Sitting still on LeeTran route 140

COURTESY PHOTO Bus driver Tom Marinell navigates through trafSEE fic on LeeTran route 140. On the outskirts of Edison Mall's parking lot, people were clustered by a few shelters and benches, coming and going on city busses. Route 140, driven by Tom Marinell, left there Friday at a quarter til noon, heading north on U.S. 41.

Among a handful of passengers was 43-year-old Jay Halley, on the ride home to the Salvation Army after going to apply for a job. Absorbed in his own thoughts, he looked at the window, but not out of it.

Mr. Marinell brought the bus to a halt near a boarded-up Long John Silver's, where two boys with skateboards and a girl got on together. They sat in back near Mr. Halley. A reporter asked them where they came from and where they were going. The boy sitting across the aisle, who said his name was Jon, offered, "We're going to take these two fine kids to school today and possibly sell some drugs."

The reporter wondered if this was not only sarcastic, but also true. He asked, "You wouldn't want me to print that though, would you?"

COURTESY PHOTO Bus driver Tom Marinell heads down U.S. 41 on his daily route. Jon, who looked maybe 13, but maybe 18, explained further: he was going to an "alternative" school near Hanson Street (Alternative Learning Center Central Middle School is the only one nearby), where his friends would go attend class and he would sell some marijuana to some other students. "After second hour when they get out of class, hopefully they'll want to buy some weed," he said, just before the bus stopped. He and the two others got off.

Mr. Halley, who hadn't been listening to any of this, suddenly noticed that he had gone too far and pulled the yellow cord to stop the bus. A few blocks down the road, Mr. Marinell turned right off U.S. 41 toward the Rosa Parks Transportation Center downtown.

Besides this short detour into the neighborhood a block south of downtown, most of 140's route stretches along busy U.S. 41. It goes as far as Coconut Point mall to the south, then back over the Caloosahatchee River and on to Merchants Crossing at the northern end. On workdays, Mr. Marinell, 68, starts at 4:30 a.m. and drives for 10 hours, getting a chance to stretch or eat on the go.

"I love starting out early and having a four-day work week," he said.

There are 130 city bus drivers, whom Mr. Marinell describes as "close knit." Sometimes they discuss work or traffic together. For instance, they hope Lee- Tran will provide service on more streets, with more frequent stops. And it bothers them when motorists pile up behind a bus, then pass it while people are getting off. "It happens out here four or five times per day," Mr. Marinell said. "A lot of people, they've just got that impatience about them. We all talk about that, and it happens to all of us."

Mr. Marinell has been a city bus driver in Lee County for 12 years, and before that drove semi-trucks for beverage companies, including Pepsi. His youngest son, 24-year-old Dante, drives a LeeTran bus designed to carry the disabled.

Originally from West Virginia, Mr. Marinell moved to Florida 45 years ago after getting out the Army and lives in Cape Coral with his second wife.

As one might expect, he knows many regular passengers from the 140 route, like Mary Driggers. She travels from home in North Fort Myers to her job at Dunkin' Donuts on the south side of town.

"I haul Mary a couple of times a week," Mr. Marinell said.

Other people show up once or twice and disappear.

"You get to meet so many different people," he said. "All walks of life."

As he drove north over the 41 bridge early afternoon, Tiffany Linsenbach, 26, looked out the window with her 3-year-old son Logan. The river sparkled to the east and west and thunderclouds loomed above.

Tina Johnson, 48, sat near the front with her backpack and umbrella thinking about her husband, who is epileptic. "Hopefully I make it home before it pours," she said.

By the time Mr. Marinell had made it back downtown, the bus had become almost an empty shell. But before he left, 16 people piled on. "OK," Mr. Marinell said, checking his watch. "Let's go."

He drove down Union Street and by the Shop N Go on Broadway Street. From Victoria Avenue, he pulled the Goliath-sized wheel hand over hand, out onto U.S. 41 South, but was impeded by a maroon Mercury Grand Marquis taking what seemed like an eternity to pull into a Hess gas station on the adjacent corner. Mr. Marinell braked smoothly, giving a running man just enough time to make it on. Cologne wafted from one of the passengers.

Soon there were no seats left. One of the skateboarders from before, not Jon, got back on the bus with different friends and sat in back. Andrew Black, 35, held onto the overhead bar as the 140 re-entered South Fort Myers. He was going to cash an unemployment check and pay a phone bill.

Back at Edison Mall, the sun baked the shelters where another group of passengers waited with their paper passes and spare change to get on a cool bus headed somewhere else.