No, since Thursday is Thanksgiving, I wanted to talk briefly about the people I wave to while I wait for my bus every morning.  There are a couple neighbors who typically leave their homes while I’m standing at my stop, and I wave to them.  One of my mom’s coworkers also passes, and I always feel really bad because I never recognize her car until she is pretty much past me.  I should be able to see her coming, her headlights are strangely close together.  But still, I end up waving too late.

Throw in the dog walker, the couple who power walks and never seem to talk to one another and the cars that come from further up in my plan but I can set my watch to, and every morning there is a small cast of characters that I add back stories and adventures to in my head.

So to those people, who may or may not be reading, thanks for making my mornings a little more fun, and if you see me waiting for the bus, wave, and I’ll be sure to wave back.

ummmm, originally uploaded by Mike @ pittsburgh.metblogs.com.

This is the poor quality picture from my bus where the driver just yelled at two passengers who dared to ask to get on five feet after the stop while we were stopped at a light

Ok, now that I’m not trying to type out on my phone, here is the whole story:

Our bus (the 68A) was working its way through Pittsburgh and got to the stop at Oliver and William Penn Place.  A whole ton of people got on and the bus pulled forward, five or ten feet to the light, which was red.  Two men caming running down William Penn Place and knocked on the door asking to get on.  This happens a lot, and I have never seen a bus operator refuse to open the doors.

Well, our operator went nuts.  She started yelling through the door that she didn’t have to open it, she already service the stop and if they wanted to get on they had to either go to the next stop (up Oliver and down three blocks on Grant) or wait for another bus.  I heard her screaming through my headphones even while listening to a podcast.

Now to be fair, I could not hear what the men on the street were saying.  We moved up to the next stop on Grant and one of the two men got on.  The operator yelled at him, saying that the could not ride the bus since he dropped the F bomb.  He denied it and walked back and took a seat.

Overall, I think the whole situation was insane.  There was no need for the operator to not open the door, she was just rude, and I have never seen that happen before, operators have been nothing but kind to riders.  I got the bus number and I’ll probably send a note to PAT about it, and I just am thankful that it’s not my normal bus.

Today, I have a story to tell, about hellacious public relations by PAT.  Normally they seem to be on the ball, but this is inexcusable, at least to me, at least for now.

About two weeks ago there were ‘unathorized’ flyers distributed on some of the buses.  My route happened to be one of them.  They weren’t copied well, when folded they didn’t match up, but I read it, and walked away with some concerns: mainly the same I’ve had all along.  I still don’t know if I’ll have service.  Here’s the run down:

• It has been stated that service to Monroeville will terminate at the Mall park ‘n ride.
• The map of the new P68 (or P67, can’t remember which at the moment) shows service going past Monroeville Mall, on one of the current routes
• It is noted that there will be three route variations
• Those variations are not listed anywhere
• PAT has said it will keep service to all Park ‘n Ride lots and open new ones, as well as create transportation hubs

So, will there be service to my local Park ‘n Ride which is past Monroeville Mall?  The flyer said no.

I’m a little bit of a (read: a really big) dork, and while I don’t have a Twitter account, I read the Port Authority’s feed since it often has more information than their website.  There was a message on it saying that if you had questions, to contact them via Twitter.  Well, since I don’t have an account, I opted to instead use the form on the website to ask a question.

Here’s where things started to break down.  I sent in my question, using complete sentences and explaining my situtation, including the unathorized flyers, the twitter account, all of it.  I get a one line reply back the next day (to the best of my memory this is what it said, I can check it word for word when I have access to my e-mail tonight):

You need to send a letter to the TDP

That’s it.  No help.  Not even an offer to forward my question to the appropriate department, you know, like any reasonable customer service department would.  Nothing.  So I send an e-mail back asking for two things:

1. An answer to my original question, will I still have service or was the brochure correct
2. Some sort of explanation as to why I was not offered any kind of help whatsoever or even any kind of decency as a customer

It’s been a week.  I haven’t gotten a response yet.

PATransit Tuesdays: Bike rack, originally uploaded by Mike @ pittsburgh.metblogs.com.

