By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews
NEWPORT – Mile after miles fall away with the world outside passing like so many picture postcards as the Lincoln County Transit bus rolls through forests riven with streams and hidden sloughs seldom seen from any other vantage.
“When you ride the bus, you get to look out and see views you don’t normally get to see,” says Lincoln County Transit driver Mary Neumeyer as she pulls off U.S. Highway 20 into Toledo. “You get to take in the community a little better, see new startup businesses or little cafes you’ve never noticed.”
Neumeyer enjoys the murals in the different towns she passes through, the elk herds and deer. She knows the meadows they favor for browsing as well as the berry bushes they frequent. And she likes to drive. Always has, she says.
But her favorite part of the job, which she started in September, is meeting new people and hearing their stories.
“With regular riders you get to know who they are and it’s a good feeling,” she said as she stops in front of the Timbers Restaurant and Lounge in Toledo. “This is a regular getting on now, Cody, he’s a character.”
Seventy-five-year-old Cody Gray greets Neumeyer with a hearty hello as he climbs aboard with the help of a cane and finds a seat — all while bantering with Neumeyer. Gray stays with his sister in Siletz and rides the bus into Toledo regularly to eat breakfast.
“It gives me something to do,” Gray says. “I busted up my knees in a car wreck so it makes it difficult to drive and then I lost my license because dementia is coming on. The dementia comes from overthinking in my younger years.”
He and Neumeyer laugh. “You are still moving and grooving Cody, that’s the important part,” she says.
The numbers
During peak service hours, Lincoln County Transit has 10 buses crisscrossing the county from Rose Lodge in the north to Yachats in the south and east to Toledo and Siletz. It also runs a circuit of city loops and offers regular trips to the hospital in Corvallis and Amtrak station in Albany.
On any given day somewhere between 60 and 75 passengers take “inter-community” routes while another 60 to 100 take advantage of the city routes. The run to Corvallis and Albany is averaging 600 to 650 riders a month, which is more than pre-pandemic levels and likely due to an agreement with Amtrak, said transit director Cynda Bruce.
Transit systems across the country took a hit with the Covid pandemic “but we are back,” said Bruce, who has been running the bus line since its beginning.
There was no public transit system when Bruce, who was born in Newport, grew up. And she never imagined she was destined to launch one, but that’s what happened. It was after she started working for the Council on Aging in Newport.
“That is what this program morphed from, it was Senior and Disabled Transportation,” Bruce said. “And during my first few years we just got a lot of requests, people in the general public just needing to get places. So in the early ’90s we did a three-year pilot project and started what was called then the Central Coast Connections. That would have been right around 1991.”
In those early days there were passenger vans instead of buses. Then came the first bus with seating for 22 – “it seemed so big” says Bruce – that ran between Newport and Lincoln City. Smaller feeder routes to south and east Lincoln County came next and then over the years the system just grew.
Today Lincoln County Transit has 18 drivers and is equipped with 32- and 20-passenger buses as well as dial-a-ride buses that seat eight to 10. Dial-a-ride picks people up at their homes and offers “door-to-door” service for no more cost than a regular bus ride – which runs anywhere from $1 to $3 for the longer inter-community trips.
While the fares help, they supply only a small portion of the transit system’s $3 million annual budget. The district receives just under 10 cents per $1,000 assessed property value, which Bruce uses as matching funds to get state and federal grants. The Confederated Tribes of Siletz also contribute and its members ride for free. Any high schooler who shows their student identification also ride for free.
Buses run six to seven days a week depending on the route. To ensure people can get to and from work some buses start out at 5:15 a.m. and finish at 9:15 p.m.
The drivers
Neumeyer shares a bit of her story after dropping off Gray, who departs with thanks and flattery.
