Winnipeg transit, thou art truly insane.
I do not know exactly how your services, pricing, ad campaigns, drivers’ behaviour, shacks, and other signage – to name the first things that come to mind – have become truly incomprehensible. After a two year absence from the city, and soon to depart again, Winnipeg Transit, you seem to be the only thing in town that has changed much, but not for the better – you’ve grown quite ill. I don’t know if you have schizophrenia or cancer. I hope it’s the former, otherwise we 10 percent of Winnipeggers/visitors/temporary residents/visiting students/etc. that ride are going to drop to 5 percent.
I think this is a travesty. The city is growing, and along with it, a drastic number of additional cars on the road, and evermore suffocating exhaust fumes. As this is the coldest city on Earth, considering population measured against average temperature, it is tempting to drive, but the exhaust that thus fills the air resembles clouds of Agent Orange being dropped upon a rainforest in a far away country in the 1970s, something I’ve only seen on film, and like Mr. Angent Orange, the exhaust and absurd transit service is killing one of Canada’s least polluted cities.
First, upon arrival in my hometown, I noticed these:
“How wonderful, and unexpected!”, I thought. Digital timetables at all major junctions to help navigate a very confusing transit system? Awesome! Our very conservative mayor has spent big city dollars on a service that is generally utilized by us less wealthy folk? This is groundbreaking! Then, I came to a sad realization. The times posted are always wrong. Very wrong. Twenty minutes-off wrong. In fact, these signs have only made transit more confusing, as I sit down for a forty minute wait, and suddenly my bus arrives! I rely solely on Winnipeg Transit to get around here, and I have yet to have the pleasure of commuting, using the signs, and not observing at least a ten minute difference in schedule-prompting. Indeed, if a bus arrives within ten minutes of the sign’s announced “due” hour, I am excited. I should not be. I am becoming desensitized to unacceptable errors. Often, making one’s connection from the sprawl to the centre of this city to go to work takes some careful planning. The majority of the time, one does not have a minute to spare – buses are not coordinated for the schedules of those who ride. As I am on disability assistance, and use the bus right now only to attend doctor’s appointments and “get out of the house” – I am lucky not to have to worry about being fired from my minimum wage job for being fifteen minutes late, as I used to be for the five years during which I worked retail. I was even luckier then – the bus I took from school was completely reliable. Now, I remove my headphones to hear at least one person desperately calling in to work – at least one person each time I am aboard Winnipeg Transit’s buses – telling a manager that their bus did not arrive, and they are going to be not fifteen minutes, but an hour late for their shift. People are losing their jobs because the service is so poor, and the signage so useless and misleading. I spoke with one young man who had actually received his final written warning, due only to being late because of Winnipeg Transit. He told me that he always arrived at his bus stop early, which lead to one of these fancy-looking junctions. He was going to be an hour late for work for the fourth time in the past few months, and probably lose his job. This is craziness!!!
So, I realized what the purpose of these fancy signs actually are, and why our conservative mayor decided to put them up at the city’s busiest stops – so that things appear to be running smoothly. So that it looks like we have an incredible transit system compared to, say, Vancouver, where all paper bus schedules have been removed, and riders are assumed to have cell phones to call the number associated with the bus stop. Indeed, they were removed just before the Olympics – I suppose paper schedules do not look fancy enough for über-rich foreigners. However, these signs look great! Signs of a well-organized city, Right? Um, no: misleading, useless, and frankly, embarrassing.
I remember the last time that I lived in Winnipeg for a very extended period, reading a letter to the editor that someone had submitted to the Winnipeg Free Press, complaining about the colour of new buses being made, namely, white. The newspaper reader was concerned that people would not be able to discern whether or not a bus was coming in their direction as they “resembled snow drifts” far too closely. The author of the complaint seemed quite serious – I wouldn’t have laughed quite as hard had I known that the letter would end up speaking to a time of innocence in the ages of Winnipeg Transit service.
So, I’ll leave you with the ‘interpret it as you like’ comment a sextegenarian driver shot my way when boarding, “<big smile> You can effin’ transfer me anytime!”
Another rider told me that Winnipeg Transit is slated to be given some award for excellence in service et al. in May 2010. I stared at this ad for the rest of the ride home.
