The MTA let me ride a bus at a ‘Roadeo.’ It wasn’t pretty.
Driving a bus is really hard.
"Understand three things: space, your speed, and your visibility — you gotta see everything," said Jim Webster, my instructor. The Maryland Transit Administration tasked him with teaching me how to handle the roughly $750,000 NOVA transit bus. Bit of a step up from my 12-year-old Chevy sedan.
Lanes feel a lot narrower when the 38,000-pound metal box you are driving is almost as wide. Turning gets more complicated when your pivot point is behind the driver's seat and you have 40 feet worth of bus to maneuver around the corner. Then throw in Baltimore traffic, maybe an unruly passenger or two.
City bus drivers make good money. But folks, it ain't enough. They also deserve a night out at the Pendry or a lifetime supply of Ekiben paid for by the owners of those Virginia license-plated vehicles that drive in dedicated bus lanes. They deserve a vacation far away from the Baltimore road rage they deal with every day.
On a recent Saturday, the Maryland Transit Administration hosted its annual Bus and Maintenance Roadeo, where local drivers and maintenance crews get to show off their stuff. The agency turned a massive parking lot at the Reisterstown Plaza Metro station into a bus obstacle course. Drivers had to navigate hairpin serpentine curves, reverse into narrow parking spaces and hit a high speed on a straightaway through some barrels and then stop as close as they could to the end marker. Family members got to enjoy free food and Italian ice. There was a DJ and prizes. It's the closest that a government agency can get to a company picnic.
Oh, and they let me give the course a shot. I'm just glad that my test drive was in an empty parking lot, not on North Avenue at rush hour. If the traffic cones and tennis balls that I was running over were, say, pedestrians or parked cars, I'd be in some legal trouble.
"It is not an easy job, and so the amount of respect I have for our operators just continues to grow," said MTA Administrator Holly Arnold.
The course is a tough one, but so is driving on the streets of Baltimore, Arnold said. She took a crack at the course, too, going head-to-head against a representative from the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1300.
Driving a bus can be a thankless job. Last time I took the 65 bus to work, I saw a woman outside flip the bird at the driver when they didn't stop for her (even though she wasn't waiting at a bus stop). The week prior, I was on the east-west Blue route after covering a public meeting when the driver went maybe 50 feet past a bus stop so we wouldn't get caught at an agonizingly long red light. A guy waiting to get off felt the need to shout, "Mother- don't you know where the stop is?"
Sometimes such behavior can escalate to violence.
Still, veteran bus operator Antawan Briscoe loves what he does, getting to meet new people and take them to work.
"You're gonna get there on time, I'm gonna make sure of it," said Briscoe, who has driven a bus for the MTA for 28 years.
He's also really good at it — he came into this year having won the bus roadeo three years in a row.
Briscoe drives out of the Bush division. A healthy rivalry among drivers from each of the MTA's four bus hubs — Kirk, Bush, Eastern and Northwest — gets a little spicier during the roadeo.
"We root for all, but we want Bush to win," said Maurice Wheeler, a 14-year bus operator and trainer who helped set up the course and then watched his colleagues drive it. Hitting a yellow cone means a 25-point deduction. If a driver is on the course for longer than seven minutes, they get pulled — the faster your time, the better your score.
Wheeler and the rest of Bush had reason to be proud by midday. With his fourth straight win, Briscoe is now poised to head to Austin, Texas, for the main event — the international Bus Roadeo — where he'll compete with drivers from all over the world.
"I come to work, I practice hard," said Briscoe, who is thrilled to see some younger operators coming on board and doing well. After all, he can't drive forever.
Briscoe offered a message to the other international competitors in Austin: "I'm coming back, I'm coming back. I'm looking forward to doing a lot better."
He completed the course in minutes with a nearly perfect score.
I did not.
As for me, the advice I got paid off — go slowly, check your mirrors, choke the wheel before you turn. The air brakes were touchy — passengers on my bus might have thought they were riding a bumper car in stop-and-go traffic.
I avoided hitting of the yellow cones. I definitely exceeded the seven-minute time limit, but they let me stay at the wheel and finish the course. The winners took home cash prizes; I took home the tennis ball I ran over and popped as my participation trophy.
I also left knowing I'd never again get off another bus without saying thanks to the driver.
