Holiday Transit Wants

RantWoman always feels obliged to start out her holiday season with expressions of sincere gratitude to all her transit operators. First of all the transit operators are all at work while everyone else is celebrating!



Transit operators also get to put up with everything that comes with celebrating: overpowering cheeriness, people toting even more packages than usual, people toting redolent containers of holiday excess, people who are tired, stressed, short-tempered, people who have overindulged or who have been underattentive to modest courtesies. RantWoman definitely wants to give transit operators credit for doing a tough job and wants them to be wrapped in whatever holiday spirit will most help them survive and hopefully even enjoy the season.


Alas, this is RantWoman here, and RantWoman also has a list of holiday gripes, grumbles and wishes she hopes the transit team will take to heart.


Please learn your routes. The September shakeup is over two months old. RantWoman has gotten on several buses lately--carrying Thwack the Badly Behaved White Cane no less--and had drivers who had to ask clarifying questions when RantWoman mentions where she needs to get off. RantWoman can SOMETIMES see enough to know where she is, especially for locations she visits all the time. However, RantWoman does not just carry Thwack the Badly Behaved white cane for no reason. RantWoman needs your assistance. In fact, in RantWoman's experience a lot of other people who don't carry white canes also need your assistance.

Pay attention to what is going on right in front in the handicapped area. This time of year, everything can get wet and slippery. People have lots of extra packages and gear and there are lots of ways to clog the area everyone has to pass through. You have authority to help keep aisles clear and that is much appreciated!

Pay attention to the handicap seating area speak up when you need to.. Some people have hidden disability; others' main disability is rudeness about getting out of the way of people with special needs. RantWoman for instance can sometimes find a seat on her own. But she likes to ride facing forward and has her criteria for when she will move if she can and when it absolutely is safest for everyone if she just accepts an offered seat or stays put.


PLEASE call the darn stops. RantWoman REALLY hates it when she gets on a bus with Thwack and the driver fails to call a single stop for the entire route. Be advised, if RantWoman were not so busy having holidays of her own, she could certainly go look up individual offenders and complain. RantWoman could do this, but the problem is so generalized that she is thinking of toting around lumps of coal for every time this happens. Preach it! Let your thespian aspirations run wild. Pretend you are the President addressing the nation. Do whatever you need to find a voice. If you cannot call every stop, at least call major intersections. The MINIMUM is to call the stops someone has specifically mentioned. However even people who see badly like to space out on the bus. It really helps if you call a couple stops ahead of the stop someone has mentioned so that all those extra packages and possessions can be assembled in time to get off more smoothly.


People may be traveling at times or to places different from where they usually travel. That means more questions, more reliance on the driver for information about when to get off and directions to nearby destinations. If you don't know the answer to something, see if other passengers do! Lots of passengers can be quite helpful and everyone will appreciates dispensing requested or needed information quickly so that we can all get where we are going faster.

An excellent holiday season to all!