“Here We Go!” Riding with Metro Operator Nathan Vass

(Photo: Lucas Anderson)

When you step onto a Metro bus operated by Nathan Vass, I guarantee you will step off smiling.

For Vass, a smile is all he asks. Vass is a 23-year-old Metro operator, one of the youngest to win the Operator of the Month award in both age and seniority. He’s also probably the most interesting young bus driver you will ever meet.

Not a lot of 21st birthday dreams consist of a Metro application, it’s safe to say. But Vass had buses on his mind. (Twenty-one is the youngest a Metro operator can be, and his age was the last thing stopping him from fulfilling his dream.) “As a kid, the bus was a symbol of going wherever the hell you wanted to go,” he explained.

Vass had a vast knowledge of bus history and information well before he became an operator, and knew Seattle was where he wanted to put that knowledge to use. As the birthplace of on-bus bike racks and wheelchair lifts, Vass said, Seattle is “an amazing system.” Compared to what he described as the “grid-like routes of L.A.,” Seattle’s routes, he said, actually line up with people’s travel patterns.

But the core of that system, what really draws Vass to Metro isn’t buses: it’s people. An artist at heart, Vass’ degree in photography from the University of Washington had him shooting the streets to capture the daily human routine. On Metro, Vass sees this every day. “There’s something about buses,” he said. “It’s not just the large machinery; it’s the community interaction.” For Vass, the Metro is a leveler: all tiers of status and class existing in one space.

One might wonder if his younger, college-fresh mind is evading the fact that he just drives a bus. Vass, of course, would contend the direct opposite: hardened, veteran drivers are often deluded into thinking that the job is just driving a bus.

“It’s all about public relations,” he said. “Your only tool to solve a problem or defuse a situation is your personality.” Fare disputes, rough rides, and all-out grumpiness, Vass believes, are the result of drivers becoming burnt out by the people. While he may be protected from this as a part-time driver, Vass said it is still an issue of attitude: “If you let yourself get caught up in that, you’ll just go crazy. It’s more important to help people have a nice day.”

“Everyone asks.”

Of course, Vass’s unique attribute as a Metro operator is his age. In a profession dominated by 50-year-olds, Nathan stands out to both his co-workers and his customers. The gap often brings wisecracks about bed times and homework (in fact, Nathan was still in school when he started at Metro) from fellow operators, and phone number requests from what appears to be a growing fan base .

However, his age, he said, has never affected his performance. He claimed to have no bus driver “horror stories” of physical or oral confrontations, and has over a dozen commendations. He’s received the safety award, and now, the Operator of the Month award for this January.

But Vass is not the only younger operator on the road. Over the last five years, the number of drivers aged 21 to 29 has fluctuated from 60 to nearly 90 in 2007. Vass and other young drivers’ “new” existence was my original motivation for this story, but in reality, the amount of drivers in this age group has stayed near three percent of the total for the last five years, with the average age of operators increasing every year.

Budget cuts to Metro are on the minds of all operators, Vass said, but he worries the most about the part-time drivers like himself. Luckily for Metro, Vass says he’ll almost do it for free. After prodding him, he claimed even if the movie he is currently directing makes it big, he’d still drive. “As long as I’m living in the area, I’ll work for Metro.”

As a journalist, you often pre-write a story in your head before you actually investigate, expecting the status quo and attempting to save precious time. Nathan’s story didn’t turn into the commentary on lack of jobs for college graduates or the failure of our education system I thought it might. It’s a story about what Nathan is privileged to witness everyday from his passengers: life.

So take off your headphones and listen to what the bus has to say. Nathan can’t stand headphones anyway.