SECRETS OF THE BLUE BUS: Getting Around Bi-Co

The Loop

A small loop. Maddeningly small, if you ride it dozens of times in a row, starting at say, 7:10 a.m., at Pem Arch, on Merion Avenue, between New Gulph Road and Yarrow Street on the Bryn Mawr College campus. It's where the Blue Bus drivers begin collecting students going from, say, the Park Science Center near the Playing Fields, or the Rhoads Residence by the tennis courts, or Erdman Hall, close to the parking lot, and heading for Haverford to take classes, or use Magill Library, or check out the new steppers at the new Douglas B. Gardner '83 Athletic Center near Whitehead...or, if it's Saturday, to party.

The loop, driven by old vets like Pat Labbriciosa, or Vera McNeill, heads north from the pick-up point at Pembroke, past Helfarian Resources and Dalton Hall, to hang a right on the steeply-graded New Gulph, and rumble back to Morris Avenue. Then it hits Montgomery as a left and rolls down east past a spate of smaller schools—Harcum, Shipley—until, at Merion Country Club (which refused Andy Reid membership!), it runs right into Haverford Station Road, where the R5 local trains from Philly, Paoli, and Thorndale trundle painfully east and west, their great dim "walker lights" alternating like ghost footsteps as they wheel up to the platform.

The Blue Bus next crosses Lancaster Ave. and soldiers right on Old Railroad Avenue to the Walton Road entrance to Haverford, swinging delicately left into Carter, avoiding a big tree on the right and either pulling into a space outside Chase Hall near Stokes (if it's in the lead), or into a waiting space on the left of the bus stop, (if it's "the sweeper", the clean-up vehicle taking on kids who've missed the regular 20-30 minute pickup cycle): "Never shall they walk, if we can help it," laughs Labbriciosa, who's been on the Blue Bus since 2001, when he retired from SEPTA, after 34 and one-half years...From Chase, BB stops one more time on the Haverford campus, a few blocks down Carter, before swinging back onto Old Railroad, hurling left to avoid the giant oak at the right corner of OR and Haverford Station Road, groaning across Lancaster and up the hill to a left on Montgomery, then a right on Morris, where the bus, sometimes clattering emptily, sometimes rocking with talk and laughter—hauls all the way to Yarrow Street, and makes a left. Next, another right on Merion, and home to Pem Arch...Five miles, two-and-a-half each way, anywhere from 20 minutes to 45 (which is what the Sweeper is for), depending on traffic, the weather, student loads, and the mysteries of mechanical smoothness or breakdown. The heaviest BB traffic is mid-morning, noonish, and from 4 to 5:30 p.m., coinciding with classes.

The riders develop favorites. Vera McNeill, for example, a big, warm woman, regularly gets little presents from students she's befriended: "You're like family after awhile," she says. "A lot of them are away from home for the first time and need someone to talk to...you know, just reassurance, until they get planted here...": "You want a cappuccino, Vera?" one lovely Italian girl asks, getting off near Chase. "I'm going to the Dining Center." "Thanks, sweetie, " Vera chuckles. "But I'm all coffee-ed out today!"

"These are the greatest kids," Pat Labbriciosa, a small, refined man, offers. "After a life with SEPTA, working in the city? Are you kidding? 'Thanks, Mr. Labbriciosa!' 'Nice ride, sir.' Politeness wasn't on the menu on Broad Street, you know? Some of them would try to beat you for the fare, palm off old used transfers? And if you called them on it—oh boy...really inventive language. No, I got lucky when I applied for this job. It's good for a guy my age..."

The Lantern Man

Bryn Mawr College, founded in 1885, graduating its first class in '89, began assigning a man with a lantern to walk the young ladies attending the then-rural school to and from the railroad station when afternoons grew dark early. The Lantern Man also walked them around the campus. This gallant tradition morphed into lantern-mounted buggies in the pre-auto era, then wagons with lanterns, then cars with headlights, more or less just escorting female students to-and-from the train station. Says one source familiar with BMC culture for many years: "Some girls would overreact and report 'a strange man on campus' by phone to the Dean's office if they spotted someone they didn't know."

