Part one of a two-part series
Wallets, purses and cell phones fill large plastic bins. Backpacks, luggage and shopping bags sit along the shelves. Coats and plastic-wrapped dry cleaning hang on a rack. Bicycles are lined up in neat rows at the center of the room.
Each year, millions of people board OCTA buses and when they get off, they leave behind hundreds of these items, which are carefully collected and stored in a warehouse in Anaheim.
OCTA’s Lost and Found is operated by the Orange County Adult Achievement Center (OCAAC), a nonprofit organization that provides programs and services for developmentally disabled adults. Every item found on an OCTA bus is tagged with a date, description and route number and electronically recorded. All of the forgotten belongings are stored for three months before being sold, recycled or donated to benefit OCAAC.
The OCAAC warehouse is filled wall-to-wall with shelves and bins holding a variety of lost items. Over the last three months, 261 wallets, 103 purses and 109 cell phones were found on OCTA buses across Orange County. Of those turned in, 104 wallets, 30 purses and just six cell phones were claimed by their owners.
Surprisingly, one of the most common items to end up at Lost and Found are bicycles. Lost and Found typically collects more than 200 bicycles every three months. While some are claimed, the majority are left without an owner. Sharon Long, the community transportation coordinator at OCTA who oversees Lost and Found, says that many of the bikes are believed to have been stolen. Unfortunately, without any identification or license, it’s nearly impossible to trace a bicycle back to its original owner.
What do OCTA and OCAAC do with all those bikes? Find out in the next issue of On the Move.