Dear [name withheld for privacy],
We’ve been dating a while, so believe me when I say this letter is difficult to write. But I need to get this off my chest.
Some of my friends are always talking shit about you. They don’t like you. They don’t really know you, but they have all sorts of excuses to hate you. They say you aren’t reliable, that you don’t go places, that you sometimes smell funny. Some of them have had bad experiences with people like you, and assume that everyone is the same.
You don’t smell funny. You go to places I like. I told them you were dependable. I told them you were different. Well last week you left me stranded. You told me you would pick me up at 7 AM, right near my house. It was convenient, I was happy. I’ve had a mostly good experience with you, so I thought it would go well. It did not. Granted, I eventually got to work when your friend picked me up 25 minutes later, but if I wanted to ride with them I could have spent that time inside my house, not waiting out in the cold. I thought I would be spending time with you, not your friend.
The worst part is the lack of communication. When I try to call and find out what happened, why you didn’t show up, I don’t get any response. I know sometimes accidents happen, but then you need to let me know- “hey I’m sorry about yesterday… you know I had some problems with my wheels… why don’t we try again next week?”
I hope you can get your shit together. I really thought we had a future together. Maybe you need to get your priorities straightened out, I know the higher ups at your job sometimes mess with your head. Please respond.
Sadly,
Calle13
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OK, so if you didn’t get it – COTA left me stranded last week, twice in a row. Same route, same bus. I called their number, asking for an explanation, and the first day was told the bus was having mechanical problems, so it was running late. But it never showed. Second day I was told the driver had told a supervisor he had run the route. Well if he did he was damn early, more than 5 minutes. I was transferred to the complaint department twice. The first time it never did anything, I was just in some limbo without music or clicking or anything. Finally hung up after a few minutes. Second time I did reach a human’s voice mail, so I left a message with my name and number. No call back, even though I was instructed to leave a number and “someone” would call me back.
I’ve had similar experiences with their complaint department before, so I’m not really surprised. COTA customer service is a joke. Everyone I spoke to was professional and polite and I bet even the lady whose voicemail I got is a good person trying to do a good job. But the system is broken. Clearly the managers at COTA don’t give a shit.
I remember the look of surprise on Mr. Lhota’s face when I told him about buses with drivers who don’t know the route, who go off the route, who try to argue with you about the route…. this was during one of his “ride the bus and talk to people” days. It happens, and while it doesn’t happen everyday on every route, it’s going to lose COTA riders. I remember this happened one time and thankfully I got a ride to OSU with another OSU student who was waiting for the bus. He normally drove, but was trying out the bus. Think he’s really going to try it again after being stranded?? People who are on the fence about this need buses following schedules and decent customer service, and they don’t always get this. Not to mention the effect on people who are depending on the bus, and as a result of COTA’s mistakes are late to work, school, picking up their child, etc.
I don’t really know what COTA’s problem is. I do believe that if Mr. Lhota and the people who work directly under him really took customer service seriously, then things would change. I generally try to keep quiet about any problems I have with COTA, because I want to encourage people to ride the bus, not discourage them. But twice in one week, with no good explanation, was too much. For the record I have been using the bus at least a few times a week since fall 2005, and more often since summer 2006.
I’ve heard COTA is getting more money soon, and that will lead to all sort of improvements. That’s good. And I’m not trying to turn this into fuel for the “see the streetcars take away from COTA buses” argument because I don’t buy that. (Basically I want better COTA bus service and rail service. We can have both.) But seriously COTA, get your shit together.
Not sure where this is going, but if we’re talking about some kind of feeling of betrayal, we’ve all been there at one time or another with COTA. I have always been very supportive of public transportation and use it fairly regularly. But COTA does have a habit of shooting itself in the “tires” at the darndest times and making it difficult to support them.
There is so much that they can be doing to improve their image and I’m just not seeing it. It is, however, worth noting that April will be the first month for COTA to begin receiving the added levy dollars that voters approved last year. I keep hearing from my COTA sources to be patient and wait for these $$$ to kick in.
I’m waiting and watching.
My wife is still mad at COTA for not picking her up on High Street after a BNL concert at Nationwide Arena in October, 2000. She’s convinced that if and when we move back home, we’ll have to buy a second car because COTA is unreliable. I’m hoping she’s wrong, because I REALLY don’t want two cars.
I’m as surprised as Mr. Lhota about drivers not knowing the route. I’m pretty sure COTA has Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) on all their buses. I would think an alert would go off in the bus and at the dispatch center when they go the wrong way, thus getting the driver into trouble. Maybe this is related to the problem of the routes being overly complicated. A simpler route would be easier for drivers and passengers to remember.
I don’t believe the AVL has anything to do with guiding the drivers (much like a GPS in a car would do). When it was installed, it was designed to track the movement of the buses and provide “real time” info on departures/arrivals of buses at any given stop on the system.
The AVL was supposed to enable “real time” kiosks at designated major bus stops and transfer points (like Broad & High). Never happened.
But the underlying point here is that COTA has spent lots of $$$ in the past on technolgy that did not deliver as advertised, at least as far as could be marketed to the public. That only adds to COTA’s less than stellar reputation.
Noozer, yes I was venting my feelings of betrayal and abandonment. 🙂
As for those new levy dollars, are those supposed to help the just-officially-announced May schedule changes? I will do a future posting about that actually, they just came out today.
John, as for being a 2-car household, I think alot depends on where you live. Even if you are too far to bike or walk (or you don’t have a bike or whatever), you can usually swing it with one car. That’s what I do now, so when COTA screws me up sometimes I can call my SO (significant other) and get a ride.
It stinks getting on a bus and seeing the driver clutching this little white piece of paper… then you know they don’t know the route. I will say most of the times this happens they do OK, and I even applaud the drivers who know they need help and ask for it. (I remember in particular one lady who asked every person getting on an express if they knew about one particular turn… she was honest about not knowing the route, somebody helped her, and we were all happier to stay on time.)
Anyways, there is some automated system that alerts them when they go off the route, and it even tells them how to get back on the route. I don’t know if it only works sometimes or if the drivers just sometimes ignore it.
Again, it’s not like I think the drivers are intentionally joyriding with the buses. But things could be better.
The AVL technology should allow someone to follow up on your complaint to find out where the bus was on the day and time in question. Of course, that would require exceptional customer service.