True Tales from Bus Operators

Nadine Lee: Chances are pretty good your first experience with public transportation was riding a bus. Maybe it was taking a big yellow bus to school or a city bus to the mall.

And of course, there's the bright yellow DART buses that wind through the streets of North Texas from Plano to Dallas.  

 You're listening to Mobility in Motion, a podcast produced by Dallas Area Rapid Transit. I'm your host, Nadine Lee, president and CEO of DART.

DART operates about 700 buses on 100 different bus routes, and we have about 6,800 bus stops. We have over 1,250 bus operators and it takes a really special kind of person to operate a bus.

I mean, if you think about it, the bus operators, not just driving on the streets, they're navigating the streets, right? They're negotiating. We call them the negotiating Zen masters or the traffic negotiating Zen masters.

And so it takes somebody who has great patience. It takes somebody who's very kind and caring. A lot of times they know their passengers super well.

Sometimes it's super exciting, sometimes it can be really frustrating. These bus operators really have some great stories to tell. And we wanted to hear why they do their jobs and what makes them enjoy their jobs.

Raul Abarca: Ooh, I like that I feel like I'm a star. That's what I tell my wife. And she asked me why. Because when I'm driving and all the women, young, old, small, short, tall, whatever. Any kind of woman sees me and they just run to me, screaming and hanging hands and saying hi. And when I stop, they give me a big smile. And I feel like a star, like a movie star.

My name is Raul Abarca, and I have been working for DART 27 years.

Lorelei Chacon: I was that little girl that wanted to be a dancer, always had energy, but now that I'm a bus operator, it's just so funny that I can remember always loving for my mom to put me in a shopping cart.

And I used to get adrenaline, like mom, “Go faster, go faster.” And I used to watch the wheels…

Lorelei Chacon: My name is Lorelei Chacon and I've been working here a year and one month.

Juanita Jefferson: I always wanted to drive, drive, drive. And that's my thing. Actually, I've been driving since 14. And I taught myself.

When I was young, it was me and my cousin. He’s my age and my grandmother used to go to sleep and we used to take a station wagon out the yard. He used to push it back and I'd bring it back and we actually taught ourselves how to drive and we made sure the station wagon was back at the house before, what, four o'clock that morning. Well, she, she actually found out, she said, “I'm gonna get y'all. That's why I put them switches on y'all.” And I've been driving ever since then. 

Juanita Jefferson: My name is Juanita Jefferson, and I've been employed with DART for four years and nine months.

Lorelei Chacon: I actually became exposed by being a Lyft driver. Someone was a boss operator and she actually works at this division and she was like, “Yeah, I think you would be a great operator.”

One thing that makes my job exciting is making these crazy turns. When I say crazy turns, meaning like when there's construction saying, “Whoa, like, how am I going to do this?”

Juanita Jefferson: I was driving 18 wheelers. And I got tired of my hands being dirty on the truck. I figured that was a man's job. I see the Greyhound bus go by again and I talked to a Greyhound driver and he told me how to apply and I applied for it. I was a Greyhound operator for 12 years, and I wanted to come off the road. And when I used to pass by the bus, I used to say I'm gonna come drive for this company one day.

And so the day happened when I just kind of got exhausted over the road and I applied. And I was shocked they called me like it took them a week to call me. I applied and I ended up taking a test and I ended up working here and I've been here since then.

Kendrick Alexander: My first day by myself, I was nervous. I was trying to motivate myself, tell myself like, “Kendrick, you can do this. You got this. You don't need nobody help.” Stuff like that. And then as soon as I pulled out, I got lost, got lost on the route.

Raul Abarca: My first day being by myself, and I was just so nervous and scared about it. And I missed my turn.

Ria Famosili: Oh yeah. I've definitely gotten lost on a route.

Kendrick Alexander: My name is Kendrick Alexander. I've been at DART for 17 years.

Ria Famosili: My name's Ria Famosili and I've been working here for a year and five months.

Raul Abarca: I drove an articulator bus. An articulated bus is two buses together, connected. And I had to fill that with a lot of people.

And I say, “Hey listen, if anybody wants to make it home, please tell me if you know any other route to get back.”

And that's what I did and they told me, “Oh yeah, get in here,” and they directed me and I was back there.

They were nice because they realized that I was in trouble. They were trying to help me.

Kendrick Alexander: It was people on the bus. They told me where to go. They helped me out.

