Just what do we want to turn off?

Why do we want to it turn off?

Do as we say, not as we do!

The idiots at Valley Metro turn the volume up so loud that it will give you a headache when they play their stupid advertising messages.

I wonder is this some silly Federal law where they are require by law to turn up the volume so loud that deaf people can hear the messages? Or rather feel the messages thru the vibrations that shake the bus?

It's OK to relive the 80's ... quietly

Please keep the volume low and wear headphones when listening to music.

Courtesy is always in style!

Valley Metro

What can you do to help turn off the voice?

Complain to OSHA

Nothing will make the bureaucrats at Valley Metro react faster then a government tyrant from Washington D.C. breathing down their back telling them that their loud messages are not only annoying, but a threat to the health, safety and welfare of the bus driver and the passengers.

You can file out this complaint form and mail it to Phoenix OSHA, or Washington D.C. OSHA at this one of these addresses or call OSHA at this toll free phone number:

U.S. Department of Labor – OSHA
Phoenix Federal Building
230 N. 1ST Avenue, Suite 202
Phoenix, AZ
85003

Phone: (602)514-7250
Fax: (602)514-7251

OSHO - Occupational Safety & Health Administration
U.S. Department of Labor
200 Constitution Ave., NW
Washington, DC
20210

800-321-6742
800-321-OSHA

You can also file a complaint on the web at this OSHA web page.

Complain to Valley Metro

Complain to an elected government nanny

Tempe

hugh_hallman@tempe.gov
hut_hutson@tempe.gov
ben_arredondo@tempe.gov
barb_carter@tempe.gov
shana_ellis@tempe.gov
mark_mitchell@tempe.gov
onnie_shekerjian@tempe.gov

Phoenix

mayor.gordon@phoenix.gov
council.district.1@phoenix.gov
council.district.2@phoenix.gov
peggy.bilsten@phoenix.gov
council.district.4@phoenix.gov
council.district.5@phoenix.gov
greg.stanton@phoenix.gov
doug.lingner@phoenix.gov
michael.johnson@phoenix.gov

Mesa

mayor.hawker@cityofmesa.org
councilmember.walters@cityofmesa.org
councilmember.whalen@cityofmesa.org
councilmember.rawles@cityofmesa.org
councilmember.jones@cityofmesa.org
councilmember.griswold@cityofmesa.org
councilmember.somers@cityofmesa.org

What can you do to get other people to help?

I am a bus driver. What can I do to help?

1. You can turn the stupid obnoxious loud computerized voice on your bus.

   The complete un-official instructions are at how-to.html

   But a quick summary of how to turn off the stupid computerized voice is:

   1. Hit the F2 key on the screen
   2. Hit the AM key on the screen

   Now look at the message on the screen. It should toggle from

   	Mode: Auto
   to
   	Mode: Manual

   At this point the stupid lady will stop her endless loud mouthed jabbering and you can drive you bus in peace and let your passengers ride in peace!

2. Down load this manual that the City of Tempe gave me but didn't bother to give to you bus drivers. It is a public document anyone can get by making a request per A.R.S. 39-121 to the City of Tempe. It contains all kinds of information that is very useful. It is Microsoft Word document so you have to have Microsoft Word or some other product that allows you to read Word files installed and enabled to view it. If you don't have Microsoft Word you can save the document to you disk as a file and take it to somewhere where you have word. The file is fairly large. It is 2,587K bytes.

   tempe_manual.doc

   Pages 51 thru 56 contain some interesting information about the VMS system which controls the loud obnoxious female voice which announces the bus stops.

3. Down load this word document named turn-it-off.doc and print out a bunch of copies and hand leave them on your bus. Ask other bus drivers to help. Caution I don't know if they can punish you for doing this. Check with your union or emplyment rules.

I can read and write Spanish. Can I help?

????@????.????

Is that Computer Voice Driving You Nuts? Is that loud annoying computer generated female voice that announces the next bus stop every 6 seconds driving you crazy? Do you have a headache when you get off the bus? Complain! Tell Valley Metro that they need to turn off the stupid voice or give us aspirins along with a transfer slip. Think us passengers got it bad? The drivers have to put it with it 8 to 12 hours a day. They probably all have migraine headaches at the end of the day and run over a few extra people each day because of the stress. Help your driver and demand that Valley Metro turn off the stupid computer generated voices. Complain to Valley Metro at: E-mail: csr@valleymetro.org Phone: (602) 253-5000 Mail: Valley Metro 302 N 1st Ave Phoenix, AZ 85003 http://turn-it-off.tripod.com

Want to print some of these out to hand out to other bus riders? Click on turn-it-off.doc to download a word file that can be printed.

A little credit is to do the idiots at Valley Metro

And at the current volume level the system is actually nice. I don't hate it.

But the next problem is who every programmed the system was a f*cking idiot!!!!. And who every bought it at Valley Metro was also a f*cking idiot!

The biggest problem is that the bus routes can not be updated easily. It looks like a technician has to reprogramm each and every computer in each and every bus every time a bus stop is changed that that bus uses.

Also there are a large number of bus stops that are programmed incorrectly. For example the 65 bus when it is at Apache and Mill in Tempe announces that the next stop is Kiwanas Park and Ash Avenue when that location is 3 and a half miles to the south.

Also the system is f*cked up because when buses go on detour the stops can't be reprogrammed.

