GOLD: Like disorder, incivility, and the odd knifing? Take a Transit bus

Article content

Much ado was made this spring by Mayor Scott Gillingham of various efforts to make transit safer by tackling “root causes” of trouble, especially downtown. It was the subject of my first column for the Winnipeg Sun, “Winnipeg Transit like riding a bus in Gotham.”

Article content

While things settled down for a while this summer, as August turned to September the wildness returned and it’s arguable we need an undercover “transit cop” program more than a Community Safety Team.

“What was needed and promised, has fallen well short. They are not providing fare enforcement, and their visibility has diminished considerably since the rollout,” a veteran ATU transit operator, who asked not to be identified, told me.

A 30% staff turnover didn’t help, but the hours actually spent on the street simply weren’t sufficient. “With only 20-25 people, that’s like spitting on a fire,” Transit union president Chris Scott told CJOB.

“The growing concern is the severity of the acts of violence. They’re escalating from spitting and arguing to physical assaults, and obviously stabbings … which is a huge concern to us.”

Article content

And a concern to innocent and vulnerable transit users.

A search of Winnipeg news produced reports of stabbings in February, April, and August. There were two incidents with three victims already in October.

In St. Boniface, five males followed and stabbed a man on St. Mary’s Road, in the West End on Portage Avenue, a mother and teenage daughter were stabbed and robbed by a trio of young females.

“It’s crazy,” the mother told CTV. “She was trying to murder me on the bus, for no reason. Like we did nothing to her, she just came and attacked us.”

And the other passengers? “They just watched.”

“You shouldn’t be scared to leave your house and go on the bus,” said the woman.

Relying on transit supervisors to help maintain order? Think again.

Article content

Article content

On Oct. 6 — around the same time as the stabbing on St. Mary’s Road — a dishevelled and obviously high-strung woman got on at the same stop I did, Portage and Sherbrook, going downtown. Drawing attention to herself, loudly muttering, she honed in on someone at the back of the bus and marched down there with a string of expletives and threats.

Finally, a young man stood up to her, told her to sit down and she challenged him.

At this point I did something I had never done before, I shot video of a confrontation inside a bus. If this was going to land in my lap, I wanted to have an idea of who was involved. There were glances between me and a couple across from my seat, newcomers from Africa.

The Good Samaritan kept fairly calm, repeating that she should stop harassing the woman sitting with her kids. “You give us a native people a really bad look.”

Article content

Her response wasn’t to sit down, or to shut up, but rather to play the race card.

She accused the fellow of not being native because he looked like “white powder.”

This kind of outburst is a common occurrence, the African couple told me. When a problem starts and a passenger or transit employee intervenes to restore decorum, the race card is played and the indignant perps begin a new argument.

At Fort Street, about half the bus emptied including the troublemaker. Two supervisors addressed her beside the bus, which remained stopped.

The ripple effects here were that 15 or 20 people endured the yelling and abusive language near kids, seniors and newcomers. Some didn’t get to their destination on time. And it happens every day.

Article content

“Most less serious incidents never make the news, so what is reported is only a fraction of what’s really goes on,” explained the veteran operator.

“There are multiple incidents every day but in most cases, we are told to ‘carry on, watch for a supervisor.’ Supervisors are short-handed and unable to respond quickly or at all, due to policies that require two or more to deal with potentially dangerous situations.”

In the old days, drivers would have stopped the bus, taken charge, and thrown the problem out the back door. Not now.

“Even with sleepers, the usual procedure to deal with a passed-out derelict who won’t wake up, or refuses to exit the bus, is to stall the bus and have a supervisor sit with them until police or EMTs arrive. Whenever their manpower allows, potentially hours. Hours that they’re not able to attend other calls.”

Article content

Scott says between 100-130 drivers are off on medical leave, but that statistic doesn’t include supervisors on leave who, like the drivers, suffer assaults and PTSD. The poor management of supervisory staffing issues is another key part of the City’s safety deficiencies.

On weekends there are only four street superintendents scheduled per night. A no-overtime policy means off-duty supervisors aren’t brought in to cover shifts.

“If one calls in sick or one pair gets tied up dealing with a call, there is one supervisor car available for the entire city. That means response times skyrocket or don’t get a response at all,” the vet explained.

“Longer response times bring a greater potential for things to escalate and go wrong. Especially at night.”

Article content

As I wrote in June, it’s the criminals that transit users — and those who refuse to ride a bus — fear. There’s your root cause.

The drivers suffer, the passengers suffer, but the elite keep insisting that next year, when the new Transit routes are introduced, you really need to park your car and take a bus.

No thank you, Mr. Mayor. Until Winnipeg Transit is made genuinely safe, old-time users will keep limiting their trips, and people like me who tried it out are going back behind the wheel. Stop the bus, I’m getting off.

— 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

Article content