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Report for America is a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities.

New Safety Restrictions On Rockford City Buses

Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco
Bus Stop on East State Street

Due to the climbing positivity rate of COVID-19 in Winnebago County, this week the Rockford Mass Transit District is implementing restriction on some of its services.

 

 

Last month Rockford city bus drivers went down to City Hall to call for improved safety precautions on the buses. This month RMTD responded with some slight changes, but Jodi Williams, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1333, said she’s still worried. 

 

“There are still concerns. You know, we appreciate that the numbers have gone down." She added, "But we also know that they could go down a little further than the 14.”

 

So far, RMTD is reducing passenger capacity from 28 to 14, waiving fares and returning to rear door boarding. Some routes have also been reshuffled. Lisa Brown, the spokesperson for RMTD, also confirmed that bus drivers will not be receiving any kind of hazard pay.

 

  • Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco is a 2020 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project which is a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms.
Juanpablo covers environmental, substandard housing and police-community relations. He’s been a bilingual facilitator at the StoryCorps office in Chicago. As a civic reporting fellow at City Bureau, a non-profit news organization that focuses on Chicago’s South Side, Ramirez-Franco produced print and audio stories about the Pilsen neighborhood. Before that, he was a production intern at the Third Coast International Audio Festival and the rural America editorial intern at In These Times magazine. Ramirez-Franco grew up in northern Illinois. He is a graduate of Knox College.