BRIDGEPORT — Before the coronavirus pandemic, Greater Bridgeport Transit’s buses sometimes reached maximum daily ridership levels of 17,000.
But once the state shut down in mid-March, “that plummeted below 5,000,” recalled Doug Holcomb, the company’s chief executive officer.
And so did revenues.
In an effort to stop the illness’ spread and separate drivers and customers, GBT temporarily stopped collecting fares, contributing, Holcomb said, to monthly losses of between $375,000 and $415,000.
Now, six months after COVID-19 struck Connecticut, GBT, which serves the state’s largest municipality and surrounding towns, this weekend planned to return to pre-pandemic service levels and has been advertising openings for added full and part-time drivers.
“We trimmed back routes that were very low ridership (and) put the buses where we thought there might be crowding,” Holcomb said, noting: “During the pandemic, ‘crowding’ became defined differently. Crowding was 10 people.”
With statewide stay-at-home orders gradually lifted over the summer, and people returning to work and, most recently, school, ridership demand has steadily increased to about 10,000 customers a day. So now, Holcomb said, there is a need to have more buses on the road to ensure that people are not clustered together at waiting areas and in the vehicles.
“So frequency will be important,” Holcomb said. “That’s the reason for hiring more drivers. ... The practicing of social distancing on public transportation is very difficult.”
“On or about Oct. 5, the plan is to begin to collect fares again,” Holcomb said. And passengers who have been required to enter buses through the rear to further separate them from the operators will again use the front door.
“We’re doing marketing to let riders know the expectations of them,” Holcomb said. That includes wearing masks and staying away from the drivers.
Holcomb also said that 70 percent of GBT’s fleet has been installed with Plexiglass barriers separating the staff at the wheel from the public.
“There are older buses that had to have different measurements. We’re installing (those) barriers now,” he said.
And after providing drivers with masks early on, the company has assembled individual kits containing a month’s worth of personal protective equipment or PPE — masks, face shields, gloves, hand sanitizer and cleansing wipes.
Holcomb said GBT also has “a lot of new cleaning protocols we put in place” and recently hired Triumvirate Environmental out of Massachusetts to review the company’s initiatives and recommend improvements.
Holcomb credited federal COVID-related aid with helping to keep GBT financially stable: “We’d have been sunk without that.”
Mustafa Salahuddin, president of the drivers’ union, praised the kits his members were provided but said it took too long to distribute.
“They (management) showed it to me the beginning of almost April,” Salahuddin said. “They just started handing them out.”
Salahuddin said his operators grew particularly scared after the sudden death of colleague Albert DeRubis Jr. while on the job in mid-July. The union and DeRubis’ widow have said DeRubis suffered a stroke and was later diagnosed with COVID-19. They said the doctors claimed the virus could have caused the stroke.
“This is what we potentially face coming into contact with people every day,” Salahuddin said.
Holcomb said he and his staff worked as hard as possible to assemble the PPE kits.
“There’s been no foot-dragging in any of this,” he said, adding those supplies will be replenished for the foreseeable future.
“If there’s a vaccine and if there’s therapeutics or if this (illness) burns itself out or whatever happens in the future, we’ll assess,” Holcomb said.
Salahuddin said he also wanted to make sure every bus has protective barriers installed for the drivers before returning to collecting fares.
“That situation definitely has to be fixed before we even start talking the opening of the front door and them starting to take fares,” Salahuddin said, adding: “I told Mr. Holcomb we can never get complacent and go back to being normal until normalcy arrives. We can’t do it.”
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September 21, 2020 at 05:00PM
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After bus ridership plummeted, Bridgeport Transit getting back to pre-pandemic schedule - CT Insider
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