Time for a little follow-up to this post I made in early September.  Please read that one now, if you haven’t already.

So, what’s changed?

I’m about $50 poorer from taking taxi rides to places my bus used to go. I don’t even know how to put a price on my time, but let’s say a lot has been wasted waiting for buses that don’t come when they’re supposed to or buses that pass you by because they’re already full. It’s garbage.

On OCTranspo’s end? Nothing has changed related to our route. I haven’t heard anything back about our route, except for this form letter:

Thank you for contacting OC Transpo Customer Relations. We appreciate your patience as we continue to receive a high volume of e-mail correspondence.

Rest assured that your comments and concerns regarding the service changes have been logged under the ledger number above and forwarded to the appropriate personnel. OC Transpo’s customer service and planning departments will continue to receive and review comments for future consideration, as part of our ongoing plan to develop and improve the service. All routes will continue to be monitored and service levels will be reviewed and adjusted as required in the future.

Hah. Yeah, my mind is definitely at ease now.

No one listened to our complaints & suggestions the first time around, when they cut the route. It seems we’re still being ignored.

I also emailed several Ottawa councillors. Bob Monette did nothing, despite the bus route being mostly in his ward.  I emailed Tim Tierney, my ward’s councillor, where the bus route starts. Tierney replied to my email, saying he’d look into it, and then I didn’t hear anything back. I emailed him again, a week later, asking what was happening with the situation. He actually phoned me, about 10 minutes after I sent the email, and we chatted about the route, the problem, etc. He said he’d look into it and sounded fairly motivated. He took my contact info, and said someone would get back to me by the end of the day. That was almost a week ago now, and of course, I haven’t heard anything from him or his office. Kind of disappointing, because I actually felt a little optimistic at the end of our chat.

So, I feel like I’ve exhausted my options here. Councillors can’t/won’t do anything. OCTranspo customer service won’t reply with anything other than a form letter, so I’m not even going to pretend they are doing anything about it. I don’t know what else to do.

Tonight, in the rain, we got out of our taxi from work to the Transitway, waited for over 10 minutes for a rush hour 95 bus, only to have one come by so full that it turned almost everyone away. We were at the second stop from where it started the route, and it was already full. What kind of bullshit is that? It wasn’t the first time that’s happened since these route changes were made, but the rain made me especially bitter about it.

And it’s going to be fucking awful in a few months, when this rain turns into snow.