In the late 1960s to early '70s, buses became the norm, and in the next decades, with more and more students in the then-all male Haverford taking courses at Bryn Mawr, and Bryn Mawr women seeking the excellent hard science offered at Haverford, the roots of the present Blue Bus system formed. Because they'd been working closely historically, it seemed natural to combine the Public Safety and Transportation departments after Public Safety Director John Maloney died this year. So Acting Safety Director Mike Hill became Director, while Steve Green, who'd run Transportation, became Associate Director of the new department, and the present service fully cohered. Rides are now offered 18 hours a day during the week, from 7:10 a.m. until 12:45 a.m., Mondays through Fridays; 11:15 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. on Saturdays (these are the so-called 'Acme runs' to the supermarket for students who aren't on the meal plan and/or like to cook in their apartments); then 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., running hourly, at the same three stops made during regular weekly hours on Bryn Mawr and Haverford campuses, but these are largely social or "party" buses. The Sunday Blue Bus services begin at 9:30 a.m. and extend to 3:30 p.m., and then 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. (again, party-time, largely). In addition, there are special "mall runs" to Franklin and King of Prussia (call the main office at 610-526-7310), also on weekends.

Finally, there are special books vans running among McCabe Library at Swarthmore, Magill Library, Haverford, and Canaday Library, Bryn Mawr, for those students avid for the special collections housed at the respective schools: "Three or four years ago we made the switch from the Bryn Mawr Transportation operation that handles all the other buses and vans and the Tri-Co weekly student service," says Alison Masterpacqua, Access and Lending Services Supervisor at Swarthmore. "There was just so much more traffic we required two vans a day just to transport books from campus to campus, so that was a strain on Bryn Mawr's operation. We now have two drivers doing this full-time for us, in our van...Just more efficient." Swarthmore, Haverford and Bryn Mawr split the costs.

There are 18 drivers for the three 48-passenger buses currently in service, plus a 26-passenger mini-bus, and four 15-passenger shuttle vans for running around Bryn Mawr campus (at Haverford, some students travel by golf cart to the far ends of the school, which is a little chillier than BMC's deal in winter, though still welcome, given the steep topographies of, say, Fletcher-Silver Walk, or Coursey Road.) There are also five seven-passenger and two eight-passenger rental vans. The buses' operating costs are high: $293,000 annually for the Bi-Co service alone, according to Jerry Berenson, BMC's Chief Administrative Officer; $209,000 for the Tri-Co service, which includes Swarthmore; $96,000 for the BMC Shuttle; and $55,000 for rental vans—but income from renters actually equals expenses in this budget.

Maintenance costs vary from year to year according to needs, and depending on whether the vehicles are under warranty or not, but current figures for Bi-Co are $23,500; $5,700 for Tri-Co; $7,100 for the Bryn Mawr Campus Shuttle; and $4,100 for the rental vans. Fuel, at the same time, diesel and oil plus the one experimental compressed natural gas bus (it also burns some diesel), which Steve Green, the Associate Director of Public Safety and Transportation talked his boss Mike Hill and administrators into buying ("It's cleaner fuel!")—cost $13,900 a year for the Bi-Co runs; $17,300 for Tri-Co; $3,300 for the Bryn Mawr shuttle; and $10,800 for the rental vans. Haverford pays one half of both Bi-Co and Tri-Co transportation costs. Meanwhile, the compressed natural gas vehicle cost $128,281.00 to buy—as compared to a regular bus, which goes for between $98,000 and $101,500, according to Paul Vassallo, BMC's Purchasing Director. To run the CNG bus, a CNG fueling station was installed at Bryn Mawr for $85,379.

A regular bus's fuel capacity will top out at 120 gallons, costing anywhere between $3.10 and $3.69 per. Looking at his particular Blue Bus one morning in November, Pat Labbriciosa noted that it had 171,000 miles on it: "Nicely broken in," he laughed. The CNG has 20,850 miles on it; the third diesel, 129,815; and the #8 mini-bus diesel, 48,875 miles.

Drivers & Riders [extemporaneously]

"Don't you want to be part of a vibrant, informed student body?"
"You talkin' to me, dude?"
"Yeah. We put micro-chips in everybody's skull. Harddrive 'em & sort out ALL the crazed meanings & messages..."
"Yeah." (giggles.)
"Bullet-proof the results. Send it out to ALL the student body..."
"Yeah. But can we make the cover? The Bi-Co News? The Main Line Times? An expose of student life at two elite Main Line colleges that'll make Tom Wolfe's I am Charlotte Simmons read like Louisa May Alcott...Didja know there's an advert for 'Mistress Training" on the first floor men's room door in Chase?"

