Mississauga's Concerned Citizens for Transit

Some times when unsigned E-mails are received that are from someone who knows what they are talking about - an insider taking a chance?
They are presented entirely below, as presented to me with only a few spelling errors edited.
As the level of details shows this person knows the lay of the land, as it were, their comments are being post for public comment.
I am not in a position to check everything that is noted (below) but feel the public should review it and let me know.
Fact or fiction?

Sun, 3 Oct 2010  - Mon, 4 Oct 2010 - Tue, 5 Oct 2010 -
Transit Managers, Tue, 5 Oct 2010 - 2 - Transit Managers, Thu, 7 Oct 2010

To Commissioner of Transport and Works, Mr Powell,  Fri, 8 Oct 2010

Mayor Hazel McCallion,        Sun, 3 Oct 2010

Transit was listed in Mississauga’s five strategic pillars for growth.
You claim that you’ve always done what’s best for Mississauga.  So how come for the past few months you’ve ignored Mississauga Transit’s
problems?  Do you just not care about public transit? Or are you just oblivious to all the problems that Mississauga Transit is presented
with?  Or do you just believe all the lies that the Transit Director, Geoff Marinoff presents you with?  Whatever the reason be, it’s
shameful that a big city Mayor ignores such problems.

Brampton just recently launched their ZUM express bus service along Queen, featuring upscale buses, heated, large bus shelters with
electronic bus time display screens and very frequent service running 7 days a week.  Including major service increases to their local bus
system.

York Region has their VIVA express bus service, featuring upscale buses, large bus shelters with electronic bus time display screens and
again, very frequent service running 7 days a week running on 3 routes and Peak-Hour only service on 2 routes.  YRT has been continuously
adding more service in the past 3 years.

Toronto, in 2009 they implemented massive service changes as they do every September, all of their routes now have 30 minute or better
service, 7 days a week.  Even on weekends their routes run every 30 minutes or better.

What does Mississauga have?  Mississauga has MiExpress which starts this Monday, most stops don’t have even regular bus shelters, we’re
being treated to upscale buses, but the service itself is garbage.  In Brampton and York they have express service running on Sundays every
15 minutes.  Mississauga is promoting their express service as fast, convenient and frequent.  Our service is rush-hour only and it doesn’t
even run every 10 minutes or better.  It’s not frequent by any standards and it’s a downright embarrassment that our premium service
only runs during rush hours and only runs every 20 minutes.

Mississauga Transit has had next to no service improvements in the last 3 years.  It’s no wonder ridership in Mississauga is going down,
because service keeps getting worse and worse.  All these other municipalities are investing in transit while Mississauga keeps
cutting back.  The penny-pinching at Mississauga Transit is disgusting.
Look at the route 110 University for an example, a incredibly over crowded route which went from having 7 minute rush hour service in the
morning and afternoon rush hours and 13 minute service during the day.
Now it has 8 minute service for only about half of the AM rush hour, during the midday rush hour service is only every 17 minutes and at a
certain point only every 20 minutes and during the PM rush hour service only runs every 15 minutes.  The buses are overcrowded,
ridership keeps growing and even putting articulated buses on this route isn’t going to help the problem.

Look on the weekends on Saturdays for example, there are 33 articulated buses available of which about 27 are available for
service while the others might be in for maintenance and can be used as spares.  This past Saturday, only 12 out of the 18 buses on
Hurontario were articulated buses, only 6 out of 9 on Dundas were articulated and there was 1 on Burnhamthorpe out of 7 buses.
That accounts for only 19 articulated buses.  If you don’t believe that these buses are needed in service on Hurontario and the Dundas routes,
then we ask you to go stand at Hurontario and Dundas and observe the buses on those two routes from Noon till 2 and then come back and tell
us that those articulated buses aren’t needed.  You will see firsthand how crowded the buses are and when a regular sized bus shows up, they
leave the stops full, leaving people behind.  Sundays are the same story and on Burnhamthorpe too, because the route only runs every 33
minutes, you have enough articulated buses to cover these route only with articulated buses yet you don’t.  On weekdays you can’t even cover
the Dundas and Burnhamthorpe buses with only articulated buses despite having them available, they’re not used on others routes yet you
neglect to use them while people get left behind and if you don’t believe us.  If you’re so sure of the transit system, then go out and
look at the buses, talk to people who actually ride these routes and they will tell you a very different story.

