HART would be Hillsborough Area Regional Transportation, the entity which transports thousands of people around our county and city every day of the year come rain, sleet or people behaving badly.
Somehow, they manage to transport all of those customers along 49 routes, on 214 buses through 1000 square miles of county and city -roughly the size of Rhode Island - across 11 million miles which is roughly 46 times to the moon and back.
And they do all of this on a budget - for 2016 - of 84.7 million bucks.
We know HART drivers and supervisors put up with a lot of guff from - see above people behaving badly - some of their customers.
For instance, many of the customers openly flaunt the HART regulations for riders.
No, weapons, no alcohol, controlled substances, no smoking, no eating or drinking of any beverage, no running in aisles, or playing loud music, of speaking loudly on cell phones, no rude or abusive or vulgar language, no loitering around bus stops.
And we get that handling some of the ruffians who flaunt some or all of those rules can make drivers and supervisors edgy and grumpy and sometimes just plain mean.
For instance, we recently witnessed a driver bodily throwing a snarling drooling half pit-bull, half boxer mixture of dog and his snarling drooling owner off her bus and then having to endure his racial and gender epithets shouted at her as she sped away.
Yeah, that's enough to set anybody's teeth on edge and make the rest of their day miserable.
However, we think HART should make up a list of offenses which their drivers regularly commit, and post those notices right along with the notices for riders.
Starting out with tardiness. We have not been on one bus in the past three weeks which has been on time.
We are talking here about departing times, not arriving times due to traffic, weather and snarling drooling animals and people.
We are talking about bus drivers who linger far too long on their cell phones outside the bus, or enjoying just a few more minutes chuckling it up with a pal or flirting with a pretty girl, or, as we recently experienced, a gnawing five minute OCD display by a driver who had to touch his mirror, his seat, his bag and walk around the bus way too many times before departure.
And then there is the safety factor involved while on the bus.
The rider rule is do not engage the driver in conversation whilst driving a vehicle carrying people who are depending on your ability to transport them safely to your destination.
We have seen way too many drivers, trying to drive, while carrying on an animated conversation with a rider who is standing or sitting anywhere from two to five feet behind him/her which takes many turns of the drivers head, and eyes off the road for what can be the length of a football field.
We have seen drivers texting while driving, we have seen drivers chomping on their dinner whilst driving, and even trimming their long fingernails while transporting their precious cargo...US.
We have also seen and experienced many nasty remarks made to riders who question these offenses.
Such as..."What are you gonna do about it?" Or "Take a hike." Or...&^%# off, buddy."
Enough.
Put these people through serious training and monitor them, or fire their butts and get some drivers in there who will respect the riders, and transport them on time and safely.
All the way to the moon and back if they have to.
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