Transit Stinks
Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine editor
If it’s not listening to people complain about how transit is inefficient and wasteful, I get to hear from people how it is smelly and dangerous. You know what I mean, “that element†that is on every transit bus. The one nobody wants to talk about — the smelly ones.
The USA Today reports the Honolulu city council is considering a bill to make it illegal for transit users to “bring onto transit property odors that unreasonably disturb others or interfere with their use of the transit system, whether such odors arise from one’s person, clothes, articles, accompanying animal or any other source.”
Well, there goes the Mr. or Mrs. Stinky bit from the Customer Service Challenge at next year’s APTA Bus & Paratransit Conference.
Seriously, everyone who has ridden transit for any length of time has come across someone or something that just doesn’t smell right while you’re riding the bus or train. It’s such a prevalent issue that it’s become woven into the fabric of transit mythology — transit stinks.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is stepping up to fight the bill saying, “Vague laws — like the proposed ‘odor’ ban — open the door to discriminatory enforcement based on an officer’s individual prejudices.”
They are right. The bill being too vague is probably why it didn’t pass the first time when it was decried as an anti-homeless effort. But I’ve got to wonder just how specific the ACLU thinks the bill needs to be. If no one will sit within two seats of you, are you too stinky to ride?
I’ve got to argue the idea of enforcement based on an officer’s “individual prejudices,†though. That statement alone is too vague. We trust the judgment of law enforcement on any number of things, including when they think it is appropriate to use a firearm. I think letting an officer decide if someone is too smelly to be on a bus would be an easy situation to solve.
Could there be discrimination based on this bill? Sure. Will there be? Possibly. But if it happens, then you deal with it in the proper manner. There are laws to protect against that.
As it is now bus drivers (and I guess train conductors) are solely responsible for dealing with a smelly situation — as if they don’t already have enough to deal with. Doesn’t giving them a little bit of back up with the ability to stop a rider before they board if they emit a pungent odor because of a rule on the books seem like a good idea?
It’s interesting. When funding is brought up the argument is transit needs to be more like a real business. Doesn’t a real business have the right to deny service to anyone? Then if transit must admit the smelly, are we admitting that transit is what we’ve said all along — a public service?
Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,
Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
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September 4th, 2009 at 10:44 am
As a maintenance manager of a small rural fleet, we encounter the issue each and every day and have learned to deal with it in a positive way. If we let the dogs loose to control the “transit stinks” issue, what are we saying to those folks on their way to appointments etc that could be benificial in resolving the issue directly; or, what’s next, the passenger in that huge mobility aid that has no control over his or her functions. I see smell polution meters in the smart bus program…. Or, how about ARRA funding for that crack team of detailers!
September 4th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Definitely a real issue. The last customer feedback I heard on this issue was yesterday at about 5PM.
But you wrote about an agency PLANNING to do something about it.
Does anyone have current experience actually enforcing such a rule, how is the rule written, how is it presented, and how did it work out?
September 4th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Riding in crowded and literally stinky conditions is another reason why most people loath public transportation and prefer to drive in the comfort and safety of their own cars.
Those who work in the transit industry (especially those in upper level managment) must come to grips with the inferiorities of “public” transportation. This includes allowing literally dirty filthy street people to ride buses and rail cars.
A Five Star hotel would never allow street people to hang out in the lobby of their facilities and transit agencies should not tolerate it either.
If transit were run more like a business that had to attract good paying customers and make a profit (instead of being run like a branch of the department of social services), this problem would not be allowed to go unchecked.
The solution: Transit agencies should raise fares high enough so they could afford on-board security to “Bounce” undersireables off buses and trains. Higher fares would also discourage problematic people from boarding transit vehicles in the first place.
September 4th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Fred: If we have the technology to “sniff” explosives at airports, then I think that technology can be adapted to sniff the really stinky people when they get on the bus or stand at a bus shelter. The alarm would go off and the driver could consider refusing that rider service if necessary.
In my years of transit riding going back to the 1960s, I found stinky riders to be extremely rare. If identified, they need help. Maybe the first response is to ask the potential rider if they need assistance or to call Social Services to meet the bus. After all, they may be injured, or sick, or victims of crime.
September 5th, 2009 at 3:21 am
Fred: You raise some interesting points. It occurs to me that public transport is for the use of the public willing to pay the fare. And “smelly” people happen to be members of the public. In fact, there are some people who have a rare genetic disorder known as Fish Odor Syndrome or by its less pronounceable scientific name Trimethylaminuria.
It is no more acceptable to bounce a passenger with a genetic disorder than it is to bounce someone who doesn’t have regular access to bathing facilities. That’s life. And when you are out in public you get to meet the public.
Since the bulk of transit users are commuters, up energetically early, there is only a small chance of such an encounter. Evening rush increases the odds, but generally the element that people worry so much about don’t like crowds, so they absent themselves.
To California Transit Rider: What transit do you ride? 300,000 a day ride BART, 150,000 on AC Transit, 500,000 on MUNI… And generally speaking the homeless, smelly people are not with us. You would know that if you rode transit.
And as Fred has pointed rather frequently, Public Transit is NOT a business. It’s service, much like a community swimming pool, park, baseball diamond, or other public facility. It does not make money, although some systems come close.
Now this raises an interesting question: What was the last public or private transit system to earn an operating profit and when? It has to be a whole system, not just a segment.
September 5th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
If you think that public transit can get smelly here in the USA, try the public transit systems in Europe in the middle of summer. You would think that deodorant is a ‘banned substance’ in some European countries!! And I’m talking about well-dressed people, not street people. And when they come to visit Mickey Mouse in Orlando in the middle of summer, you can smell them 30 feet away.
Such is the nature of public transit. It is a service that aims to break even.
Roberto
July 31st, 2010 at 10:57 pm
It was good to see your post. It is such an important topic and ignored by so many, even professionals. I thank you to help making people more aware of possible issues. Great stuff as usual… Thank you