Calls for mayor to reverse decision on Transit Windsor suspension

Daniel Martin relies on Windsor Transit to get around the city.

He's legally blind, low-income and has limited help at home.

He's one of a number of people calling on Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens to rescind the city's decision to temporarily suspend bus services as of end of normal hours on Sunday, March 29, as an additional step to combat the spread of COVID-19.

The shutdown will also affect bus services in Leamington. Leamington to Windsor (LTW) Transit operations will be suspended effective the end of the normal operating hours on Saturday, March 28, and will last at least until Monday, April 13.

"It's not just me impacted by this, but it is the citizens all over the city — those who are also vision impaired, those who are in wheelchairs, those who are the elderly," Martin said.

"We rely on public transit to get to where we need to go and by shutting it down, you shut us down. You've stopped us from getting groceries. You stopped us from going to the pharmacies."

"We need to keep city buses going," he said.

The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU) issued a statement on Friday clarifying that they did not recommend the temporary shutdown of bus services.

'Revisit decision'

The statement said, "Under the right circumstances, such as employing appropriate environmental cleaning practices and managing the number and space of passengers, public transit can serve as an important means of transportation to access food, supplies, or go to work for essential workers who may not have a private vehicle or other options."

Windsor NDP MPPs Lisa Gretzky of Windsor West and Percy Hatfield of Windsor—Tecumseh also voiced their concerns, calling on the city to revisit its decision.

"Health-care workers use Transit Windsor to get to work, and elderly residents use transit to get to the grocery store and to the pharmacy," said Gretzky in a media release Friday. 

"Like every other city, we need to take every necessary precaution so that we can continue to offer transit to people, particularly those with low incomes, that rely on the bus as an essential service." 

Transit workers want to work, says union rep

John Di Nino, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Canada (ATU), also voiced his concerns.

He said in a media release Friday, "The mayor broke his oath of office, to continue delivering public services to its taxpayers. ATU transit workers have continued work above and beyond and around the clock to disinfect transit buses and provide the transit service their community desperately needs."

Sean Muir, drivers' representative for ATU Local 616, added to Di Nino's statement.

"We're disappointed. We recognize that we're on the front lines along with doctors, nurses, retail workers, grocery store workers, truck drivers," he said. 

"We want people to go where they got to go. We understand these times people need to get their groceries, get their appointments, get to work and that's part of our job."

Muir said the union was only informed 30 minutes before the announcement went public and asked the city to reverse their decision on temporarily suspending bus services.

Despite these concerns, Dilkens said Transit Windsor will still be suspended for at least two weeks and that one of the reasons for suspending bus services is due to the lack of cleanliness of the buses.

"We can't sanitize the buses properly. There are many touch points on buses where people would touch in the day, hundreds and hundreds of them," he said.

He said transit workers wanted to get paid "double time" for "enhanced sanitizing" of the buses — where the vehicles would get cleaned multiple times throughout the day — but he refused to do so.

"They all want overtime. I don't have the dollar amount, but they all wanted overtime at ATU," he said. "Thirty per cent of my employees are being paid full salary and not working. They're at home and taxpayers are paying their salaries to be at home and not working. And we agreed to do that for a period of two weeks."

The union, however, said in a statement that "staff ... agreed to take a pay cut to help in cleaning buses."

"At the end of the day, I think this is going to save lives," Dilkens said, adding that he acknowledges it may be an unpopular decision and takes full responsibility for the order. 

"History will judge whether it's a good decision or a bad decision."