Month: April 2010

Randomly Sunday

Links, etc.:

  • Great Historicist article on Peter Dickinson who apparently singlehandedly brought modern architecture to Toronto.
  • Here’s some Pittsburgh photography after my own heart.
  • Look. A video for Sheena Easton’s “Morning Train.” I never really knew there was one, and it’s not very good, but EMI is at least possessive enough of it to disable embedding.
  • If you haven’t been following the hubby’s cross-country photo tour, you should start. I’m getting the deluxe edition by email, with updates from each train station and bus stop along the way, but that option isn’t available to the general public. I’m special ‘cuz I put out, I guess.

Bed now. Hopefully, my stomach will have recovered by morning from whatever is bothering it so. I’ll spare you the details.

Bad with Names?

It struck me tonight that there’s a period from about 1996-2004, roughly, where there are a significant number of people I spoke with on a fairly regular basis and felt that I knew rather well. I would not, however, recognize many of their names if I saw them. But show me their email addresses and it’s instant recognition.

I’m not sure if that’s really sad or mildly amusing. I’m going to choose the latter just because it makes me feel better about myself.

An Open Letter to the Winston-Salem Transit Authority

I am not a regular transit commuter, but I am an occasional user of WSTA buses, albeit an admittedly infrequent one. One of those occasions was Friday, April 2, which is apparently a holiday for city and state employees, but not for many other people.

On that Friday morning, I needed to drop off my car for service and did so assuming that I could take the bus home. I made this assumption because there was no indication whatsoever on WSTA’s website or phone system that the buses would not be running. Who knows how long I might have been standing at the bus stop had someone not yelled out his car window to let me know about the mistake I was making.

I understand that regular riders are probably very familiar with the holiday schedule. I know that transit budgets are stretched pretty thin. But how much effort does it really take to add a note to your website and a message on your phone system to let people know that there will be no service on a specific day? There’s not even a general holiday schedule posted on the website as far as I can see. Frankly, that would seem like pretty basic element to me.

It’s occasional riders like me that WSTA presumably wants to attract. We’re also a powerful swing vote who generally support transit when bond issues are proposed. With customer service lapses like this, though, it’s little wonder that people who have a choice generally choose not to take the bus.

All the same, the experience provided me with the chance to take a (very hilly) 4 km hike home on a busy four-lane road with no sidewalks. It might have been a nice change of pace if I’d planned to do it. Or had time.