Bus driver driven to aid her city

Bus driver Monique Fletcher’s late-night runs on Brooklyn’s B63 and B70 routes have become a vital connection in the city’s fight against COVID-19.

“My bus runs through four different hospitals. I’m the only bus that can get them close to their destination,” Fletcher (left), 47, told The Post of her essential-worker riders.

“You’re doing a small part in helping the bigger picture, so they can get to the hospital, so they can help the sickest person they could find.”

Fletcher, a 16-year MTA veteran and a secondgeneration transit employee, works the graveyard shift, but says, “I love my job.

“Being a bus operator combines all the things I like. I love driving, and I’m a people person, so it works for me.”

With ridership down as much as 90 percent on city transit, hospital workers are some of the only late-night commuters left.

“I have a few nurses and a few home health aides that ride that bus a lot of times. They are very, very grateful,” she said. “They tell me about the chaos, how the emergency room is overflowed. It’s taken a toll on them as well.”

Fletcher said she has “an encyclopedia’s worth of stories to tell.”

She takes comfort in her relationship with one frequent rider who walks with a cane. Fletcher lets the man sit in the front of the bus, which is roped off to most passengers to protect drivers from catching COVID-19, but is more accessible.

“He appreciates it, and says I’m the only bus operator that does that,” she said.“I treat people the way I want to be treated. I don’t get home at 10:30 in the morning to be nasty to anybody.”

At night, Brooklyn’s streets are empty, except for police officers every few blocks — who Fletcher said give her peace of mind.

She said she’s proud to be able to serve the city in such a devastating moment. “When it’s all said and done, and it’s in the history books, you can say you helped get to the promised land.”