Yet Another Letter to the MBTA

Previous letter is here. If I keep sending these, they’re eventually going to write me off as a crackpot. But it’s not my fault that they suck! Details changed to protect me from anyone wishing to stalk me in the morning. :p

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Dear Ms. Dubose,

I am sorry to have to write to you about another incident this morning on route [redacted]. At [time] this morning, a 101 [bus] pulled up its stop inMalden Center. I along with 10-15 other passengers boarded the bus. When all of the passengers were on board, the driver turned the bus off, got off of the bus and left the vicinity of the bus stop. It was only then that we saw a second bus pull around us and leave for its route. As far as I could tell, nobody was on this other bus, as we all assumed that the bus that we were sitting on was the [time] bus and because the other bus never pulled all of the way up to stop (I’ve never seen a [number] driver let anyone onto the bus until they’ve pulled all the way up to the 101 sign).

I’m angry, not just because, as a result of my bus leaving without me, I was late to work. I’m angry, because I feel like the driver of the bus that I got on this morning misled me and all of my fellow passengers. Not once did he mention that this bus would not be leaving until the later bus time or that there was a bus behind us. Instead, he happily left for his break and left all of his passengers sitting there, confused,
with no other option but to sit and wait for the bus to leave at [time]. We were all led to believe that this was the bus that we should be taking. I didn’t feel comfortable saying something after he got back
on the bus, because the last time someone spoke up to a driver in front of me, it resulted in the incident that I previously reported to you.

People need to be able to trust your schedules and your drivers. If the schedule says that there will be a bus that I can take from Malden Center at [time], I need to be able to assume that there will be a bus in Malden Center in the vicinity of [time]. I understand that weather and other factors being what they are, the schedule will not always be completely accurate. But for a driver to mislead his passengers into thinking that he is the driver of their bus and to then leave them sitting in silence while their real bus leaves without them does not exactly engender faith in the MBTA. As it stands, I will now be seeking alternate transportation on days that I have meetings first thing in the morning. I can no longer count on the MBTA to get me to work on time.

Thank you for your consideration,
Hope Roth.