Believe it or not, the lead story the night I watched was about a woman who had gotten separated from her young son while they were riding the light rail train – or trying to – in downtown Portland. She was appalled by the lack of urgency shown by the local transit authority, called Tri Met. And the clowns who have taken over the newsroom egged her on, capturing the indignation on her face and in her voice and then putting this non-story, as they so often do, at the top of the broadcast. Because, according to the graphics, this tale constituted “breaking news.”
What happened, according to the story, is this: The woman’s son ran ahead of the woman and her other children and boarded a train before the mother, for reasons that were not made clear, was able to board with him. So, after the two (if not three) pre-recorded announcements that say, and this is a direct quote, “The doors are closing” well, the doors did in fact close. And the train pulled away and headed up the street to its next stop, three blocks away.
The mother was appalled for two main reasons. First, even though she caught the attention of the train operator, he didn’t stop the train. And second, when the boy was released from the train three blocks up the street, the Tri Met person who escorted him off the car (the train operator? – I don’t know) did not verify or prove that the man to whom he presented the child was in fact the boy’s uncle. There should have been a team of people from Tri Met there to handle the situation, the mother said. Though not at all unusual, the self-centeredness, the arrogance, the entitlement of this woman’s face and voice and tone offended me to the point of speechlessness.
But it passed. Since I still have the right to communicate both complaints and compliments, rather than e-mailing the station, which I believe is pointless, I sent an e-mail to the public affairs group at Tri Met to share a couple of thoughts. The first was that I think it’s ridiculous that our local news stations seem to jump at any and all opportunities to portray public transportation as a dangerous, seedy enterprise. And second, I thanked the officials of Tri Met for having a policy that forbids light rail operators from stopping trains once they’ve pulled away from the platform. Because I’ve watched people attempting to get on and off of trains and buses, fully abled (physically) people, and I’m here to tell you that once trains start stopping for people who are too stupid or too arrogant (or both) to follow the simplest of procedures, we will get nowhere.
But even in e-mail I censored myself. I think I’ve moved beyond this ‘it takes a village’ mentality, but for some reason I hesitate to just come right out and say what I think about it, which is that if you are not capable of caring for and managing your children you should not have them. Many people in the village, including me, are happy to help out but it seems to have become an expectation that we’re all on board with this mostly unspoken rule that people with young children exist in a weird zone of exemption when it comes to public conduct. It is not the transit authority’s responsibility to provide basic management services to people who apparently are not capable of managing themselves or their offspring, and it’s not mine either.
