DETROIT (WXYZ) — “I wait a long time for DDOT, and some people won’t believe how long I’ve waited,” said Tyrone Zellars, a DDOT bus rider.
Tyrone Zellars says he catches the DDOT bus every single day to work, church, the supermarket, and doctors appointments.
Every now and then, he says it runs behind - sometimes considerably.
It’s documented that there is a bus driver shortage.
“Especially, trying to get home,” Zellars said.
“We just have to take 3 or 4 buses, when we could’ve just took one or two buses. But the service is good though,” said Regina Higgins, a DDOT bus rider.
Mikel Oglesby, Executive Director of Transit for the city of Detroit says retaining bus drivers is a nationwide problem.
“We are interviewing them to see the reason why they’re leaving. And it is coming down to pay,” said Oglesby.
He says DDOT is budgeted for 510 positions and 106 of those positions need to be filled in order to be fully staffed.
Oglesby says the starting pay at DDOT is $14.71.
After 6 months, it's $15.76 and after a year it goes to $16.81.
He said $20 dollars per hour is reached after about two years.
“We ask everyone to look beyond the pay and look at the future and what they want to do moving forward,” Oglesby said.
Schetrone Collier is the president and business agent of ATU Local 26, the bus drivers union. He says DDOT’s biggest competitor is Smart Bus where the pay is $19 after 8 weeks of training and The Ride in Ann Arbor leads at $28 an hour.
“I’ve expressed this adamantly with the city, the mayor, whoever will listen, until you can tie for second, you will continue to bleed people out of here,” Collier said.
He’s drove the bus for 34 years, experiencing the challenges firsthand.
“You’re asking myself to expose myself to the mentally ill, communicable diseases, and it’s just a hard job. Like today bad weather,” Collier said.
He says as the mayor prepares to present a new budget, the first step should be increasing the operating budget for DDOT to increase wages.
Joel Batterman, community engagement manager with Transportation Riders United agrees and quotes another member by saying a schedule is a promise to riders the bus will show up on time.
“We really need our agencies to address this staffing issue and make good on those promises,” Batterman said.