The first student yawns, checks out his laptop: "But seriously, how was class?"
"That poli-sci guy? He has no life. A polymath when it comes to the history of urban corruption...Did you know that Pete Sweeny and Richard Connelly were Boss Tweed's homies?...
"Yeah," the first student yawns. "I saw the DVD...They were like Cory Kemp and Ron White, right?"

Vera McNeill looks over her shoulder past the passenger safety bar, and giggles: "Aren't they a mess? Just unwindin' after class. What? Sure I have my favorites, too...Ben Koski—he's gonna graduate. Used to run the newspaper? Nathan? A big actor at Goodhart Theater. He asked me to come see him in The King and I...

Vera's been driving the Blue Bus for six years; she used to be in computers, making three times as much money, but it stressed her out: "Everybody in my family wanted to give me a talking to: 'Girl, you lost your mind?' But I was havin' anxiety attacks and skin rashes..."

She saw an ad for driver training: you had to learn to read maps; be familiar enough with the mechanical functions of the bus to be able to radio in accurate diagnoses of engine trouble, so that when help arrived, minimal time was lost; you had to parallel park; back the bus into narrow passages; calibrate turning angles on hard corners finely enough to keep your long vehicle from scraping a wall and spilling your riders onto the blacktop like Easter eggs...This qualified you for your CDL (Commercial Driver's License), Class B (bus.)

"I knew it was for me right away, because it was so easy...I mean, it isn't easy, but it just came right to me. I'm a natural driver. I like to be out in the fresh air, talkin' to people, handling this big moose...Except for moments like this!" Vera wrinkles her forehead and blows her horn:

"Back up!" she yells through the glass at a woman motorist in a gray Escalade who is trying to make a left onto Montgomery from the right lane, and is disregarding the Blue Bus as if it were a bumper car; the motorist also appears to be engaging in a vehement conversation on her Motorola Razr..."Look at this! BACK UP, you fool!" But then Vera subsides, and let's the Caddy selfishly squeeze by..."Not worth it," she mouths, almost to herself..."But I wish there was a traffic cop around."

Actually, traffic accidents are fairly rare on the Philadelphia/Montgomery County line. More to be feared are weather conditions and natural impediments. For example, the ground slopes gradually up as you head west from 30th Street Station, so that by the time you hit Ardmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr, you're roughly on an elevation par with the middle floors at City Hall. Consequently it's cooler in summer, colder and more miserably windy from the end of November into March. So you have to watch out for the quasi-permafrost that shellacks the semi-rural roads in winter, where even daytime thaws re-freeze sharply into black ice most nights—unless it gets freakishly dry (it doesn't).

"One day last winter I was makin' the turn from Merion onto New Gulph," Vera says, "and I misjudged the [steep] grade, which was thick-coated with ice. Bus full of kids, and it swung around on me and straddled us sideways across the road! We were stuck, and I couldn't work loose. I had to radio and get a tow truck out here to pull us off the hump...No, nothing happened, and nobody was scared, but it's just an example of how careful you've got to be." Pat Labbriciosa thinks the two trees mentioned earlier at Carter and Walton, and Old Railroad and Haverford Station Road, should come down, because they make for very tricky bus turns. But Vera feels the huge oak at OR and HSR is a safety barrier for pedestrians faced with speeders who don't turn when they're supposed to from OR into HSR, and try to overcorrect too late..."That tree has taken some shots and saved some lives!" she says. "Ought to be left alone."

One problem the two agree on is student drinking. Haverford and Bryn Mawr, like most colleges in the U.S., have acknowledged its chronic presence by allowing Blue Bus drivers discretion to refuse entrance to young people who appear too inebriated or ill. Barf bags are in fact part of regular Blue Bus equipment, like first-aid kits and fire extinguishers. "Mostly it's not out of hand," says old-time driver Hamilton Fortune, who's been operating buses since he was 16 in Virginia, "but you see a little more binge drinking now, for some reason, and a lot of these young men and women can't hold their liquor..."