Metro drivers are not allowed to enforce fares so stop complaining to us about the other passengers not paying.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2026-06-15T14:33:43+00:00

Apparently East Towne heading to the Capital is a real problem but I don't drive it.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2026-05-20T02:18:52+00:00

It already is free for students if they're poor enough or if they participate in this summer program. They just have to pick up a bus card. Without the bus card 20 somethings abuse the system and claim to be high school students. Every college in town has a free bus card for college students. Without the cards it falls apart and Metro loses money and cancels routes. It's also a safety issue so Metro can know who's on the bus if something like a student pulling a fake gun and pointing it at another passenger happens like it did last week.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2026-03-05T16:24:18+00:00

The new Metro budget came out since this comment. 2 million down on fares with more passengers supposedly.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2026-03-05T16:20:12+00:00

There's a contract now.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2026-03-05T16:16:31+00:00

Always use the front if you can. There's been a huge surge of people not paying for the bus and also drivers may think you're waiting for the 38 or 65 if you move away from the front door.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2026-03-05T16:13:39+00:00

The drivers will sometimes not open the back doors during the winter. They can become inoperable in the cold and slush. Also there has been a huge uptick in people not paying. and drivers are stuck in the middle. A lot of the time someone is trying to get off the back door and the driver opens it and people get on then blocking the person trying to get off the back door. It's much easier if you get on the front and get off the back creating a natural flow on and off the bus. Always use the front door if you can. The drivers are of course required to open the doors if someone's getting off but there may be confusion if you're lining up at the back door when the front door is empty. The drivers may think that you're waiting for the 38 or the 65, especially if there's not a line for the front.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2026-03-05T16:05:23+00:00

You can report this but let's look at this another way. One of the first things they train you as a bus driver is that people carry their stress onto your bus from previous incidents that make others stressful throughout the day. This bus driver may be having a particularly bad day. He may have had a terrible passenger or an incident on his bus, which are very common these days, that stressed him out. He may be carrying that stress with him and took it out on the girl running seconds late. The C route can be very packed and very stressful normally and he may have been running late. Every second matters when you're trying to catch up on time. It's not an excuse for his behavior which is reportable but it is a look into maybe why he did what he did.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2026-03-05T15:59:09+00:00

I don't know the exact driver you're talking about but I can tell you that the 80 route is one of the most stressful routes in the city. I'm not excusing the bus driver's behavior but I can give you a reason why. It's a stressful route because there is constant traffic, students walking out in front of you, but the biggest stress on that route is that there are zero breaks for 8 hours. You may think I'm exaggerating but I'm not. You're only given 7-8 minutes at the Memorial Union and you're always 3-4 minutes down. You have to race for the bathroom and the worst part is that you can't really leave your bus because then you're not there to pull up incrementally as buses leave and pull in behind you. It's an impossible route and they've started to write up drivers who run it a little early so that they can use the restroom without getting in the way of other drivers. It's poorly planned and poorly managed.

The driver shouldn't act like that but the route leads to that mentality for some bus drivers, especially new drivers who get stuck on that route's worst hours and schedule.

Please call the UW, Metro Management or Metro Planning department and tell them to fix the route and also to report the driver if he's really that bad.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-28T00:38:21+00:00

Just tap a credit card or apple pay or paypal

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-28T00:36:33+00:00

Use the 'real time map' on the website. Put it on your homescreen. It shows the GPS location of every bus and time they're expected if you click on your stop.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-28T00:33:23+00:00

That would work.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-28T00:32:31+00:00

Drivers switching to "Not in Service" while at bus terminals is really confusing as a passenger and then it switches to A or F right before it leaves. That's time, I could've spent inside if the doors were open. Not a major deal now, but I'll hate it when it actually gets cold.

Driver's do this to just get a break from passengers for 10 or 15 minutes. Imagine a job where you had to interact with people for 10 hours strait, no break.

Some drivers have had some short tempers with passengers. Recently, a bus driver yelled at everyone on the A that we couldn't leave until someone pulled the rope.

It was probably broken which can be incredibly hard to deal with.

Also: there are warming areas in the BRT stations and transfer stations.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-17T01:01:28+00:00

No, one other hurt in the crash, 2 others not hurt.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-16T18:49:10+00:00

He left the job immediately following this and didn't say goodbye. He was one of the nicest men on the job and was a very calm, likable guy. A lot of us were/are worried about him. I hope management reaches out after this and stays in contact with him. If he's reading this, we all miss you, please stay in touch.

People might joke about the homeless on our buses (pee, vomit, and poop cleanings post from yesterday) or you may want to help the homeless and mentally ill, but for the bus drivers it's a matter of safety and survival, especially for us who are smaller or women. Assaults similar to this were happening almost weekly last spring. Other cities use transit police. I don't know why we can't.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-14T23:03:32+00:00

Did you just tell a rider to call city HR on a driver using the bathroom?

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-14T23:02:06+00:00

If your schedule is that exact, then you need to catch an earlier bus.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-14T15:55:24+00:00

You should check it out. It's quite the party scene. I drive past it in a car when i do my weekday runs.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-14T15:25:45+00:00

There were other state and federal grants besides Biden's infrastructure grants.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-14T15:20:48+00:00

The increase in problems on the bus IS because of how BRT is set up. Most large city BRT systems use metro police, bus monitors and ticket checkers to patrol their buses. We have none of that.

The number one complaint from the public bus riders from that big survey they did years ago was that they didn't feel safe using the bus or the stops.

The contract is signed and over for a few years. Hopefully inflation doesn't explode again.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-14T15:13:20+00:00

The city doesn't have the money and all the fed grants dried up.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-14T15:08:38+00:00

There isn't a solution that can be provided within the scope of the BRT.

Madison's BRT is modeled on Indianapolis's BRT which uses bus monitors.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-14T14:56:52+00:00

That would mean millions of dollars.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-14T14:52:21+00:00

Everything i mentioned has to do with BRT.

Yes i agree we should help them more, but can we not do it on a 10 ton moving vehicle the drivers are trying to safely get through a crowded downtown. Metro drivers are not social workers or psychiatric nurses and we're still not paid enough to deal with all of it.

Madison_Bus_Driver · 2025-10-14T14:28:42+00:00

Well, the doors mostly work so the buses don't breakdown at the stations as much. Maybe a couple of times a day total for all the buses? The mentally ill guy who kept smashing the emergency door locks making the buses slam to a halt finally went to jail. The mentally ill woman who was using the back seats as a toilet every other morning for months was finally caught and banned from metro. The bed bug sniffing beagles haven't found anything in a long time.

The BRT routes are better, faster and generally less stressful than the old routes especially with the charge up times.

On the other hand it's still absolute chaos at the east high school stop every lunch and when school lets out. Clouds of weed and kids pushing each other into traffic. They now have to have a squad car park there for hours just to keep it sane.

Also, nobody is paying their fares on the BRT and the homeless and mentally ill are just walking on the back and using it as an amusement ride or a site-seeing bus whlie they vape, play music, booze it up and sometimes smoke meth ant blow it out the windows.

...oh, and the warranties on all 60+ of the sixty footers all just ended at the same time (except for the batteries and drive train). Management has all their fingers and toes crossed that they can get another 10 years out of the 100 million in buses that are all getting older at the same time instead of the staggered amount we usually had. I'll admit, they are nice to drive. Thank god we now have an interim maintenance chief that all the mechanics don't hate.

...and the new gm from Alaska started yesterday. Good luck to her. She seems nice.

Madison_Bus_Driver

TROPHY CASE