ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- When Irondequoit resident Maryann takes the bus from the bus stop at the Irondequoit Plaza in the mornings, she said it’s filled to the brim. At some point this week however, some of those riders might be left stranded.

“A friend of mine, they take this bus and go to work and they have to be there by 7 in the morning,” Maryann said. “If they stop this bus route, they’re not going to be able to get to work on time. That’s not fair.”

RTS CEO Bill Carpenter said a shortage of bus drivers is to blame. He said due to an usually high rate of illness and absence, most likely because of the extreme weather in the last few months, and more retirements than normal, RTS is short about 20 bus drivers.

For the next few weeks, he said trips on 23 bus routes could be affected between 5:30 a.m. and 7:50 a.m. during weekdays.

"We need a couple hundred operators each morning and the last couple of weeks we’ve been short one or two operators,” Carpenter said. “We had one day we were short 11 operators and that translates to people not getting to work, not getting to where they need to be, so we want to let folks know, until we’ve got the operator training class that’s finishing up in the next couple of weeks, we may have this problem intermittedly.”

The Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents the drivers, released a statement on the shortage.

"ATU Local 282 has met with RGRTA management to address our concerns with the manpower shortages and we have assured by RGRTA that they will aggressively address the manpower shortage. ATU will be monitoring the situation."

It also stated that many ATU members have been working additional hours to help meet the manpower shortages and will continue to do so.

Meanwhile, daily alerts will be posted on the RTS website between 5:15 a.m. and 8 a.m. on the day of.

“We’ll provide the routes so customers can know about it,” Carpenter said. “We’re still running 99 percent of our service and we want customers to know we want to be 100 percent reliable. When we’re back to 100 percent, we communicate that back to them as well.”

RTS will post the routes that are affected every day on its website and will also use social media to get the word out. People can also sign up for text alerts.