A Multimedia Project Designed to Humanize Public Bus Drivers

The city bus driver doesn't get as much of our empathy as he or she probably should. The health hazards that come with the job are enormous. The risk of being attacked by angry riders — especially lately — is equally frightening. Too often bus drivers seem to personify the most exhausting and frustrating aspects of urban life.

So it's refreshing to see a new multimedia project, "Driving Richmond," celebrating the bus driver as an actual person. This collection of stark portraits and often-poignant vignettes of 15 drivers from the Greater Richmond Transit Company reminds us that they, too, have a human story to share. The project showed at a street-art festival held at an old bus depot earlier this month and now lives online.