Recently active topics in Humboldt Transit Authority

Tuesday, December 23, 2008
At Scheduled 4:46 P.M. Bus Stop
At Broadway and Del Norte
Southbound from Arcata

HEY HI HTA!!

Merry Holidays!! Could you please call or e-mail this instant Customer---relative to a possible SAFETY HAZARD---potentially resulting in a Liability Lawsuit!! [personal information removed]. Merry Santa for pitiable Human children!??!

Allow me to return to Broadway & Del Norte HTA Bus Stop, (as a scientist); to confirm that male operator stopped a wide distance away from the curb. Bicycle retrieval involved. AFTER Senior Citizen customer placed bicycle on ground, I instantly saw and therefore felt the possible SAFETY HAZARD of a Vehicle? Car? Bicycle? Skate Boarders? between the HTA Bus and the curb---potentially causing a devastating Liability Lawsuit.

Second, the unfriendly, unprofessional decision HTA has obviously made with respect to Cultural Customer Relations is, albeit with (irrelevant wrt this matter) justified respect because of your Green Buses!, is---frankly---exceedingly poor!??! It seems clear to this Physicist that HTA is un-friendly, un-civil in an even Sociological-Economic sense, to mostly all Customers/Patrons/Clients/even Senior Citizens and Students.

Merry Enlightenment to you, HTA Friends!!

The bottom line is that those (1) Safety Hazard(s), or potential legal Liability Lawsuits--- to be prevented early on---; and (2) unprofessional attitudes--- could affect HTA's profit or bus-iness, in spite of the classical London School of Economics 101 "County/Municipal/Transportation inelastic supply/demand curve."

Once again, HTA Friends, MERRY HEALTH!! MERRY HAPPINESS!! Yes Yes!---that includes MERRY ACUMEN!! and MERRY ETHICS!!, HTA, on Planet Earrth [stet]!

Respectfully, and creatively, submitted,
Disgusted Sherlock Holmes

About 10 days ago my son was riding the southbound bus from College of the Redwoods in the early afternoon. The bus was very late picking up at CR which probably meant the driver was behind schedule. The schedule has a stop at 11th & N st. at which the driver usually drops off and picks up. This particular day the driver bypassed the Fortuna main st. exit and proceeded down 101 south to the Fortuna Overlook stop. When several passengers inquired about this change in the route, the driver told them if they wanted to be dropped at the 11th & N st. stop, they would have to stay on the bus until the driver made the complete loop around Fortuna to begin his Northbound cycle. My minor son was on the bus and became confused and upset that the driver missed his stop. He was frustrated that the driver would not give them clear directions and he wound up getting off the bus somewhere in the Kenmar area. He then had to walk from the Kenmar area all the way back to the 11th and N st. area which is where the driver should have dropped him off in the first place. I was quite upset when I heard about this as I was out of town on business and my son could not call me for a ride home. If he were an adult this would be an entirely different situation, but since he is an underage minor, I feel that the bus driver was irresponsible and out of line.

There's probably a hidden logic to the routes that makes them handy for some people, but for the average Joe just looking to get from A to B on occasion ...

Check out the purple line. It doubles back and crosses itself like five or six times, so that even staring straight at the maps in your hand it's pretty much impossible to tell which way it's going at any juncture.

Unless you happen to hit it right at the top of the hour, it's almost always quicker just to walk from downtown to Henderson Center. At the top of the hour, the Red Line is a little quicker, but even then you have to go via the Mall, rather than straight down H.

I had a problem unzipping the Redwood Transit schedule file for my iPod. I emailed the HTA to let them know there was a problem. Aaron suggested using the Stuff It software program (free to download) to unzip the file. Once I did I had no problems unzipping the file using the Stuff It program.

It's important to note that I did not have to download and install a specific program to unzip the Eureka Transit and Arcata/Mad River Transit schedules.

A further note, the RTS schedule is not as orderly as the ETS and AMRTS schedules. I'm wondering if this might have anything to do with the way the file was created or how it was unzipped.

OS: XP Professional, Service Pack 2
2nd generation iPod

Thanks!