Most of the year, Rodney James is in the van business - performing such tasks as shuttling Baltimore hotel guests to the airport.
But come Inauguration Day, James will be transformed into a charter bus entrepreneur - with plans to transport as many as 550 people from Baltimore and the Eastern Shore to the swearing-in ceremony for President-elect Barack Obama aboard 10 leased motor coaches.
James' mini-fleet will be joining a horde of thousands of charter buses expected to rumble into the Washington region for the festivities surrounding the Jan. 20 inauguration of the first African-American to be elected president of the United States and the first Democrat to hold that office in eight years. Millions of Americans are expected to jam Washington's Mall that weekend, and more than a half-million are expected to arrive by charter bus.
"People want to witness history," said James, president of Sabian Associates of Baltimore.
Presidential inaugurals generally provide a boost to charter bus companies in Maryland and surrounding jurisdictions, but people in the business say they've never seen the level of excitement as high as it is this year.
Eron Shosteck, senior vice president of the American Bus Association, said his trade group is expecting as many as 10,000 buses to descend on Washington for the weekend.
"We're getting calls daily from our operators who have a groundswell of interest from their customers that they say is unprecedented," she said.
Steve Klika, president of the International Motor Coach Group, a network of some 60 high-end charter carriers including Maryland's Eyre Bus, Tours and Travel, said buses are in heavy demand for that weekend as far west as St. Louis and Wisconsin.
"It is busy. It seems like we just got off the hurricanes down in Texas and all of a sudden our folks are bracing up for another major movement," he said.
When they get to the Washington area on Jan. 20, few of the charters will be able to get close to the Mall. Most will likely be steered to staging areas outside the downtown area - some, perhaps, in Maryland. Officials from federal, state and local agencies in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia are still wrestling with the question of where to bring the buses and how to get their passengers from those locations to the Mall.
"It's going to be hard getting in and hard getting out, and it's going to take a lot of patience," said Ron Dillon Sr., president of Dillon's Bus Service.