Why don’t you use the articulated buses properly, buses that cost 300,000 dollars per bus more than a regular bus?
Probably to save money and it’s unacceptable.

Yet come tomorrow you will be putting 22 new articulated buses in service ONLY on MiExpress routes 101, 109 and 110.  The route 110 is
the only route that needs articulated buses and that route only uses 8 buses, so come tomorrow articulated buses will be running on routes
101 and 109, routes that run empty.  Once again, if you don’t believe us, go ask the passengers who ride these routes, the drivers who drive
those routes, they’ll tell you how empty those routes are.

Mayor, if you’re so sure on all this articulated bus matter, that you feel that there’s no need to fix any of this, then you go out and ride
the buses and see for yourself, ask the people who ride the buses, they will tell you the truth.

Nothing has changed at Mississauga Transit, so actually change Mississauga Transit and resolve these issues that you’ve been aware of
for months.  The “New Mississauga Transit” touts about have renowned customer service efforts, we have yet to see a single improvement in
customer service or even in delivering better service.

Show us all that you do care about Mississauga Transit and resolve these issues once and for all and by Wednesday, October 6th because if
you can’t fix such simple problems then you obviously demonstrate that you could care less about public transit and we have more to reveal to
the media and the rest of the city of Mississauga that demonstrates how poorly run Mississauga Transit is and how much money is wasted at
these poorly run organization.

On weekdays we want all 9 buses on the route 26 Burnhamthorpe that stay out all day to be articulated buses and we want the two rush hour
extra buses to be articulated buses too.

On weekdays we want all 12 buses on the route 1 Dundas that stay out all day to be articulated buses.

On route 5 Dixie we articulated buses to stay out all day on the 6 all day runs, we don’t want them being changed off for new articulated
buses as is practiced on runs 20 and 26, we want the same ones to stay on the road.  That means we want the articulated bus off run 64 and
back onto run 22 in the morning.  We want the articulated buses on runs 60, 61, 62 and 65 and on runs 27, 30, 31 and 32.

On weekends on Saturdays, we want all 9 buses on route 1 Dundas to be articulated buses and on route 19 we want at least 16 articulated buses
on the route.  On Sundays we want all articulated buses on the route 1 Dundas, 19 Hurontario and 26 Burnhamthorpe to be articulated buses.

We want interior cleaning of the buses to improve drastically.  We want better maintenance performed on the heaters inside the buses, we don’t
want to see any buses with broken heaters whatsoever this winter.

We want express routes 201 and 202 to be ladled as “LIMITED STOP” routes on the route names, schedules and maps because it’s not right
that just because these two express routes aren’t ladled as express routes because they won’t be using the new blue buses that you feel
the right to neglect to inform the public that they aren’t express routes.  There’s absolutely no mention of them not being express routes
so if we get on them and ask to get off at a stop that isn’t a express stop and get denied because it’s a express route, then how is someone
supposed to know in the first place that it is a express route?  We want this particular issue fixed by October 18th.

You're all more than willing to spend money on advertising, new bus stop signs and on fancy buses, yet when it comes to actually running
the service properly, you all become so penny-pinching, spending money carelessly without public input.  Now you can continue to ignore these
problems, but you’re only shooting yourself in the foot.

Sincerely,  Concerned Transit Riders

Dear Mayoral Candidates and the Media,    Mon, 4 Oct 2010

As you can see in that email CCed to you all and the media, Hazel McCallion has been ignoring for months desperate issues surrounding
Mississauga Transit. Ranging from poor bus cleaning to improper usage of articulated buses, to buses having broken heaters and air
conditioners.  McCallion has ignored this all.

