WASHINGTON — Slogging through traffic on Interstate 95 looks much different today than it did 43 years ago, when Milton Powell started driving commuter buses from Prince William County, Virginia, to the Pentagon. But he hopes his driving days are far from over.
Powell’s brother had to teach him to drive a bus when he started in 1973 — there was no such thing as a standard commercial driver’s license. (Metro also had yet to open.)
“It’s a lot of responsibility on that bus,” Powell said.
He became interested in driving after a trip to North Carolina with a church quartet a few years after he turned 10, when he saw the driver.
“It looked so impressive, and I said, ‘Well, I would like to do that one day,’ but I didn’t know it would ever happen,” he said.
When he started driving for the service, which was then called COMMUTERIDE, the buses had no air conditioning and only manual transmissions. Powell would work in a mail room at the Pentagon in the middle of the day, then drive commuters home to Woodbridge from the Pentagon and Crystal City.
Conductors on the buses sold paper tickets.
“We had a party every Friday on my bus for the passengers, and they just sold sodas and snacks. That was the most exciting thing that went on back in the day,” Powell said.
Today, it makes Powell’s day when he picks up passengers who used to ride with him back in the ‘70s.
“They get on the bus and they say ‘Hello Milt, how ya doin’?’ and it brings back the memories that we had,” he said.
IN THE EARLY 1990s, the commuter bus service transitioned to the control of the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission, or PRTC, which still runs OmniRide service today.
PRTC is celebrating its 30th anniversary this fall; it was created in 1986 to help start Virginia Railway Express Service.
Powell’s experience goes back to when I-95 was half the width it is today. He left the bus service to drive for a construction company in the 1990s and early 2000s before returning to drive buses for First Transit, the contractor that operates PRTC service. Overall, he has been driving commuter buses for more than 25 years.
“Everything is new each and every day when you go out on that bus, so you have to be equipped, you have to be aware and make sure you do the right thing,” he said.
He suggests all drivers know what they are doing before they get behind the wheel, leave plenty of space behind the car in front, and always have their heads on a swivel to be aware of a way in or out of any troublesome situations that may pop up.
“I think the worst problem is being out there on 66 and you’ve only got that one lane, HOV lane, you have to be very attentive of your driving because people will pull in and out, and I have seen plenty of accidents just caused by somebody just whipping out in front of a bus and you just — you’re not able to stop that quickly,” Powell said.
He turns 64 this month and plans to “wind down” in about a year and a half, but he is not sure what’s next.
“I haven’t thought about it. If I could do part time here with PRTC that’d be fine; I would enjoy that. I mean, I love driving, I enjoy the passengers, I love helping out with other drivers here,” he said.