I’m not a biker, I’m fairly uncoordinated, on occasion I have enough trouble walking.  However, I was intrigued to find out that the buses (and inclines and Ts at non-peak times) can accomidate bikes.

From reading the directions online, I was thoroughly confused, and convinced that it was even more complicated than cycling to work, but as it turned out, today for the first time, as I watched, a cyclist deftly pulled down the rack, hoisted up his bike, secured it and got on.  Easy as pie.  I’ve also seen the bike racks on a significant portion of buses, but from what I can gather, only a select routes are guaranteed to have the racks all the time.  But, I do have to admit, if you need a vehicle, what greener way is there than public transportation and bikes combined?

I think I might have thought that this would be a bigger post, at least when it was in my head.  Really, I just wanted to thank PAT for how they handled the G-20.

It was stressful for everyone, commuters and anyone trying to travel especially.  While the detours seemingly were posted later than I had hoped for, or thought they would be available, getting reliable information about the G-20 seemed to be an issue that just about every company had trouble with.

So with my detour map in hand, I headed downtown.  The map actually proved very useful, as I said before, I work at the end of town near the Convention Center, so I’m not that familiar with the end closer to the Point.  The map helped me on more than one occasion, and helped me find my bus stop to get home, even though I kept double and triple checking it.

I ended up the wrong side of the street, to catch my bus home (a different route too, so all kinds of new experiences smashed into one day), but since the Boulevard of the Allies had as much activity as a graveyard, I was able to run across and get on.

As I stood there, waiting on what was to be the wrong side of the street, I did call PAT, just to make sure things were still running smoothly.  The customer service rep was nothing but helpful and very kind, a big thumbs up for that.

And of course, the constant e-mail and twitter updates, even retweeting messages from outlying transit agencies, kept everyone in the loop.  I am glad I didn’t have to experience the total shut down of transit during the march for peace on Friday, but PAT seemed to take it in stride.

All in all, a commendable experience.  Will it encourage anyone to make the switch to transit?  Sadly, I don’t think so.  With the TDP changes coming, and what will probably be the most noted, the fare increase, I seem to think that the deft handling of the G-20 summit will be lost in the PR shuffle.  Hopefully I’m mistaken.

Missed bus stops, originally uploaded by Mike @ pittsburgh.metblogs.com. ]]> http://pittsburgh.metblogs.com/2009/09/23/missed-bus-stops/feed/ 0 http://pittsburgh.metblogs.com/2009/09/22/patransit-tuesday-welcoming-the-world/ http://pittsburgh.metblogs.com/2009/09/22/patransit-tuesday-welcoming-the-world/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:31:48 +0000 Mike http://pittsburgh.metblogs.com/2009/09/22/patransit-tuesday-welcoming-the-world/

PATransit Tuesday: Welcoming the World, originally uploaded by Mike @ pittsburgh.metblogs.com.

I don’t know how clear it is since its from my phone. Ill check it out when I get to a computer

The course directors have special shoes you see, that allow them to walk over the radioactive peanut butter, but you don’t, silly mortal.

Well, the rivers are kind of going to be like that.  The red parts of the rivers indicate the peanut butter, where only members of the Secret Service and probably the Coast Guard can enter.  So if you’re a boater and must be on the water, get ready for a long portage.

And if you’re driving, the Secret Service announced their transportation plan for vehicle access during the Summit.  Check it out here, as well as the list of vehicles that will be permitted downtown.

The goal with all of these closures seems to be to reopen everythng Friday night, how quickly items can be torn down to allow full access remains to be seen though.

Individual bus schedules can be found here, and a somewhat interactive map showing the detours is here.

The T will run to the First Avenue station, but no further, and the downtown PAT office will be closed Wednesday through Friday of the Summit.

More G-20 transportation information tomorrow.

Update: I actually found this map to be more helpful in determining where routes will be going (PDF).

Just a note, the routes are listed by their current number, generally.

Also put up between yesterday and today is an interesting article on Rapid Bus Service, as well as a the proposed weekend bus schedules.  Those are available at the main TDP site, here.