It is embarrassing and shows that she could care less about transit.
Most of these issues are easily fixable problems that she has decided to ignore.  The articulated bus usage problem is the biggest of them
all.  These are buses that cost $800,000 dollars, a regular sized bus cost $500,000 dollars.  Now you’d think if you’re going to that much
more for a bus, you’d use it properly, right?  Yet Mississauga Transit constantly misuses these buses, they’ll put them on empty routes yet
the heavy routes like Burnhamthorpe and Dundas get shelved.  You can stand at Dundas and Hurontario on a Saturday and you’ll see how
cramped the buses get, especially when they decide not to put that many articulated buses on the road.  Some weekends you’ll see almost
nothing but articulated buses on Dundas and Hurontario on Saturdays, however since 2007 that has been a rare sight although during August
it was like that for almost 5 weekends straight, nothing but articulated buses on those two routes.  Lately however that has changed
and there’s a lot more regular sized buses on those routes on Saturdays and many people get left behind at their stops as a result,
because they don’t fit as much people as the articulated buses do.  We encourage you to take a Saturday and venture down to Dundas and
Hurontario from 12-2 and you’ll see for yourselves, just how bad it really is.

You can talk to any bus driver in this city that has at least a few years experience with Mississauga Transit and they will tell you the
sad story of Mississauga Transit, an organization run by people who don’t care about transit.  By people who sit behind desks and don’t
bother going out to actually experience the system themselves.  The bus drivers in Mississauga have a saying and that saying is “What makes
sense in real life doesn’t make sense at Mississauga Transit”, in reference to the very poor ways the system operates and is run.

There are no public information sessions at Mississauga Transit.
Brampton Transit, York Region Transit and even the Toronto Transit Commission hold public information systems a couple times a year for
residents to see what service expansion is planned and so that residents can provide input as to what they think should be improved.
Mississauga Transit does not hold such meetings at all and that’s another reason Mississauga Transit is in such a poor state. Brampton,
Toronto and York all release information regarding ridership, service expansions and considerations to the public via their website.
Mississauga once again is the odd one out; they don’t reveal anything to the public which shows that they’re obviously hiding something.

Mississauga is the only city in the GTA where there has been next to no transit expansion in the past 3 years.  Brampton for example has
better service on weekends than Mississauga.  Look at Mavis Road, in Mississauga the Mavis bus only runs every 47 minutes on Sundays and
only until 8PM, in Brampton on the same road (Chiguacousy) which isn’t nearly as developed as the same exact road in Mississauga and the
buses along that route run every 30 minutes and right until 1 in the morning, on Saturdays service on Mavis doesn’t even run until 1 in the
morning and it only runs every 37 minutes.  Even on Saturday, on the same exact street which is less developed than Mississauga’s portion,
Brampton runs more frequent and later running service than Mississauga.  Check it out for yourselves, it’s route 61 in Mississauga
and route 4 in Brampton.  Look at the schedules for weekends and late nights and compare and prepare to be surprised.

It’s shameful, Brampton Transit serves a city half the size, yet when you compare their late night service hours and weekend service, they
not only have later service, but also more frequent service.  Brampton is a city that is investing in their transit service, Mississauga
isn’t.  All we’ve been seeing in terms of service changes in Mississauga has been late night service reductions and route
cancelations and we’re going to be seeing a lot more under McCallion’s government.

Transit in Mississauga isn’t going to improve because most of the public isn’t aware of all these problems, so we need you to help us in
spreading our word.  McCallion obviously doesn’t care about Transit and if the people of Mississauga want better transit, well then McCallion
isn’t going to get us that.  Sad thing is, Mississauga Transit is run by the most ignorant man when it comes to transit.  The transit
director has failed numerous times to addressed problems brought to him. Simple problems like a lack of interior cleaning on the buses, we
have emails dating back from over a year, emails that were sent to Geoff Marinoff about bus cleaning and buses with heaters that don't
work and they were ignored, nothing was fixed.  We will be sending you all those countless emails if this city decides not to deal with these
issues presented to them along with other information regarding tax dollar waste.

Back on subject of transit improvements, McCallion might say that we can't afford that much transit service, well then how can Brampton?

You'll be hearing more from us.

