Transpo Sprays Perfume On Transit Skunk: WHOPPER WATCH

05/01/2023

whopper.watch .12.26

“This update to OC Transpo’s Twitter presence is also a component of a plan to improve
communications with customers; further enhancements can be expected. These improvements
will complement ongoing work to upgrade real-time data information for customers.”

OC Transpo press release

So let’s take a look at what these improvements are. OC Transpo outlines these improvements a couple of sentences earlier in the memo:

“While some customers may have used the previous Twitter accounts to find changes to their
specific bus trips, this is no longer possible. Twitter has introduced new pricing to access certain
features of their platform, which would add a cost of approximately $675,600 per year to continue
to post specific trip information.”

Odd improvements. Sounds like improvements for staff but not for the public. But then the city is run for pols and staffers, not for the public paying their salaries.

Ice Storm Will Be A Big Test Of LRT

So all this is in the name of frugality as Transpo is unprepared to pay Twitter to send out “specific trip information (if that is true).” Coincidentally, that Twitter policy falls in line with the city’s habit of covering-up, embellishing and lying.

Changes to bus routes are no longer possible to supply by Transpo. Killing a vital service. Now that’s progress.

And why? Because transit in this city is world-class embarrassment and certain people on Laurier Avenue are tired of being embarrassed.

When the Confederation Line was in its early days, journalists were barred from taking photos at stations or on trains. The idea was to control the message when there were problems.

A slight miscalculation there. What the tall foreheads at city hall forgot was that thousands of passengers (when the train worked) had cameras and Twitter to report problems on the LRT. And they did.

While Transpo in those days was trying to cover up train delays, outages and accidents, passengers tweeted them immediately.

Accordingly websites sprung up such as Occasional Transport which did a much better job of reporting train outages than Transpo. One prominent journalist tweeted out that if Transpo wouldn’t send out tweets on problems with the trains, the news outlet would use the clandestine websites for information. They were much more accurate than OC Transpo. The city bus company cleaned up its act.

But now rather than providing accurate bus information, the city is “improving” its service by stopping it.

And oh, by the way, there are unspecified improvements coming down the road. That should be wild.

We have a few improvements to suggest to the city’s appalling transit service. Stop lying. Stop covering-up. Stop trying, through press releases, to make a transit skunk smell like perfume. Stop running a bad light-rail service. Stop running a bad bus service.

Was Renee Amilcar Humming This Song This Week?

The city is back to covering-up or fudging problems rather than addressing them straight on. Transpo customers might be forced to return to clandestine websites on the internet for prompt and accurate travel information.

The provincial light-rail inquiry with disgust highlighted all these misdeeds. Now the city is back at it again.

Stop it. Taxpayers are paying for transit and paying for the current, former and present people who made this horrible mess. Bad enough the service stinks. The city now, again, won’t be straight with taxpayers.

It’s our city … not the pols’ or the staffers’.

We demand excellent service, timely and accurate information, and no more lies or embellishments. We’re paying a great deal for it. We expect it.

Whatever happened to the concept of public service? That idea goes to die at the City of Ottawa.

Ken Gray

The city release is below:

Supporting OC Transpo customers on Twitter_EN

—