Metro's Desmond: "Heckuva Job, Metro!"

We realize plenty of people are still steamed about the loss of our public transportation system during the recent snow and, currently, during the widely celebrated "It's almost New Year's Eve" holidays. Most of you are probably at home right now, sipping hot cocoa. Enjoy it! It's the holidays!

But it is hilarious that Metro's Kevin Desmond pops up as a guest editorialist in the P-I this morning--like Metro, running a little late--to defuse the anger and upset with double-helpings of self-serving platitudes.

From the very beginning, when Desmond wraps himself in the flag of "safety" and notes that Alaska Airlines canceled flights, too, you get a sense that the lesson here will be wildly missed. And it is.

When the first snow fell, Metro was fully prepared with an operational plan that had all buses chained and snow routes in effect. But normal snow plans were no match for the severity of the storms and the ongoing dangerous driving conditions.

"Fully prepared" with plans that were "no match" for conditions. Oh.

The problem is that Metro's administration--all year round, for decades--has not been up to the task of running something the size of Metro. In the best conditions, getting timely, accurate information out of Metro is a chore. Many stops go without schedules, and most without maps. Now Metro wants everyone to visit them online--they've been putting up their website address at stops. There, a new sticker! Now all our passengers have smart phones with unlimited data plans!

In the worst conditions, Metro can't provide you with information because they don't know, either. But as always, a consistent Metro attitude prevails: you don't need to know. We caught a 14 bus from downtown one snowy night, which in theory runs down Summit. (The 10 and 12 routes were canceled. Capitol Hill? Who lives there?) We rode it up the hill past Summit, to Broadway and then north on Broadway. The driver never said a word to the packed bus about the new route, or where we were headed.

Kevin, people understand there was a snow storm. They understand safety. They understand reduced service and the city's inability to deal with snow. They may even understand that you bought a shitload of articulated buses that aren't safe on Seattle's hills in many conditions, not just snow. What they don't understand is what you were unable to tell them: if their bus was coming, how long it would take, and where it was going on its "unpublished re-route." That is why so many people are upset--especially when things are uncertain, people value accurate, timely information.

There is a smaller, more incensed group--typically top of a hill-dwellers--who didn't take kindly to being stranded for days. Their anger at Metro for not having a worst-case service scenario in place is not simply due to inconvenience and frustration. They weren't aware that they were expendable, so to speak. Now they know, and an editorial isn't going to lift their spirits.