Columbus aiming to hire 50 city drivers by next spring
COLUMBUS — The Central Ohio Transit Authority is working to hire about 50 more drivers by spring after losing close to 10% of its operators since the pandemic took hold in early 2020.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic upended everything in March 2020, COTA had about 700 drivers. Today it has 637, COTA spokesman Jeff Pullin said.
The system wants to bring the number of operators back to the 685-700 range, he said.
“Our plan is to build back our workforce, make our service more reliable,” Pullin said. COTA did not lay off drivers during the pandemic, but did not hire either.
COTA officials acknowledged that the system is going through what other workplaces have gone through as the economy has reopened and other job opportunities have become available.
“Every industry is dealing with some workforce challenges,” Pullin said.
“It’s the turnover tsunami,” said Sindy Mondesir, COTA’S chief people officer.
Mondesir said it takes time to hire drivers, usually a fourto-six-week process, followed by nine weeks of training.
Under the current threeyear contract that the drivers’ union, Transport Workers Union of America Local 208, entered into earlier this year, the top wage for drivers in 2021 is $31.52 an hour, or $65,561 a year. That increases to $67,537 in 2022 and $69,55 in 2023.
A call to Jarvis Williams, president of TWU Local 208, which represents COTA drivers, was not returned.
Mondesir said she believes COTA offers a competitive benefits package.
Bus driver shortage
Josh Lapp, chairman of Transit Columbus, a local advocacy group, said the driver shortage has affected service.
“The effects of this reduction in personnel level have been noticed and commented on by riders. I’ve seen it online, I’ve heard it at the bus stop. Folks are clamoring for more and better service,” Lapp said in an email.
“Obviously COTA cut back many routes during the initial onset of COVID-19 and their service has not come close to returning to PRECOVID-19 levels,” Lapp said. “COTA has cut late-night service on all routes and even in the current service change has reduced frequencies on the major COTA lines.”
Lapp said that of the services that have yet to be fully restored, late-night service has the most detrimental impacts on everyday riders. “Second-shift and latenight service workers do not have affordable options to make it home from their jobs,” he said.
“We at Transit Columbus understand the difficulties
COTA is facing in the labor market, but the many folks who rely on COTA to access jobs and services can’t afford to wait six months more or a year for these services to be restored,” Lapp said.
Pullin said once workforce levels are brought up, COTA could add more service to express lines and run routes later at night.
Ridership has picked up, but is nowhere near the 2019 levels as people still work from home and COVID infections surge in Ohio once again.
According to COTA, ridership has fluctuated monthto-month so far this year, but has risen from 635,026 in January to 718,858 in July. The July figure is up from the 650,153 in July 2020, but far less than the pre-pandemic 1.6 million riders in July 2019.