Patrick Coomer to Dougie!
Haven't heard back from our GM regarding my last email to him. Here it is:
Doug,
Thank you for your thoughtful and detailed response. I find it commendable that you find the time in your busy schedule to respond to my emails, even when written in the height of the moment when I've completed yet another stressful mission for our transit agency. Thank you very much, I truly appreciate your candor and commitment to replying.
I apologize for being so harsh. It comes from the extreme stress I feel driving Line 9 during a 3:19p-12:16a shift. I see all walks of life while operating. Many, a great majority of riders, wear masks. I thank people every run for being thoughtful and thinking of others by wearing a mask. The addition of free masks and hand sanitizer was fantastic, thank you. In fact, I have to replenish mask supplies at the end of each run during my shift. This makes me happy, in that almost everyone who boards is cognizant of the necessity to safeguard each other. The fact that we have only 10 positive cases of Coronavirus this year amongst operators is a plus to a management we operators (myself included) have often castigated for a perceived lack of compassion and proactivity. Kudos to you for constantly working to keep frontline workers safe, even when our words and thoughts say differently.
I truly appreciate your addition of cleaners at the major transit hubs. Before this, I was taking five minutes at the end of my run to wipe down touch points as I swept the bus. Even though it took precious minutes out of my breaks, I felt duty-bound to everything possible to protect my passengers from themselves. These people you have taken on should be given every opportunity to continue with a career at TriMet. Each of them I've met have been studious in their duties, respectful and hard-working. I've watched them go through my bus, wiping things I might have missed. They are to be commended, and I enjoy speaking with each of them. They are very decent, caring and worthy of long careers with our transit agency.
Twice during the COVID-19 pandemic, I have had to self-quarantine. The first time, my son was exposed to a few co-workers who tested positive; the second was due to flu-like symptoms which mirrored the virus. Luckily, my test came back "undetected" but I was advised to stay at home to be sure my symptoms didn't intensify. I was scared, because of my constant exposure to a public that could or could not be infected. Many people who ride are homeless and have no readily-available restrooms in which to keep clean. In accordance with SOP, I just let them ride and ask them to wear masks. Once again, even the homeless population willingly (and overwhelmingly I must add) wear them. I encourage them to take extras, especially when they board wearing one that is obviously dirty.
Even though I am heartened to see the vast majority of Portlanders wearing masks, I must caution you that the current method of mask distribution is fraught with the possibility of cross-contamination. People with dirty hands rummage through our boxes in order to disentangle masks from others, thereby possibly contaminating the next one or several masks with their possibly-infected hands. I cringe when a homeless person has grubbed through the box just to grab one, to be followed by a healthcare worker in scrubs who takes the next mask in the box. After serving the public in some hospital, only to forget a sterile mask and have to take one offered on a transit vehicle, puts them at even greater risk for contamination. While we may be tops in the nation for the offering of masks and hand sanitizer, there are still risks we need to address via our offering of such "safeguards".
Finally, I beg you to take a more active part in contract negotiations with our union. From all I have read, Mr. Cusack has been very harsh towards front line workers. Given that we have no legal right to strike, you are at an unfair advantage. We show up for work no matter what conditions prevail. When Portland is shut down due to severe winter weather, your frontline workers are at work, operating in the most treacherous conditions. Throughout the pandemic, we have bravely faced protests, riots, and passengers who threaten and assault us as we navigate the treacherous streets of transit. I implore you to shelve capital projects for those who have hung in there throughout every disastrous moment transit has kept the wheels rolling.
We deserve a substantial raise. Last December, my heart sank as I saw my health insurance premiums TRIPLE when our contract expired. This negated the past several wage increases, and effectively nixed this single-wage earner's hope of buying a house. We are hurting, and everything from management during contract negotiations shows you want hundreds of "takeaways" and virtually no gives. It's hurtful, and your frontline worker morale is at an all-time low because of it. We give of our bodies, our souls and our very being to ensure Portland transit works for everyone. Is it not imperative that we be amply-rewarded for our diligence no matter what conditions prevail?
