Lukes comes off pretty badly here, dismissing the suggestion that the fact that transit is used by lower-income people is a reason the service is so shitty, without offering up a compelling alternative explanation.
If it’s a “driver shortage,” was there ever a time when there wasn’t a driver shortage?
That’s probably because transit service isn’t ideal, so people opt out to use their vehicles.
City councilor fully car brained.
There probably are problems with keeping drivers. It’s only one case but I saw someone hired and then not stay even a year. I don’t think they get much support, and there have been issues with violence and medical emergencies at times. (I think they’ve been improving at it, but there was also an increasing issue with impossible bus timing that I remember there being strike threats over a while back.) Hardly any drivers know the area around their routes these days, so new or occasional riders can’t typically rely on getting help from them when entering a part of town they’re not used to reaching by bus.
Traffic re-route advisories are buried on the Wpg Transit desktop site. There’s frequently no warning on live schedules.
Notoriously, when buses get cancelled there is no notice on mobile live schedules. You just see the time for the next bus instead, which is also what happens when a bus is late, so you’re just left wondering if it’s late or if it’s not coming. Not fun at 40 below. (I think sometimes you might see a bus is delayed but this isn’t a consistent thing across the board.)
Bus stop signs should really get a notice added to them consistently when service is disrupted in any way, but that’s not the case either. Sometimes it’s just a temporary stop as a marker for a regular bus, which may not have any numbers on it. New riders are just expected to know they’re at the right one in these cases.
