NashTransit

Friday morning I took a slightly later bus into work than usual. The bus driver for that trip was announcing out loud the routes that are about to be cut. Actually making sure that people on the bus knew about what was about to happen. He told me he'd been doing this for a couple weeks now. Thank you, sir, for doing this. None of my other drivers have said a word about it.

I'll have to check in the morning to see if there is anything posted about the scheduled changes anywhere on the bus. If anything, it will be the typical half-sized sheet copy of the press release, about as bland and as unnoticeable as can be.

On Saturday afternoon, I passed by the information kiosk at the transfer station downtown. I took a good look around. Not a word about the cuts to be seen anywhere.

Hey, MTA! If you want people to make noise about the budget cuts you've been handed, and if you don't want people furious at you come July 1 when the bus suddenly fails to show up without warning, you've got to let people know what's about to happen. Not everyone is on your email list. Not everyone reads the Tennessean every day. And certainly very few people I've seen ever pick up those little press releases.

My advice? Invest in a few cases of Astrobright paper. Fire up Word and make a new sign to replace the press releases. Cut down on the words. Use a large font size. Get it noticed. It's the very least you could do.

And for Pete's sake, keep a fresh supply of them in the buses at all times.

# posted by dotsandlines @ 9:31 PM