LRT stations slippery when wet, commuters complain

If only your LRT commute could be as smooth as the tiles at Parliament and Lyon stations.

While the slick floor tiles might be nice to look at, they unfortunately can also be downright dangerous, according to commuters who suffered falls and close calls on a rainy Tuesday.  

Yana Brion takes the train daily to and from work, and when she transferred at Lyon station, she said the floors were glistening.

"Everything was covered in water, so I tried to make my way down the stairs carefully. And somewhere around the second flight of stairs down I slipped. I felt my foot go out from under me," she said.

"Honestly, it was the worst fall I've had in a while. I [tore] through both knees of my pants.... I have bruises everywhere. It was unpleasant at best. And there were people slipping all over the place." 

I have bruises everywhere. It was unpleasant at best. And there were people slipping all over the place.- Yana Brion

According to Brion, the thin gripping material on the stair tiles isn't enough to keep people from falling.

"That's not going to help. The entire rest of the stairs is slippery. Those tiles, they're slippery enough when they're dry," she said.

"I don't know if it's safe, really, considering that we live in Ottawa. It snows for half the year. People are going to track that snow inside."

Slippery slopes

Dawn Xanklin saw the same slippery situation unfolding at Parliament station on Tuesday afternoon. 

"I saw a middle-aged woman ... slip and hit the stairs hard. At least four of us ran forward and asked if she needed help. She was fairly insistent that she was OK even though she seemed to have hit the edge of the stairs," Xanklin said.

"It wasn't overcrowded, it didn't look like she was pushed, but she slipped close to where a yellow [caution] sign had been placed."  

Moments later, as she approached the entry gates to the trains, Xanklin said she saw a man wearing dress shoes slip and almost fall as he hurried toward the gates. 

"This is not OK," said Xanklin, who thinks the flooring at other stations are less slippery than the tiles at Parliament and Lyon.

Transit commissioner weighs in

Sarah Wright-Gilbert, one of the citizen commissioners on the city's transit commission, has been tweeting about her own LRT experiences since taking the volunteer position. 

After seeing Brion's tweet about the Lyon station situation, Wright-Gilbert retweeted it, writing that "something needs to be done."

In September, Wright-Gilbert spoke to CBC News about her concerns with how OC Transpo is handling communications.

"There's not a lot of trust left in the transit system, and as a result I think that if we continue with this lack of communication we will see a further erosion in the ridership numbers," Wright-Gilbert said at the time.  

The city was not able to supply a response to CBC Ottawa's interview request by publication time.

Capital Coun. Shawn Menard, a member of the city's transportation committee, said OC Transpo is looking into the reports.