street
St. Louis, Missouri 63102-2595
Ph: 314.982.1479jnmefford@metrostlouis.org

METRO RESPONDS TO THE NEW SURVEY I DESIGNED FOR THEM

I hope everyone will do the survey voluntarily and post it here, too.  Because they are totally out of touch with their bus riders.  And it is ridiculous that the biggest part of their service is buses, and they only survey the Metrolink.

They don't know their customers' needs or they pretend they don't.  They need overwhelming evidence of how difficult it is to get around in a timely manner on their buses! 

They need to be confronted with how ridiculous so many of their routes and transfers are, especially travelling from north St. Louis and county.

Take the survey by calling customer service and volunteering the answers to the questions in the post (actually compiled from the surveys in use in bigger cities- conducted as I outline).
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/04/what-metros-new-survey-should-be.html

They could save some money on words.  So many pretty words, that don't really say anything at all.  Thanks Metro!

Thank you for your feedback regarding Metro customer surveys. I appreciate your comments regarding the potential for a “take one” survey or comment card made available onboard vehicles. I will discuss this with our Market Research and Customer Service staff. In the past, our front-line supervisors routinely collected customer feedback via comment cards, but the volume of information made it difficult to enter a database, and we found that the trends present in that information mirrored the information collected via other mechanisms, including our Onboard Survey (detailed below) and Customer Contacts database (assembled from customer contacts presented via telephone, e-mail, postal mail and social media).

You may not be aware that Metro does conduct onboard surveys, most every spring as funding permits. This Onboard Survey project serves as Metro’s primary market research effort for collecting a wealth of information about its bus and rail customers, including key data related to demographics, travel patterns and behavior, usage characteristics, loyalty and turnover intentions, and attitudes toward service.  Historically, the Onboard Survey effort has provided Metro with numerous operational benefits such as:

·         Measuring the “attitudinal pulse” of our customers

·         Providing crucial insight into who our customers are and how to best serve them

·         Determining key service factors driving customer satisfaction

·         Improving Metro’s ability to manage customer turnover and increase ridership

·         Providing necessary information to make data-driven service planning decisions

·         Enabling the examination of specific customer segments and their unique characteristics, preferences, and behavior, allowing the development of transit service best suited to their needs

·         Providing critical data required for Federal Transit Administration reporting (e.g., Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Program Guidelines) and federal and state grant documentation support.

In recent years, the survey has been divided into two components: an Onboard Travel and a Customer Satisfaction survey. The Onboard Travel survey is designed to help illuminate how/when/where customers travel, including origin and destination locations and route pairs. The Customer Satisfaction Survey provides meaningful feedback about customer satisfaction with specific components of Metro service. We employ a stratified random sampling strategy for conducting both surveys. This sampling strategy is designed to create samples that are reflective of system-wide passenger characteristics and travel behaviors.

Thank You,

Jessica Mefford-Miller
Chief of Planning and System Development
Metro
707 North First Street
St. Louis, Missouri 63102-2595
Ph: 314.982.1479jnmefford@metrostlouis.org

 

METRO RESPONDS TO MY POST ABOUT BATHROOMS

All the improvement posts on this blog I send to Metro via their Customer Feedback Form.

They gotta a lot of pretty words.  I am reprinting them here, but they don't mean a thing, until they walk their talk.

Also, this email fails to mention that the restrooms at Riverview are maintained by the little privately owned store.

Further, the "public safety challenges" are no greater than a restroom at a park, and certainly less hazardous than having to pee behind a building or tree. 

Does these people not have bladders?  IT SHOULD BE A REQUIREMENT THAT THEY HAVE TO RIDE THE BUSES AS PART OF THEIR JOB.  Things would change real fast.

And "where they make sense from the perspective of volume".  That means Metrolink.  That is the only part of Metro that gets any play.

Ridiculous. 

The response to this post http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/04/metro-says-bathrooms-are-to-expensive.html 
and this one http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/03/metro-bus-and-train-stations-need-more.html

In response to customer requests, Metro has begun to integrate public restroom facilities in select MetroBus and MetroLink facilities. I believe I discussed this with you, but to reiterate we currently provide public restrooms at Riverview and Hall Transit Center; Clayton MetroLink Station; and Belleville MetroLink Station. In 2015 we anticipate opening one new transit center (North County Transit Center) and opening an expanded Civic Center Transit Center. Both of these new/expanded facilities will include public restrooms.

Metro is not in the business of providing public restrooms throughout the entire region, or even at all MetroLink stations and MetroBus Transit Centers. These facilities, even the pay facilities we have explored, are expensive to purchase and maintain and in some locations present public safety challenges. Resources devoted to constructing and maintaining public toilets reduce available resources for operating public transit. Metro’s policy moving forward is to integrate public restrooms at new or reconstructed facilities where they make sense from the perspective of customer volume and public safety, and where funding permits.

