Thunder Bay transit union president calls for more safety measures for buses, transit stops
CBC News | Posted: August 16, 2023 9:00 AM | Last Updated: August 16, 2023
Drivers face aggressive behaviour, including being spit on and assaulted, regularly
The president of the union representing the city's transit employees hopes a new report will lead to increased safety measures on city buses and at transit stops.
Fred Caputo, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 966, said transit operators in Thunder Bay regularly face aggressive behaviour while on the job.
"They're seeing everything," he said at the City Hall terminal on Tuesday. "They're being assaulted. They're being spit at, sworn at."
"Passengers are taking out their frustrations on the operators," Caputo said, explaining that a shortage of drivers can lead to changes to route schedules. "Especially now with the buses being pulled, we're noticing an influx in operators getting verbally assaulted due to people having to get to work and being late."
One incident that occurred in July saw a transit operator shoved and spit on; Caputo said that operator is still off the job.
"There are a lot of low level incidents that happen, but this builds up on the operators," he said. "They shouldn't be coming to work and being sworn at."
And while the incidents do occur across the city, he said most happen at the City Hall terminal.
The issue prompted the union to make a deputation to city council in April. At the time, council passed a resolution referring the matter to administration, and the city's Employee Safety Task Force.
A report is due back to council in October, but an interim update in the form of a memo was presented to councillors on Monday.
In the memo, the city's transit department said it's already implemented several transit safety measures:
- Security is on site at the City Hall terminal from noon to midnight, seven days a week;
- Temporary operator barriers have been installed on all buses in the transit fleet;
- Transit is included on the city's Employee Safety Task Force;
- Risk assessments are done for all transit jobs annually, and
- A mobile video surveillance system has been installed on all buses to assist with investigations and improve safety.
The memo also states more measures are in the process of being implemented, including replacing the temporary barriers with permanent ones, providing de-escalation training for all transit employees, and digitizing transit's incident reporting process to allow for better data collection and tracking.
Caputo said, however, the memo was disappointing, as "it's just going over the issues that we've been talking about for the past year and a half, two years."
"There's no real timeline on when anything's going to get done. So it just seems like it's just going around in a circle."
Caputo said the security the memo mentions isn't specific to transit. Rather, its referring to the security guards that are posted inside City Hall.
Further, the cameras have been on buses for a few years already, he said.
"We need the safety shields, dedicated safety shields," Caputo said. "We need permanent security at City Hall. We need better mental health services for our drivers, we need the peer support."
Caputo said the problems are affecting riders, too, with some passengers avoiding waiting at the City Hall terminal out of concern for their safety.
"Our concern is we're losing passengers and we're not going to be able to get them back, because the service isn't there, the safety isn't there for the passengers," he said.
Transit rider Asia Loi, who was at the City Hall terminal on Tuesday morning, said she's "seen some vulnerable people come on the bus and maybe disrupt things."
"That's how I would explain it."
Loi said one example occurred while she was waiting for a bus alone at City Hall.
"A fellow came up to me and he was probably inebriated," she said. "We kind of just bonded on trauma and just kind of saying like his boyfriend kind of beat him up and stuff, and I was just listening."
"Three other guys over six feet tall came up, and the one guy talking to me got his jaw cracked," Loi said. "It was really hard to deal with."
Loi said she hasn't seen many incidents while riding the buses themselves.
CBC News contacted city transit manager Brad Loroff for comment, who said he'd prefer to wait until the full report is released before speaking about the matter.
Current River Coun. Andrew Foulds said he regularly receives calls about the importance of public transit in the city, with some of those callers expressing concerns about safety.
"Ninety-five per cent of the time on the buses, it's all good," Foulds said. "But there are some situations on these buses that are not good, and we're certainly seeing, nationally, the number of incidents that are happening on transit buses at least getting more profile."
"There's definitely some violence between transit riders, there is some aggressive behaviour between transit riders and our staff," he said. "But there's also other types of crises that happen on the buses as well. There are, for example, some medical crises."
Foulds said dealing with the incidents often falls to the drivers, and he hopes to see the city implement mental health supports.
"I think there needs to be sort of intensive, intensive, specific support that meets the needs of those workers," he said. "I'm not an expert in this, and I'm not suggesting I know the exact model, but I do think we need to be working towards a model that provides that support. I think it's critical."