How Manteca Transit Champions Community Involvement with Public Works Manager – Transit, Juan Portillo

00:00 Stop Requested.
00:01 Levi McCollum: Welcome to Stop Requested, the podcast where we discuss everything transit
00:05 Levi McCollum: I’m your co host, Levi McCollum, director of operations at ETA Transit.
00:10 Christian Londono: And I’m your co host Christian Londono, Senior customer Success Manager at ETA Transit.
00:22 Christian Londono: Hi, Levi. Good afternoon. Welcome to Stop Requested.
00:25 Christian Londono: How you doing today?
00:26 Levi McCollum: I’m doing very well and I am very pumped about this episode.
00:30 Levi McCollum: This is going to be a good one.
00:32 Levi McCollum: This is our second interview that we’ve had with an individual from the transit field and specifically with a transit agency. This week we’re going to be talking with Juan Portillo, who is the public works Manager transit at the city of Manteca. Juan, how are you doing?
00:51 Juan Portillo: Juan? Hello Levi. Hello, Christian. I’m doing great. Thank you for having me.
00:54 Juan Portillo: Thanks for joining us, Juan. Today I’d really like to dive into more than just the A to B side of public transportation, where we’re moving people from a location to another location.
01:04 Levi McCollum: We want to get to the human side of public transportation in today’s conversation. But before we get there, I just want to, you know, ask you if you could, if you’d share a little bit about your journey in transit, you know, what inspired you to get into the field and what keeps you passionate about it.
01:29 Juan Portillo: All right, Levi. Yeah, that sounds good. So I became a supervisor in 2001 in Santa Clara county, which was with Access Paratransit. I was out of the Marine Corps, out of the military for two weeks. I picked up the newspaper and seen an advertising for a job that said dispatch center supervisor paratransit. Not knowing too much about paratransit, I went to the interview and heard the CEO and the managers talk about what paratransit was and I decided to take the job. I spent 15 years with that agency in paratransit, ADA paratransit, you know, working with people with disabilities, older adults, low income persons, some veterans. And I kind of fell in love with the part with the seniors and the people with disabilities just because you can tell that they actually depended on your work. Right? There was like a big why when you went to work and then when you went home, you kind of felt good. So I spent 15 years in paratransit in, in Santa Clara Valley, which was about a million trips per year, 3,000 trips per day. I started as the reservationist and dispatch supervisor overseeing the contractors, which we had about four or five contractors. So my job was to oversee the dispatchers, the reservationist, and also the companies that did all the operations for the agency. Spent 15 years there. Finally decided to move a little bit east of San Jose, California and I started working for a county transit with fixed route commuter routes and paratransit. I did two years there learning the grants, how to more on the grants, the reporting and doing some, I guess you want to say, some route planning. Fell in love with that part. I’ve decided operations is not for me no more. I want to move into working on some of the, of the, I guess you want to say, the admin part of the company. I was living in the city of Manteca during that time and then I seen the ad that said a position was open for a transit supervisor for transit and I, I really didn’t know that the city had a transit system. I thought it was just a couple of small little vehicles working more with seniors and people with disabilities. So I applied, realized that they only had three routes and some paratransit, really light, nothing major. But at that time the person that gave me the interview was a, he went to Stanford, he graduated from Stanford. He was a civil engineer. He was kind of looking for a transit person, all hands on. He didn’t know much about transit, so he wanted somebody with experience. And then he just gave me the big picture, the big, you know, the goals for the city. And it kind of aligned with me where this was a chance for me to, to expand the transit system and Santa Clara was more like maintaining the system. But here was more of, hey, let’s make this system bigger. We are at the basics and we have a chance here to grow and give the rents of Manteca a better system. So with that being said, I joined city Mantega in 2018. So I’ve been there now, I believe going on seven years. We did some, you know, I purchased some land for the city, we’re bringing some ace, um, which is a train system to the, to Mantika and bunch of other projects that I want to talk about. But with that being said, now I oversee, we still have a contractor, I oversee the contractor and I do all the grants for the city for transit, all the reporting and yeah, so about 24 years in transit.
