Where is JUTC's commitment to excellence?

THE EDITOR, Sir:

THE JAMAICA Urban Transit Company (JUTC) has as its tag line, 'Your route to excellence'. As an avid JUTC commuter, I would have previously agreed with this statement.

I have long enjoyed the mostly noise-free, air-conditioned ride. However, on Monday, August 30, a most unfortunate incident caused me to question the company's commitment to excellence.

Having taken a Havendale (Route 44) bus from work, I needed to transfer to the downtown area via North Street (Route 600).

Having arrived at the Half-Way Tree Transportation Centre at approximately 1:30 p.m., I enquired from a JUTC customer-service representative when was the last 600 bus. She advised that one had left a while before at 1:05 p.m.

I will have you know that the next route 600 bus arrived at 3:16 p.m., more than two hours since the last bus.

No choice

Some may call me silly for waiting more than 90 minutes for a bus. You may ask, why not take another bus heading downtown? Well, the route 600 is the only bus that plies North Street. That street has key businesses, Kingston College, The Gleaner Company and Ministry of Labour. I was heading to the latter.

Furthermore, there is no illegal/robot taxi or coaster bus heading in that direction directly from Half-Way Tree. Any other bus would have led to a lengthy walk across several lonely roads, and, as a female in the scorching heat, that was not a reasonable option.

Hence, essentially I was trapped.

To make matters worse, when I finally got on the bus, there were several elderly women who I then recognised were in a similar predicament. I could hear them complaining of having to wait the same 90 minutes.

JUTC you need to do better.

A little ground-level management would have solved the problem. Any of the numerous route 500 buses could have been changed to a route 600, if a manager had noticed that more than two hours had passed since the last route 600 bus had left the centre.

When the bus finally came, it was filled to seating capacity. Hence, it's not an issue of the route being scarcely traversed.

JUTC, please do better on your route to excellence.

I am, etc.,

Andrea Facey

yecaf19@yahoo.com

Kingston 19

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