We're going to explain to you all the problems that exist at Mississauga Transit.    Tue, 5 Oct 2010

We'll first go over the issue with the articulated buses.  First off with the aid of bus drivers, we got a better understanding of what resources Mississauga Transit has and how they're used.  When we mean resource, we mean articulated buses. Mississauga Transit has two divisions, Malton which runs the Dixie, Tomken, the Airport route, Derry and all the routes running into Malton.  Then there is the Central division which runs most of the city's bus routes.

Central division has 33 articulated buses, numbered from 0863 to 0885 and 0151 to 0160.  They also have 22 more articulated buses which are strictly for use on the express routes that were launched today.  On weekdays, the two primary routes from Central division that get articulated buses are the 1 Dundas and the 26 Burnhamthorpe.

The route 1 Dundas uses 14 buses during rush hours, 12 of which are buses that come out in the morning and run the route all day until the end of the afternoon rush hour.  The other two buses are rush hour extras that come out for the two rush hour periods to provide increased service on the route.
The route 26 Burnhamthorpe uses 11 buses during rush hour, 9 of which are all day buses, so buses that come out in the morning and stay on the route until the end of the afternoon rush hour. The other two buses are just "rush hour extras".

During rush hours, there's a couple tossed onto the route 89, one onto the route 70 and one onto the 71. So that account for 4 articulated buses.

Now today, on Dundas during the evening rush hour, there was 10 articulated buses on the route out of 14.  On Bunhamthorpe there was only 7 out of 11 and then there were 2 on the 89, one on the 70 and one on the 71.  That means only 21 articulated buses out of the 33 at the Central division were being used.  That means 12 buses, worth $800 000 were left sitting at the garage doing nothing, while us transit riders on the route 1 and route 26 were being left behind at the stops , especially around the Dixie Road area where the routes are the busiest.

Meanwhile, on the new MiExpress service, there were articulated buses running on the route 101 and route 109. Both of those routes don't nearly have the same amount of ridership as the routes 1 or 26. Now candidates, we ask you to prove that you care about transit and get outside during rush hours and question these bus operators on the routes 101 and 109 if ridership warrants the usage of high capacity buses, being the articulated buses. 
They will ALL tell you no.

The people that run Mississauga Transit don't like using the articulated because they cost more to operate because they use more fuel because they are a lot bigger than regular sized buses.  These people running this organization don't want to run the articulated buses on routes they're actually needed on, yet they're more than willing to run these new express articulated buses on the 101 and 109, routes that don't nearly have the ridership to even get a standing load in a regular sized bus.  That's our tax dollars being wasted, our fare money being poorly spent and we're not going to stand for it.

Weekends are the same issue, they have 33 articulated buses.  On Saturdays Hurontario and Dundas are the only routes that use them, Dundas uses 9 buses and Hurontario uses 18 buses.  Yet last Saturday there were only 13 articulated buses on Hurontario and only 6 on Dundas, meaning all the other buses were regular sized buses, meaning that once again a dozen articulated buses are bac at the Central division being wasted. Meaning that hundreds of people were left behind at the Hurontario and Dundas stops throughout the day on Saturday when these regular sized buses show up at that stop.  Once again, if you care about transit.  This Saturday take a voyage out to the Dundas and Hurontario intersection from Noon to 2 when it is busiest and watch the madness unfold as regular sized buses show up at the stops and leave jam packed, leaving riders behind in the cold.

Other problems involve buses not being cleaned properly and buses with broken heaters not being fixed, however that's all self-explanatory.

This is all thanks to Mississauga Transit's incompetent management, this isn't Hazel's fault, but Hazel failed to fix it so show us that you will.  Get this out to the media, question Hazel about it.  Talk to bus drivers and ask them for their opinion on management at Mississauga Transit and they will all tell you "Stupid" or "incompetent and lazy", bring these accounts to the media and once again question Hazel about it.

Transit Managers,    Tue, 5 Oct 2010 - 2

We're tired of incompetence ruining our commutes, we're tired of stupid decisions leading to the waste of thousands of tax payer dollars and we're tired of your very poor management.

