Anthony C. Maki

Metro Tran­sit logo

Last Sat­ur­day, I filed a com­plaint on the Metro Tran­sit “Com­ment on our Ser­vice” page, regard­ing the con­sis­tently shoddy and incon­sis­tent bus ser­vice that usu­ally graces us on nights and week­ends. Specif­i­cally, I am speak­ing toward routes 6 and 23; how­ever, I think the issue is not iso­lated.

As of Wednes­day, I received the reply to my mes­sage, quoted below (with the trans­porta­tion manager’s name and num­ber redacted for pri­vacy):

I apol­o­gize for the incon­ve­nience caused you by this oper­a­tor run­ning late. I have tracked his work and see he was run­ning late almost all day on 11÷7÷2009.

I will be speak­ing with this oper­a­tor and also have one of our Street Super­vi­sors trail this bus to see what is hap­pen­ing to cause such extreme delays.

If you con­tinue to have prob­lems, please con­tact us again.

Sin­cerely,
[redacted]
Assist. Trans­porta­tion Man­ager
REF#: [redacted]

I am pretty impressed so far. I hope the effort con­tin­ues to evolve toward res­o­lu­tion.

I also want to stress con­struc­tive com­plaints ver­sus destruc­tive com­plaints. I think that fil­ing my com­plaint in the space they pro­vide is help­ful both to them and me. What is not help­ful is those who unnec­es­sar­ily accost bus dri­vers while on-duty. It will only worsen the prob­lem and reduce the driver’s feel­ing of safety in his or her work­place.

Also, I think that I was called today by a mem­ber of the Tran­sit Man­agers and Super­vi­sors Asso­ci­a­tion. I did not answer the call because I didn’t rec­og­nize the num­ber, and there was no mes­sage left. A Google search, how­ever, calls up this page.

UPDATE (2009−11−13 14:31): So I just got another email from a Metro Tran­sit Street Super­vi­sor. Text fol­lows:

Hello Mr. Maki. I checked into your con­cern about the route 23 run­ning behind sched­ule thus caus­ing you to be late for work. I’d like to apol­o­gize for any incon­ve­nience our ser­vice may have caused you. We at Metro Tran­sit value you as a cus­tomer and that’s not indica­tive of the ser­vice we try to pro­vide to the pub­lic. We have iden­ti­fied the prob­lem and plan to address the mat­ter imme­di­ately. If you don’t notice an improve­ment in the ser­vice don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact us so we can get to the bot­tom of the mat­ter. Thank you so much for rid­ing with Metro Tran­sit and please con­tinue to uti­lize our ser­vice. Have a won­der­ful day.

Sin­cerely,
[redacted]
District/street Supv
REF#: [redacted]

Wow. I’m excited to see improve­ment, and if the response from the man­agers and super­vi­sors are any indi­ca­tion, that should hap­pen soon.

Thank you Metro Tran­sit!

Now, it’s very pre­dictable given my last post, but I was the 59^th voter in Precinct 5 of Ward 9 in the city of Min­neapo­lis today.

I want to reit­er­ate that you should get out there and vote and get out the vote (i.e. friends don’t let friends not vote).

There are some impor­tant issues and can­di­da­cies on the table today, whether it’s LGBT equal­ity in places like Wash­ing­ton state or Maine, whether to elim­i­nate the Min­neapo­lis Board of Esti­mate and Tax­a­tion, whether to pre­serve the cur­rent fund­ing lev­els of the Anoka-Hennepin Inde­pen­dent School Dis­trict No. 11, whether Saint Paul should join Min­neapo­lis in using ranked choice, or instant runoff, vot­ing in munic­i­pal elec­tions.… I could go on and on.

Get out there and exer­cise your power!

If anyone’s really excited about elec­tion day, you might find me at the Min­neapo­lis DFL vic­tory party at the Graves 601 Hotel down­town. ;)

P.S. The results of the races and bal­lot ques­tions in Min­neapo­lis are here.

P.P.S. The results of the races and bal­lot ques­tions in Saint Paul are here.

P.P.P.S. The results of the Anoka-Hennepin School Dis­trict ref­er­en­dum (and School Board races) are here.

P.P.P.P.S. The results of the Wash­ing­ton state — “YES” votes are good — and Maine — “NO” votes are good — LGBT bal­lot ques­tions are here and here respec­tively.

P.P.P.P.P.S. The results of the guber­na­to­r­ial con­test in New Jer­sey are here.

Hey civics-oriented peo­ple all around,

I’m vot­ing today, and I think you should, too!

For the sake of me talk­ing to a wall, I’m going to list for whom and what I’m vot­ing on my bal­lot (or for whom or what I would vote on other bal­lots) below.

(Also, I think all anti-LGBT ini­tia­tives out there should be voted down. I sup­port Jon Corzine for gov­er­nor of New Jer­sey. I’m ambiva­lent regard­ing Michael Bloomberg’s seem­ingly impend­ing reelec­tion as mayor of New York City.)

This is the 2009 elec­tions in my eyes and in a nut­shell.

