Monday, August 01, 2011

Weather-Induced Government Follies Post #4

Today, severe thunderstorms and torrential downpours caused all kinds of damage across Westchester County. Downed power lines, downed trees, power outages, and so forth, and so on. No real surprise, right? Today's the first of August; this is just summertime weather.

OK. But why does Westchester County and Liberty Lines, the company that operates the county's Bee-Line bus system, allow buses to travel down streets that have become all but impassable?

When I got on the bus to come home from work, after leaving really late to avoid getting drenched -- I forgot my umbrella -- the driver told me I wouldn't be able to get off at my usual place ("Your stop is canceled," he actually said), because power lines were down at the intersection just before my usual stop. I wound up getting off one block away, which is no big deal. But the driver didn't say anything to any of the other passengers to let them know there was a detour, he just crossed Scott's Bridge and followed the course this particular route used to run the MTA complained that the buses were causing extra wear and tear on all the bridges over the Metro-North tracks. But buses headed in the opposite direction -- some of them double-length -- went right up to the intersection where the wires had come down, then were forced to wind their way through streets too narrow for such large and wide vehicles. Why didn't someone somewhere redirect the westbound buses to follow the same course the eastbound ones were taking? Or would that have made too much sense?