Today you guys launched the new MiWay buses and already on the 110 around 8PM today, there was a couple regular Mississauga Transit buses on that route.  On Burnhamthorpe there were numerous regular sized buses on the 26, despite now having more regular articulated buses to use.  On Dundas too, there were numerous regular sized buses leading to buses being full and people being left behind.

If you're all so sure of your transit system, why don't you hold public meetings?  Why don't you hear what we have to say about this horrible transit system?  We know why, because you all don't have any answers to our problems, you don't have any acceptable excuses.

On Dundas today, at 3:50PM from Universal Drive to Hurontario, bus 0534 on the 1 was full and left passengers behind all the way until space was freed up at Hwy 10.  Half an hour later on the 1 in the same direction there would be 3 more regular sized buses in a row including bus 0312 which once again were all leaving people behind from Universal onto Hurontario until articulated bus 0873 came through to clear up the mess.

On Burnhamthorpe too, the same problem was experienced at Dixie going westbound from about 5:15-5:45 there were 3 regular sized buses in a row (bus 0304 was one of them) on the 26. With all the transfers coming off the busy southbound route 5s, buses were leaving people behind.

It kills us that you're more than willing to operate articulated buses on the 101 which is a very quiet route, but when it comes down to the busy routes, you all cheap out.  We know you have more than enough articulated buses to operate Dundas and Burnhamthorpe exclusively with articulated buses now that they aren't needed on the 110.  Yet once again you dropped the ball on us and for that, we've had enough of you all and your poor planning.  Just like this past weekend on Saturday, so many regular sized buses on Hurontario and Dundas, so many people being left behind.
You should all hang your heads in shame.

On Dixie our problems still exist, articulated buses aren't always put on run 26 during the day.  You can run articulated buses on every other run during the day everyday, but this one?  It's like there's only a articulated bus on run2 6 during the day, every other day, it's stupid.  Articulated buses still get changed off the road instead of staying out, once again wasting our money, inconveniencing us when a regular sized bus replaces a articulated bus.
Run 22 in the morning which needs an articulated bus still doesn't have one while the quiet run 64 does.

Even the only 101 that we noticed were busy were the EB and WB trips at Dixie Road at 4:30PM, ironically those were the only two regular sized buses on the 101, if any 101s deserve articulated buses, those two trips would be the ones.

Then you had all the new MiWay buses that started today, most of them haven't even had their signs programmed, yet these buses have been at Mississauga Transit for over a month and none of you thought about programming the signs?

Then you have the 201 and 202 routes, which are branded as local routes yet they are express routes.  Explain to us how they're local routes if they only make express stops?  Explain how someone new to the system is supposed to know that they are express buses?  You people are idiots, the signs display "201 Dundas, VIA DUNDAS" and "202 Hurontario, VIA HURONTARIO".  Why can't you replace the pointless VIA displays with "LIMITED STOPS"? Are you people really that incompetent?

Then there's buses with no heating yet.  Bus 0153 today had next to no heat working in the bus, bus 0158 had none of the haters working in the front section of the bus while they were working fine in the back part of the bus meaning that the front part of the bus was cold while the back half was warm. Why aren't these heaters being fixed?  We've decided were also going to use this email to report buses with broken heaters.

You're all just setting yourselves up for failure.  What if Hazel McCallion doesn't win the election and one of these candidates wins.  Do you honestly think they're going to keep you as transit managers so you can screw up this system more?  They won't be keeping and you'll all be out of jobs because what you have all done to Mississauga Transit is a disgrace.

So get the articulated buses moving and make sure all 11 buses used on Burnhamthorpe during the day and rush hours are articulated buses.  Make sure all 12 all day buses on route 1 Dundas are articulated buses.  On Dixie put the articulated bus back on run 22 and take it off run 64, keep articulated buses on run 2 all day.  On Saturdays make sure there's at least 16 articulated buses on the 19 and that all 9 buses on the 1 are articulated buses.  On Sundays make sure all buses on the route 1, 19 and 2 are articulated buses.  Use the MiExpress articulated buses properly and make sure that all of the buses on the 110 all day until 9PM are articulated buses and make sure that all the buses on the 101 are articulated buses, before putting them out on the 109 which is the quietest of the three designated MiExpress articulated routes.  Fix the heaters on the buses and for crying out loud, at least tell people the 201 and 202 are limited stop routes.

