As over 1,500 Valley Transportation Authority employees strike to protest for higher wages and disability leave, there will be reduced services in Santa Clara County, leaving many high school students and commuters without public transportation. 

Routes to Mountain View High School, Foothill and De Anza College, El Camino Hospital and Fremont Union High School district have been affected. According to VTA’s October 2024 data, over 104,000 people on an average weekday use their buses for their commutes in Santa Clara County. 

Amalgamated Transit Union Local 265 is striking against VTA’s proposed negotiations, which include the termination of an employee after one year of disability, a changed holiday pay and a change in their status as “at-will employees,” according to a memo by Amalgamated Transit Union 265 President Rajvinder Singh.

According to the VTA website, they offered a wage increase of 9% over a three-year period, which places VTA operators as the second-highest paid in the Bay Area and as the fifth-highest paid in the nation.

Mountain View High junior Jordan Landaverde Alarcon uses the VTA bus roughly three days a week to get to school from near Whisman Station and said he has already noticed the impact of the strike. His friend didn’t have transportation to Mountain View High until his sibling could give him a ride at 11:30 a.m.

“[Some families] aren’t able to afford having a car,” Landaverde Alarcon said. “Especially living further into Mountain View, some of the housing tends to be a little bit cheaper, which is part of why they commute.”

In a Los Altos Town Crier article, Mountain View-Los Altos Union School District Superintendent Eric Volta said that MVLA will be sympathetic to those who rely on public transportation since the strike would cause “considerable hardship on students.”

As MVLA only has two district buses, Landaverde Alarcon suggested that the district use temporary school buses to serve the Whisman Station area and other frequent commuter hubs during the strike.

In the long run, Landaverde Alarcon hopes to see a VTA route designated for Mountain View High students as he’s noticed that the VTA buses are often packed with other commuters.

“I feel privileged that I have the opportunity in this time to carpool with other people, but it’ll definitely impact a lot of people who rely on [the bus] as their first means of commuting,” Landaverde Alarcon said.