Official Metro Complaints: Worth it or a Waste of Time?

Yesterday, the Examiner ran a story citing Metro's own statistics about how the number of Metrorail complaints had dropped not five percent, not 10 percent, not 15 percent, but a whopping 18 percent!

Same for the highly regarded MetroAccess!

Hallelujah! Sorta reminds me of this Metro miracle.

Sadly, the one bummer in this otherwise sunny story is that Metrobus complaints rose a meager five percent. It's always the damned bus.

Snark aside, I'm left wondering about this. Did Metro really get that much better, or have people simply decided that complaining is futile? Have you ever seen a resolution to a complaint you filed, or did you simply receive an email saying Metro would look into it?

Reader Tom asks the same question. Seriously, what do you think?

I had an incident on the N2 bus around 5 p.m. on Thursday that I wanted to share.

I was getting on the bus, and as I stepped into the doorway, the driver closed the door, basically squashing my body.

In the process, my arm was bruised and possibly worse (it still hurts after almost 2 days).

The driver said nothing, no acknowledgement that something happened, never mind an apology.

To be clear, I did not attempt to board the bus as the doors were closing; I was in the doorway when the driver closed the door.

By the way he drove, it doesn't surprise me that he was in a rush to close the door.

As I was getting off the bus, I informed the driver that he closed the door on my body and that it had hurt my arm.

He said he couldn't see me, and I told him, in a respectful manner, that he should be more careful as the operator of the bus.

He then turned it around to blame it on me.

I told him that he needed to learn how to operate his bus, and took the bus number. He then shot back: "Yeah you want my name too!?"

I was incensed and in a rush, so I did not take his name but completed an on-line complaint via Metro. I said that my arm hurt and may be injured, and that I'd be following up with further inquiries in that regard as necessary or appropriate.

I am still very angry and was wondering if the online complaint form is an exercise in futility and if you had other ideas on whom to contact.

I suppose I could e-mail the entire DC Metro management, but any thoughts would be appreciated.

This experience of atrocious treatment by Metro bus drivers certainly is not isolated.

Other items:
Metro could see ridership hit (Examiner)