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What the hell happened to customer service?

I am a regular rider of MTA, now simply called Metro, the bus service for Los Angeles County. Yesterday was a normal public transportation day for me, except for one small problem a rider was having.

My day starts when I get on the Metro line 152 going north on Vineland Avenue outside my apartment building in North Hollywood. About 5 minutes after I got on the bus yesterday morning one of the riders, a gentleman about my age, got up and asked the driver a simple question; “If this bus is going to Reseda (Blvd.), why are we going north?” To which the bus driver replied, “Sit down, and we will get to Reseda.” I am paraphrasing, but that was the gist of his answer.

The rider put this down simply to a lack of English knowledge on the part of the driver, and started to rant very loudly about it in public. Not wishing to perturb him further, I jumped in and explained that the 152 goes north on Vineland, makes the jog onto Glenoaks Blvd., then turns west onto Tuxford Ave, which turns into Roscoe Blvd at Lankershim. Roscoe then crosses Reseda Blvd in Northridge. The 152 has been operating since before I started to ride the LA bus system in the early eighties, back when it was called the Southern California Rapid Transit District (SCRTD, bka “RTD” or as an ex of mine once called it; “Screwed, Crude, Rude Transit of the Damned”), but I digress.

After his rant, the passenger then explained to me that his car was stolen and this was his first ever trip on the Metro. He had started his trip at the North Hollywood Red Line Station (for those of you from out of town, the Red Line is our subway from North Hollywood to Pershing Square in downtown L.A.), asked the driver how to get to Reseda Blvd, and the driver said, “I go to Reseda.” The rider thinking that his problem was solved, got on the bus, however, he then told me that he had to be at the medical center near the corner of Reseda and Ventura Boulevards. What he should have done was take the Red Line to the Universal City station, get on the Rapid Bus (a limited stop, no schedule bus line) headed west down Ventura Blvd, to Reseda Blvd. in Tarzana.

I told him that Metro had implemented a new Rapid Bus line on Reseda Blvd, and he should take that as soon as he got off on Reseda. That didn’t make him feel any better.

In a perfect world, this never would have happened.

We do not have what we used to have when I was riding the bus in the early 80’s; receptive drivers who understood the language and had customer service skills to boot. Now, to be fair, most Metro drivers are willing to help, and frankly, if I was a driver, I would know something about the routes that crossed mine so I could answer rider questions. That being said I do NOT think that drivers have to have an all seeing eye and know every route on the system. Back in the day, RTD used to print a book with ALL the routes and timetables. Included in the book was a large, easy to understand (and beautiful, by the way) transit system map of L.A. You just referred to the map, then you would find the times you needed to get around.

Again, to be fair to Metro, they provide a website (http://www.metro.net) with a trip planner. Tell them what intersections you are starting and ending at, input the time you would like to leave or arrive and if you want to include rail in the route, and trip planner does the rest giving you a detailed map and printable directions.

The main problem is this was this man’s first trip on an L.A. bus and he is likely never to take another one. Mainly because Metro assumes you already know all the arcane details of the bus system. RTD used to have bus schedule spinners at 7-11’s, Thrifty Drug Stores, major supermarkets and malls. The bus books were sold right next to Thomas Bros. map books. Now, you if you have an Internet connection or a phone to call 1-800 COMMUTE you have access, but you have to know that.

I don’t think it would be untoward if they put computer kiosks at all the major transit centers with the trip planner on them. The planner could only start out making trips from where it is, so there is no confusion. You tell it where you want to go by looking at an alphabetical lists of streets, then you look at all the cross-streets for that main street. The kiosk then tells you which buses and trains go where, when they are leaving and from what platform and you plan accordingly. They could even print the schedule and if possible, they could even sell and print day passes and train tickets there.

Filed under: Metro, Rants, The Valley