Shaun Reeves

Muni bus driver in San Francisco

Drive the same bus route long enough, and you get to know the shape of the neighborhoods and the faces of the regulars. You see old classmates and old friends. You get asked out on a date, at least once, and you watch kids grow up.

“There’s something to see and experience every day,” says

Shaun Reeves, a Muni bus driver. “Every day it’s different. You don’t know what to expect.”

Reeves has been driving for Muni for almost nine years now. He followed in his uncle’s footsteps after serving in the Marines. “I like driving. Do what you love.”

He knew his job was essential even before the city said as much. “We’re the veins of the city,” he says. “Any public transportation is.”

idea be while stayed little Still, behind that mad everybody home. it stung he at the should first,” “I wheel — was else the he a says. gave option their When of staying drivers Muni the home, thought Reeves about taking them up on the offer.

Then he started thinking about his friend, a nurse. “How is she going to get to work?”

So he kept driving.

For a while he even drove a special route for people sick with the coronavirus. They put up a piece of hazy, see-through plastic between him and the passengers. He wore a paper-thin suit and a mask, too. “Nobody else would (drive) it,” he says. The woman he’s seeing wasn’t too happy. “I can understand that. But it was the least I could do.”

Now he’s back to the usual routes — no more “bunny suit” — but work is hardly normal. As he drives he has to count his passengers, make sure they keep their distance. Enforcing social distancing is hard — he’s had passengers complain about him picking up too many people and would-be passengers complain for leaving them waiting for the next bus.

One of Reeves’ favorite routes is Route 9. It starts near Ferry

Plaza, cuts down Market Street (“my old stomping grounds”), heads southeast along 11th Street before hitting Potrero Avenue and Highway 101, ending near Bayshore Boulevard and Visitacion

Avenue.

“This line will keep you on your toes,” he says.

As he drove it one day recently, three people thanked him.

Thank you.

Thank you, operator.

Last stop? “Yes ma’am.” OK. Thank you.

It wasn’t much, but it was more than usual. It felt nice, he said.

“I don’t walk around all high-and-mighty about being an essential worker. I just want to get people to where they wanna go.”