GOLD: Banned from transit? Take a ride anyway and take a nap

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In my day, being employed as a bus driver for the City of Winnipeg meant a well-paying respected job and people looked up to you.

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Now, people don’t wish being a Transit Operator on their worst enemy.

A driver publicly stated he didn’t feel safe riding on a bus in his uniform at night and may walk for an hour this winter instead. The rudeness, disruptive behaviour, loudmouth antics and fare-skipping (4.4 million times a year, according to the union) contribute to passengers like me saying “No Mas” and getting a car.

How did it get this bad? Start with the Transit website.

I looked to see what riders are told about how to behave and what the rules are.

You’d think the Code of Conduct would be a featured item on the Winnipeg Transit website. Think again.

On the info.winnipegtransit.com/en page, there’s 13 icons and a sidebar menu. The icons link to details about fares, routes, service alerts and even “Join Our Team.” None relate to the rules for passengers.

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The sidebar on the page has 13 items, and the fourth is “Rider Guide.” But when you click it, you still don’t see the Code of Conduct. You see another drop-down menu with 15 items. Buried deep on the list at number 13, is “Public Transit By-Law and Code of Conduct.”

So you have to guess where to look, twice, to find the rules to ride a bus.

Why Transit officials don’t want to make the rules for passengers a primary feature on the website is hard to say.

A page on the website mentions “Safety Initiatives” taken. It claims the Code of Conduct is posted on the website “to educate the public on expected behaviour” which again makes you wonder why it’s hidden behind four steps.

There’s no mention of the so-called “Transit safety team” touted in the media last spring because it isn’t a Transit force. No genuine safety improvement has been listed since the hiring of more Transit Inspectors and “Installing Inspector stations at strategic locations in the city to assist with incidents that arise for Operators and passengers on buses,” in 2019. Nothing since.

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“Protective pods” were installed at Portage Avenue at Vaughan Street, and another at Graham Avenue at Fort Street, to be staffed by two duty inspectors. “It’s really helpful for our bus operator workforce to know that when they go past a certain location that there’s going to be somebody there to help them,” a Transit official claimed.

A chronic manpower shortage has resulted in the “help” rarely being on duty at the downtown shacks. And you could double the supervisor brigade and it would do almost nothing to improve the situation.

Transit supervisors attend calls based on priority, with more serious issues bumped up in the queue. To deal with a sleeper, a potentially confrontational situation, a minimum of two officials are required to attend but with so few available, response times skyrocket or calls go unanswered.

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A city spokesman said, “If someone appears to be sleeping on the bus, the first priority is determining whether or not a medical emergency is taking place. Operators who report a sleeping passenger are asked to check on the person’s wellbeing if it is safe to do so … a Transit Street Inspector will make all efforts to intercept the bus as soon as possible.”

That’s the theory. In practice, drivers are told not to leave the cab, and if they do and are attacked they are held at fault. And with too few inspectors available, buses heading downtown almost always have to bring the problem to the waiting officials.

With this practice, the city is off-loading unacceptable risk onto the drivers and passengers.

From what I saw, riding the bus since March, the typical sleeper hasn’t paid the fare and is usually intoxicated and incoherent. They are most often unkempt and dishevelled. Passengers — and drivers — are left to share a poorly ventilated, enclosed space constantly looking over their shoulders in fear of an unhygienic freeloader suddenly waking up and flipping out before a supervisor comes aboard.

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Not very safe.

A veteran operator told me, “I have heard and experienced plenty of banned, disruptive, unconscious passengers or chronic repeat fare evaders riding buses for hours and never getting a visit from transit supervisors.”

Sometimes, the person sleeping will be awoken and if there’s no obvious issue they carry on to a destination. If they’re asked to disembark and refuse, inspectors have to call police — who get to it when they get to it.

Now, what happens if a sleeper is one of the 60 people currently banned from Winnipeg Transit buses and facilities?

Basically, nothing.

“Our procedure for responding to banned people on buses prioritizes the safety of our Operators and other passengers”, Transit said, and “Operators do not enforce bans.”

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I’ve learned that begins right at the bus stops. Drivers get reprimanded if they DON’T pick up a banned person who they’ve recognized and frequent offenders constantly ride the bus because nothing happens to them. The worst thing is, they are asked to leave. That’s it. And if they fell asleep?

“People who are banned — provided they are not in any medical distress or posing a public safety concern — may be allowed to ride a short distance to a predetermined destination,” according to the spokesman, and an Inspector “will accompany the bus to confirm the person cooperates and exits at their determined destination.”

No trespassing ticket, no summons, no consequences.

That’s right, banned troublemakers can’t be stopped from getting on a Transit bus. If they snooze? They are woken up and given a free ride home.

So, why wouldn’t the Code of Conduct be buried on the Transit website? Instead of enforcing it, the management bury it right in front of the drivers and fare-paying passengers, every single day.

— Marty Gold is a Winnipeg journalist. You can find more of his work at The Great Canadian Talk Show.

Have thoughts on what’s going on in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada or across the world? Send us a letter to the editor at wpgsun.letters@kleinmedia.ca

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