05:41 Levi McCollum: Wow, that is impressive. That is quite the resume. And it sounds like you’ve had experience in a lot of different areas. So I’m sure you get the sense of the impact that public transit can have on people’s lives. Right? Especially working in that demand responsive ADA service and kind of working your way around the administrative parts as well. When was that moment that you realized just how impactful public transit can be and how your work is a positive in the community.
06:18 Juan Portillo: Yeah, I’ll start with the paratransit side, the seniors and people with disabilities. I got so many stories in 15 years. I’m going to try to keep it, you know, short, but a big one is I just, they’re going to dialysis and they’re going to the medical appointments, they’re, they’re going out trying to be independent. My favorite part is at the end when the 86, 86 year old lady senior tells you, oh my God, honey, thank you so much. Actually felt better than any supervisor, manager or, or director that ever gave me a thank you. Just because you knew that you made that person’s day and they got to, you know, a location. But the, the new one in Manteca for me was the youth, right? The youth ridership Manteca, the kids, the students didn’t know about the transit system. They seen the small cutaways because we have smaller cutaways. They thought that was more for seniors or people with disabilities. But they didn’t know that, that we have a transit system. They know we had bus stops. They didn’t know that we had a bunch of bus shelters that we go around the city. So when I got there in 2018, I did a, like an outreach event and I found out when I was asking them, they were giving me, they didn’t know. So in 2019, early I got it. My team member, she went to high school in Manteca and she was helping me with some marketing, some grants. So what we decided is who’s in Manteca during our service hours. What happens with Mantika is a lot of our residents, they commute to the Bay Area because the Bay Area, you have higher paying jobs, you have the Silicone Valley and then Mantika, you can, at that time you can still buy a home for a decent, right. It was reasonable to live there to purchase your home. So we get a lot of commuters. So Mantika, about 4am everybody leaves Mantika, they drive to the Bay and then they come back around 6pm. So the goal for me was, okay, who’s here from our service hours is, you know, they say 6am all the way to 7pm who is here? Seniors. Okay. Seniors already know that we have the, because they’ve been, our ridership shows that they know about our system. But the youth, we were only doing 200 youth trips a month during that time. And but our youth, our high school kids, this is what the system’s for, right? So then I said I want to do a whole outreach. I want to spend the whole 2019 going out there and talking to, we got three different high schools in Manteca, all three schools. I want to talk to the district. I want Matika Transit, which is the transit division, I want us to be at the seat during the safe route to schools. We have a committee with the city and the school district. I want transit to have a chair at those meetings. We went to every freshman orientation, sophomore. We went to all the events. We did some trips to the football games. We even made a fun map. A fun map is a map that we made and we showed every bowling alley, the gym, the library, the Boys and Girls Club. But, but let me go with the Boys and Girls Club because you said like the impact on the human side, right?
09:45 Levi McCollum: Yes.
09:46 Juan Portillo: Boys and Girls Club in Manteca did not have a bus stop in front of their location in California. The Boys and Girls Club is really important especially for low income families.
10:00 Christian Londono: I’ll talk about access not, not being able to get directly to, you know, such a border location.
