After 42 years behind the wheel, Bob McCauley is still be a month-and-a-half away from retirement as a bus driver for the city's transit system but today is the perfect day for riders to give him their thanks for all the good work he has done over the years.
Across the province, it's Transit Driver Appreciation Day and McCauley deserves a special tip of the hat for his dedication to the job.
Over those four-plus decades, he's maintained exemplary customer service and safety records while logging1.6 million kilometres at the wheel. That's equal to circling Earth 40 times at the equator or two round trips to the moon.
He has seen his customers grow from youngsters to parents and even grandparents and while he is looking forward to retirement he will also miss the job.
"I'm so used to the public and this is a good company to work for," McCauley said during an interview Monday at Pacific Western Transportation in the BCR Industrial Site following the end of his shift.
In particular, McCauley said the young kids are his favourite. For them, getting on the bus is a big adventure, from stepping on, to paying the fare to reaching their destination. McCauley always makes an effort to greet the youngsters.
"I say, 'how's the big guy, eh?' 'how's the little princess today, eh?,''" he said. "They get a smile."
Seniors are also high on his list because they like to talk.
And he's rarely had any trouble with the drunks.
"I just tell them, 'well, you know, you've had your fun," McCauley said. "Just sit there and I'll get you home."
Although drivers need a special licence to operate a bus, McCauley said they're not much different than driving a car. He said being a good bus driver takes patience and treating others as he wants to be treated.
If McCauley has a complaint it's about the state of the roads, which he said have gotten worse over the last eight years.
"They never had deep potholes, if they were deep they were filled," he said. "They didn't go two or three weeks [without being filled]."
It has gotten so bad that four years ago, he broke a rim driving along Ospika. He could go no further and a repairman had to be called in to fix the damage on the spot.
"I heard a crunch and that was it," McCauley said.
McCauley got into bus driving through an uncle who owned a company in Kelowna. When his uncle retired, he moved to Prince George in 1972 where, through his dad, he knew Alf Nelson, who owned Standard Bus.
At that time, there were just three or four transit routes and McCauley also drove school bus and chartered trips. The transit system has grown leaps and bounds since then and everyone is now on much tighter schedules.
Once he is retired, McCauley plans on heading off to Lac La Biche in northern Alberta to fish for walleye and northern pike with his brother and travel back to the many towns and cities he lived in while growing up - his father was in the Canadian Armed Forces. But he will continue to live in Prince George.
Transit riders can go to transitdriverday.org to print off a card to give to their favourite driver but McCauley said just saying thank you will work too. "That's worth a million words," he said.
