The nightmares started weeks ago now. When she wakes up, Linda Courser tries not to relive them.

The veteran TriMet driver tries not to think of how, since the tri-county transit agency cut service due to plummeting ridership during the coronavirus pandemic, she went from driving one bus route to working a split shift. She tries not think of the added exposure she faces now, driving two different bus routes and taking a MAX train in between to go from one to the other.

The anxiety of the job in normal days is one thing. But Courser, a 46-year-old single mom who also lives with and is the primary caregiver for her own ill mother, isn’t worried about herself.

“I’m more worried about losing my mom,” she said.

As Oregon approaches the one-month anniversary of Gov. Kate Brown’s stay-home order, essential workers across the healthcare, grocery store and public works sectors keep showing up to work. Those workers include TriMet bus operators, who are in many ways at the frontlines.

TriMet has said just one worker has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, a bus driver who works out of Courser’s facility in Beaverton. But the pandemic’s effect on the workforce is far greater. According to data provided to The Oregonian/OregonLive, hundreds of TriMet employees are concerned enough about their risk of exposure to the virus or their loved one’s personal health that they have taken medical leave.

Since April 1, at least 271 TriMet employees filed for COVID-19 related medical leave, according to data provided in response to a public records request.

As of April 14, some 208 employees were on COVID-19 related leave, 119 of them bus or rail operators.

Roberta Altstadt, a TriMet spokeswoman, said the transit agency does not yet “have an accurate dataset” that gives a breakdown of the reasons those workers are out. Altstadt said those explanations are numerous — they could need to supervise a child out of school due to the shutdown, need to care for someone sick with COVID-19 or be at high-risk of contracting the disease themselves.

“We are in the process of trying to reconcile all that,” Altstadt said of the various reasons. She said it’s not clear because some workers fill out multiple reasons for taking leave.

Regardless of the data sets, Courser isn’t included in the list of employees who have taken medical leave because of COVID-19 -- yet. She said she has taken only a few days off to care for her mother, Paloma Czwpieski, a retired TriMet operator who suffers from heart disease and neuropathy. Courser said she is in the process of filing paperwork to take COVID-19 related leave.

And she’s not the only employee concerned about their loved one’s health or the level of support TriMet has provided employees during the unprecedented pandemic.

Bruce Hansen, a long-time operator and former president of the Amalgamated Transit Union’s Local 757, said he’s exhausted and frustrated with the situation.

TriMet has acknowledged it has struggled to get sanitizing wipes and supplies. Hansen said he still brings his own materials from home because there aren’t enough to go around.

The virus has upended his daily routines. Instead of spending pit stops in western Washington County break rooms chatting up colleagues, Hansen now spends that time hunkered down on his phone, refreshing the websites for the Centers for Disease Control statistics and county health departments.

And the number of cases in Washington County, 376 as of Thursday, is troublesome. “This is getting to a point where it’s scaring a lot of drivers,” he said.

Hansen is also concerned about his wife, Melody, who has diabetes and a heart condition.

“I’m doing all I can to prevent bringing it into my house,” he said.

Meanwhile both Hansen and Courser are still driving, both on the Line 57, which runs from Beaverton to Forest Grove along Tualatin Valley Highway. Courser wears the mask she started bringing to work weeks ago, long before TriMet said it would start distributing face coverings to operators.

Linda Courser (left) and Paloma Czwpieski (right) are mother and daughter. Courser works at TriMet and Czwpieski worked there for 20-plus years. Courser is concerned about her mother's health amid the coronavirus pandemic.

SPEAKING UP

She is one of several bus operators who decided to speak and identify themselves publicly to The Oregonian/OregonLive this week, a change from recent weeks, when employees asked for anonymity due to fear of retribution or layoffs.

On Thursday, driver Scott Qazzaz spoke publicly about why he installed a shower curtain on his bus in an attempt to prevent exposure. He openly expressed frustration with being asked to remove it.

The unionized workforce, which is still negotiating a new contract with TriMet, remains distrustful about the true scope of the virus’ effects on coworkers.

Rumors swirl every week. “We get fearful that we aren’t finding out about everyone,” Courser said

Courser said she’s not concerned about speaking out. “I don’t care because I care about my fellow drivers. Someone needs to speak up.”

On Thursday, after The Oregonian/OregonLive spoke with her, TriMet send an agency wide notice to its operators, referring to a policy handbook on speaking with the media. “Please refer all media inquiries to the Communications Department,” the notice stated.

According to a copy of that policy provided to The Oregonian, employees are encouraged to “fall back on agency policy” and not feel pressured to speak.

“This policy is not intended to preclude or dissuade employees from engaging in legally protected activities, such as discussing wages, or benefits or terms and conditions of employment, or from speaking to the media on their own behalf and not purporting to speak on behalf of TriMet,” the handbook states.

Altstadt said TriMet sent its workers the notice in response to multiple media requests they learned drivers had fielded. Operators can still speak out, she said. “But we're just reminding them they don’t speak on the behalf of the agency.”

