Standing away from the others at the bus shelter in front of the Duke Medical Center, Jani Hale waits for her GoDurham bus. Wearing her light blue surgical gloves, she’s ready to take the bus home at the end of day working for Duke University Medical Center’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health. She rides every day and has noticed that it is a lot emptier on the buses since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Durham. She has continued to ride because it’s her only way to work, and she appreciates that there is hand sanitizer on-board and that the city of Durham has recently made the buses free of charge. “It kinda lessens the heavy weight that we’re all carrying right now.”
Jani Hale, Duke University Medical Center Employee, waits on GoDurham Route 20
Photo Credit: John Tallmadge
On Sunday night, the City of Durham, followed by GoTriangle, the City of Raleigh, and the Town of Cary, suspended fares and required boarding through the rear doors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As reported Monday in the Raleigh News & Observer, Sean Egan, transportation director for the City of Durham said these measures are intended to keep customers and employees safe. “GoDurham operators and all of our front-line colleagues face the same pressures as everyone else right now,” Egan said in a written statement.
“They have families, kids out of school, loved ones with health concerns, and others may know someone already impacted by COVID-19. Despite these pressures, and despite understandable concerns, our workforce is showing up out of a sense of duty to the community.”
Egan said GoDurham will continue to operates as long as it is “safe and appropriate to do so.” Durham Mayor Steve Schewel shared in an email that he’s “worried about the social distancing on buses.” He is discussing with partners whether to run extra buses on busy routes “so we can cut down on the number of people on each bus. I’m not sure this is going to be able to happen, but I think it would be good if we could do it.”
Jen an Occupational Therapist at Duke Hospital who lives about two miles from the hospital on Route 11B, remarked that “everybody seems to be adhering to the precautions about being six feet apart. I just try to be careful and carry hand sanitizer with me and not touch anything.”
If the local bus systems or GoTriangle stopped running their services, or significantly cut back on their frequency, most remaining passengers would have few, if any, remaining options. While Jen has a car, she does not pay for a parking space at Duke Medical Center, so if the buses stopped running, she believes that “she would be in a bit of trouble.” Jen thinks she “might have to ask friends for a ride, which would be very inconvenient and scary for them. They don’t want to be close to others right now when we’re supposed to be socially distancing. I think that the bus is probably a better way to socially distance oneself than carpooling.”
Masti, a young woman who works in a lab at Duke University Medical Center, rides GoTriangle route 405 and connects to Chapel Hill Transit routes. She has already had to adjust to last week’s cutback in Chapel Hill service to less frequent Saturday levels. Monday morning, she missed her connection to work and ended up calling Uber to get to her job. If GoTriangle were to discontinue or reduce service levels she is afraid she couldn’t come to work or would have to pay for an Uber most days. Doug M., who works at the Veteran’s Administration Medical Center, and uses the same route as Masti, expects he would reluctantly switch to driving or taking Uber to work.
Ms. Hale has considered biking, but like in most cities, few of the streets in Durham have been designed to be safe for all users. She mapped out a bike route, but found “they don’t have the bike lane throughout the whole path coming here, so that would be kinda dangerous.” She called out Duke University Road, Academy Road and University Drive as the three main roads along her route where she wouldn’t feel safe on a bike. Jen also considered biking but noted that on day’s like Monday when it was raining, “it wouldn’t really be convenient to have to change once I got to work.”
For Hale, keeping the buses running is essential. “Yeah, I don’t know what I would do if the bus system was to stop running. I wouldn’t be able to get to work. Where I live and where I work was based on the bus route.”
NOTE: This post is the first in a series about how people are using transit and bicycles during the emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Durham.