I got back on track. I was lost for like maybe 20, 25 minutes. I had some people that were like, yeah, turn right here, which wasn't the right way or stop right here. And it's in front of their house. You know, so yeah. But I didn't get lost anymore because I studied, I got in my car and drove the routes so I wouldn't get lost again.

Ria Famosili: The first time I did the 22, it was, rush hour after work. Tons of people on the street and a lot of passengers, and it was warm, very warm day, and I didn't make a right where I was supposed to and I had no idea where I was going and I'm looking and then you've got a bunch of people in the back saying, “Hey, you were supposed to make a right turn back there.”

I said, “Oh, okay, hold on.” You know, I had to pull over, I had to pull up some maps. I had to look at it. I had to study it. I said, okay, here we go. I let them know. “I'm a little lost. I'm new, but I'm going to get you to where you need to go.”

By the time we got to the station, you know, I got a lot of “Hang in there. It'll be all right. You're gonna get better.” You know, so it was like they understood and I've seen them again. They're like, “How you doing?” I’m doing a lot better, so you know.

Kendrick Alexander: You know, people come telling us their marriage problems, their personal problems, their financial problems.

When I started, I just thought it was going to be driving a bus, picking people up, dropping them off.

I didn't know I was going to be a psychiatrist, a referee sometimes. I guess in my mind, I thought you just drive, that's it. But now that I realize you actually have to have, um, social skills.

You actually have to have like social skills and, and being able to, defuse de-escalate, you know, motivate, you know, stuff like that. Cause, I've had people tell me, thank you for listening to me or thank you for allowing me to speak my mind or giving them advice about my personal experience that maybe they can use to deal with stuff.

I had one woman and she almost made me cry because she said that I saved her life because she was going to go home and hurt herself, but talking to me, she said that I gave her a new outlook on whatever it was that she was going through. And so I told her that, and I told her some of my personal experiences that I've been through in my life. And I said, I'm still here and I'm still strong. So, um, yeah, she said, I saved her life.

I'm a spiritual person. I don't go to church as much as I should, but I'm, I'm very spiritual. And I'm like, man, you just got to sit, pray, meditate. Pray to whatever God that brings you peace. He didn't put you here for no reason. And my favorite quote for me is always: you got to swim through the muddy water to get to dry land.

Raul Abarca: She said she was going to the church that feed the people. And she was hungry. And I asked what was going on. She started telling me her story about why she was hungry and all that. So along the way, I was thinking, I'm going to give her five dollars, that way she can buy a Mexican sandwich. And then I said, no, I'm going to give her seven dollars to go to the, uh, Golden Corral over there on, Forest Lane Station. Forest Lane, and Whitechapel, there's a Golden Corral.

And then I said, Oh, but she's going to need an iced tea, so I'm going to give her 10. Back in those times, 10 it was for the iced tea for the, for the, the buffet. And then I said, Ah, who wants to eat alone? I'm going to give her 20 dollars. That way she can invite her husband to eat together.

And then I went, they don't need to go to the buffet, they only need food on the table on the house. So I pull out $50 and I give it to her and I give her right back to Fiesta and I give it to her and she looked at me and she say, “Why?” I said, “Well, don't you work crying for the Lord to help you out? Now that the Lord is helping you out, why you don't want to take it?”

Raul Abarca: And then I told her, I say, If you ever need anything again, come in and see me. I never saw her again in my whole life, so I don't know what happened with the lady, but I gave her fifty dollars which, this was in 2001. Why do I remember 2001? Because a month later, I did the Bus Roadeo, and it was my first, my first time that I won the Bus Roadeo, and guess how much it was, the prize, 500 dollars.

Kendrick Alexander: You gotta pay attention to everything and everybody. You know. You gotta drive for other cars and for yourself. I’m pretty much a people person so I can adapt to people’s different attitudes, mindsets and stuff like that. I don’t like to try to look at all the negative stuff or even the difficult stuff. I just try to simplify everything to where it doesn't stress me out or anything like that.

Raul Abarca: We had a person in downtown Dallas walking on the street fighting with invisible men.

One day he got on my bus and then he sit down close to me and when I took off, he started fighting with the invisible men and the people got scared and moved back to the back. And I go, Gosh, what do I do? So I put my parking brake, open the door, put neutral, and I went straight to talk to the invisible man.

