Rider Spotlight: Ed Vadnais

News Articles
02/18/2005

Rider Spotlight: Ed Vadnais
AC Transit Marketing
02/18/2005

At the age of four Ed Vadnais became a lifelong AC Transit rider. It helped that both his parents drove buses for the Key Route System, the precursor to AC Transit. On the way home from school each day Ed would ride his mother’s Line 88 bus down to Market St., then go around the corner to San Pablo Ave. and transfer to his father’s Line 72 bus to reach his Berkeley home. “I’ve always been fascinated by buses, and riding them was fun from the very beginning.”

At the age of ten, when AC Transit began selling monthly passes, Ed would ride all over the system and explore the East Bay. Then he went on to learn other Bay Area transit systems. “I used to know the routes of every transit system in the Bay Area by heart.” Although he may not have all their routes memorized anymore, Ed regularly rides BART, MUNI, VTA, SamTrans, County Connection, Wheels, Vallejo Transit, Yolo County Transit and Amtrak.

Retired after 30 years with Luckys Stores, Ed uses public transit exclusively. For a guy with no car though, he gets around an awful lot. He shops at Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton, Sunvalley Mall in Concord, and even Solano Mall up in Fairfield. He recently rode to San Jose to see the new park on 10th St, to Sacramento to visit Old Town, and to San Francisco for a Transbay Taskforce meeting where he is an active member.

While he rides, Ed enjoys his music the way the young folks do. “I use my PDA to listen to music while I’m riding. I like all kinds of music, jazz, country, rap, pop, classical, opera, Cajun, Celtic, rock, I like all kinds of things. My friends share their music with me and I’m always finding something new from them that I like.”

While riding our fleet, Ed has been collecting a fleet of his own. He started with a toy GM bus 25 years ago, and had it detailed to match AC Transit’s colors with a little help from the AC Transit Maintenance Dept. His fleet recently grew to five vehicles, when he was presented with a scale model of an AC Transit MCI coach, just like the ones he rides to the City on the SB line.

So if you’ve ever wondered if it’s possible to live well in the Bay Area without a car, Ed is living proof that you can. He’ll show you how you can do it too if you ask him, because he’s also one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Just be sure to share an mp3 file of your favorite music with him…

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