Portland Transit Fails Its Front Line

Deke's Note: The assaults just keep adding up, and management keeps blaming us rather than the perpetrators. There are numerous accounts of operators being suspended just for defending themselves, or insinuations of our bringing the assaults upon ourselves for daring to insist the riding public obey the most basic rules of human decency. We're made to feel guilty for our own assaults, rather than being supported in our time of terror and justified Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We're tired of being injured and then insulted by those whose job is to simply to support us as we do the real work of transit. Yeah, it's another blog rerun. If you agree with management, go ahead and close this page. If you do so, you support management over those who are tired of being the punching bags of a pampered public. And it you do close this page, you're part of the problem. Sorry, but that's how I see it, from the driver side. #Deke4GM

Just the other evening, another driver recounted an assault he did not even bother to report. He waved off my question as to whether he had reported it, as if it just didn't matter. It does, however, merit reporting. If not for himself, but for his fellow frontline transit workers.

He warned me about the guy, who was menacing and threw a cup of soda on him and threatened to punch him. My brother described the perp to a tee. Luckily, I never saw him. Otherwise I would have refused him service, and that alone could have resulted in another assault.

People in management have no idea what we go through out here. They have some misguided notion that transit passengers are all roses and fluff, full of good cheer and brotherly love. They seem to believe how we treat passengers dictates their behavior toward us. If we're assaulted, the question is always assumed: What did you do to warrant this preventable incident? Answer: we were doing our jobs as laid out in the Standard Operating Procedures. Expecting people to pay fare, behave reasonably and to respect the ride.

All these points are posted on our rides in large print. The biggest problem is nobody reads signs on transit vehicles. People feel entitled these days to act as they choose, and no transit worker whether operator or supervisor, have any right to correct their horrid behavior. Management backs them up, along with an ineffectual and irresponsible local media which eats anything transit feeds it. Nobody wants to rock the boat, except those of us who are on the receiving end of an unforgiving fist. We are ignored by the very media charged with reporting upon what ails society today. Evidently, our plight doesn't warrant their attention.

I have attempted on many occasions to bring the media's attention to our collective plight. Willamette Week: "we're going to pass" on the book. Oregonian? Crickets. OPB? Only if we're given editorial permission to cover a "feel good" story about a bus operator who wrote a book. Forget about any follow-up, you should be grateful we noticed you at all. Oh, you're being assaulted? Never mind, we'll pass too. Portland Monthly? Ha! You transit workers are lowly bottom-feeders, not worthy of mention to our high-end 22nd-story high brow residents. KOIN? KATU? You're inept, inattentive, lazy and out of touch. Transit management won't allow us to report that.

I guess we'll all just suffer in silent anguish. If our own management, local media and the general public don't care, I guess we're on our own. We can't even defend ourselves without fear of suspension or termination. And y'all just sit there and fail by letting it happen without even a swing at it. Thanks guys.

Female transit workers are especially vulnerable to disrespect and assault. Those who mistreat us are emboldened by what they determine to be the "weaker sex." This is without merit, because any lady who does the work of transit is tough, worthy of the utmost respect. They are equal to men in every aspect, yet they are treated with extreme disrespect. You don't hear about men being sexually-assaulted on the job, but women are constantly subject to harassment and vile treatment. The toads of transit feel emboldened to attack our sisters of the road. Many have been horribly assaulted in physical altercations that any man would consider worthy of instant physical retaliation. However, any such self-defense is not only frowned upon by our lawsuit-fearful agency, but also deemed worthy of suspension or termination. It's a disgusting way to treat those who should not fear risking their very well-being just to earn a paycheck. Cops have guns; we have only our wits.

Our politically-appointed "Bored" of Directors, which approved taxing the metropolitan-area working class to support its out-of-control management boondoggles, simply sign off on whatever they are told. Sure, they endure monthly meetings with the public, but they appear disinterested as to whatever public testimony they pay attention to. They're actually nothing but a glorified joke. Pandering as necessary, the board is too accustomed to accepting the status quo to do anything considered to be rocking a leaky boat.

We're tired of being disrespected by the public, but to endure it from our own management is an insult. It digs as deep as the blade one of us will have to endure to our very death before anyone takes the perils of our job seriously. Management sees numbers and liability; operators and others on the front line see psychological anomalies in passengers capable of bloody mayhem. Management controls the local media's perspective by dumbing down the number of us who are assailed on a daily basis.