We're not going to stop until this is all fixed.  Your incompetence astounds us all and we hope that in the end, you are all fired from your posts and that competent who actually care about transit start running this system the way it should be.

Transit Management,                    Thu, 7 Oct 2010

You're wasting our tax dollars, you're degrading this transit system with every poor decision you make and we're all tired of it.  It's not bad enough that you guys bought 22 articulated buses just for the express route system (routes 101, 102, 107, 109 and 110), but you don't even have the competence to use these buses properly.  The ONE express route that actually needs these articulated buses, the route 110 barely gets any.  While you have routes 109 and 101 that have next to no ridership which get most of them.  This is a prime example of the ever so poor management and planning at Mississauga Transit.  The route 110 which serves the bustling UTM campus has been getting more of the regular sized buses than articulated buses, yet the other express route which serves the same campus and has next to no ridership compared to the 110, uses only articulated buses.  You're wasting tax payer money even more, you're inconveniencing UTM students and once again have demonstrated that Mississauga Transit's management needs to go.  When we complain about there not being articulated buses on busy routes like Dundas Dixie and Burnhamthorpe you have the guts to tell us that there's not enough riders.  Yet now the one express route that needs articulated buses, isn't even getting them while other express routes which are empty are getting them.

You've proven time after time that you all don't know what you're talking about and you continue to ignore our problems, yet all the MiWay ads say that you guys are focusing on delivering renown customer service?  All of you transit managers should be ashamed of yourselves, since Bill Cunningham retired Mississauga Transit has really hit the can and we want this to change and I doubt any of these mayoral candidates will ignore this problem and continue to let your management screw up this city's transit system.

So get the articulated buses moving and make sure all 11 buses used on Burnhamthorpe during the day and rush hours are articulated buses.  Make sure all 12 all day buses on route 1 Dundas are articulated buses.  On Dixie put the articulated bus back on run 22 and take it off run 64, keep articulated buses on run 2 all day.  On Saturdays make sure there's at least 16 articulated buses on the 19 and that all 9 buses on the 1 are articulated buses.  On Sundays make sure all buses on the route 1, 19 and 2 are articulated buses.

Use the MiExpress articulated buses properly and make sure that ALL of the buses on the 110 all day until 9PM are articulated buses and make sure that all the buses on the 101 are articulated buses, before putting them out on the 109 which is the quietest of the three designated MiExpress articulated routes.  Fix the heaters on the buses and for crying out loud, at least tell people the 201 and 202 are limited stop routes.

We're not going to stop until this is all fixed.  Your incompetence astounds us all and we hope that in the end, you are all fired from your posts and that competent who actually care about transit start running this system the way it should be.

Commissioner of Transport and Works, Mr Powell            Fri, 8 Oct 2010

We bring these problems to your attention regarding various problems at Mississauga Transit. Ranging from poor use of articulated buses, poor bus cleaning, bus heaters not being fixed among other issues.  Issues that have and continue to be ignored by management at Mississauga Transit.  What we ask is simple and why it continues to be ignored demonstrates the lack of customer service that this transit agency preaches so much about.

This is what we want done;

- On weekdays we want all 9 buses on the route 26 Burnhamthorpe that stay out all day to be articulated buses and we want the two rush hour
extra buses to be articulated buses too.

- On weekdays we want all 12 buses on the route 1 Dundas that stay out all day to be articulated buses.

- We want all the buses on the route 110 to be articulated buses on weekdays all day until the last classes get out at UTM around 9PM.

- On route 5 Dixie we articulated buses to stay out all day on the 6 all day runs.  That means we want the articulated bus off run 64 and back onto run 22 in the morning.  We want the articulated buses on runs 60, 61, 62 and 65 in the morning rush hour as well and on runs 27, 30, 31 and 32 in the afternoon.

- On weekends on Saturdays, we want all 9 buses on route 1 Dundas to be articulated buses and on route 19 we want at least 16 articulated buses
on the route for a total of 25 articulated buses.  On Sundays we want all articulated buses on the route 1 Dundas, 19 Hurontario and 26 Burnhamthorpe to be articulated buses for a total of 21 articulated buses.

