1.6% of Metro "METROs Past the Pump!"

 
The Email from Metro with THEIR Numbers in PDF.

Download AQMD Rule 2202-1 for Metro

First off lets all congratulate Metro with being in compliance of Rule 2202.

The one thing I love about Metro is that it never disappoints me. It always minds it's Ps and Qs, yet still manages to be foul.

I knew the number of Metro employees that used their company's service was low, but I thought maybe 10% or 20%. The number of people in L.A. County who take public transit is 7%. I thought Metro would at least match or beat that. After all, 7% is an amazingly low number.

I gave Metro too much credit.

Out of the approximately 9200 employees employed by Metro in 2009, 155 of them use Metro's service: the beautiful trains and busses.

What does this say about Metro's service?

Does it say it's special like nana's living room furniture that has plastic on it at all times, because what if someone sits on it? That sofa from 1965 is irreplaceable!!

OR

Metro's product is a piece of crap and even the people that they pay won't use it.

To add a side of ice cream to this delicious piece of cake the amount of Metro employees that even bothered to get a transit pass was a whopping 17%.

Isn't it free for Metro employees to get a transit pass?

If they don't get them for free, don't you think Metro should make that a priority? Never mind, my job here is not to come up solutions. Solutions are hard.  My job is to point out the hilariousness of Metro.

155 out of 9200 of Metro employees take their disgusting/luxurious service.
1,540 out of 9200 of Metro employees have a TAP card.

Wow!! You don't even have enough respect for customers to lie.
No wonder your system is run like crap.
No one who works there has ever even used the bus, well 1.6% have.

I'm going to assume those 155 are probably interns from Portland.

 

Metro, this is a bus. This is your line 30 bus; it goes up East 1st Street.

 

Metro, this is a train. This is your new train. It's an extension of the Gold Line. The Gold Line goes through Pasadena and Highland Park as well as into East L.A.

-Browne Molyneux

Extra info: 39 people at Metro drive their bicycles to work. 36 walk to work.

Source: METRO's 2009 AQMD RULE 2202 REPORT

Comments

[Gary Kavanagh]

Lame, I would think at least the average as well, but well below average is pretty suck. I wonder how many ride bikes..

[writer]

36 ride bicycles!!!

 

Browne

[writer]

Sorry 39 ride bicycles and 36 walk.

 

Browne

[AW]

Many of Metro's employees work shifts that aren't conducive to taking transit (e.g. very early or very late).

[writer]

So ok that might explain 20% of their employees or maybe if I was generous 50%, but less than 2% of Metro employees take public transit. That's funny and sad. Are we really trying to act like a number like 155 or 2% is ok, really....

 

Browne

[DJB]

Sorry if I missed it, but how did you determine the percentage of Metro's employees that take transit to work?

I think the point about shifts is apt. If you are starting a bus route at 4AM, there probably isn't a way besides driving to get to work. Could you tell me what percentage of Metro's employees are drivers?

I'd like to know the percentage that take transit once you exclude the drivers with weird shifts. If it's low, I'll join you in your criticism.

[browne]

Every organization that has over a certain amount of employees has to comply with Rule 2202 (click on the link above.) Metro did a transportation survey on this survey they asked the entire Metro workforce how did they get to work.

On this survey the amount who took Metro to work was 155.

Metro confirmed it. Ask them. Click on the AQMD link and request the info. Sorry this isn't Wikipedia or press release info, because it's not fun like where to eat along the Gold Line. I'm not really interested in anything in a press release.

Hey I'm sure if this is big lie that I made up Metro will come out and say so. Am I lying Metro?

Browne

[Spokker]

I never listened to the radio stations I worked at.

I never played the games I used to help test at a previous job.

I never patronized the store I used to work at in my first job.

What's your point?

[browne]

Spokker what do you do now? That's my point.

You've lost how many jobs now and are you even 25?

[LisaNewton]

This is just amazing, and a total shame.

[Randall BusTard]

Spokker,

And you never listen to the arguments against which you always negatively react.

THAT is your point.

[Spokker]

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/tenure.nr0.htm

"The median number of years that wage and salary workers had been
with their current employer was 4.1 years in January 2008, little
changed from 4.0 years in January 2006, the Bureau of Labor Statistics
of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today."

If I am like the average person and work forty or forty-five years, that's 10-11 jobs in a lifetime.

I have not lost any jobs. I haven't been fired from a job... yet.

[Joe Linton]

LOL... sad statistics.