Our brother Henry gives us real numbers of assaults and menacing incidents several times each month, but management has its own metrics to serve an apathetic media. Unfortunately, the media tends to not give a damn, as evidenced by the lack of any investigative reporting on the subject. They are a bunch of lazy, public opinion-pandering wussies who wouldn't know a story when it slaps us in the face every day we drive Portland to work and safely home again.

Missing from the local media are what we do for those we serve. Present are stories about how a MAX operator slowed down for a family of geese on the tracks. Hell, most bus and light rail operators give the feathered population the respect of any other pedestrians. It's a no-brainer. We don't want to kill anything, human or otherwise. Another operator walks a man with dementia to his door and gets a commendation from Dispatch but no other mention. Others constantly watching a 180-degree (or more) view around their vehicle to save other motorists from themselves warrant nothing more than an extended middle finger (which I'd STILL love to figuratively see bent back to the breaking point by someone who actually appreciates what we do).

One thing the media consistently fails to report are the dozens of life-saving efforts our operators perform every day. We're constantly bombarded with bulletins from law enforcement regarding missing persons, and quite often they're located due to the sharp eyes of transit workers. Dispatchers always tell us we are their "eyes and ears" on the pulse of Portland, but the media fail to see anything but what is fed to it by a dominant transit management. If our heroics on a daily basis were fairly reported, perhaps we'd receive the respect we earn every day. But no, we're "just bus drivers" to the general public, due to the lackadaisacal reporting methods of our ineffectual and corporate-fed group of media lemming lackeys.

According to management, the numbers of us who are assaulted are negligible. Why? Because many don't report incidents of menacing/threatening or actual assault incidents Here's a few examples of what transit workers go through every day of the year. In 2018, there were 116 incidents in which we were subject to a less-than-grateful riding public. They include spitting, sexual assaults, physical battery, intimidation and menacing, pepper spraying, liquid-or-bodily-fluid-drenching, and horrific verbal assaults nobody should expect to endure on any job. What's worse, we're not allowed to defend ourselves, which makes us sitting ducks to anyone who chooses an operator on whom to take out their aggressions.

If we charge an assailant with assault, we're assessed time loss for court appearances and receive no legal support from management when we testify. Most often, defense attorneys depict us as the perpetrators, and their clients as lily-clean victims of our supposed bullying. We're the typical example of "trickle down" anything: what flows down the pipes to us is usually yellow or brown, and it doesn't smell good. In short, we're the bad guys. I guess we deserve being shit upon, if we are to believe the propaganda.

Once a year, management all across the globe take a few days out of their self-important busy schedules to participate in their media-intense "Transit Worker Appreciation" events. They trot out their lackey media darlings as they make appearances on our vehicles to pass along meaningless baubles and inedible snacks to those of us who make their jobs possible. Oh wait. You work the swing/night shift? Too damn bad, they only work banker's hours. So much for extending service to 24 hours on some lines... those operators and supes rarely see a single lick of appreciation on their shifts.

Does this sound like "appreciation" to you? Even those who are treated to the exaggerated displays from upper management aren't convinced they truly care about the many plights confronting frontline workers. It's all a sham, and we're expected to gobble up their faux appreciation.

So management, your controlled media, and pampered public, don't expect us to bend over backward in our pain-inducing seats to accommodate your outrageous expectations. Because of your collective incompetence, we've fallen from being "one of the most influential voices of transit - if not the model - for American transit" in 2012 to not even being mentioned in a Google search today. It's disgusting, an insult to those of us who sacrifice our bodies and souls to make it all work. Why? Management, that's why. It is bloated, inefficient and incapable, unless you ask them for an opinion.

We also have an ungrateful and apathetic public which complains more than commends those of us who get them safely to their destinations as close to 100% of the time as is humanly possible. We're here 365 days a year in the worst of conditions to provide safe rides to an economy which depends upon its transit agency to transport a large percentage of the economy's workforce. Add an ineffectual and inept media who hasn't performed investigative journalism since Jesus was a child, and you have a transit mess. We need a major shift here, or we might as well call it a bust and abandon mass transit here for good.


Wake up Portland, you're asleep at the wheel. Good thing we're doing our job; you have failed not only us, but yourselves as well. Good job at doing nothing positive at all. We'll keep doing our jobs, whether you pay attention or not.

Oh and by the way, and you're welcome.