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Intercity Transit jumps on board with discrimination

Thu, 01/17/2013 - 9:07pm — Quixotic

 

 

This afternoon, I was inside the downtown Olympia bus shelter when I was approached by a security guy who asked which bus I was waiting for. I told him, and then a fellow traveler asked the security guy why he wanted to know that information.

 

The response was that people were “hanging out for an hour or an hour and a half” when they were not waiting for a bus. “We’ve been asked to move them along,” the security guy said. “We can’t have them hanging out here when they are not waiting for a bus. I know its cold, but we can’t have them in here.”

 

I didn’t question this, because I know he is the messenger, not the person who has made the decision to ask people to move along. I am wondering who did, if this decision was reached by the IT board in a public meeting, and what the actual harm is in allowing people to stay warm on a cold, raw, foggy day.

 

This is just one more assault on people who have nowhere to go during the day. Some of them have children, babies even, in strollers.

 

When are we going to stop kicking people to the streets, just before we kick them off the streets?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

Fri, 01/18/2013 - 10:14am — laceywa727

Intercity Transit...

I guess the slogan ...bla, bla, bla ... "so we can live free" is a lot of b.s.

Fri, 01/18/2013 - 12:33pm — Berd

Intercity Transit

Intercity transit needs more resources, perhaps.

I was in there the other week and one of the bathrooms was closed for repair, and the other one seemed to have been really over-used. There seemed to be no exhaust fan, and the smell in the small space of the toiletry was unpleasantly strong.

More resources might help, however, I gotta ask about use of resources, spending an estimated $600,000.00 per bus on surveillance cameras and microphones and integrated gps communications... $600,000.00 might buy a few toilets and maybe even a satellite shack for riders to stay warm in the cold weather.

(and an aside... And obviously, the solution to the problem of people having nowhere to keep warm IS NOT for the government to empower giant multinational corporations to run riot, for example, having exported massive proportion of decent living wage manufacturing jobs overseas in order to exploit cheap labor, and benefit owners at the expense of the common interest. Hopefully Jay Inslee and Barack Obama can work together to save the day and stand up against the evil behaviors of many of these monster corporations.)

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Sat, 01/19/2013 - 6:14pm — Thad Curtz

$600,000 per bus?

I would think that $600K ought to provide a lot more than one bus with the equipment you mention...

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Best,
Thad

Sun, 01/20/2013 - 3:08pm — undercontrol

I dont think it is

I dont think it is unreasonable to have a purpose built bus station be used for just one thing...waiting for the bus.