Rouen Journal from the 9-person Foothill Transit Party

We have received a brief communication from the 9-member Foothill Transit Delegation to Paris and other points in France. They spent the Fourth of July in Rouen, the capital city of Normandie province. The Executive Director of Foothill Transit, Doran Barnes, says that Rouen is very like the Foothill Transit service area.

Now, since we haven't had the advantages of foreign travel that Director Barnes is having, we'll leave it to him to elaborate on the similarities at the next Foothill Transit meeting after his return. So far as we can tell--and we're no experts--the chief similarities are that they both use buses and have a system map, though not the same buses nor the same map. Oh. And they are both managed by French companies.

We have covered the French adventure here, and here. The Foothill Cities Blog contributes an explanation by Foothill Transit in comment 2 of this post.

Darold Pieper, agency general counsel, who valiantly is on the clock every business day, contributed this note on Friday's activities:

Hi Everybody: We are really busy, so I will just send two transit-related pictures from Rouen.

We saw this bus of the TEOR system. It takes a country mile to turn around, which in French they say hectare du pays. Doran is figuring it will be perfect for the Claremont Trolley Route.

Dave Reyno tried this form of public transit in Rouen. Ha Ha.

All for now; free day tomorrow. DP

Paris Postcard

Today, for you Stay-at-Homes, our delegation of nine (9) Foothill Transit employees, board members, general counsel, and alternate reports on a visit to the Veolia Environnement Campus outside Paris, France. Veolia is the French company hired by the Foothill Transit Board to manage its operations here in the Foothill area. For example, Doran Barnes, Executive Director of Foothill Transit, is a Vice-President of Veolia Transportation, the contractor. Similarly, all the other "employees" of Foothill Transit--at least on the management side--are really employees of Veolia. The operations (of the actual buses) are similarly contracted out to other vendors. For simplicity (at the expense of absolute accuracy) we have and will refer to such workers as "employees".

Since our post of yesterday, the Foothill Cities Blog posted a comment from Felicia Friesema, a representative of Foothill Transit, which includes the information that our post of yesterday was in error: There are nine (9) representatives from Foothill Transit in France, not eight. Darold Pieper, General Counsel to the agency, is also in Europe with the group. He will be helpful in resolving any legal issues on the application of the Napoleonic Code.

Today, after a good night's rest from the long flight, our plucky group jumped into a cab, or two cabs, or a small bus, and headed for the outskirts of Paris to visit the "Mother Church" of Veolia. This visit was followed by dinner back in Paris at a fine Parisan restaurant.

This is our information on the day's events, which we deem reliable but which cannot be guaranteed:

Just a quick note and a few pictures to let "The Folks Back Home" know a little bit about our fabulous Parisan tour. After a very interesting night, about which the less said the better, Thursday was working day with a visit to the Veolia Campus. There we saw some buses so that qualified this trip as "business". Doran got his instructions for the year from the senior Veolia management; what with the dollar down against the euro, we will be needing to report more profit back up to headquarters. We think Peggy and Roger will go along with this because they really got the first-class treatment and the gift of those fine wines won't hurt a bit. Gallic hospitality.

We went to the "transportation campus" of Veolia and Doug Tessitor got to drive a bus. Luckily, they have a good crane and they will get it turned back upright by tomorrow they assure us. It's a mistake anyone could make.

Even though they have a great cafeteria on the Veolia Campus, we went back into Paris for dinner. For the nine of us and for our Veolia hosts and minders the bill came to just over 2,000 euros. Ever the gracious guest, Doran pulled out the Foothill transit credit card. He is so generous.

After all this hard work, it is lucky we have an open day Saturday after a visit to Rouen tomorrow. Remember, Rouen is just like the Foothill cities. Except it is really scenic, old, exotic, and it is in France.

Thanks to you on the home front for making this possible.

Darold, Dave, Arciela, Gary, and Dietter