The Long and Short of It

After being called on the carpet for a pass-up on Van Ness, my leaving time from the North Point terminal was questioned by the assistant superintendent. I had departed about four minutes late. Thankfully, the data also showed I was four minutes late upon arrival. This information was obtained from using the sheets of data generated by our global positioning satellite. I had a short coach that day instead of the usual sixty-foot articulated trolley. My response was that I had not been given the equipment I needed to perform my duties professionally.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, but at some point, runs from Potrero were assigned a short coach for the 14 Mission lines and the 49 Van Ness buses. It is now acceptable practice to give certain runs a “short,” forty-foot coach instead of a sixty-foot articulated trolley. I did a yard count of coaches a couple of years back, and out of one hundred fifty trolleys in the yard, only seventy-five were available. The other half had hold tags and needed parts for replacement. This changes everything about how to operate the line during the crunch zone. If you ever go by a bus barn during the day, notice how many trolleys are still in the yard. They are awaiting parts.

Running to an occupied bathroom, taking a stretch or getting a drink of water, make personal necessities seem like the cause of lost time in terms of recovery at the inbound terminal. The previous signup had given us twenty minutes at this time frame. This was cut to ten minutes, and as I would usually run four-to-six minutes late, I lost most of the time to recover. One operator walked off the job at this terminal and left the bus here at North Point because of the stress of the short recovery time at this inbound terminal.

So here I was in the assistant superintendent’s office for disciplinary action because I ran out of room on my short coach after leaving the terminal late. In this case, a man using a cane had asked to be dropped off in the zone at Eddy farside, not nearside. I opened the door at a bus bulb where the sidewalk sticks out at the crosswalk. I did not know when he boarded, and couldn’t see that he needed assistance due to a blocked view inside the crowded coach. He was sitting behind me in the “Black Hole,” and he may have entered through the back door. Because the man was so calm in demeanor, his request so low in tone, I disregarded it and told him to exit nearside. My manager understands this use of the emergency rule, but I leave the hearing wondering about the outcome.

The use of GPS data is an excellent tool for obtaining leaving times of coaches, but it just gives a snapshot, not the big picture. When an inspector is present and observes the leaving times of several coaches over a period of at least thirty minutes, a realistic headway average is obtained, and traffic and driving conditions are much clearer. This is why I object to bringing up GPS data in a disciplinary hearing because “eyeball” physical presence is much more objective. I miss seeing the same inspector on the corner every day.

Inspectors are no longer stationed at checkpoints or relief points on a daily basis. Radio information about breakdowns, headway, and pull-in or pull- out orders are no longer available in-person on the street corner. As such, a rapport no longer develops between operators and the corner inspector. When I do call Central, I find that they think twenty minutes is too much time for a layover. This cutback, along with the lack of equipment, has made my senior driving years at Potrero a greater challenge in keeping the Zen.

On a recent Friday with a standard forty-foot coach, I found that my leader in a sixty-foot articulated trolley went out of service at the Ferry Terminal. I immediately adjusted to slow down and plan for a heavy trip. As I prepared to leave my last terminal, a man leaned on my coach and refused to move away from the side of the bus. On the previous Friday, a man pounded on my door to be let in while I was moving to the curb in battery mode, going around my leader who went on a 702 (radio code for personal necessity) break.

I now understand why these leaders go out of service around this time. The 14 line becomes the ninth level of hell during peak afternoon rush hour. Drinkers and emotionally distraught riders do not mix well with the downtown crowd just trying to go home from work. Heavy smokers and addicts with the aroma of coke or meth imbedded in their wool overcoats can be a triggering experience and make it hard to breathe. Trying to get the mix right of methadone and an 8-ball without an incident is an epic experience.

This is why calling for a 702, a twenty-minute break, may be required more often, especially from new hires because recovery time has been reduced. The long-term effects of less travel time may end up costing more by trying to in-fill employee absences with the daily detail. Hard to tell and hard to judge. I am grateful I learned the job when our division had over ninety daily hours of stand-by time. Now there are less than five hours of stand-by on the range sheet totals. (See the chapter on Range Sheets to understand all these other types of non driving time.)

