(The following column by Michael Dresser appeared on The Baltimore Sun website on July 18, 2010.)
BALTIMORE, Md. — The past few weeks have been rough on riders of MARC commuter trains, so it’s understandable that some of them get upset. People want to get home from work and see their families at the end of a long day, and it’s frustrating when a train is canceled or delayed.
But hot weather and the inefficiencies of an antiquated system have taken a toll on civility at Union Station in Washington — and there have been increasing reports of ugly behavior toward staff members trying to do their jobs. Some readers have reported near-riot conditions when Amtrak or MARC employees deliver bad news.
It’s time that stopped. It doesn’t help. It puts others at risk.
The confrontational atmosphere at Union Station has become serious enough that it came up last Thursday at a meeting of the MARC Riders Advisory Council in Washington.
Raising the topic was Rafi Guroian, chairman of the council and one of the most effective and knowledgeable advocates for MARC riders’ interests. Guroian said he’s been seeing and hearing reports of riders behaving in a “terrible” fashion toward MARC and Amtrak employees.
“The situation at Union Station is getting awful,” he told the council.
In some cases, Guroian said, he’s seen riders become so enraged at bad news that they scream and spray saliva in railroad employees’ faces.
“I’ve seen anything ranging from a smart-aleck comment as they walk by a MARC employee to a chest butt of a MARC employee,” he said.
His account was corroborated by Liz from Laurel, who asked that her last name be omitted because she has family members in sensitive positions. She said she’s seen people knocked down and almost trampled in the Union Station scrum.
“It does get pretty nasty down there,” she said. Liz said there have been times when angry Penn Line riders have blocked the path to Camden and Brunswick line trains, elbowing her if she tried to get through. On some occasions, she has had to wait an hour and a half for the next Camden Line train.
Last week brought an incident in which a Penn Line train was canceled and riders were told there were spaces on another train set to depart in 5 to 10 minutes from another track.
One passenger, who described himself as “irate,” sent me this account: “The conductors instructed passengers who wanted to catch the 5:20 Penn Line to go over to track 9. With 5 minutes to spare, a large number of us ran over only to be met by a discourteous Amtrak/MARC employee who told us we could not board the train because it was full. However if anyone was going to stops beyond Baltimore you could board the train. Now how does this make any sense?”
It makes perfectly good sense if one stops being irate — a condition that doesn’t lend itself to analytical thinking — and considers what the platform employees were doing. With a limited number of spaces, they were trying to accommodate as many riders as they could while maintaining safety. And they were giving priority to the riders headed to the stations from Martin Airport to Perryville, who would face a longer wait for the next train than those bound for Penn Station or closer stops.
As far as the charge of discourtesy, that often lies in the eye of the beholder. But think of it from the point of view of a security official in charge of telling several hundred stampeding commuters there’s no more room on the train: You can’t exactly coo requests and say “pretty please.” You have to shout orders, because that’s your job. And if passengers spit in your face, you’re not going to have a positive attitude toward the next rider you encounter.
MTA Administrator Ralign T. Wells, who attended the MARC riders’ meeting for the second straight month, said one MARC crew was left distraught recently after some riders began “cussing and fussing” because a train was nine minutes late.
“It really bothers me when they take it out on the people on the ground,” Wells said.
He’s right. There’s no excuse for taking out the frustrations of commuting on the train crews, service representatives and police officers who are just working to get folks home. It doesn’t matter if a train has been canceled or delayed an hour or two or three. To do so contributes to a breakdown of order in a station that already strains to handle crowds the size it deals with daily.
It’s time the vast majority of long-suffering but civil and thoughtful MARC riders turn a cold shoulder toward the hotheads in the crowd.
And for those who can’t help becoming irate over MARC’s lapses, there are better ways to vent grievances. You can attend meetings of the advisory council, which meets with railroad officials every third Thursday of the month in or near Union Station. (Be warned: You could get sucked into the co-operative, problem-solving spirit that prevails there.)
If making a positive contribution isn’t your thing, you can write a blistering e-mail to Wells. He’s a big boy and gets paid big bucks to put up with insults. And you can always fire off an angry message questioning my intelligence, sanity or eternal destination. It’s happened before.
Just take it easy on the folks on the front lines.