Get home safe
A look into city buses and the people who drive them
Shannon Carlton stands between two buses in the parking lot of WTA’s transit depot in Bellingham, Wash., on Feb. 2, 2023.
Written by Nina Walsh
Shannon Carlton starts her work day at 6:50 a.m. with a pre-trip check of the bus she drives. She checks the tire pressure, brakes, oil levels, emergency exits and power steering – along with 66 other items that are on the official commercial driver’s license pre-trip inspection list.
Carlton is a seasoned transit operator for Whatcom Transportation Authority. She’s driven buses for WTA for the past six years, after working in grocery stores for 17 years prior.
After completing her pre-trip safety check, she heads on her way, driving the 331 route. She does four loops of the route – equating to four hours of driving – to start her day.
Carlton calls the 331 the “people route,” for obvious reasons. The route stops along large apartment complexes and grocery stores and can take you from one side of Bellingham to the other in an hour. Lots of people from all walks of life shuffle on and off the bus during that hour, trying to get where they need to go.
Carlton helps get them there, safe and sound.
WTA prides itself on a unique hiring philosophy – almost anyone can be taught to drive a bus, but the human component needed to be a good bus driver? That can’t be taught quite so easily. Not only do you need to be a good driver to work for WTA, but you also need to care about the people you drive.
The result? A fleet of transit operators who are skilled in interacting with the public, at the best and worst of times.
Driving a city bus might seem like a relatively easy job from an outside perspective – driving the same routes and making the same stops in a reliable, formulaic routine. In reality, it can be much more complex. Transit operators face the public just as much as they do the road.
Despite the constant shuffle of passengers boarding her bus, Carlton still finds those human connections, especially with those who ride with her almost every day.
One such passenger was a man who would practice his English skills with Carlton on each ride and gift her a piece of candy as a thank you. In one of these everyday interactions, he showed her a photo of a dog he kept in his wallet. The passenger explained to her that his family’s abrupt fleeing from their home country and immigration to the U.S. meant leaving behind their beloved family dog.
As she recalled the story, Carlton wiped tears from her cheek.
“You do have people like that, who share stories or are just sweet – like giving me candy every day,” she said.
Samuel Alexander, a fellow WTA transit operator of two years, echoed these sentiments.
Alexander is tall and wiry, with a big smile and a mustache to match. He has a hint of a mohawk — nothing extreme, but just enough that you can tell he’s definitely cool. He has an eager, excited energy to him, and it’s easy to imagine him as a friendly neighborhood bus driver.
Alexander previously drove buses in Denver, Colorado, in predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods. As one of the few white people on the bus and in the community, he was told by others when he first began the job that he may be perceived as an outsider and not immediately trusted. To his surprise, due to his friendly and warm nature, it was the complete opposite.
“I asked somebody … ‘Why are passengers so nice to me?’” he said. “They were like, ‘Because when people get on the bus, you look them in the eye and you say ‘hi’ and you smile. When they pay, you say ‘thank you.’ When they get off the bus, you say ‘have a good night.’”
Alexander, incredulous, thought every driver did that. But they didn’t. That’s what made him unique — he knew these simple interactions could make a small difference in people’s lives.
It’s these moments that highlight how transit operators like Carlton and Alexander do more than just drive a bus – they build community. For some passengers, their driver is the only human interaction they regularly receive. This is particularly true for those who regularly use WTA’s paratransit system, a fleet of smaller buses that help those who have disabilities traverse the city who otherwise can’t take advantage of WTA’s regular bus service.
“There are a few for sure that don’t get out, their only interaction in their entire life is the bus driver, and the doctor,” Marcus Williams said, a paratransit driver. “So you get people that just have nobody to talk to, [and] you become that person.”
Williams said that during his routes, he often finds himself playing the part of a therapist that he never asked to be.