10:06 Juan Portillo: Yes, the Boys and Girls Club. These kids, you know this is after school program. Some of the mothers are working two jobs or you know how the kids gonna get there. So the first big move that I did that nobody, I got some thank yous, I’m not gonna lie. But the biggest, how can I say, I guess winning, winning for me was I was able to tweak one of the routes and, and put a bus up at the Boys and Girls Club. Then what we did is said I know these are low income families. Let’s do a free fare program where we’re gonna give them a pass. It’s a 10 ride pass. We got a grant for that and we’re gonna give them a 10 ride pass for any families that need a bus pass or they can, you know, for. So you know it’s going to help them out. They’re gonna also have a bus pass. So it was, it was, it was a bus stop. Now they can get there and now they can get a free ride pretty much to the, to the location. So we spent a lot of time with the youth and the high school and our ridership now is the highest it has ever been. We just hit 20,000 riders for 24, which it doesn’t seem like a lot but we only have four fixed routes. We have 86,000 people but at the same time 20,000, if you do the math between the kids and the youth, they’re, the buses are getting packed. The buses are getting, we had to go from the small cutaways to get a bigger bus, which you guys in Florida, I’m lucky. In Manteca, we’re about 30 minutes away from Livermore, which is Gillig. It’s the bus, Gillig, right? Yep. So we went from a small cutaway, those white small ones that the kids thought they were for the seniors only, to a traditional 35 footer, 29 foot traditional transit bus. And now they’re seeing this bus. And let me tell you about the ETA Spot app with the real time. That’s something that they were always telling us about. How, you know, I was, I always ask how can, how can we make this system better for you guys? I want to hear from you guys. I don’t want me to make these plans. I want you guys to make this plan. Okay? We want a real time app where we can see the bus. Like the Bay Area. Right. When I say the Bay Area, we’re talking about San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, where a lot of people move from there to Manteca. Absolutely. Right. A real time bus. Now they’re able to see the bus and they know, hey, if they’re at the basketball practice and they can look at the app, oh, the driver’s going to be there, you know, showing seven minutes, he’s on time. Let me get out there, I gotta go coach. Or if they’re at the library, or if they’re at the coffee shop or if they’re at the Boys and Girls Club, at the gym, whatever. Now they have that real time. So that’s something that we heard and we implemented. Right. ETA Spot is helping us with that, that tool for the community. Another one was that they wanted a bigger bus. Those small buses, I don’t know if they were embarrassed of the small buses, thinking it was more for, but they wanted a traditional bus and that’s when the city purchased its first Gillig bus, first traditional big 35 footer. I also got a 29 footer, but in 2020, right before COVID, I thought our ridership was going to grow so much that I, I said, no, we need a 35 footer because we’re gonna better get some more seats so we can fit. And plus you got standing room in those buses. I’ve been kind of high. I went kind of high. I did a 35. I didn’t do the traditional 40. Most transit agencies do the 40. I went, got the 35 footer, a little bit smaller, but it had, I think 29 seats. You can fit in there. 29 passengers plus standing. So, yeah, it was one of those things where you see that the kids had to walk on the streets where sometimes there’s no sidewalks, right. Because developments that happen in Manteca where the builder would put a sidewalk and then there’s no sidewalk. So, you know, had kids walking here in Manteca, it gets really hot sometimes. It gets in the hundreds, you know, so kids are walking in the heat, in the rain. Now they can jump on the bus. We have the app, we got bike racks in the front, and it’s neat to see them take it. We promote clean buses. And I tell them the AC’s on in the summer, you have this ETA. You know, I tell the families that the buses have cameras. You can also download this Spot ETA app. You can track your bus, your, your kid’s bus, because you know what time he’s gonna get on. So yeah, so with the human side, it was neat working with the seniors to get them to their very important appointments. Right? Because they’re the seniors and paratransit, they’re going to an appointment that they waited six months to get this appointment to get, have surgery. Right. Or some people just work, you know, unfortunately, in paratransit, I met a lot of people that were just like us professionals. But maybe on the way home, they got into an accident. Unfortunately, they are not able to drive no more. Now they have to depend on paratransit. So for me, those are the riders that we want to make sure that we work hard. And it starts with the whole team. It starts with the driver. It starts with the first, it starts with the reservations. When they first take that call, they need to make sure that they listen to the, to the, to the rider and get the right information. You know, they can be on the scooter today, then they’re ready to scooter. Yeah, but we should still ask. You never know. They might, their mobility might, might change. And we send a sedan to this appointment where now they’re in the scooter. We need a van now. It causes, you know, a big issue for them, for the hospital, the doctor and then the driver, making sure the driver follows instructions. If something changes, call in dispatch, ask for help. So overall, you know, you have, for me, the, the most beautiful thing is just when they say thank you and you can tell they are really thankful and because we look at just transportation. But these, these riders really depend on their trip to be there on time and to make sure that we, you know, get them there to the locations, absolutely.
16:22 Levi McCollum: You know what really impresses me about what you said there is how in touch you are with the community. I think in all those stories that you gave us, the community was first. In my experience in talking with some colleagues around the nation, I think that transit planning sometimes ends up being top down, where you might get the planner and the CEO and the COO saying, hey, this is how it’s going to be. Yours seems quite the opposite. You are starting with the rider, right, and their perspective comes first. Would you say that’s accurate?