UPDATE (01:47): Two 3^rd choices on here are a bit tongue-in-cheek, as I did not find a can­di­date with whom I was com­fort­able enough. I’ll leave you to guess which. :)

Min­neapo­lis Mayor
1st choice	2nd choice	3rd choice
R.T. Rybak DFL	Tom Fiske Social­ist Work­ers	Joey Lom­bard Is Awe­some
Min­neapo­lis City Coun­cil — Ward Nine
1st choice	2nd choice	3rd choice
Gary Schiff DFL	Dave Bick­ing Green	Khalif Jama DFL
Min­neapo­lis Board of Esti­mate and Tax­a­tion
1st choice	2nd choice	3rd choice
David Wheeler	Carol Becker	R. Michael Martens
Min­neapo­lis Park and Recre­ation Board Com­mis­sion­ers — At Large
1st choice	2nd choice	3rd choice
Annie Young	Mary Mer­rill Ander­son	Tom Nordyke
Min­neapo­lis Park and Recre­ation Board Com­mis­sioner — Dis­trict Three
1st choice	2nd choice	3rd choice
Scott Vree­land	Mike Wen­dorf	Sir Dr. Stephen T. Col­bert, D.F.A.
Char­ter Amend­ment Num­ber 168 — Pro­posal to Change the Com­po­si­tion of the Board of Esti­mate and Tax­a­tion
Should the City of Min­neapo­lis adopt a change in its char­ter to the com­po­si­tion of the Board of Esti­mate and Tax­a­tion so that the Board’s mem­ber­ship con­sists of the mem­bers of the City Coun­cil, with the actions of the Board sub­ject to the pow­ers and duties of the Mayor?
YES
Saint Paul Mayor
Christo­pher B. Cole­man
Instant Runoff Vot­ing Char­ter Amend­ment (Saint Paul)
Shall Chap­ter 7 of the City Char­ter be amended to require that the method for elect­ing the Mayor and City Coun­cil mem­bers be by Sin­gle Trans­fer­able Vot­ing, some­times known as Ranked Choice Vot­ing or Instant Runoff Vot­ing (IRV), which is a method with­out a sep­a­rate pri­mary elec­tion by which vot­ers rank can­di­dates for an office in order of pref­er­ence on a sin­gle bal­lot: first, sec­ond, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and so on; and votes are then counted in rounds until one can­di­date emerges with a major­ity of votes cast; and with bal­lot for­mat and rules for count­ing votes adopted by ordi­nance?
YES
School Dis­trict Bal­lot Ques­tion — Approval of School Dis­trict Ref­er­en­dum Rev­enue Autho­riza­tion (Anoka-Hennepin School Dis­trict #11)
The board of Anoka-Hennepin Inde­pen­dent School Dis­trict No. 11 has pro­posed to increase its gen­eral edu­ca­tion rev­enue by $165.62 per pupil. A por­tion of this pro­posed ref­er­en­dum rev­enue autho­riza­tion would replace the por­tion of the school district’s prior autho­riza­tion which has expired. The pro­posed ref­er­en­dum rev­enue autho­riza­tion would be an increase of $33 per pupil over the school district’s expired autho­riza­tion. The pro­posed new ref­er­en­dum rev­enue autho­riza­tion would increase each year by the rate of infla­tion and be applic­a­ble for eight years unless oth­er­wise revoked or reduced as pro­vided by law. Shall the increase in the rev­enue pro­posed by the board of Anoka-Hennepin Inde­pen­dent School Dis­trict No. 11 be approved?
YES
Ques­tion 1 — People’s Veto (Maine)
Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex cou­ples marry and allows indi­vid­u­als and reli­gious groups to refuse to per­form these mar­riages?
NO

Photo: look­ing down Lake Street to the east at Bloom­ing­ton Avenue at 6:59 A.M.

Cross-posted on my Pos­ter­ous.

Cross-posted on my Pos­ter­ous.

I am cur­rently sit­ting in the Star­bucks located in the Rich­field Super Tar­get, sip­ping a deli­cious “Sig­na­ture Hot Choco­late — rich, creamy, European-style hot choco­late, made with a blend of four dis­tinc­tive cocoas”.

The bev­er­age is not the prob­lem. The “barista” is. I asked how she would describe the hot cocoa, in words other than what it said on the chalk­board.

“It’s good, I don’t know, I just work here…”

Haven’t you had any of your own employer’s drinks?! Isn’t that what the dis­count is for?

Of course, there are not very many bar­ri­ers to entry into a barista posi­tion. I sup­pose it’s just “I just work here” that both­ers me so much.

Oh well. The cocoa’s good.

Posted with email on Anthony Christo­pher Maki’s pos­ter­ous.

Posted with email on Anthony Christo­pher Maki’s pos­ter­ous.

Posted with email on Anthony Christo­pher Maki’s pos­ter­ous.

Posted with email on Anthony Christo­pher Maki’s pos­ter­ous.

Posted with email on Anthony Christo­pher Maki’s pos­ter­ous.