MCFARLANE ABDICATES

So Mcfarlane has decided to cash out his winnings. He apparently is hitting 65 so his timing is obviously to maximize his own private wealth. Full social security and his Trimet windfall. After 26 years at Trimet I estimate his pay around $5,000,000 not including whatever perks he received.

Joe Rose was the last person to estimate his pension which was $13,000/mo back then probably about $15,000/month now. And then there is the phony "vacation bank" (this is the way public officials get around pay raise caps, they have their sock puppets award them more vacation that they cash out later) which will probably net him $200,000 cash payment.

Under Mcfarlanes rule relations with the union and the union employees went horribly wrong. Previously there had been fairly decent relations with ATU757, at least the parties knew how to cooperate with each other. When Mcfarlane took over he made the decision to do everything in his power to "break" the union using all sorts of dirty tricks to accomplish that goal.

Lets take a look at some of his "accomplishments"

Andrew Riley on XRAY FM

The Portland Bus Lane Project

I've been reading and digesting all the mail that comes from this latest activist group. 

It reminds me of the OPAL initiative to get a 2 1/2 hour transfer. 

For those of you who don't track the world of transit as closely as I do let me refresh your memory. 

When Trimet did away with the paper transfers they reduced the  amount of time transfers would be valid. 

Trimet operates with  neoliberal philosophy.

 Neoliberalism  seeks  to extract wealth from the citizens. 

Trimet has been slowly and methodically  extracting as much wealth from its riders and its employees as they can get away with.

Cascade Policy Group has documented that Trimet service levels to the public are not aligned to extraction of wealth from the public.

Where does all that extra wealth go?

It's not really clear.

Captain Sassy Pants award winning Trimet tweets

Weird incident regarding an operator who did his own reroute and ended up hitting a fire hydrant

TRIMET DISPATCH HERE

Trimet loses again at the Supreme Court

Trimet officials steal from employees and retirees, squeeze the riding public for every Nickel while treating them like criminals, and low ball ordinary citizens that get In their way.

Mcfarlane and his crew represent the worst aspects of governmental tyranny.

http://law.justia.com/cases/oregon/supreme-court/2017/s064112.html

The horror that is American public transportation

When I started all this blogging about the job and when the job ended I started researching not just Trimet but public transportation in general in United States and around the world what became apparent to me is the sheer brutality of the public transportation industrial complex in this country. 

When you rise above all the false propaganda that districts like Trimet spew out about their wonderfulness all you can really see is abuse. Abuse Of riders and of the people doing the work. 

From buses and trains that don't show up or show up more than 15 minutes late leaving riders stranded in whatever the weather happens to be at that moment or packing riders into buses and trains like dead sardines get packed in their cans the public transportation experience in the United States is more like A torture chamber

And the drivers, subjected to horrible working conditions like split shifts, schedules that just don't work, angry riders who have nowhere to vent their anger but the drivers, working so early in the mornings or so late at nights family life is just a fantasy, no weekends or holidays off for years in some instances, equipment that can cause injury or drive you insane, management that harasses you for being early, for being late, for wearing the wrong hat,for wearing the wrong shoes, for wearing the wrong shirt, that leaves you stranded on the road with no way back to your car if  you become ill in the middle of your shift,  constantly under suspicion for drug use,  It's a life of hard sacrifices  for the people that choose mass transit operation as a career.

The horrors of American public transportation are real, if only I had the talent to write a decent novel on this scam. 

The only people that don't suffer at the hands of the public transportation industrial complex are the technocratic aristocracy who get fat paychecks and huge retirements and spend their days 'working' 9-5 in nice air conditioned offices  doing who knows what  away from the tragedy they foist on everyone else. 

And then there is the Crony capitalism part that is skillfully hidden from the public. You know, the people that made a cool $35 million installing the HOP card, or the $1.4 billion installing that light rail line to Milwaukee. 

Yes there are winners in the public transportation field, just not anybody who actually rides regularly or finds themselves stuck operating the vehicles. They are the victims of the complex. 

