CAT 1R Community Access Transit

I have been taking this bus since Sept of 2012. I currently am a 26 year old female who is a college student at Raritan Valley Community College. I also work for the school as I work under the Dean of Students. I sadly have to take this bus everyday for school and work as when budget cuts happened in the state. The NJ transit had to be cut and we were provided with this bus service. My first day of taking this bus the bus was well over 20 minutes late. I asked the bus driver who goes by «Joe» why were you so late all he could say in broken english «If you have a problem call the company.» and handed me a schedule of the bus with a phone number. Why would I call the company if he is the driver? Sadly this bus is not frequent and only runs 4 times a day with the same driver Monday through Fridays.
While I was waiting for bus I have been told by the other passengers that this is «Nothing new». As I am an adult I passed it off as the students just complaining or impatient. But I witnessed the horror stories I was told about this bus driver before my eyes.
He likes to come to stops at any time he please he can be 10 minutes late to an hour and half late! I take this bus at all the 4 different times it is provided. My stop is the 9^th stop out of the 19 he does. If you try to call the company asking where he is all they respond with is «Oh. maybe hes in traffic…» And they will hang up on you. Most of the time when I get on the bus I am the first person to board the bus and thats me being the 9^th stop. He will slowly get more people around the 12^th stop.
I have witnessed him actually driving by passengers! They will be waiting at the designated stop and he will just drive by them. I have witness him drive by an older woman well passed in her 80’s and actually saw the poor old lady try to «run» to the bus. That is such a disgrace…
The college use to provide bus passes to students who were not fortunate enough to be able to pay for the bus everyday. The advisors who handed them out even stated that these were provided by the company for the students. A month went by and they just stopped provided the tickets the company complained to the advisors that it was «Too expensive to provide this service.» The Advisors and Dean of Students have stated they pay the company to come to the school and the least they can do is try to accommodate the students better and try to be on time for classes. Asking the bus driver Joe about this he proceeded to yell at me and say I was wrong. I asked him «So you are telling me my bus the Dean of Students is wrong about this information she is providing my fellow employees and students?» He responded with yelling at me «If she has to say that she can say that to my face!»
The earliest the bus can arrive to the school is 9am… he has never made the time ever! Students are always late to class and some teachers will not accept the students to class if they are late. I have seen many students have to cancel/​drop classes due to the bus not being on time. That is not fair at all to the students who are paying for the service of the bus driver and can not accommodate he job.
Every time you call the company they always defend the driver and just disregard what the customer on the phone has to say. It really is useless and what is the point of having this service if you dont care about what the people have to say?
When he arrives to the school he is suppose to leave at 4:05pm the fact he is the only driver driving all day he is stuck in that bus all day. I am surprised they never switch with a different driver as pass by the bus depot going to the school. He will take a 20+ min break to stretch his legs and go to the bathroom! He will run out of the bus and leave the people at the stop till he comes back. He only stated once to me asking if it was ok… Am I suppose to say no?
The bus has broken down on me while in it about 10+ times! He will try to fix the bus with people in it and take up lots of time. Very few times he will actually call the company to give him a new bus. He never tells the people what he is doing when situations like that happens, the people need to know.
This bus company really needs to get their act together, they need to listen to the people, they need a new driver who wants to have this job. Having Joe… he is at his wits end and they need to get a new guy. You can tell this man does not want this job. It is sad I have to depend on the bus for work and school, if I had a means of other ways I would have done it long ago.