The Trolleybus of Happy Destiny (Dao of Doug, #3)

Take a ride in a San Francisco Trolleybus to the Painted Ladies and the Ferry Plaza with Driver Doug, a 21 year transit operator. Doug enjoys giving directions to get around the city in public transportation, and shares stories and tips on taking MUNI when you visit.*

*Editor's Note: Since the writing of this book, in June of 2018, our nation, our world, experienced a pandemic which radically changed the nature of public transit in large urban areas such as San Francisco. Commercial real estate, with its large downtown buildings upon whom our city dwellers clocked-in from nine to five, created strong demand during peak times. What we call rush hour in San Francisco which is earlier, from five to two or six to three to match New York financial market times, made for a long four hour comings and goings to downtown that came to become ghost town conditions.

I guess, in a way, it was a dream come true for this, now retired, bus driver. I put in for my retirement exit with the city on February 13, 2020, one month before the shit hit the fan with Covid. I had an intuitive sense to retire at age sixty-two and not wait until sixty-seven, for social security. I just made the paperwork deadline before my sixty-second birthday in June of 2020. But this means I had from March, April, May, and June to ride with my mask on and work about two days a week on a reduced schedule.

The miracle was, for the first time in my twenty-two calendar years of work as a transit operator, I could keep to the schedule and have enough recovery time to compose myself and the end of the line on each trip! All the ride share and tour bus shuttle conflict to Silicon Valley was gone. Fights over the front seats were gone. Traffic was light, and the stress of driving the bus was reduced. My point is: this is a great time to get in to the job. I still don't say career, because I don't think most of us who work or have worked, for the Department of Transportation, consider bus driver as a career-but it could be considered as such. If you want it.

Auteur

Driver Doug is a 29 year resident of the city by the bay, and has been a transit operator for the San Francisco Municipal Railway for almost 20 years. His current run is on the 21 Hayes trolleybus line from the Ferry Plaza to Golden Gate Park. His interests include photography and writing, and this latest essay, The Trolleybus of Happy Destiny, is a composition including anecdotes and photo illustrations from his experience behind the wheel of a city transit bus.