The 50-year-old “barely had two dimes to rub together” when she packed her truck and with her daughter left Bayville on New York’s Long Island last August. She drove across country to drop her daughter off at the University of Pacific Music Conservatory, where the freshman has a full scholarship to pursue a career as an opera singer. Then she turned north to Newport where her father lives and where she has been visiting since childhood.
“It was always a place to recharge,” Neumeyer said. “And I needed a change of pace, a next chapter and moved here. And it’s all good.”
Neumeyer, who drove a school bus for 13 years in New York, said starting over at age 50 is just like a book.
“That’s what I tell my daughter,” she said. “Every book has many different chapters, some good some bad, you just have to keep turning the pages.”
It was an uncle in Newport, a former bus driver, who suggested Neumeyer get a job driving for the county.
“And I love it,” she said. “I love driving, seeing what I can see and helping people out.”
It is a sentiment shared by fellow driver John Werder, a native of Toledo who started with Lincoln County Transit a year ago. The 56-year-old father of four worked most his life as a painter before he too felt it was time for a change.
“I thought it would be fun driving a bus and being around people,” Werder said. “I like to socialize and it’s just very interesting work. There are lot of repeat customers and that’s what I like about it because you get to know ‘em and build a friendship with them. It’s like a family, it really is. Very enjoyable.”
While Neumeyer works different routes, Werder usually sticks to the north county line which begins in Newport and goes to Lincoln City, Otis and Rose Lodge before returning to Newport.
“I’m glad I pursued this,” he says. “It doesn’t even feel like work to me. I love coming up the coast, it’s beautiful. It’s like a Sunday drive every day for me because we live in such a beautiful area. And while I like driving, my favorite part is visiting and talking with people. They open and tell you about their personal lives and you kind of build a bond with them. It’s just nice.”
Werder has also bonded with a flock of seagulls he feeds from his lunch sack while stopped at Chinook Winds Casino Resort. Before he can come to a full stop and lower his driver-side window, his feathered friends are already jockeying for position.
Werder talks to the gulls while he tosses tidbits and then again as he prepares to pull away. “Go on,” he says. “Go away, go on. I’ll be back.”
Exemplary service
Watching Werder and Neumeyer interact with riders is a refresher course in flexibility, kindness and customer service. Each person is greeted warmly, asked where they are going and if they want off at any particular place. When a woman at a stop tells Werder she missed the bus to the Lincoln City hospital, he diverts from his route to drop her off.
The good feelings between drivers and regular riders is palpable. Forty-eight-year-old George Allmendinger lights up when he sees Werder. Allmendinger is headed to Helping Hands, a transitional housing organization in Lincoln City, after picking up his bike from a friend’s house in Toledo.
Allmendinger was homeless before getting a referral to live at Helping Hands.
“I love it up there,” he said, a big smile on his face. “It’s helped me a lot and I love the town and the people. And I take the bus about once a week. I’m always riding somewhere. I like meeting people and visiting with the driver. And also the scenery. It’s very relaxing for me.”
The agency is looking for on-call drivers. The job requires a commercial driver license and pay starts at $20 an hour, rising to $21 after six months with annual raises. For more information about jobs, fares or schedules call 541-265-4900 or go to the transit district’s website.
Bruce said the transit system has drivers who care about the people they serve.
“They get to know the passengers, which is very helpful, especially when some of them have good days and bad days,” Bruce said. “Our drivers learn how to make the passengers’ days easier instead of contributing perhaps to a bad day. They will go out of their way to try to make a difference. It really takes a special kind of person to be a public transit bus driver. It’s a real challenge on some days and they are all just willing to take that on and do the best that they can.”
- Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
What a great article. Public transportation is so much more than what most people think it is and you have highlighted that so well. The social connections and camaraderie the drivers and passengers have is an important element in society we have lost with the overtaking of car culture. Those spontaneous encounters enrich our lives.
Thank you Lincoln County Transit for providing this invaluable service and thank you Yachats News for bringing it to our attention in such a human centered rather than an “is transportation cost effective” way.