Thank You,

Jessica Mefford-Miller
Chief of Planning and System Development
Metro
707 North First Street
St. Louis, Missouri 63102-2595
Ph: 314.982.1479
jnmefford@metrostlouis.org

MAN GETS GRAZED BY BULLET BOARDING BUS

This just in from Channel 4: http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Police-Man-grazed-by-bullet-while-boarding-St-Louis-Metro-bus-255211851.html

What do people in that neighborhood call it?  "DUB-ville"? ("Dead Upon Birth")

All of the powerful, brilliant men that run this city seem unable to comprehend why North St. Louis is so violent.

It couldn't possibly be the $8,000 average yearly income, or lack of jobs in the community, or the deplorable state of the neighborhoods, or the schools that keep closing, or the lack of decent public transportation.

No.  It must be all those crazy people.  You know, the descendents of slaves that had to fight to get equal rights.  That are still living in poverty despite the wealth their ancestors created for this country.

There are two cities in St. Louis.  Not north and south, but black and white.

If you keep ignoring the poverty and hopelessness, surely it will just go away, right?

Of course, urban African-Americans have always had to deal with a high level of violence and crime in their neighborhoods.  The violence in the "hood" follows the same patterns as the Irish in New York in the 1800's or the Sicilian Mafia in the latter half of the 20th Century.

Crime and violence in poor neighborhoods and among poor people follows certain patterns.

But now the whole society has gotten more violent.  Especially at schools.

It's the Adam Lanza's and the James Holmes' and the Boston Marathon bombers that no one can predict.

There isn't much we can do about the suicidal random shooter.

But there is a lot we could do to make our poor communities less violent, and more prosperous.

But that would mean actually doing something that benefits ALL the people, and not just the greedy few.

The answer is not more police and more guns, the answer is community development and improvement.  The solution is understanding that we all live in this city together, and the better it gets for those on the bottom, the better it will be for all of us.

Wake up St. Louis!  Occupy!

METRO REFUSES TO SUPPLY THE PUBLIC WITH A BOND WE VOTED ON, THE CONTENTS OF PROPOSITION A

So Shirley**, at Metro, refused to take my call today and said that I had to file in writing to get a copy of Proposition A, the bond that we the public were told was a half cent sales tax increase to go to Metro.  (Actually it was a transportation bond, the one that failed in 2008 and was repackaged to sound better.)

(See this: http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/04/call-for-public-audit-of-metro-bi-state.html

I called the nice people at the Board of Elections.  They can only supply me with what was on the ballot.   They told me Metro "should have a copy."

Ridiculous.

Just called Charlie Dooley's office.  They have to get back to me.  Apparently after something gets voted on in St. Louis they hide it from the public.

I told the lady at the County Executive office that not only did I want the actual language of the Prop A, but I was also gonna need a break down of how much money that half cent has added up to, and how much of those funds made it to Metro.

St. Louis PLEASE!  WE HAVE TO START OCCUPYING THIS CITY AND ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS!

THIS CITY SHOULD NOT BE RUN BY THE LOCAL 1% GOOD OLE BOY NETWORK!

WE VOTED ON THIS BECAUSE WE WANTED THE TAX TO GO TO TRANSIT!

OPTINSTL NOW!!!!

**Shirley made $55,000 four years ago.  Wonder if she has had a raise?  Wonder if all these Metro employees appreciate the fact that the transit riding public is who they answer to?  Shirley, WE pay your salary.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/metro-transit-agency-employee-payroll/html_1396d59c-088b-11e0-ad1c-0017a4a78c22.html?appSession=066100520353457

Bryant, Shirley A

Legal Counsel

Paralegal/Specialist Exempt

$55,076.75

METRO: HAVE YOU CONSIDERED RE-ROUTING BUSES WHEN THERE IS A CARDINALS GAME?

I'm almost fifty years old, and the Cardinals have played baseball every year that I have been alive.

That means there has been heavy traffic downtown after a game, every year that I have been alive.

On Saturday the number 40 bus was so far behind schedule because of the game that, according to a guy that had been waiting, the bus was an hour and a half late.

I was waiting at Grand and North Broadway, having gotten off the Grand bus, at 5:15.  The bus was scheduled to come at 5:26 according to the trip finder.

It showed up about 5:50.  There was a man that had been waiting since 4:15, and a lady with two little boys waiting for the southbound 40 (I was waiting for the northbound 40) that ended up taking the Grand bus because at least she could get close to her house.

So, Metro, after how many years of buses downtown after a Cards game, you still can't figure out that you need to re-route the buses?

And seriously, you couldn't have some sort of recorded message (not just email alerts-- again, not everyone has data on their cell phone plans) on the customer service line when buses are stuck in traffic or MIA?

