Neal Berlin

 

If the current crop of incompetent inbred TriMet management does not have Knowledge of about the persistent chronic problems that have plagued operators, bus and rail, for decades, with ever expanding list of new variations on old problems, one needs really think is just a waste of time and effort?  

I applaud your concerns for the well being of Rank & File.  Yet going to management that has let persist and ignore problems that have created a very unsafe working conditions is dubious the best.  In the end, you may have the satisfaction of at least saying: I care. I tried. 

There have been numerous studies, some even paid for by TriMet going back to 1996 by a Linfield College professor studying the stress of transit operators.  There have been also many articles in Mass Transit Magazine, a publication that TriMet management receives ( note it is free, so it will not come out management bonuses).  In other words of the old adage goes: There is not much new under the Sun. The key is to think of it again.

A prime example of TriMet knowing what the problem is and doing nothing is the ergonomic report on the Type 4 that TriMet paid for.  The only solution to the “cab torture chamber “ was to essentially gut the cab.  Note that report was tried to be buried for over a year.  That is another long story for another time. In short nothing was done to effectively ameliorate the problems that still exist in Type 4 & 5.  I can’t wait see the Type 6 figurations with many operators suggestions before production.  

Lastly, where is our Union,ATU 757 been for the past decades?  That is rhetorical question…

I wish you and fellow Rank & File luck in bring about any real change other than more fake sympathetic verbiage from TriMet 

to put a finer point on comment, TriMet is Capitalization Project  Ponzi scheme.  It does not matter what is built that it actually effectively moves people but it generates money that flows through TriMet bank accounts, accruing interest, supports a large bureaucracy in the Capital Projects division at TriMet.  Note not one, project has ever undertaken has met the projections of ridership that where used to justify the expenditure of taxpayers money.  Not one!  That includes the first project, the 16 miles of Blue Line.  Every project that has come after that has fallen way short of ridership even before COVID ever became known.  The epitome of what I am talking about is WES.  

The most troubling aspects of this dolling out of taxpayers money on numerous follies is that there is no responsibility of those who generated these fictitious ridership numbers to secure funding.  Lessons not learned by the bobble heads of The TriMet Board of Directors.  

There lack to do there  fiduciaryduty as overnight of the public interest is appalling. 

Only eclipsed by METRO who has the power to exercise oversight of the TriMet Board but has declined to do so.

The Union,ATU 757, does not escape with clean hands in the situation the Rank & File finds itself now.  Without a professional public relations strategy it has let TriMet and all its minions get away without exposing the incompetence of this transit agency on many levels.

What to do? Praying and rubbing a rabbit foot might be the only viable options.