The past decade has seen a major shift from TriMet valuing its frontline workers to a corporate shift of dividing and conquering a union which has served Portland over 100 years. WE are older than TriMet, having diligently serving this city and surrounding areas twice as long as the entity we now both work for. When I was hired, I was assured free healthcare for my body-depleting work, an upwardly-mobile pay scale, and respect for the work I performed. Now, I'm scared that when I retire there will be nothing but a threatened Social Security system and no reward for my transit service. If you truly honor our commitment, it is incumbent upon you and your team to show respect for us via an honorable contract and promise that your management team not only publicly laud us for our efforts, but reward us in kind by restoring a commitment to frontline workers over capital projects and managerial edicts designed to reward passenger misbehavior over respect for those who safely guide them to their destinations. I beg you Doug, shift your managerial edicts to OPERATOR FIRST rather than "passengers can say anything they want and the operator suffers". It's insulting and your frontline worker morale is at an all-time low because of it.
Put Operators in Customer Service rotation. Most people who call in complaints need to be educated as to transit reality. Instead of disciplining operators for complaints of the most pitiful reasons, EDUCATE the public and make them take some responsibility for their own actions. If we cannot see someone hiding behind a shelter, or hunkered down over their cellphone on a dark night, WE should not be disciplined for passing them by. Given the many cellphone apps dedicated to local transit, there is NO reason a passenger shouldn't be prepared for the arrival of a bus. Still, we're called on the carpet for not stopping for Black-Shrouded Bambi who calls in a complaint that she was passed by. Wearing all black, sitting in a shelter obscured by shrubbery, hunched over her phone, Courtney Complainer should have known exactly when my bus was to arrive. She should have been standing AT THE STOP POLE, fare-ready and waving her phone flashlight at me as I approached. Instead, she was staring at her Instagram or other social media, then when I suddenly see her and stop just past the pole, she snottily admonishes me for not seeing her invisibility, then takes two minutes to bring up the fare on her phone or phonily searches for her HOP pass only to tell me after 90 seconds at the farebox not wearing a mask that she "lost my pass". Then, she sits down and busily types a complaint to Customer Service that "the operator was rude to me and almost passed me up". Really, Doug, it's getting more than ridiculous out there. If you're unaware of this pattern, you are entirely out of touch with Portland transit reality, and that's how it is worldwide if you hadn't noticed.
I'm tired of the disrespect, shrouded by banners stating "Heroes Work Here". You may believe you are honoring us thusly, but managerial actions are simply negative in personal interactions. Such a disconnect does this transit agency nothing positive. Your top priority MUST be to bring union and non-union workers together to form, once again, what once was a true "family". We are suffering, and there seems to be no acknowledgement, through a collective disconnect. Everything transit does for this community is a positive, but if we're constantly at odds as to what this entails, then the very thought of our collective efforts is naught but a fairy tale.
Answer me this: is your goal to bring US into a true transit family, or are you committed to breaking us down to a point where we ultimately fall in line to a corporate standard totally devoid of collective commitment to a common goal? If you LISTEN to US, you're apt to find a world in which management and union employees can work together to best serve our communities. If you're of the mind that a corporate environment, given its failures toward those who make the wheels roll, is better than a collective goal toward inclusion and the value of individual commitment, then I encourage you to reconsider. Look at what drives transit. Bus ridership far outweighs rail here, yet management constantly pushes for more capital projects toward LRT rather than pushing for Bus Rapid Transit which is more cost-effective. The Orange Line gave us the nation's first transit/bicycle/pedestrian bridge, but the cost far outweighed the benefits. When I see an Orange Line train, my bus is often much more-populated than the light rail vehicle, even at rush hour. There are virtually NO economic beneficiaries along that line, other than increased rents along its path. Your proposed Purple Line to Tigard may provide jobs to Portland during its construction, but it does not promise increased ridership.