At least the 40, when it finally came, was the cleanest, newest bus I have ever been on.  Not a bed bug or anything else in sight.

AGAIN? METRO HAS A LONG HISTORY OF MISMANAGING AND UNDERESTIMATING PROJECTS

Metro loves telling everyone how smart they are, and how great they are at planning and managing their money.  But it is all a big fat lie:

"Costs on rise for Metro's North County Transit Center"- from St. Louis Post Dispatch 

http://www.stltoday.com/news/traffic/along-for-the-ride/b9d5cc90-3ac9-5f2c-ac99-8da7d863beb8.html

From the article:

The price tag for Metro’s North County Transit Center on Pershall Road has shot up, leaving a funding shortfall of $1.4 million on the first phase of work.
The center is expected to be a hub of bus operations when it opens sometime before August 2015, officials said.
...
Metro staff said the 2010 estimate was based “upon a basic passenger waiting station and a bus transfer loop with little to no amenities.” Since then, there have been “unforeseen” code requirements and additional items that were not part of the original plan.

First of all, ANOTHER bus center?  And with NO "Amenities" (that means bathrooms).

I REALLY HOPE those unforeseen code requirements are TOILETS! 

AND: Is this money Metro could have spent on a train?

Second, the things they list are all the same things that happened back in 2003-2005 that resulted in this lawsuit and countersuit.  A suit that ending up costing Metro 40 million dollars in fees, court costs and the resulting payment.

http://www.dowdbennett.com/news/jury-orders-transit-agency-to-pay-the-firms-it-sued/ 


Well, I know where they could get that 1.5 Million.  Fire John Nations and six other Metro executives!

WHAT METRO'S NEW SURVEY SHOULD BE

Metro bus and train Riders! As part of JAM THE PHONE LINES, April 4th-July 4th, feel free to call Metro and say "I'd like to volunteer some survey information so that you can learn more about your customers" and tell them the answers to as much of this as you would like.

If you ride the bus, and even if you ride the train, you know that Metro does not sufficiently survey its' customers, or really know them at all.  And they don't ride the bus. (Once a year survey on the Metrolink is pretty lame, considering they admit that the buses are the majority of their service.  And they don't ask enough questions, and seem to choose the survey times to their convenience.)

WHEN AND HOW THE SURVEYS SHOULD BE CONDUCTED

They should be able to accurately measure the weeks out of the year with the most boardings, including the inflation of sports and special events fans on the Metrolink.

The busiest time of year for bus boardings, without special events, should be their primary target.  Every day for a week, on every single bus and train.  (The survey itself is detailed further on in this post, and ideas on how they could conduct these in a way that incorporates their riders and saves costs.)

On each bus, for the buses entire daily run.  One person with a lot of little pencils and the survey sheets, handing them out and collecting them back, or in the case of someone going to another bus or train, promising to give it to the next surveyor, or bring it back the next day, or mail it in.

If only one survey can be conducted a year, than that should be it. Not special events.  The heaviest regular boarding time of year.

SURVEY FORMS SHOULD BE AVAILABLE ON ALL BUSES AND TRAINS AT ALL TIMES

AT ALL TIMES their should be survey forms available, and a box to deposit them. 

The first question on these should be "have you filled out a survey in the last year?"  
If yes, "please tell us how your transit needs have changed"?
And "why"? (optional)

You see, the more you know about what your customers need and why, the better you can serve them.  So, if one week you get a drop off in boardings on one bus line, and an increase on several others, and it turns out a business or company has closed or laid people off, you can anticipate those changes and respond to them with alterations in service.

THE SURVEY TAKERS

You could offer a free monthly pass (or equivalent discount on other fares and passes) for 4 hours of surveyor work to students during the week of the survey. This would involve a lot of riders, which would be a bonus for Metro in getting to know the riding public and involving young people in civic work.

As I said, they would have the pencils and surveys.  A detail at the stops where the surveyors changed shifts could collect the completed surveys.  (If you have been accurately counting boardings on each bus and train, you should be able to anticipate the amount of surveys needed for each shift.)

THE DATABASE

I have no idea how comprehensive your system is.  It's seem lame.  So this would be the biggest cost for you-- building something fairly large, 15 years ago this would have been Oracle, I don't know if this is still the preferred platform.  The Federal Transit Authority and Department of Transportation might have something, or a larger city, like Los Angeles.

In addition to collecting and analyzing the data from the surveys, it would need to be integrated into the current route and street system.

Since your website frequently congratulates your "state of the art" systems and "effective analysis", at the same time pleading poverty and overwhelming federal and local limitations, it is hard to know what you all really have going on there.

And even if I did, the technical aspects might be too much for me.

But again, you could turn to the young people.  St. Louis has several fine universities and perhaps some sort of contest or internship opportunity to work on this database could provide funding.  Undergraduates and Graduates.  Perhaps some sort of grant for Ph.D's?

