0xC9: Letters From A Nut: Metro Annoyances

Being long winded when it comes to all forms of writing, I also have a strange habit of actually writing letters. I'm not talking about e-mail letters. I'm talking about old fashioned "typed" letters on paper, mailed with a fricking stamp. Ok, I don't use a typewriter and I do send e-mail too, but when I want to be really annoying, I print them, stuff them in an envelop, and hope at least one eyebrow will raise from my antics.

When I write them for mailing, I try to stick to some semblance of the formal rules of letter writing if I can. I tend to just use Einstein's format for FDR (see below).

Here is a letter I wrote (albeit slightly edited and reformatted for the internets) originally addressed to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (a.k.a. "Metro," formerly RTD, formerly MTA, etc.). The letter was written and sent in June of 2008:

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
One Gateway Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90012-2952
Sir or Madam:
    My daily round-trip cost is $2.45 in total. I commute four days out of the week and spend the fifth day working from home. As you can see, I have no need for a $5 daily pass, nor $62 a monthly pass, since I only spend about $42 each month.
    Needless to say, I have nothing to complain about with regard to bus fare. My commute seems longer than it was when I drove the seven miles over a year ago, but the price is much easier to deal with.
    I notice that many of the Metro buses have been outfitted with flat panel displays called "Transit TV" which inform and attempt to entertain riders en-route. One of the features I have noticed of this system is that as the bus driver presses down on the bus accelerator, the audio from Transit TV system intentionally gets louder to compensate for the extra noise from the bus engine.
    I find it odd that radios are prohibited by law (California Penal Code § 640.3 "Playing sound equipment on or in a system facility or vehicle.") yet sound equipment from the Transit TV systems are lawful. In fact, I find Transit TV downright obnoxious. Why should I be jarred away from my book to hear commercials for people with bad credit? On the Torrance Transit line, if some-one's earphones are too loud, the bus driver asks them to turn them down. I am seriously considering what it would take to remove Metro from my daily commute. In all likelihood, the only thing I need to do is purchase a bicycle.
    I would like to know if Transit TV has been granted an exception from the law, and if so, I require to know where this exception is documented so that I may start a petition to remove the exception, if I find any such interest from other riders to do so.
   No doubt, Metro receives revenue from Transit TV for playing those obnoxious commercials. It would be one thing if the monitors merely displayed messages in silence. No doubt revenue could still be gathered by silent ads. I can only guess this is all in an effort to avoid raising the bus fare.
    As it is, the bus fare really doesn't bother me, but I pay $1.55 to get to work and $0.90 to get home four days a week because I incorporate Torrance Transit into my route. It might make more sense to just remove Metro from the equation and pay only $0.50 each direction.
     When I come home, I get a transfer from Torrance Transit. When I transfer to Metro, many times the Metro driver won't take my transfer, but let me on anyway. Occasionally, Metro drivers offer resistance for even showing them the transfer. It's like they think they are day passes, they don't recognize them anymore, or they think I'm trying to pull a fast one. I'm not sure why the driver wouldn't want to take my transfer.
     I know the code requirement for fare disputes is to pay the fare (§640.B), but I have been polite with the drivers and thus far this has not been necessary.
     All this to say, I am not that impressed with your bus line and I have a sneaking suspicion you are getting rid of inter-agency transfers and force me to buy a day pass that the Torrance Transit line doesn't plan on accepting. Is this true? If so, all this will serve to do is confirm my desire to remove Metro from my daily commute.
Sincerely,
Anthony Martin

I do not write my letters really expecting any change or even a response. Only about half of the letters like this ever get a reply. And about half of those replies do not seem to pertain at all to what I originally wrote about. This does not come as a surprise to me. But years ago, I would get coupons and other perks for writing nutty letters to corporations. Lately, nothing. And I certainly didn't expect anything from monopolistic-pseudo-corporations like these guys.

And I was right. There was no reply. My address was part of the letter I sent (which was redacted here for posting online), so there's no reason they couldn't reply. But because I brought up legal terminology, my letter was probably shredded ASAP.

But an interesting thing has happened since that time. My primary complaint about the noise level generated by "Transit TV" seems to have been addressed. I'm not sure if it's because of my letter or something unrelated like the fact that maintenance has gone completely out the window (maybe it's a combination thereof).

And my secondary complaint about the odd treatment of transfers has also been addressed. I have gotten zero resistance to my transfers for a long time. There have been many new operators since that time too, so it's not because they got used to me.

So I can't say letter writing was effective here since I have no direct evidence to support it. But I do enjoy it nonetheless. And on occasion, it might even help. Who knows?