The car was in the shop, so I tried to take the bus home the other day. I’ve done it before. Bus 14 quite handily runs very near our house. So why do the folks who run the bus system make it so hard to ride the bus? Maybe some more customer-friendliness would help them increase ridership.
I’ll see if I can get Ron Tober, Charlotte Area Transit System CEO, to respond to my little rant, which follows. If you have similar gripes, add them to the comments, and I’ll see if Tober will address them.
I walked from the Observer building at Tryon and Stonewall to the Transportation Center, between East Fourth and East Trade. It was late afternoon and it was hot enough to sweat just standing in the shade.
First, I notice that if you’re on Fourth Street, you can’t even get to the bus depot without jaywalking in rush hour traffic, because construction at the old convention center site has been allowed to close the sidewalk.
Memo to city officials: Put up a pedestrian passage on the bus station side of Fourth. It can’t be that hard, but if it is, paint in a pedestrian crosswalk across Fourth.
I arrived at the Transportation Center 20 minutes early. For years, Bus 14 left from Bay A on East Trade Street, but the last time I took it, it had moved to another bay. I couldn’t remember which, but happily, there are TV monitors to tell you where, in the vast and bus-filled depot, each bus arrives. It said Bus 14 was at Bay Q. I went to Bay Q. No Bus 14.
Because of construction, a small sign told me, Bus 14 stopped “along Trade Street.” Well, where along Trade Street? It’s a long street, with lots of traffic. I went to Trade Street but saw no signs mentioning Bus 14.
Luckily I was still about 15 minutes early. I sought out the information booth. A nice lady there said Bus 14 had moved to Bay A. I went to where I remembered Bay A had been, along Trade Street. By now I was sweating profusely in the heat. Luckily, I still had 5 minutes.
A clump of people loitered along Trade Street, but I saw no sign or any other indication that this was still Bay A, no benches, no list of what buses stopped there. But people waiting there confirmed it was Bus 14’s stop.
So, CATS folks, if some eager bus rider wants to take Bus 14, how in thunder is EBR supposed to find it? The TV display is wrong. The lone directional sign (at Bay Q) is so vague as to be useless. Bay A itself is going incognito. EBR is somehow expected to intuit that’s where it used to be.
Another hint: If I had missed Bus 14 by not happening to be 20 minutes early, I’d have been looking for alternative buses. Why not put up about 10 of those maps of the whole bus system in prominent places, so people like me could figure out options? It’s S.O.P. in many big cities to have transit system maps all over the stations.
Not everything was negative, of course. Getting the schedule online was easy. The bus driver was friendly, the ride was (sort of) on time, and the trip itself comfortable and efficient.
I mentioned my adventures to a colleague who takes the bus to work daily and has for years. He just chuckled and said, in effect, it’s always like that.
It shouldn’t be.