Bus riders one big 'ohana to 55-year veteran driver

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer

Robert Asui thinks of Honolulu's bus riders as one big family. He's been part of it for more than 55 years.

Robert Asui met his wife on a Kaimuki route.

"On the bus, it's like a great big 'ohana," he said. "Everybody has a smile for you and a kind word. Oh yes, it was a good experience."

Asui started his career as a 17-year-old part-time trolley driver during World War II. After a short stint in the Army he returned to Honolulu and took a full-time job as a driver with the old Honolulu Rapid Transit, which operated a fleet of silent, emission-free, rubber-tire trolleys powered by overhead electric wires.

Since then he has been a steady driver on routes that included Kaimuki, 'Alewa Heights, St. Louis Heights and Wilhelmina Rise. For the last years of his career, when he had enough seniority to pick any route he wanted, Asui drove the No. 70 Lanikai/Maunawili route, a rural, ocean-view, low-stress line that's rarely crowded and used mostly by regulars in the neighborhood. "Best scenery, best people," he said.

In the early days, the hardest part of the job was keeping a large pole on the roof connected to the overhead electric line that provided power for the trolley. Get just a few feet off the route either way, he said, and you would have to stop, get out and push the heavy pole back into place.

By 1960, no longer restricted to power lines, HRT had converted to diesel-powered, stiff, stick-shift motor buses that were even harder on the drivers.

"And no air conditioning either," Asui said.

Over the years, he saw the buses get better and the ridership kept increasing. In all the years of driving, he never received a traffic ticket or had a preventable accident and rarely had to stop the bus to handle passenger trouble. Last year he received his 52nd safe driving award from the company, said OTS spokeswoman Marilyn Dicus.

While TheBus ridership has given Asui an extended family, it gave him his immediate family, too. His wife Verna caught Asui's eye when she was a customer on his regular No. 1 run through Kaimuki in the 1950s.

"One day I asked her for a date, and pretty soon it was 'I do,' " he said. Today his three children live in Seattle, Waimanalo and Waipahu, and he has eight grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

Asui, who stands tall and walks slowly after five and a half decades of driving a bus, says that in retirement he'll keep doing what he does best — riding the bus, making friends and extending his 'ohana.

"I've got a lifetime pass from the company," he said.

Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.