17:02 Juan Portillo: Yeah, very accurate. Because at the end of the day we are in this business because of them. Right. So for example, we’re doing our short-range transit plan right now. Other agencies, I know they do one, two workshops. I already held four, I’m just going to do probably another four more. But you know, I’m supposed to get this plan ready by hopefully by July to turn it into our council of governments, which is our MPO here in San Joaquin County. I did onboard surveys. So I wanted to hear from the people actually on the bus. We want to get their input, their comments, their feedback. So we did those surveys and then I did another survey that we had six months on our website and we posted on our social medias and we went to the street fair, which is a big fair here in Manteca, the pumpkin fair. We went to all the different locations to take the survey because I wanted to hear also from the community. How can I get maybe them, is there something we can do to get them onto our public system? Maybe it’s just to take the car to get oil change, but on the way home they want to take a transit bus. And then the last one, to be honest with you, is like for me it’s the most important one is presenting to my city council. Luckily our mayor, he is 100% supportive of transit. He believes in transit. And with his support and with the council support, it really helps to make some changes. Right. Because at the end of the day, we don’t want to just put buses on the system that are empty. Right. So okay, if we do want more frequent service, which routes? Now how do you get that data? Now let me tell you how ETA Spot has helped me with some of that data. I don’t know if it’s too early for this but for example, right now I’m using the APCs which is the automatic passenger counters. Now I’ll be honest with you, when I went to Stanislaus County, I had a question about a bus stop and what the manager at that time told me was, hey, you got to ask the drivers for, for that information. Me being in this business, I can ask one driver, he’s gonna tell me one thing, I’ll ask another driver, he’s telling me something different. I’ll ask a third and I’m gonna, I’m gonna be all over the place. Right where we didn’t have real time information, which was the automatic passenger counters. Right. So the APCs is really important for route planning because if a mayor calls me today and says, Juan, how many people get on this bus? I can run the report and I can say, mayor, for the year, for the month, for the day, here’s how many people got on this bus stop and how many people got off at this bus stop. Which for me, now that I’m doing this route planning, there was a bus stop that we want to add because we have a new youth center that’s happening that just opened up on a certain street. But then we have another bus stop less than a mile away but using APCs, we looked and it’s, you know, right there, ain’t that many pickups there. Why are there, why we’re only having a few pickup and drop offs. It might make sense just to move this bus stop a little bit to this new center where, and this center is going to be awesome. They’re going to be having podcasts, they have a room to show the kids how to do podcasts. They’re going to have an art room, they have a garden outside. It’s just bunch of stuff that kids can do. The youth, I think it’s from 7th graders to high school. Wow, they got a band room in there. Yeah, they got a band room in there. So I’m like, no, I want to, I want to go there. We need to stop there. This is where we need to get our youth to this location. So yeah, a mile sounds, sounds, ain’t that bad. But when you’re talking about a seventh grader, man, why have them walk that mile if we’re able to make that, that little adjustment there. So it’s on the same street. It’s just now stopping in front of this place. You know, I took my safety manager, made sure it was safe. But anyways, that’s how the tools are able to help with route planning and just making, making more educated, I guess, not guesses—just more real information, right. Good data that you have. And then you can, from there, I always talk to my team. What do you think? What do you think? What can we do here? That’s a great idea. Why are you shaking your head? You don’t agree with him. Oh, you do? Okay, so why you shaking your head? Okay, that’s a good point. So it kind of gets to the whole point where you have to get not just the riders, you gotta get the dispatchers, everybody. And in Santa Clara, everybody in that conference room was making all the big ideas, but then they never came and talked to dispatch. And that’s something that really upset me. I’d tell them, hey, guys, did we even talk to dispatch? How do we know? You say you can make it more efficient, but we didn’t talk to them. Oh, you know, Juan, you’re right, you’re right, you’re right. So anyways, it’s getting everybody, the whole team, and then the residents. I don’t want anybody at the end to say, I didn’t know there was a workshop. If you Google Manteca short range transit plan, you’ll see that we have articles in the newspaper talking about, hey, they’re going to be hosting two workshops. They’re going to be hosting two workshops. This is what they’re going to be talking about. Right. So making sure that everybody’s aware. On our website, I got social media for the city, we’re constantly posting the flyers. Celine, she made a, what’s the one that you take a picture of the code, the QR code. Yep, yep, one of those. And you can do the survey right there on your phone.
