Driver of the 210 Flex bus goes out of his way for passengers

The wheelchair door on Richard Roberts' bus will not stay closed this morning and, as he pulls into the parking lot at 7:28 a.m., it is swinging wildly over the right rear wheel.

Five students are waiting in the glass bus stop, and it is still cold and a little windy in front of Boss Ice Arena and Keaney Gymnasium. The parking lot is mostly empty, but will be full by 9 a.m.

Richard Roberts checks the traffic before making a left turn onto Plains Road.

A clean-shaven, gray-haired Roberts stops the bus and gets out. He walks around the rear and slams the door closed.

"All right,² he says with an upward hand motion, "let's go."

There are five RIPTA buses that run along the University of Rhode Island campus between 7:30 a.m. and 12:30 a.m. every weekday, and Roberts drives the 210 Flex bus, which also services Graduate Village. He has done so for two years, but spent the fall semester driving in Narragansett instead.

"I'm a man of the people," he says from behind dark oval sunglasses as he begins the first lap around campus. He takes a gulp of a Cumberland Farms' coffee, of which he drinks about six cups each morning. "I help people because it's my job."

By the end of his first lap around campus, near Flagg Road, he sees a woman getting out of her car and trying frantically to keep her bag and purse together while running toward the bus stop he had just passed. Roberts stops and opens the doors.

"I'm sooo sorry," the student says. "I was running late and I just left my lights on. I'm sorry I held you up."

"It's all right," Roberts says. "You don't have to run."

About six times on this first lap, Roberts gets out and slams closed the bus' wheelchair door, and each time he gets back into his seat with a smile and says, "It's something everyday, isn't it?"

After the first lap of the day, Roberts heads across Route 138 to Graduate Village for 7:55 a.m. Graduate Village, Roberts says, is the best pickup place on campus because the students are courteous and Roberts knows several regular passengers well. He gets out and hugs one student and chats with others while making sure that he is still on schedule. Because Roberts drives the Flex bus, he has some leeway with the route he takes around campus.

"Blue lines are limited; they have exact routes and exact times. But sometimes I just have one student on the bus so I'll cut though here," he says and points down a side road. "But only if I know where they're going."

Roberts wakes up each morning at 5 a.m., he says, eats Quaker Oats and watches the local news and sports before commuting from Johnston to Providence to pick up his bus at 6:35 a.m.

Roberts has a "terrible personal habit," he says; he smokes cigarettes. For about 20 years he has had the habit, aside from the year he quit. But even when he quit, just one bad day caused him to start smoking again.

"I'm an emotional guy," he says. "It was tough."

So now, at 8:30 a.m., he lights a Camel cigarette and stands next to the bus trying to figure out how to keep the wheelchair door closed. "I think I've isolated the problem," he says to his dispatcher on a walkie-talkie. He looks up at the door and notices a piece hanging down.

"Okay," the walkie-talkie says. "Just don't go over any bumps."

Roberts, though, decides not to take a chance and ties the door from the inside with a seatbelt.

Before noon, Roberts again gets a chance to show his dedication to "the people." During his break, a student stops the bus to ask about how she can get to Kingston Station. He asks if she is taking a train somewhere and she says she has to pick up her car, which was towed off the campus. And, although he is off duty, Roberts gladly takes her where she needs to go and walks her inside the gas station.

"As I said," he says. "I'm a man of the people."