I recently made another request to EMTA to consider using email for making their important announcements.
I guess I just don’t understand why they don’t already have
it.
Email’s been around in its current form since the 1990s,
most people know how to use it or have access to it. You don’t meed a
smartphone—though you can receive it on one. If you don’t have access at home
you can have a family member receive the messages or use the free computers at
one of the libraries.
Riders, drivers, parents, caretakers… if we had "E"mail we’d all
learn about the changes at the same time and with sufficient notice.
We'd also pretty much be guaranteed the possibility of actually seeing the message.
Which is more than I can say for signs or Facebook posts.
~~~
Don't get me wrong. Facebook and sign postings are all well and good.
And to be sure, over the past couple years, the EMTA Facebook page
has really improved. And they are pretty good about getting the important stuff
posted on there. But FB doesn’t deliver all messages (check here for an explanation of
why that is). You can choose a setting that tells Facebook to always deliver
posts from a certain page or a certain person, but it will be competing with
the torrent of other posts in your news feed… the baby pics, the memes, cat
videos, the status updates, the game invitations and so on.
If your email account is in good functioning order, you
should receive all your emails. If you aren’t getting your emails reliably, the
problem is with your account, not email per se. Also, you can receive those messages
on your phone if you prefer that.
About signs. The first problem is they haven’t been all that good,
though that seems to be improving. They aren’t generally very conspicuous, and
they aren’t everywhere, often aren’t well-placed
And if you’re not on the bus or in the shelter when they put
the sign up you’re not going to get the message.
Also, sometimes, you might not notice a sign. 
Recently, there was some street construction downtown, and buses were not stopping in those affected areas. Signs in the shelters
instructed people on where to wait during the construction… and yet there were
still some people waiting at those unserved shelters. Why would this be?
Actually, any number of reasons. For one thing, there’s a lot of signage in the shelters already, so another sign isnt always noticeable, and believe it or not, passengers do not peruse the walls of shelters looking for new postings. There are other explanations why someone might not notice the signs:: the person stressing about a life situation, the mother watching her toddler, young people distracted by their devices. A person with vision issues may not see it. A person with intellectual disabilities may not understand or notice it. A person struggling with English may not understand what it says. And some people are just not that aware of their surroundings, for whatever reasons.
Signage is really an old, inefficient way of making
announcements. It’s okay to keep doing the signs, but EMTA relies on it too
much. It’s funny, because I sometimes wonder if the resistance to having an
email list is that some people consider it an antique technology. And yet they
rely heavily on sign postings… which is just about the oldest way to make
announcements.
Email allows everybody an equal chance to get an announcement.
The person struggling with English can have it translated. The person with
intellectual disabilities can have their caretaker explain it to them. A person
with vision issues can maybe have it adapted for legibility, or have someone read it them.
The person on their device could receive it on their screen. The parent could
look at the message when they don’t have to worry about their kid being so
close to the street. The person with a lot on their mind could look at it at a
time that might be better for attention. The busy person, the spaced out person...they all get a chance to know what's going on.
~~~
Look… Email is free, it’s accessible to everyone, it’s the easiest way to reach the most people. And instead of me explaining why we need it, I
would like to know EMTA’s reasons for not using it.