23:05 Levi McCollum: Yeah, that sounds really collaborative.
23:07 Juan Portillo: Yeah, you have to, you have to, because at the end of the day it’s their plan and they might give you something that you weren’t thinking about. And, and then, you know, at the end, that’s what’s going to help.
23:20 Levi McCollum: And just to go back to your point about the APC data and your short range transit plan, you know, is that something that you feel that, you know, you were able to use the data and maybe you had a surprise finding at the end of it. Was there something there that really piqued your interest? Like, I did not expect to see this in the data after looking at it, you know, the APC.
23:46 Juan Portillo: Yes. So what we did is the last short range transit plan we didn’t have, it’s a five year plan. Five years ago we didn’t have APCs, so we hired a consultant to ride the bus and do like ride checks or, you know, kind of tell us where people got on and off. I think it was a week and a half or two weeks. And it’s totally different from what we have now because now what we did is, I said, okay, let’s grab that same week or the same time frame. I just don’t recall. I think it was two weeks. Let’s grab the same two weeks on the APCs that we did in 2019. And you can see, I can see now the difference. That’s not even close to what we did in 2019. But then that was only a two-week mark. Then I want to do every month, I want to say, okay, high school time. We know high school’s from January all the way to May, and then we got a break, and then school starts again in August. Okay, I know the cold weather, so I can break it down by months or quarters. And then what I did is I just broke out the whole year. I want to see where are we stopping the entire year and which bus stop. I wish I would have seen more usage at the Boys and Girls Club. I was kind of upset on the Boys and Girls Club. I thought we were having a lot more ridership. Maybe they’re still too young, or parents are driving them, or maybe it’s just drop off/pickup. But for sure, what I do know is the high schools—all three of them—are seeing morning pickups and again in the afternoon, which is kind of neat to see. Now we’re going to do a challenge—who can get more rides on our buses? I have to be honest with you, they’re all new. We’ve got new buses, we have older buses, I just put another order in for three more. We keep them clean. They get cleaned every night, they have to. I inspect them. I’ll come in in the morning, or have a staff, or a driver. You know, most of my drivers live in Manteca. They’re retired. And they’ll say, Juan, let me give you one story a driver just told me this week. They put this rim on because they replaced the tire, but look how dirty it looks. I gotta drive around the city with this rim. Oh, don’t worry about it. Here, I can just go get my little bucket, some water, I’ll clean it real good. So I’ll—thank you. But they should’ve done that at nighttime. Oh, they’re probably in a hurry. I’ll get with the general manager. I’ll get with them. No worries. But they have attention to detail, and they’re the ones that motivate me. The drivers are the ones that get me.
26:32 Christian Londono: Wait, Juan, you just said that the driver goes and gets a bucket and cleans his own tires?
26:38 Juan Portillo: No, no, I did—no, I did. No, sir. No, no, no. Just this one time, this was one time last week. And the reason why is because this driver and I—man, I don’t know if I can say his name, but he is—he’s so awesome. People think that he’s, oh, he’s just picky or this and that, but he—you should see the way he, the way he drives. When I first got to Manteca, I got so motivated. He goes, man, Juan, I want those passengers to get on my bus. I don’t want them to get on, you know…
27:09 Christian Londono: He was proud of his work.
27:10 Juan Portillo: Yeah, he was proud of his work. We did, I remember in November—I started in September 2018—November, we did, it’s called “Stuff the Bus” for Thanksgiving. We collaborate with the Second Harvest Food Bank of Manteca. Me and him were passing out flyers in front of Food 4 Less, which is a grocery store. We pass out flyers listing the items Second Harvest wants, like turkeys or canned foods. So while we were there handing out flyers to people walking in, you know, sometimes a son or somebody would drop off their grandma right at the front door—in the red curb area. They wouldn’t park; they’d just stop right there in the front. Well, this driver would go to the car, put his arm out to help the lady get up, close the door, grab the shopping cart, give it to her, and then hand her a flyer. Not just once, not twice, not just in front of me—he did that all weekend. Back then, we did three days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. He treated every person, even though they weren’t even a rider, just a civilian. Like he was doing paratransit. And he was a paratransit driver for many years. So, yeah. Anyways, I forgot what the question was. Was it about APCs again?
