This frustrated TTC rider blocked a bus in protest after she was asked to get off
Salma Ibrahim | Posted: November 14, 2017 1:00 AM | Last Updated: November 14, 2017
Woman was asked to leave overcrowded bus after waiting for a long time in the cold
A CBC producer shot a video of a woman who found a novel way of expressing her frustration with long wait times on Toronto's transit system on Friday afternoon.
The video shows her walking along the street, directly in front of a bus she was asked to leave because it was too crowded.
The bus crawled behind her and, when the driver tried to divert around her, she blocked him.
Marketplace producer Andreas Wesley recorded the incident after getting on the overcrowded Route 47 bus at Lansdowne station on Friday at around 5 p.m. ET.
"Two buses came and [about 100 people] tried to cram on the bus, but the bus driver said some people would have to get off because he couldn't see the door and he couldn't drive forward if he couldn't see the door," he recalled.
About five people got off the bus then, including the woman who appears in Wesley's video. The woman has not been identified. After several minutes, as the bus neared an intersection, she returned to the sidewalk and walked away.
Wesley said another woman who left the bus at the same time complained they were waiting for over half an hour — a likely claim judging by the long line, which ran from the road, down the sidewalk and into the station
People were lining up "all down the sidewalk, into the subway, down the stairs of the subway station," for a stop located outside the subway, Wesley said.
The longer lines are a trend he has noticed in the neighbourhood over the last few weeks.
"Some people were laughing and some people were kind of mad," he said. "For me, I could sympathize with her."
No issues 'endemic to the route'
Susan Sperling, spokeswoman for the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) says the transit agency is not aware of any specific issues that would cause longer than normal waits on the Route 47 buses but acknowledges it could occasionally happen.
"Sometimes buses get crowded on a Friday night. They're buses. They have limited space," Sperling told CBC Toronto.
She says there are no plans to add buses in the area since TTC officials "haven't heard of any issues endemic to this route."
"For us, this is an issue of safety. This woman put herself in harm's way," Sperling said.
"The bus operator responded very appropriately by putting safety first. He called his supervisor, remained calm and did not speed up."
Wesley said the protester also was very calm and collected.
"They weren't shouting at each other, there was none of that," he said.
Nonetheless, the TTC warns riders against taking their protest, quite literally, to the street.
"We have lots of avenues for customers to register their displeasure with either our service or employee behaviour," Sperling said.
"They can tweet @TTChelps, they can phone customer service, they can fill out a form on our website. But endangering your own safety and the safety of others isn't something we would suggest doing."