RTD Pays Tribute to ‘Operator of the Year’

One of the handiest items for a bus driver is the left window, says Felix G. Rubio, who was named RTD “Operator of the Year” Thursday at an awards banquet in downtown Los Angeles.

Chosen for his performance record from among 5,000 drivers for the Southern California Rapid Transit District, the 43-year-old Rubio explained one of the tricks of the trade. “When I was first learning the job, an instructor told me to always listen to complaints, but when you get someone really hassling you, let their remarks go in your right ear, out the left and then on out the window,” he said wryly.

The Whittier resident also joked that two alarm clocks are a must for his line of work. He uses them to wake himself up at 3 a.m. so he can make it to the garage on time. They’ve served him well: He has never had a “miss-out,” driver lingo for starting a bus late out of the garage, and he has never missed a day of work.

Rubio, the first Latino to win the “Operator of the Year” honor, has driven an RTD bus for 20 years, much of that time on Line 66, which travels along West 8th Street to Olympic Boulevard via downtown Los Angeles. RTD officials said that since 1981, Rubio has had no “avoidable” accidents.

He said that when he first applied, he did not expect to stay long, but he liked driving and working with people so much that he decided to make it a career. He added that getting people where they are going is not his only responsibility: “Sometimes it can be sad because people who live alone, they tell you their problems. I just let them talk, it makes them feel better.”

The banquet honored not only Rubio, but 11 other drivers chosen “Driver of the Month” last year. Rubio received $250. The others received tickets to community events.

RTD General Manager John Dyer praised the group as being “the most important people we have, people who can demonstrate how important our service is to the community. It hasn’t been an easy year for any of us . . . but we have made outstanding progress in problem areas.”

Dyer and the transit agency have been at the center of a series of controversies involving such problems as loosely controlled expense-account spending, high employee absenteeism and bus safety. The state Legislature is considering abolishing the troubled agency and replacing it with an agency having authority over highways, bus lines and rail lines in Los Angeles County.

Asked about driver morale in the face of this debate, Rubio said: “When you work here, you see from the inside out. There are many people who are doing their best, doing very good work.”