Bus Driver Bulletin, issue 3!
Welcome back to Bus Driver Bulletin, a biweekly-ish roundup of all the most interesting news from the bus world, from january 12th to 26th, 2025. You may have noticed I stopped posting these around the end of october - that was because my schedule at work changed, as they do every few months. I was driving the same paddles every week, giving me little to no downtime on the clock - i was either driving or sleeping most of the time! Well, my schedule has changed again, back to extra-board, and I now have enough standby time to find and read news stories. So you can expect updates every couple weeks for at least a few more months!
| Date | Location | Story |
|---|---|---|
| 1-17 | Long island, NY | school bus driver theresa fogal safely saves bus from skid down icy slope! |
| 1-17 | Riverdale park, MD | bus driver has medical emergency, drives into vacant building, dies. |
| 1-17 | The Bronx, NY | MTA bus runs into wall of overpass, front hangs over edge! |
| 1-17 | Sacramento, CA | state senate bill introduced to exempt bus lanes and other transit projects from CEQA review |
| 1-21 | Memphis, TN | ATU 713 meets with mayor regarding last week's MATA board vote to temporarily contract agency management to consulting company Transpro. The union says the contract lacks transparency and raises concerns about pay cuts. Last year, Transpro wrote a report accusing MATA of frivolous use of funds as the agency faced a 60 million dollar deficit and cut routes due to understaffing. |
| 1-21 | Pomona, CA | Motorist rear-ends bus, dies. |
| 1-22 | Denver,CO | Bustang and other rural bus services have seen substantial ridership growth in the last 6 years. |
| 1-23 | Augusta township, MI | school bus overturns due to icy road, 13 injured. parents criticize district for communication failures and keeping the school open in unsafe weather conditions. |
| 1-23 | Minneapolis, MN | bus fire! no injuries. |
| 1-23 | Omaha, NE | first meeting of Metro's first elected, rather than mayor-appointed, board of directors. this results from a 2022 decision to transition the system from a municipal to a regional authority. |
| 1-24 | East Orange, NJ | owner of f&a transportation sentenced to five years prison due to hiring drivers with no CDL, failing to perform drug tests, and falsifying vehicle inspection reports |
| 1-24 | Cambridge, England | the cambridgeshire and peterborough combined authority advances plans to franchise bus services, giving the regional government (rather than the private operating companies) control over route planning. |
| 1-24 | Gateshead, UK | regional transit company Go North East has experienced unusually high rates of breakdowns which the company blames on cold weather and employees blame on improper maintenance management |
| 1-24 | Baton Rouge, LA | ATU 1546 authorizes strike regarding pay and safety. |
| 1-25 | Kansas City, MO | ATU and transit advocates rally for city and regional funding for KCATA service, which is currently facing budget cuts that would severely reduce routes and staffing. some suburban city governments have recently opted not to pay for service, and kansas city proper has been using revenues from a sales tax intended for transit, for non-transit spending. |
| 1-25 | Pendleton, IN | a "nothing to report" report from madison county, which has not experienced a shortage of school bus drivers in the past few years. |
| 1-25 | New York, NY | head of TWU local 100 resigns after allegations of sexual misconduct. |
| 1-25 | Atlanta, GA | MARTA begins surveys for bus network redesign! |
| 1-26 | Dublin, Ireland | bus network redesign begins operation! it adds 13 new routes, 24 hour service and airport connections. residents of the glasnevin neighborhood have criticized it for cutting route 11, which provided them with one-seat rides to more areas. |
| 1-26 | San Diego, CA | MTS launches first 24/7 express bus, route 910 running half-hourly parallel to the trolley blue line. |