1. In the section regarding
"accountability measures," we urge stronger actions to hold
front-line employees responsible for their actions. As you well know,
driver unfriendliness, the failure to make announcements, and long
response times on MTA’s information line, all contribute to the
negative image of MTA held by the public. We believe that a system of
employee rewards as noted in the section on "managing human
resources" will help to solve some of these problems, but must be
balanced against strict enforcement of MTA policies and procedures.
2. In the section regarding
"market development," we urge the MTA to move swiftly and
boldly in restructuring its core bus services to meet present day
commuting patterns not only in suburb-to-suburb travel, but in the
traditional radial and circumferential transit routes. We believe many
current routes to be vestiges of services provided BTC and dating back
at least six decades. While it is frequently argued that a major
overhaul of bus routes would discourage existing riders, we counter
that new markets could be "opened up" by restructuring
existing services to improve travel times by consolidating routes,
improving certain major transfer points, and re-orienting the bus
network to current land use trends. In sum, we think that MTA ought to
think creatively about how it serves its existing markets.
3. We agree that MTA needs to improve
its external communications, advocacy, and partnerships. We look
forward to working with the MTA to develop the Transit Riders League,
a grassroots advocacy organization designed to support improved and
increased transit service. We also encourage MTA to use existing tools
more effectively by enhancing the MTA web site to include route and
scheduling information, doing a better job of marketing existing tax
credits for transit use, communicating transit benefits to an audience
wider than current transit users, and improving the capacity of the
customer services office to solve problems.
4. We applaud the goal to improve
customer service delivery. As an agency committed to organizing
transit riders into a powerful political force, we urge that customers
be heavily involved in developing the service standard guidelines –
not only in public hearings once the guidelines are established in
draft form, but during the development phase, too. We look forward to
contributing to this process via our inaugural State of the Buses
report due to be released in mid-September.
