'We Never Saw Skateboards Before': Being a Bus Driver Today

We know bus riders are frustrated. It's common to wait 20 minutes for a bus to arrive. Then, depending on your location in the city, that bus could move at a mere five miles per hour. 

But there are reasons for this. Louis Marrero, a former bus driver and a current Vice Chair, TA Surface for the Local 100 Transport Workers Union, points to 2010, the year New York City cut 38 bus routes entirely and started running others less frequently. That put a stress on the system, he says, and everyone else involved.

"I get it," says Marrero. "People that have jobs need to keep their jobs. Their bosses are threatening that they'll fire them. But my bus driver is driving in traffic. There's no way for him to get around that traffic, and when he gets to that bus stop, that guy who was told, 'You come in late one last day and I'm going to fire you,' gets on the bus with that stress? And meets my driver with his stress? What happens?"

Marrero says that 2017 has already seen 40 assaults on bus drivers in Brooklyn, compared to 17 in all of last year.

For drivers day in and day out, there are little things they say add up to delays and complications.

"Everybody wants the bus when they want the bus," says driver Tyra Strawder. "They say, it's 2 o'clock, the bus should be here at 2 o'clock. But they forget about all the construction, the wheelchairs, the seniors, the babies, the school kids. That plays a part in there."

MTA Bus driver Al Matthew (Scott Heins/Gothamist)

Al Matthew, who drives from Queens to downtown Brooklyn, says a changing population has added new challenges to his job. "Since gentrification -- before five years ago, you never saw skateboards. You have a lot more bikes out here. You have to be extremely vigilant. It does add a lot of stress to the job."

So, how does Matthew de-stress?

"I go to the sauna, I go to the whirlpool, I swim laps, I go to the steam room. That's how I release my stress."

Bus rider or not, this summer has been a rough one for commuters. So, what are you doing to de-stress? Let us know in our Facebook group.