T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY — Marshalltown Municipal Transport driver Karen Bassett stands by one of the city's buses earlier this week.

Marshalltown Municipal Transit recently announced that it would be suspending two seasonal routes “until further notice” effective last week, and the reasoning behind the decision was fairly straightforward — they simply can’t find the staff to drive the city’s buses.

The organization usually operates with six full-time drivers and a part-timer, but they’re down to three full-time drivers without any part-timers. It’s gotten so bad that Director Kevin Pigors, his dispatcher and a mechanic can often be seen driving the half-hour routes themselves.

Pigors was fresh off of driving one of those routes when he met with the T-R at the Marshalltown Arts and Civic Center (MACC) bus stop earlier this week.

“I really hope we get four more drivers. I just don’t know when (it will happen),” he said. “We’re to the point where we can’t consolidate any more routes. We’re at the lowest (number). It would be cutting the fixed route or giving up more of the subscription service routes.”

Karen Bassett, who has driven for the city for the last five years and previously served as a bus driver for the Gladbrook-Reinbeck school district, attributes the challenges to a number of factors.

“We’ve had people who have started and quit, (and) we’ve had a couple that have retired,” she said. “(We’re) less than half (staffed). We gave up our dialysis routes to PeopleRides because you can only drive one bus at a time.”

“It’s not for everyone,” she said. “(But) It’s not a hard job. There’s a lot of responsibility, though, and you’ve gotta have a Class B CDL (Commercial Driver’s License) and not everybody wants to go through what it takes to get that.”

According to Bassett, however, a new driver started in May and has already obtained her CDL, so even if it does require extra work and can be a challenge to get into the necessary classes, it is doable. Pigors said MMT is willing to help with the cost of obtaining a CDL as well, and there is another position driving a smaller vehicle that only requires a chauffeur’s license.

Citing the fact that a sizable chunk of the population in Marshalltown does not have access to a vehicle or the money to pay for a cab, Bassett relishes the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those people.

“For a dollar, they can get to the grocery store, to the doctor, to the hospital,” she said. “We’re everywhere. We go everywhere, and even now, where we’ve had to cancel some routes, we still will get people where they need to go if they just tell us where they need to get.”

As Pigors noted, public transit has become especially important in light of most of the healthcare services in Marshalltown moving to the south side of town for people who live on the north side and don’t have any other means to get to their appointments. In addition, about one-fourth of the riderships is students from as young as four or five years old up to college age.

Statistics show that among Iowa’s seven small urban public transit systems (populations less than 50,000), which also includes Burlington, Clinton, Fort Dodge, Mason City, Muscatine and Ottumwa, Marshalltown has seen the largest increase in ridership from Fiscal Year 2019 (76,132) to Fiscal Year 2022 (97,581) at 28 percent, while the other six have all seen declines.

The first canceled route, known as the pink route, took Camp Marshalltown and the St. Francis Summer Camp around to parks and the pool, and the second, the purple route, provided access to the Sunset Village, Theisen’s, Menard’s, the hospital, the college and IowaWorks on the south edge of town. Nonetheless, if a rider needs to get to one of those locations, the driver simply makes the extra stop after they go to Walmart.

Despite the challenging situation, Marshalltown Public Works Director Heather Thomas, who oversees the MMT, can’t say enough good about her drivers and remains optimistic that the right people are out there to join the team.

“I think the great thing about our drivers is the care and passion they have for helping the users that use the system. They’re working definite overtime now because of short staffing, and in discussing what we can do, they’re willing to work that overtime because they care so much about the public. So we’d love to find some additional drivers that have that passion for the public and can work as part of a team to serve that population,” Thomas said.

Anyone interested in applying to become a driver is encouraged to call the MMT’s main office at (641) 754-5719, the phone number adorned on the side of every bus, or by visiting marshalltown-ia.gov and searching available positions. Ride-alongs and job shadow opportunities are also available for potentially interested drivers.

“I would just challenge people to come give us a try because it is a rewarding job, and it’s not physically demanding. It’s really rewarding. People really appreciate us,” she said. “(The buses) are as easy to drive as a big pickup. Really, they are. They’re not hard at all.”

Individual rides cost a dollar, and day passes can be purchased for two dollars.