Lost a Bible or umbrella? WTA may have it

JARED PABEN - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

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Jerry Gillaspy has seen Whatcom Transportation Authority bus riders leave behind crutches and lots of walking canes.

He's not sure how those folks managed to get home.

Gillaspy, who has been an operations supervisor at WTA for the past decade and a half, has also seen more surprising or unusual items left on buses: a paper bag with $700 in it, and a breast pump.

FINDING AN ITEM
To retrieve an item you left on a Whatcom Transportation Authority bus, call 676-RIDE or visit the customer service desk at the downtown station at Railroad Avenue and Magnolia Street. This only applies to fixed-route bus riders. People using the specialized transportation buses should ask their driver about the lost item.

Most items are pretty mundane, like umbrellas, gloves and glasses, but there have been more of them as WTA ridership shoots through the roof.

Ridership increased 31 percent from 2005 through this year, although it'll be higher because this year isn't finished yet. Over that same period, the number of lost items has increased by one-fifth, the agency's lost-and-found database shows. So far this year, riders have lost 2,632 items.

Roughly one-third of the items get returned. Most unclaimed ones are donated to Goodwill Industries, but a few, like money or knives, are turned over to Bellingham police. A local doctor takes lost prescription glasses and gives them to Ugandans in need when he visits the country, Gillaspy said.

Bins in a storage room hold most of the items discovered in the last three months. A recent look through them turned up a Holy Bible, a Halloween witch's hat, a bike pump, a still-in-the-package green twin/full size blanket, the paranormal romance book "Fallen Angel" and an opened package of Jonny Cat litter, "the original mac daddy of long lasting, maximum odor control."

Officials contact property owners if a backpack, for example, has identification in it. But sometimes they look inside and can't find clues pointing to the owner.

"It's kind of sad," Gillaspy said, "because some of the stuff you find in a backpack might be a homeless person's only possessions."