AC Transit Bus Driver Takes the High Road on Line 59
By Edward Carpenter
Over the radio Wayne's voice sounded panicked, but the AC Transit dispatcher told him and the other bus drivers to continue on their routes - a 6.9 magnitude earthquake, centered in Loma Prieta, had just struck the Bay Area.
"It was like all hell broke lose," said Wayne, who didn't want his last name used, recalling the Bay Area's 1989 disaster.
That day, October 17, was probably the scariest of his 20 years driving for AC Transit, Wayne said. He remembered a sea of people "boiling" up out of BART in downtown Oakland and pieces of buildings falling into the streets.
"It was the strangest thing I ever saw," Wayne said.
With BART trains declared unsafe after the earthquake, AC Transit suddenly became the sole mass transportation system in the East Bay. Emergency routes were set up. Bus service, something most people had taken for granted, became a top priority. It changed the way people looked at buses. It made them realize how important buses are, Wayne said.
His account of that chaotic day 13 years ago on Line 51, sharply contrasted with the route Wayne currently drives. The 59 is quiet, in parts winding its way along narrow, shaded streets, a cemetery, a golf course, green belts. Heading up into the Oakland hills, it passes through Montclair and treats passengers to sweeping views of the San Francisco Bay, before heading back to Jack London Square. While it's not the only public transportation available these days, for some passengers on the route it's all they have.
At about 8:40 a.m. on a Thursday, the bus turns off Broadway and starts up Thornhill Drive. Wayne's biggest obstacle is steering past an illegally parked Volkswagen bug three feet from the curb and a telephone wire repair truck.
"Here's one of the headaches," Wayne says, a bit put out.
"Excuse me, there's a stop - Stop!" a woman's voice comes from the rear of the bus. She clambers at the exit door.
"Was there a stop there?" Wayne asks, lifting his hands and looking in the mirror. "You can't see it."
There was a stop, the woman assures him. Several companions agree. I'm going to be late now, the woman says in Spanish. Wayne just nods, not understanding, as the four women exit, presumably headed to work at one of the big single-family, stucco homes with windows overlooking the bay from Golden Gate Avenue or Country Club Road.
The 59's ridership into the hills mostly includes people commuting to work at homes, often cleaning or taking care of children, Wayne says, but he admits he doesn't know for sure. More than a half-dozen seniors get on going back down. Seniors are some of his best customers, Wayne says. There are three stops near Summit Hospital, where most of them have doctors.
One passenger, Vickie Abbot, is a part-time volunteer at the hospital.
"I'm just into helping people," Abbot says. She's been a volunteer at the hospital, doing adult daycare for 8 years. Like many of the seniors she volunteers to help, the bus is her only means of transportation.
"I depend on AC Transit," says Abbot as the bus approaches the second hospital stop, her exit.
Wayne reflects on the importance of his job as the passengers exit. He clearly believes what he does affects people's lives for the better. It's more than the time 13 years ago when the buses came to the rescue that makes them important, Wayne says. Buses get people to work, the doctor, the pharmacy and the grocery.
"Thank you," one senior says to Wayne as she eases down the steps at the third Summit Hospital stop. You're welcome, Wayne replies, before shutting the door and heading off to the next bus stop.