As Vineyard Transit Authority (VTA) buses continue to traverse Island roads even after the contract for unionized drivers expired, the looming threat of a strike has been put on pause as the two sides make their cases to Island officials.
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1548, the union that represents local VTA drivers, announced on July 24 that its members had voted to potentially hold a strike if a satisfactory contract isn’t reached with Transit Connection, the company contracted to hire, train, and schedule vehicle operators and staff for the Island’s public bus line. The most recent contract expired on July 31.
While the strike is on hold, it’s not off the table. The union is pushing various demands, including higher pay for drivers, allowance for vacations during the summer, and making Memorial Day and Independence Day holidays for unionized drivers.
Charles Ryan, president of the union, said while an exact strike date hasn’t been determined, action will soon be taken if the VTA doesn’t meet their demands. “If I don’t get a response in the next seven days, we’ll go on strike,” Ryan told The Times on Tuesday.
In a July 31 letter to Island select boards, Ryan stated, “It is not my desire to call a strike which would disrupt the lives of the citizens and visitors to the Island,” but underscored a need for change at the VTA. While the letter highlighted drivers’ pay raises, it also escalated rhetoric and called for the resignation of Angie Gompert, the VTA administrator.
“At this time, the union is calling for the administrator to tender her immediate resignation,” Ryan wrote. “I am going through other channels to try and make this a reality. I take this misappropriation of funds very seriously, as I am sure others in state government will.”
The alleged misappropriation Ryan referred to in his letter revolved around the VTA’s share of the $25 million awarded to regional transit authorities through the Fair Share Supplemental Budget last year. Ryan wrote that this funding was supposed to be used for regional transit authorities’ workforce recruitment and retention, but said the VTA had already spent the money by the time the union asked for raises for drivers. He claimed that a portion of the funding was spent on Gompert’s salary, which rose from $165,516.03 in 2024 to $193,966.24 in 2025, or a near $30,000 increase, according to the bus line’s payroll documents.
Gompert, meanwhile, refuted Ryan’s claims in her own August 3 letter to Vineyard select boards. She noted that the VTA’s share, $548,434, wasn’t just for staff wages. It was also meant to “increase frequency on our busiest routes to at least prepandemic service levels.” According to the VTA’s 2025 annual report, the bus line “continues to recover from the [COVID-19] pandemic,” and carried 1.14 million riders since the previous fiscal year, a period from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025. In fiscal year 2019, the VTA served 1.3 million riders, and the lowest point since then was in fiscal year 2021, at 547,750 riders.
Gompert also said that the VTA conducts annual internal audits on its operations, and noted that its budget had increased by more than 60 percent since 2019, or from $5.51 million in fiscal year 2019 to $8.87 million in fiscal year 2025.
According to Gompert, the VTA heavily relied on federal pandemic relief funds, such as ARPA, to “stabilize operations,” noting that fiscal year 2020 was the first time the VTA had spent more than $1 million in federal funds, which came from a onetime $8 million disbursement that has now been used up. And while regional transit authorities received onetime funding on an annual basis to support operations, she wrote that no increase in the state budget means “a fiscal cliff is likely on the horizon” for many of the public bus lines, especially “with local funding constrained by Proposition 2½,” a state law that restricts collecting no more than 2.5 percent of property values in taxes, which can be overridden if approved by voters.
Gompert noted the possibility of service cuts in three years unless more state funding is secured.
“In my 30 years with the VTA, transit funding in Massachusetts is at unprecedented levels, but operating costs are also at unprecedented levels,” Gompert wrote.
Ryan told The Times on Tuesday he had not heard from the VTA or Transit Connection since the announcement of a potential strike. A sign of the collapsed negotiations and lack of dialogue between the two sides is a discrepancy in the wage-increase offers they’ve publicly disclosed. The union states it called for an annual 6 percent raise for the next three years, and Ryan said the VTA counteroffer was an annual 3.5 percent increase during the same period. The VTA instead states it offered wage increases “averaging approximately 13.5 [percent] over three years.”
Even if a strike occurs, some people may not feel an immediate impact. Currently, the VTA is split between 32 year-round drivers, both full- and part-time, and a similar number of seasonal drivers. If unionized drivers picket for better pay, the bus line plans to continue to run services with the nonunion summer operators.
“It’s hard to say exactly what the impacts will be at this time,” Gompert told The Times in an email. “I’m sorry my answer seems vague, it’s not intentional — it’s just we don’t know how many drivers will strike, and when [they] strike.”
If the strike lasts as long as the 2019 one, it also brings into question what happens once September hits, when both ridership and bus services decrease as the Island enters the off-season. Ryan said that during the strike in 2019, from late June to late July, over drivers’ pay, the VTA brought in additional drivers through Boston-based Yankee Line, something he thinks could happen again.
“The problem is, it’s going to be at a premium cost,” Ryan said. A similar issue arose in 2023, when a records request conducted by the union showed the VTA paid the Boston bus service more than $240,000 from January to early June for additional drivers.