28:37 Levi McCollum: Yeah, it was about APCs. But what you’re explaining there just shows how much pride the operator has in the work and in what the vehicle looks like. I’m just really in awe of the passion that it sounds like you and the rest of the operators and staff there at the City of Manteca have. It’s really invigorating.
29:05 Juan Portillo: And they get on me, but they get on—
29:08 Christian Londono: I like what you said about the paratransit driver that became a fixed-route driver, bringing along that customer service you learn in ADA, right. You’re doing a lot of curb-to-curb or door-to-door, taking care of very fragile individuals, so you have that high sense of customer service. Then he’s continuing that best practice in the fixed-route side. I thought it was very interesting and also very commendable.
29:38 Juan Portillo: Yeah, it is, it is. And you know, I gotta be honest with you, my grandma lived to 104. I treat every rider I see, every senior, as my grandma, right. A person that is somebody’s mom or grandma, and if they need to get somewhere, and we mess their ride up, we mess with their life, right? So it’s not like we’re just—it’s not like we’re just transporting. It’s, you know, I gotta be honest with you guys. I went from San Jose—I moved to Sacramento for three months. I wanted to spend time with my grandmother; at that time she was getting older. I spent three months working in the garbage business. I was working for BFI. The first month, I liked it. I was like, oh my God, I’m getting a bonus just for showing up to work safely. It’s a private company, so you get a lot of bonuses and pizza parties and all this stuff. The second month I started realizing, man, this is so stressful—just as it is in paratransit. By the third month—but I wanted to pass my probation, probation was three months. I was doing roll-off, which is those big construction containers, like 10-yard, 20-yard, 30- or 40-yard. The truck picks it up and takes it away. I started realizing all my stress was about garbage, right. So let me give one example: “Juan, we need to get this container removed because it’s downtown Sacramento and the construction company is about to pave the street. The container is in the way, and they can’t pave unless we remove it. But it’s not on the schedule until Monday.” So I’d call the drivers—none of them were free. Then the sales guy would call. “We’ve got to help this big construction company.” So I’d be chasing drivers for help. It’s a lot of stress—over garbage. At least in my business now, it’s about people. Making them independent, or keeping them independent, and it’s just different. You have that “why,” you have the dignity, you feel good at the end of the day. I’ll be honest with you—I just like it. Some people don’t, but if you work with me, you gotta like that customer focus. If not, you need to find somewhere else to work, because you’re not going to be able to work for the City of Manteca in the transit division. We are here for them. And I have a hard time with my contractor sometimes—I don’t want to say I’m tough, but we have standards, right, because of the people we’re dealing with. It’s not because I just want a clean bus. It matters to the passenger who sits down. If it’s dirty, that’s not fair to them. They just want to get to their destination. So overall, you gotta keep pushing, keep pushing. And at the end of the day, you can go home and look at your kids and say, hey, I did the right thing today. A lot of people might look at transit a certain way, but it’s our job to make sure the transit systems are there for the people. Clean buses say a lot—I want everybody to ride, not just, you know—
33:31 Levi McCollum: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And actually what you’re describing there reminds me of something my former boss, along with Christian, Clinton Forbes, used to say—that transit provides access to opportunity. And I think what you’ve described is exactly that, right? You’re moving people around, but there’s a purpose, there’s a “why.” People want to go see their family, or they need to go to work, or get groceries. It makes you feel like coming to work is in service to the community. And that’s what it is, right—public service. I’d like to ask you, though, what do you think the future of Manteca Transit is, or should be? If you could wave a magic wand, what would you like Manteca Transit or the City of Manteca to look like?
