It’s an ongoing problem faced by cities across the country — a bus driver shortage.
Los Angeles even had to cut thousands of routes earlier this year.
Last year, 71% of transit agencies across the country surveyed said they've had to cut or delay service.
Locally, some cities on the Central Coast are still battling the issue.
“Many industries were hit during the pandemic with labor shortages. The transit industry has been no exception," said Santa Maria Transit manager Gamaliel Anguiano.
During the pandemic, the City of Santa Maria faced the same challenge.
The city had to make changes and adapt in order to keep the public transportation service up and running.
For many Santa Maria residents like Thomas Woodland, it's their only form of transportation.
“The bus system is very erratic. Two simple things will take you five hours to do," Woodland said.
“The pandemic certainly changed travel patterns, and we were able to look at those, anticipate what they might look like in the next few years, and design service changes around those travel pattern changes," Anguiano said.
He added that they went from needing 37 drivers to just 27.
“Years ago, before the pandemic, we had some routes that were considerably long. We reimagined our service so that we could have two shorter routes as opposed to one long one that required three [drivers]. We now only required two [drivers]," Anguiano explained.
Changes like shortening routes and work shifts have helped Santa Maria Transit, but across the Central Coast cities are still alerting riders of the problem.
On the City of Morro Bay’s website, a rider alert posted since December of last year reads, “Due to a driver shortage, there will be no morro bay transit service from 12:20 pm to 6:45 pm until further notice. we apologize for the inconvenience.”
SLO Transit also has a similar message on its website stating a labor shortage is causing “missed service and delays to SLO Transit’s bus service.”