Instead of pushing the Train to Tigard, I propose this: spend more money on bus lines that have faithfully served the metro area for decades. Push for increased efficiency for Bus Rapid Transit by adding bus lanes on our most-ridden routes. Lobby metro cities to make traffic lights more transit-friendly and add bus-only lines to make bus transit more reliable and timely. The Division project is a great idea, but it should be extended. On Line 9 for example, the addition of "Right Turn Only; Except Buses" lanes would greatly increase On Time Performance on a route which is often bottle-necked between 82nd and 92nd Avenues, even with "paddle bubbles" added. Consider extending the Green Line from Clackamas Town Center along I-205 to Tigard Transit Center if you're intent on adding the Purple Line. That would extend a complete circle around the metropolis. You could elevate the Green Line above I-205 and serve Oregon City Transit Center, the outlying areas of Willamette and go high-speed to Wanker's Corner (with a possible bus line serving outlying areas toward West Linn/Lake Oswego and Tualatin), ultimately linking with WES and your perpetual Purple Line terminating at Tigard Transit Center. This would effectively encircle the entire metro area, while adding bus lines that would serve even further-outlying areas.
If you do this while showing respect for those who do the work of transit, then you might rescue a worldwide legacy of leadership Portland's transit has lacked for over a decade. We were once a family who was valued across the globe. Transit agencies once looked to Portland as to how to model their own system. Now, we're a dysfunctional family who fights over what has driven transit for a century.
Please stop allowing passengers to dictate our roll. Instead, I implore you to insist passengers take an active role in responsibility for their actions. INSIST that operators know best and back US at all costs; we're the ones who make the wheels roll and deserve the utmost of respect from management AND ridership. Understand and implement such expectations, and you'll see our morale and commitment SOAR to unforeseen heights. If you value US, we will go over and above all expectations and this will propel Portland Transit to our rightful place among the top transit worldwide systems. Continue with your tendency to suspend or fire us for the slightest of passenger complaints, and watch your transit system fail. Even your disillusioned goal of Automated transit will fail because those who have built this incredible system would be lost forever. Right now, we're suffering under a discipline-first regime who do not value our commitment and time-honored philosophy of people-oriented service and expectations. WE make transit work; management should be not only cognizant of this fact, but ultimately supportive of it.
Even so, I must admit Portland transit remains among the top agencies in our country. Still, this leaves a lot to be desired. Your sudden shrinking of "social distancing" to three feet and increasing passenger loads while the economy still hasn't recovered seems to be an obvious attempt to re-coup a horrific lapse in fare collection compared to a tepid economic recovery. This past week, you increased capacity as we've seen more fare evaders with nothing better to do than travel to another skate park or teenage gathering site. I have seen the same numbers of actual working Portlanders versus an increase of fareless ne'er-do-wells. It was poor timing to increase vehicle capacity, and your front line workers have paid with increased vulnerability to the dreaded virus.
I realize your position is fraught with infinite challenges. Take one route and you offend the riding public. Veer another direction and you infuriate your front line workers. I do not envy you at this pivotal point in Portland transit. Still, in your balancing act, I would hope you'd put your most valued employees FIRST, every damn time.
Doug, we have withstood worldwide notoriety throughout Portland's nearly three months of protests and riots. We have diligently put our lives at risk during a pandemic. We have seen our wages decrease because of threefold insurance premium increases and service reductions through which our route choices offering overtime hours have all but disappeared. We have been patient. Now, it's time for you to treat us as the "Heroes" your banners have proclaimed us to be. The federal government will not likely reward us. Will you, in our ongoing contract negotiations? Where in that $180 million pandemic relief you received are we "valued"?
You have the upper hand in that we cannot legally strike. If we had this right, transit would be now at a standstill. Given the fact you enjoy this advantage, will you honor those who make the wheels roll? I pray you will.
Thank you for continuing this dialogue. I remain your humble bus operator, "shepherd of public safety", rolling the wheels while you rule from on high.
Still, I remain a humble bus operator. That's all I aspire to be within our "family", and hope it encourages you to remember those of us who keep the wheels rolling. Thomas Dunn felt the same way, and died behind the wheel of a bus. Because he could still roll his bus to a safe stop and secure it before he bled to death, I hope you can honor US as he did his Tampa, Florida passengers (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/ article230695459.html).
I pray this doesn't happen to any of us, but there's always the horrific chance it could. Please keep this in mind as your minions actively lobby against us during contract negotiations this year. We've suffered enough indignities, I pray your "team" doesn't add to them.
Peace be with you and yours,
Patrick B. Coomer
Bus Operator
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