For tourists, the Main Avenue trolley offers a chance to get out and see more of Durango. But for trolley driver Will Hull, it’s a chance to connect with residents.
Hull is an easygoing guy, partly retired after a hardworking life at the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad for 26 years and in water well service for some years after that.
Hull said he took a bus driving job with the city because he wasn’t ready for full retirement. He needed something to keep him busy that wasn’t as physically and mentally demanding, unlike his well service job, which he said kept him on call 24/7.
He planned to retire after five years with Durango Transit, but he’ll reach his sixth year in July, he said. He works eight-hour shifts several days a week and drives all bus routes, which he says is better than driving just one because that would become monotonous.
Driving the bus, he’s met people on their best days and their worst days. He’s broken up dogfights, dealt with drunkards and witnessed small acts of goodwill go the distance.
He’s developed personal connections with riders and made friends – or at least acquaintances – and has watched those people come and go.
“There’s just good, bad and different,” he said.
He said he used to drive the Durango Transit Opportunity Bus, which provides appointment-based transportation to people with disabilities and to older adults age 60 and older to help with errands and medical appointments.
“I’ve gotten to know so many people and they’ve since passed on. I knew them pretty well. It makes you sad a little bit sometimes,” he said. “And sometimes, that’s the only contact they had during the week because they don’t get out much, some of them.”
On a regular bus route, he came to know an unhoused man who was always down on his luck but high in spirit. He was often bemoaning the latest bicycle stolen from him, but he always had a joke to tell.
“Every time he got on the bus or trolley, he’d have a joke. And for some reason, I don’t know why, I always remember the one joke he did tell me,” he said. “He said, ‘My sister went to Penn State, but I ended up going to the state pen.’”
Hull said he felt bad for the man, who was dealing with multiple health issues, and gave him his old bicycle.
“I (dragged) it in one day, and I thought, ‘You know, if he could use it.’ He didn’t have that bike, I don’t know, a week, and somebody else stole it,” he said. “We never did find it.”
He didn’t know the man that well, but he’ll always remember him for his jokes. He said he was sad when he learned the man died – he just fell asleep down by the river.
Hull doesn’t befriend everyone who rides his bus. He said he’s had his share of confrontations, including with people who are so intoxicated they can’t even stand up straight – let alone get onto the bus.
People will try to get out of paying the bus fare, and it becomes harder to believe them after the third excuse.
Some people have tried to use the bus as their personal moving service, hoping to board with strollers and shopping carts stacked with things.
“We don’t haul stolen property, and I’m pretty sure you don’t own that shopping cart,” he said.
The problem of people bringing weapons onto buses has gotten bad enough that Durango City Council is considering an amendment to the city code that would ban weapons on public transit.
“We’ve had some people carry machetes – not just knives – machetes,” he said.
Hull said he’s never had a rider attacked with a blade, but even the presence of a machete is intimidating, and people carrying machetes have acted unruly.
The idea of banning weapons – blades longer than 3 inches and firearms, for example – sounds like a good policy. But Hull said he has no idea how anybody’s going to enforce it. Buses don’t have metal detectors, and drivers don’t search people before they board.
“The guy that shot up the rec center probably carried one on the bus every day,” he said.
He was referring to resident Joe Brinkerhoff, who was arrested on April 2 on suspicion of illegally discharging a firearm, criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and third-degree criminal trespass.
Hull said it’s common for someone to accidentally leave their cellphone or wallet behind, but once, a man absently left an envelope carrying $4,500 in cash on his bus seat.
“It was just lying there on the seat,” he said.
He dropped the envelope off with a clerk at the Transit Center, where they opened it and realized how much money it held. Soon enough, the man, panicked, came looking for it, asking desperately whether someone had found his money.
“Believe it or not, somebody handed it to me. The circumstances could have been somebody picked it up and saw it, and that would have been the end of it,” he said.
Hull said Durango Transit allowed him to see a side of Durango he never previously knew. There’s the tourist side of the operation, which he was already familiar with from his time at Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge – mainly wealthy out-of-towners enjoying themselves – but there’s also the working-class people who rely on public transportation to get by.
cburney@durangoherald.com
