A Trouble with Transit

Progressive types love mass transit. Whether it be the current siren song of high speed rails to nowhere or busses to shlep the hoi polloi to the progressives' neighborhoods for work and back to their humble abodes, they likes it muchly.

There is of course a problem with mass transit. The drivers, being unionized liberals themselves tend to go on strike or out sick as they fancy.

In this case Detroit bus drivers called in sick so they could attend a union National Day of Protest in lansing.

The Detroit Free Press: 82 Detroit bus drivers call in sick, causing delays amid Lansing protest

Extra delays of 30 minutes or more for city bus riders will be the norm today after more than 80 Detroit Department of Transportation drivers called in sick to join protests in Lansing against Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed budget cuts, officials said this morning.

By late morning, 82 drivers had called in sick, reducing capacity for the city’s buses to 80%, DDOT Director Lovevett Williams said at the city’s Rosa Parks Transit Center

Now if I called in sick under false pretenses, that would be grounds for termination. For the 82 Detroit Amalgamated Transit Union member bus drivers, not so much.

Mayor Dave Bing’s spokeswoman, Karen Dumas, said the drivers would not be paid for the day off.

“They have a right to call in sick and to protest – people call in sick for reasons other than illness,” Dumas said. “Our regret is it’s being done at the expense of people who depend on DDOT for their livelihoods, for their jobs.”

Well ok then.

At least some Detroiters get it:

Troy McPherson, 19, a fast-food worker from Detroit, said he believes in the right to protest but didn’t think it was proper for drivers to disrupt the city’s already slow, unreliable bus service.

“Do that on your own time,” he said. “Other people have business and family things going on. We’ve still got to do our jobs.”

Exactly.

A comprehensive and reliable mass transit system can be useful. one that is unreliable to begin with and one that can be disrupted at the will of a union, leaving its riders in limbo, not so much.