Pulling in on this particular holiday weekend Friday at my last stop at Ninth Street, a man refused to get up out of his seat, sitting in the Black Hole right behind the cockpit. My holiday weekend was being held up by an angry man who claimed I passed him up at a stop no one on board requested. Could I get him off the bus without incident, without damage to the front doors, or without causing a major medical emergency? Fortunately, he departed, but not without a rage-filled discourse. Whew! I called Central to clear a line delay, and my favorite operator wished me a good weekend. Yes! A friend at Central Control!

But the agony of the mental twist is about paperwork on a holiday weekend pull-in. To me, this is why a job as a civil service worker on the line with the public, is the reason many of my friends stay away from putting in a job application—because of the people. This reading may not capture your imagination, but believe me, when you are sitting behind the wheel, it is a big deal.

Now, how could I write this up without going to a pass-up hearing at  1 South Van Ness? I keep hearing the angry, bloody man calling in my cap and coach number as he sat behind me on his cell phone while I prepared to pull in at Tenth. Was he really making the call or just trying to mess with me emotionally? As he chided me for negligence and being inconsiderate, I couldn’t help but break out in a Cheshire grin. My biggest fear, getting another pass-up PSR, was unfolding before my very eyes.

If I mentioned a bloody face, my failure to ask for medical assistance could show a lack of empathy. But was it also reasonable to assume that I was protecting those on board from a medical emergency by not allowing him on the bus? I had passed by the bus shelter before I saw him madly waving at me, and it seemed a toss-up as to whether the pass-up was valid or not. I had another woman complain that I did not pick her up here, although I had stopped and opened my doors a few weeks earlier. Ironically, there she was, sitting in the bus shelter, looking at her smart phone for the next limited    bus, as the bloody man came running. I had scored a victory about reading head sign destination with her complaint, but here was another.

This is the dilemma we face in a split second choice to pass up or pick up. But it is hard to intuit all of this in the seconds of passing by the bus shelter. The trend lately has been to make the stop and let it play. So, I considered this to be an error on my part. How much of a big deal it could depend on how honest I was. This job provides the ultimate opportunities for patience and adventure.

It’s now been two weeks since several angry passenger incidents (including those above), and all is calm. I have had nothing but smiles and thanks. It seems lunar or astrological in the timing. My personality remains the same, the equipment is still a short coach, yet all is well. I question my blame on the equipment. Now it seems not so genuine.

When an old, long coach dogs you on the doors, it can be like a slow motion train wreck where the buses pile up behind you as you drag down the line. After some meditation and prayer that I be shown what to do, I did have to admit that the coaches I had been given were defect-free. The short coaches moved and caused no mechanical delay. My frustration had been at the back door jam-up, not with the performance of the vehicle.

I had one of those great, Electra Glide in Blue days, with no one in front of me or behind me. Central Control informed me I did not have a leader, and I could move up four. Yes!. No write-up at 30th for being hot. No one dragging me down in an old, long coach. Freedom. I was shown the grace of having a small coach and why my desire for a long coach was misplaced. Go tell it to the mountain. I eventually got two unpaid days off for too many pass-up complaints. Oh well, suck it up and continue to march. We learn early on that tomorrow is another day.

This is truly the long and short of it when it comes to keeping Zen (and my job) as a trolley man. New prototypes are being built now for delivery and will hopefully be ready for revenue service towards the latter part of 2015. This new equipment, sixty brand-new articulated trolleys from Canada, via Seattle, will change the nature of our job. Clean, functioning equipment that actually moves faster down the road is like building extra minutes onto our paddle; it also lessens physical stress in our knees and legs because braking and acceleration are new and responsive.

We may get several lost lines back with this new equipment because we did not have enough long coaches. Heard tell that a nearby bus barn will house the short trolleys, and our barn may be housing long coaches only. It makes sense, as sixty new long coaches will take up much more track space than what we have now. If I can just hold on long enough and keep the Zen!