- We want interior cleaning of the buses to improve drastically.  We want better maintenance performed on the heaters inside the buses, we don’t
want to see any buses with broken heaters whatsoever this winter.

- We want express routes 201 and 202 to be ladled as “LIMITED STOP” routes on the route names, schedules and maps because it’s not right that just because these two express routes aren’t ladled as express routes because they won’t be using the new blue buses that you feel the right to neglect to inform the public that they aren’t express routes.  There’s absolutely no mention of them not being express routes so if we get on them and ask to get off at a stop that isn’t a express stop and get denied because it’s a express route, then how is someone supposed to know in the first place that it is a express route?

Why do we want this all done?  Well first off these articulated buses aren't even being used to their full extent, at the Central garage out of the 33 regular articulated buses for local service, only about 22 are actually used during rush hour, leaving nearly a dozen articulated buses unused.  During the midday period there is no justification for not having all buses on Burnhamthorpe, Dixie and Dundas, this is the time when the frequencies aren't as good and the routes are overcrowded so if you get left behind at a stop because of a full bus you have at least a 15 minute wait.  These are common problems on these routes and since you have the buses there is absolutely no excuse for this.  Weekends are even worse, out of 33 articulated buses available, you're lucky if 20 get sent out.  Having all these regular sized buses on Hurontario and Dundas results in a lot of full bus situations where people are left behind.  People aren't going to leave their cars for this.

On the 1 Dundas another problem that has come up is during afternoon rush hour, right around 5PM to 5:30PM there are a few articulated buses that are taken off the road at that point and head back to the garage, being replaced by regular sized buses.  It's a huge a waste of an articulated bus, it's a huge of tax payer money because it's still during the peak of rush hour and people are being left behind on these trips that don't have articulated buses.

The MiExpress articulated buses aren't used any better.  You have 22 of these articulated buses and the one only express route that actually has the ridership to warrant such articulated buses is the route 110 which during its peak period may use up to 9 buses, if that.  You would think the people running this place have the brains to make sure that this route is served strictly by articulated buses to ease on the overcrowding, well think again.  The amount of regular sized buses used on this route is unacceptable.  The one express route that actually warrants articulated buses isn't even served primarily by articulated buses and the overcrowding experienced on this route especially during the midday period is beyond safe, especially in a regular sized bus with so many people standing up while the bus is traveling on the highway and such an an act is a violation of the Public Vehicle Act which prohibits carrying more standees than 1/3rd of the seating capacity, yet these regular sized buses are leaving with just as many standing as there are seats.  You're also just wasting tax dollars by not using these buses properly.

So not only is putting out regular buses on the 110 and allowing them to run packed to the brim a incredibly poor decision, Mississauga Transit is also in direct violation of the Public Vehicles Act (Section 22.1) and we will be reporting this to the OPP and the MTO if this isn't resolved immediately.
http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_statutes_90p54_e.htm

Passengers not to be allowed on running board, etc.

22.  (1)  No driver or operator shall allow passengers to ride on the fenders or any other part of a public vehicle other than the seats thereof, except that a vehicle may carry as standing passengers in the aisles thereof not more than one-third the number of persons for which seats are provided.

Why we want cleaning improved?  Well that's self explanatory.  Why we want heaters in ALL the buses to be inspected in fixed, well that's self explanatory as well.

When do we want this all done for?  Well for the articulated bus allocations on the routes 1, 5, 19 and 26, we give you until October 18th to get it resolved.  For the route 110, we want it fixed immediately if by noon you haven't been able to switch off all the regular buses to articulated buses on the route 110 we'll be taking the matter up with the MTO immediately.

Cleaning and heater maintenance, we want that to get started right away.

Express signage on routes 201 and 202 we want back up by October 18th.

One last suggestion Mr Powell is that you look into Transit Management and straighten it out because as of lately their decisions have really been affecting us passengers in a negative way and the amount of tax dollar waste because of such poor decisions is unacceptable.

Sincerely,     The Riding Public