There are several types of detours. The first is regular detours. For example Tempe Town lake frequently has events at it and the 66, 76, 56 and a few other buses go on detours which are the same all the time. The buses do not call the correct stops when on these detours.

The second type of detour is long term detours. For example because of the stupid light rail project many buses are on long term detours. Again the system is does not handle these long term detours. For example all the 72 buses for a while stopped going to College Avenue in Tempe, but all the othe buses still announced that the 72 bus would be stopping on College at at its regular stop.

Don’t poop on the train

You guessed it as soon as light rail started up they started bombarding light rail passengers with loud, obnoxious, annoying and stupid audio messages on the train.

Come on give me a break! These messages are really stupid!

• Don’t poop on the train
• Don’t have sex with your girlfriend’s sister on the train
• Don’t vandalize the train (it’s a criminal offense)
• Don’t flirt with the conductor of the train
• Don’t drink beer or liquor on the train
• Don’t smoke on the train
• Don’t pee on the train
• Don’t have sex with your pet dog or cat on the train!
• Don’t punch the light rail narc when he asks you for your ticket

OK I made most of the stupid messages up to be funny but the idiots at Valley Metro really did broadcast these X stupid messages from above!

• Don’t vandalize the train (it’s a criminal offense)
• Don’t drink beer or liquor on the train
• Don’t smoke on the train

It only took the idiots at Valley Metro a few months to realize that their annoying, stupid, obnoxious and loud messages were bothering their passengers in addition to giving them headaches. And they removed them.

Fare goes from $1.25 to $5.25! That's outrageous!

Up till November 30, 2008 you could ride a Valley Metro bus for $1.25 which included two hours or more of transfer travel after you got off the bus you originally boarded.

On December 1, 2008 the price of one trip on a Valley Metro bus jumped from $1.25 for a ride which included transfers to $1.25 for a single trip on that bus. If you wanted to have transfers you had to buy an all day pass for $2.50.

On July 1, 2009 the price of an all day pass sky rocked from $2.50 to an outrageous $5.25. You can do a little better if you buy the ticket in advance for $3.50 but that is still outrageous for a bus fare.

Hey it’s a white lie! Honest!

The agreement that most government entities that run bus services have with the federal government is the feds pay 75 percent of the operating costs of the bus service and the passengers are expected to pay the other 25 percent of the operating costs. Basically this means the feds subsidize 75 percent of the cost and the passengers only pay 25 percent of what it costs to run the buses.

Light rail is extremely more expensive to operate per passenger mile then buses. One estimate is that it costs 10 times a much to move a passenger on light rail as it does on a bus.

That is the real reason the cost of bus fares was sky rocketed, was because of the huge increase in expenses due to light rail.

What happens now is bus passengers are effectively subsidizing the fare of the light rail passengers.

The piece of junk $10,000 fare boxes!

Problem one. In the old days if you had $1.25 in pennies you could throw it into a bowl on the fare box and the fare box would count the money you tossed in a split second and tell the driver how much you paid.

With the new computerized piece of krap fare boxes you have to shove your $5.25 worth of pennies in one penny at a time which takes several minutes. When you do that the driver often lets you ride for free because he doesn’t want the bus to be late.

Problem two. The new computerized piece of junk fare boxes often don’t recognized dollar bills or coins and when that happens the drive often lets you ride for free.

Problem three. The new computerized piece of krap fare boxes only accept one or two dollars bills. If you have a five or ten dollar bill the driver will often let you ride for free.

Problem four. You can only pay for one fare at a time. In the old days if you wanted to pay for the fare of 4 people you would just throw $5 in the fare box. The new computerized piece of junk fare boxes only let you pay for one person at a time.

Problem five. The printer that prints the all day passes often jams up. When this happens the driver lets people ride for free!

Problem six. The fare box software uses Microsoft software (CE) and guess what, like all Microsoft products it frequently takes a dive and goes south. And when this happens the driver again lets the passengers ride for free!

Nope!!!!

Over time the idiots at Valley Metro figured out their loud obnoxious voice messages were driving their customers nuts.

What happened when light rail came along? The idiots at Valley Metro started bombarding light rail passengers with lout obnoxious messages that drove light rail passengers nuts.

After time the idiots at Valley Metro removed the loud obnoxious messages from the light rail trains.

And of course to punish us passengers twice, one by raising the price of bus fare from$1.25 to $5.25 and second they are having loud obnoxious messages on the bus system again.

The messages are really stupid. Like buy your fare in advance and it will cost you less. Or you now have to have id to get use a reduced fare pass. F* You Valley Metro! I know that! Don’t give me a head ache telling me again!

Light rail rules are different for English and Spanish speaking people!

I wonder why are Valley Metro employees a bunch of racists who think Spanish speaking people are second class citizens? Maybe.

Check out this article on how the light rail conduct are different for English and Spanish speakers.

Some interesting facts on light rail

Valley Metro Gun Grabbers

Homeless in Arizona

The Jerk

All of those know at least one person who is a complete jerk and whose only place on earth is to make life difficult for other people, mainly you and me.

And as it is those people don't usually consider themselves jerks, but they usually think of themselves as God's gift to mankind. Life if full of oxymorons.

Where is a story about one of those jerks. I will leave the guy's or the girl's name off of the article to prevent the guilty from being punished.

Here are all the images used on this web site.