Does anyone know - does Metro provide car parking free of charge to its employees who drive? Do they offer a parking cash out benefit? Given their headquarters prime location as a major transit hub, I bet their numbers would be better if they put non-car incentives on par with (or better than) car incentives.

[Lenny Sandoval]

Every Metro employee I know lives in the Inland Empire.

[CJ]

Browne, this story might have a much greater impact, ie have legs, if you had a link to the source document. The link you post above:
"Source: METRO's 2009 AQMD RULE 2202 REPORT"
just links to the aqmd's main site. I think a lot of people (bloggers and dead tree media) would be reluctant to run with this without actually seeing a doc.

[Ramon Martinez]

I call it Reverse Fordism everytime I bike pass the MTA Bus Yard on Cypress near Fig in Highland Park.

Whereas Henry Ford said, "everyone of my employees is going to use the products they make!" and revolutionized human society, MTA says "none of our employees are going to use the services we provide!" and continued to wallow in the mire.

Though MTA is a bit of a schizophrenic organization, widening the 405 while also providing Bus Services.

[Ramon Martinez]

The Bus Yard multi-story parking lot is always packed with employee cars...ridiculous.

[Damien Goodmon]

"Many of Metro's employees work shifts that aren't conducive to taking transit (e.g. very early or very late)."

Many of Los Angeles' transit riders work shifts that begin and end around the same times.

Good work Bus Bench.

[JS]

The vast majority of Metro employees work at bus and rail yards. It would be fantastic if Metro had the money to run buses all hours of the night, even to the places these yards are sited. (Hint: these facilities are not usually welcome in places where people like to go.) But they don't have that kind of money. So Metro runs buses at the times and places where they can actually carry the most passengers. You know, like down Wilshire Blvd. during rush hour. Not like 4 a.m. past the auto wrecking yard, which is where they'd need to be running service to get drivers to bus yards to start their shifts. By the way, if they did, you'd whine about their running service for their own benefit, not the general public's. And you'd be right, but right now you're not.

[browne]

My issue is with One Gateway. The suits at One Gateway have the kind of hours that would make riding the public transit to downtown's Union Station amazingly easy.

I'm concerned about the suits at One Gateway. If they acted right everything else at Metro would fall in place.

Browne

[Robert Chang]

It doesn't mention what the AVR is. AVR must be collected at EACH job site over 250 persons. You need to try again. http://file.lacounty.gov/bc/q4_2009/cms1_140195.pdf

[freejury]

Hmmm, let me see. I work 7 miles away and it takes me 10 minutes from my front door to work. I would have to leave my house 45 minutes earlier than I currently do now to catch a bus in the dark to get to work 10 minutes before I start. NOPE, I DON'T THINK SO. All METRO employee badges are TAP bus passes. More than half of METRO employees are bus Operators and a lot of them because of their work hours can't take a bus or train to work. Many employees are in van/carpools, while some of it is subsidized it isn't all together free. Parking is not free at Gateway for employees, it's almost 50 bucks a month. Metro doesn't manage the parking in it's own building. Hope I cleared a few things up.

[Colin]

I just spent two and a half hours trying to get back from Union Station. The 333 bus pulled up to the station stop where no less than 20 would be passengers, straight from the Dodger Express bus, were waiting. It dropped off a passenger and drove off without even letting us know when the next bus would arrive. This happened with THREE CONSECUTIVE BUSES. We approached the only person working there who told us he didn't know why they were stopping because he only worked for Dodger Express. Wearing LA Metro's uniform, holding LA Metro's clipboard, and he has the nerve to tell me he doesn't work for them. He suggested I wait at one of the other stations down the street where they were more likely to stop...

...exactly when did it become unlikely a bus would stop at a transit station?!?!?

[Boyleheights Man]

The story finally made the L.A. Weekly News blog on August 10, 2010.

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/transportation/metro-employees-dont-ride/

[Bob Davis]

It would be interesting to see if the low percentage of transit employees using "the sponsor's product" is a Los Angeles thing, or whether similar ratios prevail for San Francisco Muni, AC Transit (Oakland area), Chicago Transit, SEPTA (Philadelphia) and MBTA (Boston). I would guess that New York City would have the highest ratio of transit riders on their payroll.

[Bob Davis]

There's a link to Free Public Transit, a group that advocates removing fareboxes and ticket machines and letting people ride buses and local trains without paying a fare on the left side of this page. As I recall, LA Metro employees get transit passes as part of their "fringe benefits." Metro even honors OCTA employee passes. If people who can ride for nothing prefer to spend money on cars and fuel, and drive to work, what does this tell us?