34:26 Juan Portillo: All right, awesome. Let me share a bit about Manteca. We have about 86,000 people, we have a new hotel called the Great Wolf Lodge—there are two in California, one by Disneyland and one in Manteca. Then there’s a family zone being developed. The city’s looking at maybe a Topgolf, a bunch of attractions for families. That’s the “family zone.” My goal is to be ready for that. When it’s ready, I want our transit system—well, the system I oversee—to be ready as well. People are already asking for something between Great Wolf Lodge and Bass Pro Shops. You guys have Bass Pro, right? The big camping store. We have a whole center there, and they want buses going back and forth, so maybe Dad can go pick up fishing or camping gear, then head back to the resort. The resort is a big indoor water slide hotel—really nice. We’re also getting a passenger train, ACE, to stop at the Manteca Transit Center, connecting from Modesto to Manteca to the Bay Area—Pleasanton, Fremont, Santa Clara, San Jose. It’s mostly for people commuting to work. We’re purchasing land next to the transit center to expand parking, building an overcrossing that goes over the train tracks with elevators, a big platform. The city is a big part of it. The transit division has purchased three parcels. So when the trains come, we want earlier bus service for those 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. trains, and also service for when they come back late from the Bay Area. And with all this growth, I want a dependable system. I don’t want just growth in ridership but our on-time performance dropping. Then you’re not dependable. I want us there at 5:00 if we say 5:00. Paratransit is harder because you deal with folks maybe just out of dialysis, feeling weak, but we adjust for that in operations. The dependable part is big. If we say 5:00, we’re not leaving at 4:58. That’s why I use ETA Spot. It shows me if a driver left early. If they did, we retrain them or pull them aside, because we can’t leave stops early. It’s so important. Now we have three big Gillig buses around Manteca—we never had those before. We used to have five smaller cutaways. For you guys, maybe that’s not a big deal, but for us, we came from five small white cutaways. Now you see three big buses, new, 2024 or 2021 models. They’re clean, they have AVAs (automated voice announcements), so passengers hear the next stop. We’ve got TVs in there for advertising or service messages, instead of plastering the bus with signs saying “Don’t do this, don’t do that.”
39:31 Levi McCollum: Wow, that’s incredible what you’re doing. It sounds like you’re combining technology, ground-up community input, support from city leaders—really fascinating. I wish you the best of luck. It sounds like growth is the name of the game in Manteca, with the train, the ridership, everything. As we wrap up, what’s one thing you wish people—maybe listeners who aren’t from Manteca—knew about your system? What’s the lifeblood that keeps it going?
40:19 Juan Portillo: Some see 80,000 population and think you’re transporting only 80 riders, or that a bus is empty sometimes. But that’s transit. You might have just dropped somebody off at a doctor’s appointment or are about to pick up 20 high school kids. We serve seniors, youth, people with disabilities—that’s huge. One story is a legally blind young man who’s super talented musically—plays multiple instruments, sings in a few bands, wins awards. When a council member and I rode the bus, he boarded with his dad, then traveled independently. Our AVA system calls out stops, so he knows exactly when he’s nearing his stop. Before, drivers had to say, “We’re almost there.” Now he can text his school counselor to meet him. That’s crucial for independence. Some might not need AVA, but for someone like him, it’s huge. Another example: a nurse called me to thank us for offering free youth passes because she works long hours in the Bay Area and her son was walking. Now he rides the bus, checks it on the app, meets friends. It’s a relief for the family. There’s also a country song by Larry Fleet—“The Things I Take for Granted.” The video shows a bus driver picking up a veteran, a senior missing his wife, a woman on oxygen, a young person in a scooter. One of our drivers said, “That’s Route 1!” It shows how transit helps so many, and at the end of the video, the driver goes home to his family. That’s what I want for my team—serve the community and then get home safe. I showed that to our city leadership, and some teared up because it hits home. It’s the human side of transit.
49:06 Levi McCollum: All these stories—super inspirational and powerful. It shows how transit ties together people of different backgrounds, ages, and abilities into a real melting pot. Thank you for coming on the show and sharing these stories. I hope our listeners enjoyed this as much as Christian and I have. It’s clear you really have a purpose in serving the community. Wishing you and your city all the best. Thanks again for joining us.
50:13 Juan Portillo: Yeah. Christian, Levi, I appreciate you guys. We’re all in this together, and in the end, we’ve got a good purpose. I appreciate you, because we all have standards and demands, but it’s for the rider. We just want to do the right thing for them.