Valley Metro Service Delay Causing Student’s Tardiness
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MCALLEN - A Rio Grande Valley college student said her only way to get to class is making her late. She said her calls to report the issue has also been ignored.
Bianca Garza has been a student at South Texas College for four years. She said she needs Valley Metro to get to school. However, their service has made her late to class twice.
“They’re not organized. Sometimes I’m there standing at City Hall all day for them to come to me,” she said.
Valley Metro director Tom Logan said the organization has very few complaints about late buses. He believed the tardiness is most likely the customer’s fault.
“What we hear is that normally they’re waiting across the street, inside their cars and they might be busy doing other things and they don’t notice the bus is there,” he said.
CHANNEL 5 NEWS wanted to see how reliable the bus service is for residents. We waited at a stop outside the Valley Metro office for a bus that would arrive between 12:30 p.m. and 12:45 p.m.
We looked all around the stop during the time window. No bus arrived on time to pick us up. When we notified Logan of the issue, he stated we must have missed it.
“I’m just surprised that you guys missed each other,” he said.
Logan said he can make sure drivers are arriving to stops on time.
“We have a tracking mechanism, a GPS tracking mechanism that we can tell if the driver actually pulled in here,” he said.
Logan added if drivers are missing stops, he will follow the handbook and take proactive measures. He added people who have had a problem can call their hotline at 1-800-574-8322.
The bus station director said to further improve their customer service, Valley Metro will soon have an app available where people can track the location of their bus.
As part of a partnership with Valley Metro, South Texas College also provides a shuttle service know as Jag Express. The bus line can take students to locations on STC campuses and also offers extension routes.
Information on Jag Express is also available at 1-800-574-8322.