The list of issues included safety of the buses, safety of female drivers—especially at night—injury compensation, uncomfortable driver seats, mental screening of drivers by a third party at the contract agency, lack of lag time to traffic delays and bringing back a break room to a bus station.
“I've been a driver for Capitol Metro for four years, and I've had incidents with attempted hijacking,” a female bus driver, who did not announce her name, said. “My issues are safety issues with women drivers, mostly because we drive out late at night.”
She said she does a 10-hour route, which does not allow much layover time because of traffic, construction, helping wheelchair-bound riders as well as courtesy stops. She requested that a safety ambassador be placed in her bus after 5 p.m.
Other drivers spoke about no time to eat, drink water or use the restroom in case their route is delayed due to heavy traffic.
CapMetro contracts with MV Transportation and MTN transport agencies to provide bus operations and maintenance services for the transit agency, said Tawuan Cole, program manager, and communication and public information officer at CapMetro.
Darrell Sorrells, vice president of the Austin branch of the Amalgamated Transit Union, also took part in public comment asking the board to check if the contract companies are following the criteria of medical examination of drivers' health.
District 5 Council Member Ann Kitchen and interim CEO of CapMetro Dottie Watkins made a note of the comments. CapMetro staff present followed up with those who made the comments while the meeting was still on.
Some of these issues CapMetro is not party to and are issues within MV Transportation and MTN transport, agencies that CapMetro contracts with, Cole said.
“CapMetro is going to be making sure that the agencies are informed about these issues happening so that they can get in touch with the employees and try to get them solved,” Cole said.
CapMetro works with public safety ambassadors and community intervention specialists to ensure safety of drivers and the general public in using public transport.
“We did take note of this, and CapMetro will be in touch with a lot of the staff and employees who spoke today. We take that very seriously, and it's very important to us,” Cole said.
