BBB officials credit employees for success
Fresh out of The Sooner State, Ken Johnson sat confidently in the interviewee’s seat in City Hall one weekday afternoon some 40 years ago after having taken a test to qualify for two municipal positions — a mechanic and motor coach operator.
The interviewer asked him which job he would prefer, to which Johnson replied bluntly, “which pays more?”
The answer pointed to the latter, a position as a driver for the Big Blue Bus, which had just celebrated its 40th anniversary.
“Give me the Big Blue then,” Johnson said.
It was the realization of a childhood dream for the Oklahoma native — to one day operate his own massive vehicle. It’s a dream that Johnson is still living today, now in his 40th year with Santa Monica’s pride public transit system, which itself is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year serving the community.
31F,“I like to meet people, I like to drive and this job afforded me with a lot of things I could not have gotten out of another job,” Johnson said. “I’m doing something I like to do and I get to put my best foot forward.”
Big Blue Bus officials say it is employees like Johnson that have made the public transit system so successful in Santa Monica, from the small collection of six rented buses in 1928, to a fleet of more than 200 alternatively-fueled vehicles that currently cover 52 square miles in Los Angeles County.
On Monday, Big Blue’s eight-decade historic run in Santa Monica, along with eight of the longest tenured employees, including Johnson, were honored in a public celebration on the Third Street Promenade, a commemorative event that looked to the past and ahead into the future.
36B,“The Big Blue Bus has continued to grow as the community has grown,” Stephanie Negriff, the director of transit services, said. “We’ve grown and evolved along with Santa Monica.”
The event kicked off late Monday morning with a musical performance by Blue Note, playing on a makeshift stage just off Broadway as event-goers — a combination of city officials, bus employees, long-time riders and tourists — mingled and meandered among Big Blue related displays, which included a cake model of a current bus. Behind the stage, one of the so-called vintage “New Look” buses was parked, serving as a temporary screening room for documentary, “80 Years in 8 Minutes.”
The “New Look” buses were rolled out starting in the late 1950s and represented a shift in design for mass transit as almost every public transportation system had its own set of the General Motors-made buses.
The last of the “New Look” buses was the 5180, built in 1986. It was the model that was on display for the event on Monday.
The transit agency was founded as the Santa Monica Municipal Bus Lines and operated with the tagline, “Ride the Big Blue Bus,” charging riders only 5 cents. When the rented buses were replaced, they were all painted blue and white.
During the early years, the buses only traveled up and down the main thoroughfares of the city, including Pico and Wilshire boulevards. Today, the agency covers most of West Los Angeles, serving roughly 20 million people a year on fares that are only 70 cents higher than they were in the inception year.
“Today is a celebration of nearly a billion miles of service since we began operating in 1928,” Negriff said.
From speakers like Councilmembers Kevin McKeown and Bob Holbrook to Assistant City Manager Gordon Anderson, the speeches seemed to surround the environmental initiatives by the Big Blue Bus, whose entire fleet runs on alternative fuel.
“From the beginning, the Big Blue Bus has looked to different ways of innovation,” Anderson said.
Big Blue officials say they pride themselves on the agency’s sustainable practices, which most recently included the opening of the Transit Store on Broadway, designed with “green” materials.
There could be more environmentally-minded initiatives in store for the future as the Big Blue Bus plans to collaborate with the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena to design the “next generation” of advanced buses.
Geoff Wardle, the director of advanced mobility research at the Pasadena art school, which is one of the top automotive design schools in the country, said his staff will work on identifying what the next wave of buses will be for Big Blue, looking ahead 80 years in to the future. One of the elements of success that researchers will take into account and build upon is personal relationships that the riders have with the buses.
“(We) will research what’s made Big Blue Bus successful up until now and what we can do to accelerate that into the future,” he said.
In 80 years, Johnson most likely won’t be behind the wheel of the bus.
For Johnson, retirement is nearing, the target year being 2010 when he turns in his keys for good. He’ll be 68 years old when he calls it quits, having serviced the No. 10 Freeway Express and the Super 7 lines the past few years. He expects a sad good-bye.
“I regard this job as a hobby I get paid for,” he said.
Jump hedline: Big Blue, moving forward
Suggested pullquote: “Today is a celebration of nearly a billion miles of service since we began operating in 1928.”
Stephanie Negriff
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 15, 2008. Read the original PDF.