And I told him to leave my friend alone, you're gonna get out of the bus. And I acted imaginary like I was grabbing him and kicking him out of the bus, which, not a real person, invisible. And then, when I went and sit down, I told the passenger, “He's out, he's not bothering you anymore.” I closed the doors. So when I pull on my seatbelt and I'm going to take off, and I look in the mirror, people were with their mouth open and eyes open, looking at me like, what?

And I go, oh shoot, now they're going to think that I'm crazy too. But I did what I had to do to calm the guy because the guy had his hands really close together, really quiet. And it made the ride good.

Right, so you have to figure out, you have to figure out the way to, uh, to deal with all those things.

Ria Famosili: So the difference with, in my opinion, in my experience with being a bus operator as a female is you don't get as much respect. And that's just true. I mean, I definitely have to run a tight ship sometimes with certain people who can be, you know, a little aggressive with women. Whereas I noticed the same passengers are not like that with men because I've asked and they're like, “Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. He doesn't do that with me.”

He's a man. That's why. So it can be very tough being a woman, but you know, I, I love the challenge. I'm always for it. You know, that's why I'm here and I don't complain.

Juanita Jefferson: You get a chance to meet good people. Some people say it's stressful, but I don't find it stressful for me because I know how to control me. Uh, you have to control you. And have yourself under control to be working up on a bus and dealing with different attitudes and different peoples.

I don't, you know, they get on there without all that cursing and everything. My grandmother always taught us when we was young, silence is the key. Just don't say anything. And then you'll just let a person talk. Cause two people, it take two to argue. She always told us that when we was little. So she said, just be patient and just be silent.

So I just let them, you know, have their moment.

I don't look down on nobody and just judge nobody because of what they are. Cause one day, I don't know what can happen to me. It could be me. If I know they're homeless, the first thing I'm going to do is offer them my food.

Then I said, take my food. You know, I gave him my Taco Bell. He went and sat down on the bus and he ate it and he said, “Thank you bus driver. I really appreciate it because I was hungry.” And then I gave him five dollars and he got on out the bus. He looked back like, Oh. I just cursed the lady out, she still gave it to me, you know?

So, to this day, when he sees me, he waves, he speaks. No matter what his situation, if he out there throwing bricks or whatever, he sees me, he waves, he speaks.

Kendrick Alexander: So Dallas is known for having a hard freeze every year. Between the end of February, I mean the end of January, the beginning of March. So it always freezes and we always go out on our routes no matter if it's freezing or not. And it's like every time it freezes, that's the strangest day.

I was going down a street one time. I had picked up this one lady, it was like four o'clock in the morning and it was on a narrow street. I hit a patch of black ice. So the entire bus spun around in the middle of the street. It spun twice. I didn't hit any cars, didn't hit any curbs. The lady, she was just screaming in Spanish like just screaming in Spanish. And I didn't know what she was saying, but once the bus stopped spinning after I had picked up, she got off the bus and walked home.

She was done. She was done.

And I was done too. I took the bus back to the garage. I'm like, yeah, I don't feel safe. Yeah. So that was it for me.

Kendrick Alexander: Even though we might drive the same routes on some days, it's always something different that you may experience, see, dealing with different people. I don't like doing the same thing every day, so that's pretty good for me.

Juanita Jefferson: I feel like when I'm driving, I know people have to go to work. They have to be where they have to be and that's my job to do that. And I want to get them there safely.

And I'm driving, not just for me. I'm driving for everybody that's in cars, everybody around me. I feel like they’re my family when they’re on the bus and I try to keep it as if they're my family. Especially when I see females with children there go my nieces, those are my kids. I tell them they’re my people. They’re life is in my hands. I’m the one in control of the bus, I’m the captain so …

Nadine Lee: Special thanks to  Juanita Jefferson, Raul Abarca, Lorelei Chacon, Kedric Alexander, Ria Famosili and all our bus operators who shared their stories, and a debt of gratitude to all other operators at DART and across the country who get us to our destination safely.  

If this story inspired you to consider a career as a bus operator, then check out our website at DART.org/careers. And the next time you ride a bus, be sure to thank your operator. I promise you they'll appreciate it. 

This has been Mobility in Motion. I'm your host, Nadine Lee.

We'd love to hear from you. If you'd like to share your feedback with us, please email us at [email protected] .

This episode was produced by The Glue and Neille Ilel, edited by Jim Gates, with music by BC Campbell. 

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