Yes, being a bus driver will age you, or cripple you, and I know more than a few that didnt make it out alive.

Weird TriMet service alerts June, July, August

NOTE: Many of these alerts were written by dispatchers who are not expected to be language experts, may not have time to proofread, and make mistakes like all humans.  They may have many other tasks in progress at the moment, such as dealing with buses that are already stuck due to the blockage or situations elsewhere.  While those errors probably should be forgiven, they can cause confusion or problems for those who try to follow them.

From the Trimet drivers side

https://fromthedriverside.blogspot.com/2017/10/i-want-to-smile.html

I made a comment on this post

ATU757 gives Mcfarlane as job performance review

as we know, the Trimet board of puppets think Mcfarlane is better than Jesus Christ himself

Want the real evaluation? Click the link

https://www.atu757.org/atus-performance-review-of-trimet-gm-neil-mcfarlane/

Trimet speak debunked

https://medium.com/@andrewariley/on-trimets-bullshit-new-business-plan-86c001eb06c1

Trimet keeps failing it's mission

but I'm sure Mcfarlane will get another raise. that's the way it goes in da land of da free, no accountability for the people at the top while nit picking the people doing the work to death.

Mcfarlane has been a total failure since the day he arrived. Citizens abandoning the system is positive  objective proof

http://www.wweek.com/news/city/2017/09/22/max-ridership-plummets-even-lower-in-july-second-month-of-decline-after-train-slayings/

Henry Beasley

Brothers and Sisters,

Recently, we’ve had a number of attacks on transit workers and the district has done nothing but put Band-Aids on gaping wounds and in some cases done nothing at all.

Trimet bragging about orange line ridership

the truth is they never even made first year projections

https://twitter.com/alyourpalster/status/908831819176435712

Trimet fake news

http://news.trimet.org/2017/09/ridership-on-the-rise-as-trimet-celebrates-two-years-of-max-orange-line-service/

Trimet was a key component In ruining Portland

And that's not me saying it. Furthermore they are still doing it with nobody to stop them!

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/10/30/spiking-a-rising-tide

Portland bus lane project asks for car-less bus lanes and they get a bureaucrat instead

There is just no way to work within the current system the way it is designed now.

Final offers in the contract wars are made

 It appears to me that the only changes that Trimet wants is to contract out a bunch of jobs that were union employees previously.

This material is written so that the public and the employees cant decipher it easily.

I don't want to spend hours trying to figure it out I think as a retiree I am safe for my pension and health care benefit. For now anyway

http://trimet.org/newcontract/proposals.htm

The Portland Bus Lane Project

Recently I was added to the mailing list of the Bus Lane Project and I have been reading the material they have been publishing. It's a very impressive group of people genuinely trying to make some needed changes to the Trimet system in terms of speed and reliability. 

Control communications from last Thursdays MAX crash

CLICK HERE!

No fun working at Trimet as long as Neil Mcfarlane continues his union busting policies

Why won't freaking Mcfarlane leave already? 

The greedy self righteous sonofabitch just won't leave.

I'm sure he's banked well over a million tax payer dollars into his personal account

He'll  get  a check for around another $200,000 the day he retires.

 Then he will get a lifetime tax payer funded pension of around $15,000 a month.

Neil has also been a miserable failure in keeping the transit system rolling.

 Transit ridership in Portland keeps going down under his watch

Time for a change.

 Get somebody in there that has some heart towards the people doing the work and the people riding the system.

End crony capitalism.

End Neal Mcfarlane 

Henry Beasley

Brothers and Sisters,

Going over my verifiable logging of the various assaults in the district and putting them together for everyone. The numbers may be off by a few here or there, but here is the list of logged events.

Trimet is the Oregon leader in union busting

And the puppet board of director support the head union buster Mcfarlane

https://nwlaborpress.org/2017/08/trimet-declares-impasse-in-contract-negotiations/

More MAX incidents-Control communications

Trimet announces its service improvements

Let's see what they have come up with

TRIMET Tweets of the day!

Profound observations of the Trimet system in 140 words or less!