Many UPA students and teachers alike utilize public transport daily to commute to school. Whether it’s to decrease their carbon footprint or because they don’t have any other option, the VTA—Valley Transportation Authority—has been a source for many people across the bay. According to the official VTA website, the ridership on the VTA bus and lightrail increased by 22% in 2023, with it then having 21.4 million riders that year. This large government corporation possesses multiple issues regarding its safety and cleanliness.
Junior Rebecca Joseph takes the VTA bus and light-rail on a day-to-day basis as part of her commute to school, so she has been able to gain a well-rounded perspective on the quality of the transit.
Joseph experienced many different forms of transportation in her travels. Out of the three places she has ridden public transport in—USA, India and the United Arab Emirates— and of the three she views the VTA to be quite average in terms of general quality. Nevertheless, with the many other people that also travel on the VTA, she understands how to keep herself away from people who act questionably and is able to avoid being caught up in troubling situations.
“You just have to know how to conduct yourself in public,” Joseph said.
Freshman June Bangura has also been on public transport in multiple places, including buses in Sierra Leone as well as the VTA. In comparison to the VTA, she found that Sierra Leonean buses are of significantly lesser quality than the VTA.
“In Africa, transportation was really rough,” Bangura said. “People were fighting to get into buses because it was really crowded.”
Bangura, like Joseph, has traveled in the VTA lightrails and buses, seeing many things on the VTA since she began in the seventh grade. As of recently, she has taken the light rail much more consistently because it is more convenient for her travels, whether that is to school or to somewhere like a store.
As for Bangura’s safety on the VTA, she finds that there is sometimes suspicious and uncalled-for behavior on public transport. There was an instance where Bangura witnessed a man on the VTA that refused to wear a shirt. She noticed that it made people uncomfortable, which the bus driver handled the situation very well, asking him politely to put a shirt on before asking him to get off.
Joseph comes across people who have questionable behavior on the VTA relatively frequently, and quite often people scream and shout on the light rail. Fortunately, keeping to herself keeps her out of getting involved. Joseph does not expect this behavior to be stopped on the lightrail as since the conductor is in an enclosed room away from the passengers, they are unable to stop others from acting suspiciously. However, Joseph finds that the drivers for the VTA bus tend to stop the unacceptable behavior.
“Your ride does depend on your driver,” Joseph said. “Sometimes the drivers are nice about stopping people, but other times they just don’t care because either way they get paid.”
Sophomore Soham Bhatia mostly takes the VTA bus, riding it three to four times per month. While Bhatia’s main experience with public transportation has been through the VTA bus, he has also ridden the VTA lightrail and has taken the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to San Francisco. He thinks that in comparison to the VTA, Since BART is of significantly better quality. Which is a result of BART being funded by the state as opposed to the VTA being funded by the county.
Bhatia finds that the VTA is much less safe during the night time rather than the day, witnessing arguments and fights while on the bus.
“Sometimes people don’t pay to get on the bus but the bus drivers are like, ‘Hey, you got to pay,’” Bhatia said. “They argue and argue which leads to a lot of problems because it makes us passengers not able to go to our destinations”
The cleanliness on the VTA is also a large problem which is commonly present. Bangura is not the largest fan of how clean the VTA is, especially the bus. She notices that a lot of the lack of sanitation is due to people with more questionable behavior that create these stains and messes.
“Well, for the bus, it’s not that clean,” Bangura said. “But in the light rail I don’t see trash on the floor.”
Bhatia’s perspective on the VTA has changed a lot since going on BART, since there were less people eating and more people keeping to themselves. He thinks that if the VTA added a trash can in the buses that there would be a lot more opportunity for people to throw away their trash instead of leaving it all over the floor.
Joseph is not the largest fan of the uncleanliness aspect of the VTA but possesses an “ignorance is bliss” attitude towards it. There are stains on the seats and sticky floors that seem to rarely be cleaned. Despite that, Joseph understands that VTA workers don’t have the opportunity to replace the seats every few months, so she simply attempts to find the seats that are less noticeably stained.
“Just don’t wear really nice clothes on public transport,” Joseph said.
Bangura appreciates the consideration that a lot of bus drivers possess for her and others when they struggle with the bus. Some drivers are nice to the people who come in with problems such as with the fare.
“When I forget to renew my [Clipper] card to pay for the bus, the bus drivers are nice and let me in without paying,” Bangura said. “It’s like I’ve made a friend by now.”
The homeless people that Bangura encounter on the buses get treated differently depending on the bus driver as well as their behavior, with some of them getting free rides but others get kicked out of the bus when they cause an “inconvenience” such as screaming and talking to themselves loudly.
Bhatia would definitely take the VTA as well as BART because he thinks it is a lot more convenient and takes him a minimal amount of time to go to San Francisco to visit his sister. However, he does not mind the VTA in general in regards to its quality.
Bangura is perfectly fine with riding the VTA, as other methods of transportation appear to be significantly more expensive than going on the lightrail, even the VTA bus.
Joseph would definitely prefer to have an alternative method of transportation, as it would provide some security for her and a comfort in the knowledge that nobody else has messed with it. However, since the VTA is a necessity for her on a daily basis she does not mind her experience on the light-rail and bus.
“If I had a separate ride, I would prefer to have a car that like no one else has touched,” Joseph said. “Knowing that it’s my family or whoever I’m carpooling with. But [the VTA] is not bad at all.”