Bus drivers, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Times a strike is planned to happen in the next two weeks as of Tuesday evening. Even if rides continue, they noted, a strike would most impact the full-time unionized drivers and the passengers who regularly use the buses. And while they wanted higher pay, a seasonal driver has no stake in the conflict, and a part-time unionized driver said he considered the position a side gig.
And the uncertainty is on the minds of those who utilize the buses. On Friday, a woman rolling a travel bag halted at the Church Street stop in Edgartown to ask a bus driver whether a strike was going to happen. The driver was seasonal, and didn’t have information to provide.
A variety of people utilize the buses throughout the year, from locals to commuters to tourists, and the buses are a lifeline for Steve Soriano, a resident of Hillside Village in Vineyard Haven.
For Soriano, the buses are a necessity. He has cerebral palsy and he can’t drive, so he relies on the VTA for “everything,” whether that is to complete errands, go to doctors’ appointments, or commute to Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, where he works as a mail clerk. Even while schools are on summer vacation, Soriano buses weekly to MVRHS for work.
“I use buses every day,” Soriano said, while waiting for a bus at the Vineyard Haven Steamship Authority stop on Friday. He was out for groceries that day, and a container of green grapes poked out of the tote bag that hung from his powerchair.
Soriano recalled that the 2019 strike didn’t hinder his ability to traverse the Vineyard, and he said he backs the drivers receiving a pay raise. “It’s very hard to live with the income that they make,” Soriano said.
Besides Vineyarders, commuters from off-Island also regularly use the buses to get to work.
Alaina Darr used to live on the Island, and chose to ride the bus during the 22 years she lived in Vineyard Haven. She works in Edgartown as a secretary in the law office of Benjamin Hall Jr., but has commuted from Bourne since 2022, when she moved off-Island due to high living expenses. Now she ferries over Tuesdays and Fridays before riding the bus to work.
Darr noted she sees “all demographics” ride the buses. “I see everybody,” Darr said, such as grandmothers with grandkids going to the beach or the grocery store, tourists going to destinations like Island Alpaca in Vineyard Haven, workers and regular riders in the winter, and professionals headed to the Edgartown courthouse.
Some riders come from even farther away. Lesley Rosenthal, owner of Gypsy Barbershop in Edgartown, and Nicole Downing, a stylist with Benito’s Hair Styling, travel from New Bedford.
Rosenthal has traveled to the Island from the South Coast for a decade, now coming three days a week. She relies on the bus’ reliability to meet her appointments with clients. And Downing comes five days a week, first starting to cut hair on the Vineyard five years ago to avoid working for the corporate shops back home.
The stylists noted that the traffic from Edgartown to Vineyard Haven makes returning home a logistical hurdle to make sure they get the boats they want. And if a strike halts buses, Rosenthal said, it’d be a problem for her.
“It would definitely make it stressful,” Rosenthal said. “Three out of the five people who work for me come on the bus.”
One of the Gypsy Barbershop stylists is Michelle Kovarik from Falmouth, who comes to the Island every day during the summer, and five days a week during the off-season. She noted that commuters need to be careful of when they leave work, noting that she had to leave twice as early as usual to board a bus and ferry to meet a doctor appointment on July 30.
Kovarik gets dropped off in Woods Hole, so commuting to the Edgartown shop can take a little under an hour and a half one way. From New Bedford, including the hourlong drive to the Palmer Ave. parking lot in Falmouth, the shuttle ride to the Woods Hole terminal, the ferry and then the bus, getting to Edgartown takes more than two hours. For Downing, her summertime commute increased after Benito’s moved from Oak Bluffs to the Gypsy Barbershop building, but she said she still loves coming to the Vineyard.
“There’s a sense of community here. People here, for the most part, are respectful. Back home, that’s not how it goes where I worked,” Downing said.
After retirement, the buses act as a way for those who do not or cannot drive to reach services and continue to socialize. Jennifer Gadowski, administrative assistant at the Up-Island Council on Aging, told The Times at Howes House in West Tisbury that older Islanders use the buses to access their services. At least two come near daily from down-Island.
Gadowski noted how the buses being fare-free was a “godsend” for some Islanders, especially older residents on a fixed income. The latest stretch of state-subsidized bus rides has been ongoing since November 2024. Before, the riders paid based on how many towns the bus goes through, including the passenger’s original stop ($1.25 per town in the off-season, $2 per town in-season), with various pass offerings.
If a strike ends up impeding their commutes, regular passengers are considering how to get to where they need to go. While Darr said she can likely get a ride from coworkers, Rosenthal and Downing are considering sharing travel costs by carpooling in a taxi or through a rideshare app with workers at the barbershops.
Though having varying experiences with the bus line, those who spoke with The Times were in consensus that drivers should get a fair wage.
“I’m not into the politics of it, but I have a feeling in my heart … I hope they can speak to one another and resolve this in a timely fashion, or before it happens,” Gadowski said. “August is a tough month. We don’t need any more ups and downs and bumps in the road.”
I really hope a contract can be agreed to. The buses are really important, especially in the summers when our roads are clogged. Our drivers should be paid at least as much as those on the cape. Hope this can be worked out. No strike, PLEASE!!