Like many people in the city of Oakville, I rely on public transit to get to work. Five days a week, at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., I wait for your busses to get me safely to where I need to be, but the service – at least for the past 4 months – is a mess.
Busses are arriving 10, 15, 20 minutes late to their stops, jamming up their connections and failing to follow the impossibly tight schedule that Oakville Transit has created.
Rush hour is not a myth. We all understand that traffic happens and that certain times of day are busier than others. Just like some seasons of the year are busier than others, even Oakville Transit adjusts schedules to better serve people.
If it is so easy to adjust a schedule for weekends, late nights, and holidays, why can’t Oakville Transit adjust for rush hour traffic?
Specifically, I have been riding the 14 bus every day since the beginning of June. That’s over 75 rides on this line at the same hour, and it has 100% of the time been 10 minutes late, at the least. It doesn’t matter who is driving, what the weather is like, or how many people are on the bus. It shows up at 5:03, 5:08, and even 5:15 multiple times instead of 4:53 p.m. like it should.
I have made many calls and emails to Oakville Transit to bring this issue of an impossible schedule to their attention, but I have not heard back nor seen a change.
Their automated phone system says their customer service operators are there to take your calls from 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., yet I have never been able to get through to a human. I am always told to leave a message for someone to call me back, but no one ever does. Hence why I am taking to the newspaper.
I don’t expect Oakville Transit drivers to be on time to every single stop every single day. I am not so unreasonable to think that life doesn’t get in the way sometimes. But this is a perpetual problem that has an easy fix.
I am calling on Oakville Transit to step up, acknowledge its shortcomings and adjust its service to better serve its riders. I am calling on Oakville Transit to investigate the disconnect between customer service and the rest of their staff.
I am also calling on anyone who has experienced similar, ongoing issues with Oakville Transit – with more voices, maybe Oakville Transit will hear us and do something about this problem. Send an email to [email protected] to see how you can get involved.
