Council Fires Tough Questions at Transit Providers

Mayor Judith “J” Davis told transit representatives Thursday night that she was disappointed with their unsuccessful efforts to get the word out about the bus changes that took effect in December 2010.

“It irritated, it irked, it caused a lot of problems," she told managers from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) and the Prince George’s County Department of Public Works and Transportation during the Greenbelt City Council’s work session.

The mayor was not alone in asking tough questions. Councilman Edward Putens weighed in with his concern that some complaints were going directly to bus drivers and escaping management’s notice.

He suggested to Carl Schuettler, a division chief with the Prince George’s County Department of Public Works and Transportation, that TheBus consider supplying drivers with stamped post cards for passenger feedback. He also requested that it think about placing locked complaint boxes on buses — for management to check daily.

Councilman Rodney Roberts offered his suggestion for secret rider evaluators. James Hamre, director of the Office of Bus Planning at WMATA, told him that they already had them but not in large numbers. Upon learning this, Roberts requested to see their evaluations.

For his part, Mayor Pro Tem Emmett Jordan wanted to know, “What’s the holdup with the posting of the schedules?”

Hamre told him that due to a lack of staff the schedules had not been created, but that finally, after three months, he had filled some empty positions, so the schedules would go out within the next 30 days.

Terri Hruby, assistant director of planning for the city of Greenbelt, told Hamre that she had received an email saying the ones in Greenbelt should be updated by the end of this week.

The information issue was critical to Mayor Davis, who said both WMATA and TheBus had failed to give the public adequate notification before the December transit changes.

“If it weren’t for TRU-G literally going out and putting change notices on the poles, people would have just been circling around,” Davis said. “There should have been a marketing process, and it didn’t occur.”

It has to improve, she added. “Communication is the number one thing. If people don’t know when the bus is coming or what the changes are, they’re not going to use the bus.”

Hamre said, “We’re not going to have bus schedules at every bus stop in Greenbelt. That’s not the plan," and asked the council what its priority was in terms of public communication — providing a printed brochure or disseminating information via the Internet.

He asked Melissa Ehrenreich, Transit Riders United of Greenbelt (TRU-G) member, whether the Internet information Metro had provided had sufficiently informed riders.

Ehrenreich said it hadn’t, and added that some WMATA trip planner information had been wrong as well.

Lawrence Glick, bus operation specialist with WMATA, recalled being embarrassed by the delay of its production timetable when the transit changes had occurred. “I don’t know what happened, but it’s something we all regretted,” he said.

Jordan brought up the out-of-date display cases at the Metro station and at Roosevelt Center, telling WMATA representatives that this was a high priority.

“Why is it so hard to have these things, maps and schedules at the bus stops?” Councilman Rodney Roberts asked Hamre.

“Because they’re expensive,” Hamre answered, listing costs like buying and installing cases and going to the stops each time information changed. “You’re talking about $30 a stop and 200 stops,” he said, referencing budget cuts.

“If people don’t have information, how are they going to use the system?” Roberts complained.

“I would encourage you to let your board representative know that information is an important thing,” Hamre said, “because when they’re looking at cuts it’s easy to get rid of administrative and marketing stuff.”

Mayor Davis said the main thing that everyone wanted to be sure of was that in the 18 months that the council has to see if the transit changes are working, nothing would be taken away or removed, specifying this included no loss of routes or increased fares. Hamre agreed that this was correct for the foreseeable year.

“I’m going to hold you to that 18 months,” Mayor Davis told him.

Other transit issues that the council discussed included the Roosevelt High School bus wait times; ridership data for the NASA South Gate, the elimination of early morning bus service into Beltway Plaza; providing longer service hours for weekend Metro riders; and how to ensure new bus stops and pedestrian routes were accessible and safe.

The council tentatively scheduled dates for three additional quarterly transit meetings, selecting July 28, Oct. 27 and Jan. 26, 2012.

Mayor Judith Davis, Mayor Pro Tem Emmett Jordan and council members Konrad Herling, Leta Mach, Silke Pope, Edward Putens and Rodney Roberts were in attendance at the first quarterly meeting.

This is the second story in a series of two about the Greenbelt City Council’s April 28 meeting to address compliance with its conditions of support to bus transit changes.