Trimess

Saturday, March 24, 2018

The shit hits the fan

This is one of the best examples I’ve ever seen how a relatively minor incident can snowball into a full blown ‘conspiracy’ involving multiple people.  Damn shame it came to this.

This video does tremendous harm to the public perception of TriMet operators.

They just couldn’t let it go.  It’s not entirely their fault. They are part of a brutal industrial complex that pits riders against drivers which creates this sort of paranoia in the first place.

https://youtu.be/vBoVnwtSN-w


Wednesday, March 21, 2018

“Drunk” TriMet bus driver


 Mr Briggs and his attorney are planning on using the "diabetes defense". 
Good luck to him. 
In the meantime he is going through his own personal hell. This is one of the horror stories of public transportation employment.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – The TriMet bus driver accused of being impaired behind the wheel with more than 2 dozen passengers on-board is now facing formal criminal charges. 
On Tuesday, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office filed a 7-page, 32-count charging document against Lamont Biggs. 
He is charged with one count each of driving under the influence of intoxicants (DUII), reckless driving and 30 counts of recklessly endangering another person. All of the charges are misdemeanors and stem from a Feb. 20 incident in Gresham. 
KOIN 6 News has learned that each recklessly endangering count is for each passenger who was on the bus at the time of the incident. 
Initially, Gresham police said there was only one passenger on the bus; however, a subsequent report was submitted to the DA’s Office, which identified additional passengers.
According to Gresham police, a traffic officer was on patrol when he spotted a TriMet bus traveling at a high rate of speed. The officer stopped the vehicle and began an investigation into potential moving violations. 
During that initial investigation, a Gresham police spokesperson said the officer conducted a field sobriety test and determined that Biggs was operating the bus while under the influence of intoxicants. 
Biggs was arraigned on Tuesday at the Multnomah County Justice Center. He has retained criminal defense attorney Barry W. Engle. 


http://www.koin.com/news/local/multnomah-county/trimet-driver-charged-for-endangering-passengers/1063443293

Monday, March 19, 2018

Trimet ongoing saga

Hard to believe that this situation just keeps going and going and going.
I hate to break the bad news but this guy is NOT stalking anyone, he’s just trying to get home.

https://youtu.be/YDh15-AHVeE

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Trimet budget highlights

The Trimet tax farm keeps growing 

Jay Frye reinstated as Trimet road supervisor


November 2016 road supervisor Jay Frye was informed that he was BEING TERMINATED from the Trimet Transportation District.

In December he was informed that he was NOT BEING TERMINATED but rather being "demoted" back to the lowly bus driver position.

Now its March 2018 and Mr Frye is now being reinstated to his position of road supervisor  with full back pay by order of the arbitrator.

Yet another example of the brutality of the Trimet executive management and their complete and total lack of any sort of ethical compass. 
Worst of it is the executive management responsible for this reprehensible action gets no sanction, they only get more raises, if they are even working there anymore.

No matter how badly Trimet executive management performs they are safe in their cushy executive positions. 

The public transportation industrial complex is brutal.
It treats human beings as disposable commodities, both people operating the system and the public using it.

Thursday, March 8, 2018

Trimet Deke N’Blue

Disgusting. Predictably ridiculous. Our "board of directors" struck again into the heart of Portland transit, naming its pre-ordained Canadian reject as the new General Manager.

Predictably, the media latched on to the board's new darling with a lame narrative of how Kelsey "left" TransLink in Vancouver. He was fired in 2015. (See 'TransLink Makes Changes...') Somehow, he made his way into TriMet management after his ouster, leaving a trail of disastrous policy in his wake. Now, he'll bring this expertise to bear... down on us.

"You can be safe," Kelsey stated at the earlier dog-and-pony show board meeting last month, "and be on time." Spoken like someone who truly hasn't a clue about the work of the people he now rules.

https://fromthedriverside.blogspot.com/2018/03/board-ignores-pleas-names-new-gm.html


Wednesday, March 7, 2018

The Trimet board admits that Trimet is just another ho hum transit district


Mcfarlane's hand picked clone Canadian Doug Kelsey gets to be top hack at Trimet

Kelsey is the highest paid hack in Trimet history at $300k
In a move that surprised no one the board of sock puppets approved Mcfarlane's clone to be the next general manager of the Trimet tax farm. 
He was supposedly the best qualified candidate "in the world" to take this job. 
We won't see any changes with this guy in control. 
The gentrification of the greater Portland will be his #1 priority just as it was with that dick head Mcfarlane and his predecessor Fred Hansen. 
Hansen walked out with a couple million cash and a pension of $17K for life and Mcfarlane walked out with a similar sized bank account and a pension of  $13.7k a month for life. 
The public transportation industrial complex is good to its aristocracy. 
Pubic transportation in the United States is a total disaster but that doesn't stop people from getting quite wealthy off its tax funded back.

So no news here, employees can expect to be harassed endlessly until the company can finally "privatize" its entire work force just like they do with lift.
 The supreme court is expected to cripple the public employee unions so its all working out quite nicely for the neoliberals who own the public transportation districts in this country.

Sunday, March 4, 2018

And we get another incident

And the bus drivers are going wild. As usual. All they do is make themselves look bad every time they defend acts of brutality. Let’s be clear, there would be no video if the SOP regarding open doors where followed. Furthermore drivers have no “personal time” when they are being paid. I knew I didn’t want my life to be ruled by Trimet anymore than necessary so I stayed part time. That way I had the “personal time”I needed. If your on the clock you don’t get time to yourself, period.

Additionally, this driver has  commandeered a tax funded vehicle (100% paid by tax payers) for her own personal use. So not only is she ‘stealing’ her wages she is also ‘stealing’ publicly owned equipment.

Trimet management loves watching the public hating the drivers. That way they can get away with everything. Some think that theory is crazy. I call them uninformed.

Many drivers don’t understand that with each act of brutality the public turns more and more against them. Give the riders the benefit of the doubt. Most riders are not crazy lunatics. Even the lunatics react to acts of kindness positively.

You don’t want to be on the news and you don’t want to be on YouTube unless it’s an act of kindness. We can argue details till we are blue in the face but each negative social or mainstream media post that portrays drives as heartless tax funded beasts creates another step forward to the privatization of the workforce, which is Trimet managements end goal.  And that is definitely one thing you should not let happen, ever.

https://youtu.be/t_ehVXcU36o