THICK SKIN

Paloma Czwpieski spent 21 years behind the wheel of a TriMet bus, and despite developing neuropathy and retiring due to disability, she loved the career.

Some colleague would gripe about the work, but Czwpieski didn’t.

“If you pay me 29 bucks an hour, I’d wear a clown suit to work,” she said of her approach to the job. “You develop a thick skin and a sense of humor.”

Her daughter, Courser, never envisioned a TriMet career. She was a stay-at-home mom, before working as a school bus driver for seven years. She’s now been with TriMet for six years.

In 2019, Czwpieski moved into Courser’s home in Dayton.

Czwpieski doesn’t leave the house anymore, out of health concerns, so she spends much of her time cooped up painting gourds and rocks or doing other artwork in her room.

She worries about Courser, who is “unprotected” out there. “Those germs float through the air and you’re confined on a bus,” she said.

When Courser gets home, she strips off her clothes and washes her hands immediately.

Czwpieski uses hand sanitizer in her own home, even if she’s just going to the kitchen.

When not painting, she watches TV, wondering whether that will continue , during the pandemic. If actors, too, won’t be able to be on set. “When are these things going to collapse?” she asks.

Scott Qazzaz said he installed a shower curtain to keep him safe, but TriMet told him to remove it

TRIMET PROCEDURE

Since March 24, at least 26 times, a TriMet operator has picked up the phone and called in a COVID-19 related concern.

Those calls were prompted by someone appearing sick on a bus, an operator feeling ill, a rider making a claim aboard a bus or train about the virus, or other concerns.

On March 26, TriMet codified a standard operating procedure for what to do if a bus is believed to contain an elevated risk of COVID-19 exposure.

“Without entering the bus, while wearing gloves and safety glasses or face shield, tape a quarantine sign on the inside of the front door glass with the print facing out,” the document states, in part.

On a Line 14 bus on March 28, a 27-year-old passenger reportedly spat on a bus operator and proclaimed, “Now you’re going to get the corona.”

That incident wasn’t logged as a COVID-19 concern, Altstadt said, because a dispatcher didn’t categorize it as such.

Altstadt said that bus was taken out of service and cleaned.

She said the number of drivers out on COVID-19 leave crested twice so far during the pandemic at roughly 17% of the total workforce, more than double the average rate of operators on sick leave. Altstadt said from October through March 17, that rate was roughly 8%.

The significant reduction in available employees hasn’t affected service due to April 5 cuts to bus and rail frequency. No bus or train has been cancelled due to a shortage, she said.

“They’re out there on the frontlines and I understand it’s scary,” Altstadt said of bus and rail workers.

The agency thus far has just the one confirmed positive case, she said, while adding “I wish we had zero.”

Still frames taken from a video by TriMet show workers performing nightly cleaning on buses and MAX trains. Dave Killen / staff - TriMet nightly cleaning TriMetTriMet

COMMUNICATION

Courser, Hansen and other operators see the death toll at some large transit agencies and have watched viral videos showing transit-related COVID-19 scares.

An operator in Detroit died after posting a video in which he drew attention to a passenger coughing without covering her mouth. More than 50 New York City bus drivers have died of COVID-19 so far, and thousands more are believed to be infected.

Locally, union officials, when presented with the number of operators who are currently on COVID-19 related leave from TriMet, said they were unaware of those figures.

“It sounds like you have more information than we do at this point,” Jon Hunt, vice president of the ATU Local 757 said Friday.

Hunt said communication between the union and TriMet remains an issue.

“At the end of the day I just want to make sure our people are safe,” he said.

Some of TriMet’s actions, like temporarily banning cash payments, have backfired, he said.

Some operators report that customers not used to paying with Hop transit cards linger near operators, putting them at risk.

“It’s just this wonkiness where we want to protect the operators,” he said, “and on the flip side we’re creating more problems.”

Courser said she’s growing frustrated with apparently homeless riders on her route who lug large bags of cans and cough near her.

The cash ban led to an influx in ridership, she said, even as TriMet subsequently instituted a 10- to 15-rider per bus limit. “All of a sudden we saw a wave of people we’ve never seen before,” she said.

Similar concerns about exposure led Scott Qazzaz to install the see-through shower curtain on his bus.

TriMet said it plans to install plastic safety barriers, which it already added to half of its 700-bus fleet, on all vehicles by the end of July.

On Friday, TriMet announced it would encourage all riders to wear face coverings. It expects to receive another 11,000 reusable, washable cloth face masks to distribute to operators on Monday.

In the meantime, Courser said she’ll still be out there driving through what she describes as an “apocalyptic” setting on some days, with traffic sometimes nonexistent and businesses are closed from downtown Beaverton to Forest Grove.

She still loves her job.

And she has a message to those few riders who remain. “We don’t want to be out there driving in this unsafe environment, but we’re forced to in a way. So be kind.”

-- Andrew Theen; atheen@oregonian.com; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen

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