Universities are very good at coming up with things like this.  Reach out.

THE SURVEY

Please fill out only one survey today: 00/00/00
Where did you first board?
How did you get to the stop? (walk, get a ride)
How long did it take you to get there? (Detail your route as much as you would like)
Where will you get off this bus/train?
Will you make another connection?
What bus/train? (Metro or another service provider?)
If so: where? will you have to walk to make the next connection? how far?  what is your next connection (Metro or another service provider)?  Where will you exit?  Please list any more transfers you will be making on this trip. Detail your journey as much as you like.
How often do you make this trip?  each day? Week? month? etc.  Please detail as much as you would like.
Does your route alter with weather or other factors, or are there any alternate routes that you use for this trip? If yes, please list all alternates and reasons for using (or not using) them.
How often do you ride the bus/train?
What bus/train lines do you use the most?
Please tell us about other trips you make regularly, that you will not be making this week, during the survey.
Do you have any suggestions that would make your trip better?

What is your
age
race
gender
income/fulltime. part-time/ how many jobs/unemployed/government assistance
student/veteran/disabled
do you have a car
do you live with someone that has a car

Please tell us anything else about yourself that you feel is important to your transit needs.

EDIT: And Metro, please print these in black and white on recycled paper.  You use WAY too much red and blue ink! http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/03/metro-have-you-explored-cutting.html

METRO SAYS BATHROOMS ARE TOO EXPENSIVE TO BUILD AND MAINTAIN

Metro needs more toilets: http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/03/metro-bus-and-train-stations-need-more.html

I think I have already covered that a lot of money could be freed up if the executive salaries were cut.  And if funds were publicly audited and if Metro got out "business development".

All that aside, it does not appear that anyone at Metro has ever done feasibility studies to see what the costs would actually be.  And if they did do a study, it seems likely it would conducted using the same tired, ineffective (and possibly blatantly corrupt) models it uses for determining all of its projects.

First of all, not only could their be a small charge for using the restrooms, they could plug in "sanitary facilities" payments into the passes.  Especially the new debit card type passes.  And single "sanitary facilities" purchases attached to passes sold at Metrolink stations.

Further, vending machines, located outside the facilities, could sell toilet tissue, wipes, toilet seat covers, anti-bacterial wipes for toilet seats and door handles, tampons, etc.  I say outside because it would discourage theft.  Whatever privacy issues people have they would overcome, or learn to bring their own.

The city and counties could be encouraged to pitch in.  St. Louis would be well-served to install public toilets in more neighborhoods.  I haven't seen this in many U.S. cities, but I did in Europe.  (Many Los Angeles Metro stations have pay toilets.  Without the pay vending machines on the outside.)

As for attendants, I think two part-time employee with two stops a day could manage it.  Especially if security checked the condition and stock every few hours.

Going to the toilet is a basic human necessity.  I find it shocking that an advanced country does not address this.

Ridiculous.

Overall public health would improve.

And tourism.  "St. Louis has a great public transit system WITH PLENTY OF TOILETS!"

Metro, can't you even try?  Haven't you even bothered to investigate this- one of the top complaints of your most frequent customers?

METRO: YOUR TRANSPARENCY IS VERY OPAQUE, UNTIL IT WORKS IN YOUR FAVOR

When I emailed Metro with my long list of questions, including how many buses in operation, and bus drivers working, on an average weekday, they responded with the number of buses, actual vehicles on the road for all of the lines, 310, they said, but told me I had to file a Sunshine Act request to find out the amount of bus drivers.

Yesterday they posted this: http://www.nextstopstl.org/11397/metro-explains-monday-metrobus-delays/

70 bus drivers out of a total of 572 total called out.  Guess things are only readily transparent when it serves their purposes.

(My estimate, supported by questioning random bus drivers, is that about 360 work on any given regular weekday, not including paratransit.)

In working to uncover the utter mismanagement of funds that led to the shut down of 24 lines in 2009, and which Metro blames the impending July fare hike necessity, I have uncovered more and more corruption, scandal, and mismanagement, not too mention outright deception to the public.

ST. LOUIS, PLEASE BEGIN DEMANDING TOTAL TRANSPARENCY AT METRO AND ALL OTHER AGENCIES THAT RECEIVE FEDERAL MONIES!

THIS IS YOUR CITY!  OCCUPY IT! 

THERE NEEDS TO BE A PUBLIC AUDIT OF METRO BI-STATE! http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/04/call-for-public-audit-of-metro-bi-state.html

(Metro insists that my desire to know these details is "irrelevant" and "ridiculous".  Only by dissecting every aspect of their daily operations can we really come to the truth about where our money is really going.  Since the operation of the buses and trains is supposed to be their primary function, I thought it was best to start with that.  Of course, now I need to find out how many of these drivers are part-time, etc.)