TOLEDO, Ohio — The Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority is fully staffed after graduating 21 new drivers on Monday with more than 300 hours of experience each.
Nineteen of those new graduates are fixed line operators, including husband and wife Danny Gray and Samantha Davidson, who were especially excited to begin their jobs.
"It feels good to finally be graduated and get out there," Gray said.
The couple quit jobs they said helped pay the bills because they wanted something more. Then, they drove in TARTA's public drive-a-bus event and Davidson said they knew what was next.
After nearly 12 weeks of training, big changes happened for the family.
"This job helped us recently get a house. We're moving our family into a better neighborhood," Gray said.
Laura Koprowski, TARTA's chief executive officer, admitted to being a big fan of this graduating class, which also includes two paratransit drivers.
TARTA now has more than 130 drivers, according to Koprowski, which is very important as trends are showing more people are taking local transit.
"Ridership growth across the nation for transit is at 16%," she said. "We have exceeded that. We have 20% ridership growth."
Koprowski added that not only is she grateful for the new drivers, but for U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Toledo), who served as the event's keynote speaker.
"She's helped us bring home over $9 million for new electric buses and chargers," Koprowski said, "In the latest federal budget, we have money to modernize our maintenance facility for these electric vehicles."