An Industry Driven by Kindness and Grace

BRYAN D. SMITH
Chief Executive Officer
CityBus
Lafayette, IN

For transit providers, since 2020, the pandemic was (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime experience that tested resiliency, civility, and faith in our fellow humans; the IIJA represented the largest investment of federal funds in public transit in a generation with the potential to change our collective world; we have a new presidential Administration with fundamentally different views on the role of the federal government.

I have worked in public transit for 30 years because I am driven to make a difference, improve the lives of the community members I serve, and hopefully, leave the world a little better than I found it. How can any agency or individual navigate all the last half decade brought and retain a desire to serve? I do not know a universal answer. Perhaps there isn’t one. What I can share is my own experience, strength, and hope that worked for me.

For me, it is summed up in two values: kindness and grace. How does this apply to our work? I tell new operators this: It is a function of the human condition that we are all fighting a battle that people around us know nothing about. When I say this, you can see people thinking of their personal battles, they almost float above their heads in the room. Our passengers, our vendors, our board members, our coworkers are no different than us in this regard. They are fighting battles we know nothing about.

Since we are all fighting these battles, how about we all agree to offer up kindness when it is an option. For drivers, this can be the first step in de-escalation. There has been a rising incivility in the country, as evidenced by the increase in attacks on transit workers. We can train drivers in ways to deflect and mitigate.

Kindness also means being kind to yourself. Do not take someone else’s internal battle personally. Chuck was a 35-year-safe driver at one of the properties I worked at. I asked what his secret was, and he told me he didn’t let bad behavior get to him. If someone wants to argue about the fare, ask them to sit, so you can keep everyone moving, and let it go. If a car is going to cut you off, back off, and let them over and let it go. That mentality earned him over three decades without a chargeable accident.

Kindness can apply in vendor relations, too. Isn’t it kindness to have a clear RFP with a scope of work that is understandable and a response format that is easy to fill out? After the contract is signed, I often tell my private-sector partners that I don’t expect a problem-free implementation, but rather a partnership approach to addressing problems when they happen.

Grace, for me, comes from a personal place as well. At the start of my 30 years in transit, I often didn’t appreciate the opportunities I was offered, and even thought I had achieved much of my success by myself. As time went on, I realized that I had taken those opportunities for granted, and even squandered them. At my nadir, it came to me how fortunate I really was, and, but for grace, I could be in a much worse place. Ever since, I am pushed to offer grace to others as it was offered to me; to pay back the karmic debt I have incurred.

Again, how does this fit with our industry? Every transit agency I’ve ever worked at struggled to find operators and mechanics. Are we looking hard enough? Do we allow for grace in our candidate selection? Do we offer -second-chance employment after a criminal conviction? We should be looking at our progressive action steps to see if we are looking for a root cause and working to correct it, rather than three strikes and you’re out.

Grace works with passengers, too. How do we respond to issues on the bus and at transfer centers with mental health workers and police? It’s clear we cannot arrest our way out of drug addiction and the lack of housing and mental health resources. At one property, we hired a community member who worked with a social worker to help those who needed it at our transfer center. She was able to offer a ride token, directions to local health centers, even socks and underwear where needed.

As we face the next half decade, I won’t pretend that kindness and grace will be the solutions to all our issues, but perhaps our issues can lessen a little if we practice kindness and grace while going through them.