“… we are not machines. We’re human beings, and we have needs.”
Lisa, an AC Transit operator, shared this powerful statement with the AC Transit Board after detailing how she has to inhumanely adjust her behavior on her shift on route 18 to meet AC Transit’s tight bus schedules. She doesn’t drink water or eat between 1:44pm and 8pm in hopes she won’t have to use the bathroom. The schedules also impact her responsibilities as a parent; twice she was delayed responding to her children’s medical needs because during her shift she didn’t have time to check her phone.
This and many stories like it are what brought the standing room only crowd—and over 150 people attending virtually—to the June 5, 2024 AC Transit Board meeting to voice concerns about their service realignment project (Realign). Bus operators, represented by ATU local 192, bus riders, and allies from the labor movement spoke passionately to the board about the need to make the bus schedules work for bus operators as well as riders.
The high energy was in stark contrast to the usual staid atmosphere in the boardroom. The primarily Black and brown frontline workers in the audience set the tone by sharing their full humanity. There was joy and humor as the audience appreciated the speakers and supported each other. There was also frustration over the working conditions and AC Transit planning staff not listening to operators’ feedback in the process of creating bus schedules.
The need to center bus operator voices
Like other transit agencies, AC Transit creates its schedules using the automated data that is generated from the buses’ GPS tracking systems. Speaker after speaker shared their experience driving the bus, providing information that can’t be captured in the GPS data, but is crucial to creating bus schedules that work for riders and operators.
One operator explained how in the limited layover time drivers have to park the bus safely, answer questions from riders, use the bathroom, and load the bus. Another spoke of how they do not always have time to pull to the curb because they are behind schedule and the impact this has on riders, particularly those with accessibility or mobility issues. Many spoke of the stress of trying to meet impossible schedules, and the health impacts of avoiding water because they don’t have reliable bathroom breaks.
A bus operator, Michael, summed up the contrast, “All that [the Realign proposal based on automated data] is, is just data, numbers. These drivers are your focal point for information, you’re not utilizing them.” A fellow transit worker Gigi shared the same sentiment: “I’m a station agent at BART, and I just want to say this, algorithms are not as good as people for observing what kind of service is going on on the buses. You need people.”
Riders in solidarity with operators
One rider explained how the schedules make the buses both late and early, adding, “It makes it really hard to know when I should be there for the bus.” A rider who uses a wheelchair spoke about being passed by, either because the bus was too full or too late, another data point that can’t be captured in automated datasets.
The operators’ feedback rang true for riders who also work stressful jobs with limited breaks. Two nurses shared their own experience in understaffed workplaces. Alyssa, a retired nurse, said, “I know something about understaffing, no breaks, burnout. It’s very triggering for me, even now, and I stand in solidarity with these unions.”
Black and brown voices left unheard
In multiple comments the elected leaders of ATU 192, who are all Black, called out racism in the workplace and pointed out the disparities in how different types of employees are treated. (Specifically, they called out senior managers lying about what schedule changes the union agreed to and not facing discipline in contrast to how bus operators are disciplined.) Throughout the entire evening it was clear that race, class, and gender shape whose voices are heard and valued in the workplace and whose experience and feedback is considered data.
After almost two hours of public testimony, AC Transit’s general manager and board members expressed appreciation to the bus operators for their comprehensive feedback and agreed the Realign plan couldn’t move forward without their support. However, they failed to pass a motion (based on a letter submitted by Public Advocates and our partners) that would have directed staff to fix schedules, and to work with the union to create a standard and threshold to identify, on an ongoing basis, when routes need additional run and recovery time.
After the board meeting, AC Transit made it clear they don’t consider operator feedback data in an article in the Oaklandside, a local news outlet that ran a story about the Realign meeting. Referring to statements from current and former bus operators about not pulling to the curb, skipping stops, and the safety risk from stressed and fatigued operators, the article quoted an AC Transit media spokesperson saying “these claims are inaccurate because they ‘lack any supporting data.’” In rejecting that firsthand knowledge, the AC Transit spokesperson reproduced the very dynamic that transit workers complained of throughout the board meeting.
The June 5th board meeting exposed how problems with the bus schedules are a symptom of a larger issue around workplace culture at AC Transit. The solutions have to include addressing the underlying ways that race, class, and gender shape how employees are treated and limit their ability to be fully human in the workplace, respecting the knowledge and experience of the system’s bus operators, and changing what is considered data and how data is collected and used in decision-making. We hope that the general manager’s promise to “triple our efforts to [ensure adequate breaks and bathroom access to every employee] as soon as we can” includes a basic change in respecting the experience of the frontline workers as relevant “data” for decision-making.
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Laurel Paget-Seekins (she/they), is Public Advocates’ Senior Policy Advocate for Transportation Justice.