Williams has a gruff exterior and a blunt sense of humor. At first, he might not seem like the most likely candidate for a passenger to spill their soul to. As he continues to share his stories, though, it becomes clear how some passengers feel comfortable sharing their everyday thoughts and musings with him. He has a kindness to him underneath his tough exterior, and one thing is for sure: Williams is incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to work for WTA.
“I try to recruit people to work [here],” Williams said. “Just because I know what God’s done through my life with WTA.”
For Williams, it especially rings true that there’s more to being a transit operator than driving a bus – you’re a lot of different things, all at once.
“You’re security on the bus, you’re the bus driver itself,” Williams said. “You have to have super good hearing, super good eyesight – when there are some shady situations that happen on buses and you just have to watch the character and see what they’re doing.”
Interacting with the public every day offers an opportunity for lovely, small moments of connection for transit operators. It can also offer equally difficult situations that require de-escalation.
Carlton isn’t exactly what anyone would call intimidating – she has a short stature and one of the warmest, most welcoming demeanors one could imagine. When it’s late at night, and she’s met with an unruly passenger that has to be kicked off, it’s easy to see how she might feel unequipped to confront them. But more often than not, she said fellow passengers stand up to defend her.
“I’ve had some larger guys get behind me, and I didn’t ask them … they’ll get behind me and then I’m feeling like I’m not alone,” she said. “I’ve had that happen numerous times.”
As a transit operator, Carlton says she looks for the helpers: those who grab the bags of elderly passengers and help them disembark when she’s not able to, or who help secure a wheelchair. Riding the bus can easily be a way to get from point A to point B, but it’s also a rare opportunity to interact closely with your community in a way that’s unlikely to occur otherwise.
According to the American Public Transportation Association, Americans took 9.9 billion trips on public transportation in 2019. In Whatcom County alone, WTA had almost 2 million boardings in 2021. Public transit is an everyday necessity for many – it’s how they get to work, get home, and everywhere in between..
In December 2022, the Pacific Northwest experienced a rare ice storm that halted operations of most transit systems in the region, including Seattle. WTA only limited some routes, and was running on a slower schedule, but kept operating through the storm.
“It was a challenge for sure,” Williams said, who drove a paratransit bus during the storm.
Paratransit operates in such a way that passengers request a scheduled pick-up at their home that takes them directly to their destination. For the most part, people canceled their scheduled trips once the storm hit, but for the few that didn’t, it was up to Williams to make sure they got where they needed to go.
At the time, most of the city wasn’t plowed, except for the main roads. Parking lots and side roads had multiple inches of snow packed onto them, making it next to impossible to drive for anyone who didn’t have chains and snow tires. Williams found himself attempting to make it through a snow-packed apartment parking lot to pick up an elderly woman for her scheduled ride.
For a moment, Williams let his own frustrations overtake him and asked her why she was even going out in these conditions in the first place.
To his surprise, the woman told him she had run out of her medication and hadn’t been able to take it in a few days, and needed to refill her prescription. Instantly humbled, Williams realized that this is why WTA stayed open during that storm: people still need to get places, sometimes urgently, and they rely on WTA to help them get there.
“I’m glad we were out there,” Williams said.
WTA works to make transportation accessible in all circumstances, not just in snow storms. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, WTA suspended all trip fares until July 1, 2021. After this, it implemented its “Youth Ride Free” program, in which youth aged 17 and under could ride at no charge.
WTA also has an annual program where they distribute bus passes, free of charge, to social and health agencies throughout Whatcom County so that those who may not otherwise be able to afford to ride the bus can still access transportation. According to WTA, they distributed 32,000 packets of 6-ride passes to the community in 2021.
In doing so, WTA attempts to make transportation a public service that everyone in the community deserves to have access to.
“Just knowing that there’s a lot of folks who can’t afford to drive or perhaps have a mobility issue or a cognitive issue where they aren’t able to drive … and I’m helping them get there,” Alexander said.
He pauses for a moment and reflects on what he said.
“And I like that. I enjoy helping.”