Edmonton bus drivers share images showing daily realities of working within public transit system
Edmonton bus drivers share images showing daily realities of working within public transit system
Edmonton transit drivers are sharing images of what they are seeing on buses and the LRT on a sometimes daily basis in the hopes it will push the city to hire more transit peace officers.
Harminder Brar has been driving ETS buses for 12 years and says he has never seen the system in such chaos. He describes how he and fellow operators regularly see open drug use and unruly passengers.
"I've been verbally abused more times than I can count," he told CTV News Edmonton.
"You go to work hoping that you do your eight hours smoothly, effectively, your passengers are safe and that you don't have to get into a situation where you have to deal with a difficult situation or get assaulted," Brar added.
Brar used to drive night routes but has since shifted to days "to worry less" about his safety.
"I've had to switch to days just for my mental health," he said. "To keep sane."
Steve Bradshaw, the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 569 president, says unfortunately Brar's experience is not an outlier.
"Our people are fatigued," Bradshaw said. "They are traumatized. They are in trouble. Every time everyone books off on a traumatic incident, it creates more overtime and fatiguing."
In his view, the city needs to ensure more peace officers are hired, better supports are available for vulnerable Edmontonians and an increase in warming centres and enforcement to ensure passengers don't just stay on the buses or LRT cars.
"Something has to happen," he said. "The union has been lobbying since the spring to ensure that there is a clear plan in place for the fall when the seasonal drift of homeless and the criminal element that follows them occurs."
"In the spring, we had an opportunity to be prepared," Bradshaw added. "We still don't have a clear plan."
According to the union representing Edmonton transit drivers, assaults against operators were declining last year, but have begun to increase year-over-year in 2022.
"Bottom line: one assault is too many," Bradshaw said. "We need to put a stop to it and create that place that is not only safe but feels safe."
Edmonton transit drivers shared images showing what they see on the job. (Supplied)
Just days ago the city manager told reports that great strides had been made to ensure vulnerable Edmontonians were going to better suited areas for help than staying on transit.
"We're not kicking people out of transit stations," explained Andre Corbould. "We're offering them opportunities to go to safer places where they can get food, they can shower, they can have a good night's sleep.
"That's the successful aspect because we are actually placing lots of folks into shelter spaces every night when we do this transit safety plan."
Edmonton transit drivers shared images showing what they see on the job. (Supplied)
The city says it is confident that the enhanced transit safety plan, approved by council in February, will only improve Edmontonians' experience while using ETS.
"(It) will continue to lead to improvements throughout the transit system and help increase safety for everyone using our transit spaces and network," said Ryan Birch, city spokesperson.
Convicted murderer Daniel Jolivet, in prison for the past 30 years, has maintained his innocence since the day he was arrested. W5 reviews the evidence he painstakingly assembled while behind bars. W5's documentary 'Buried Evidence' airs Saturday at 7 p.m. on CTV.
The massive white orb drifting across U.S. airspace has triggered a diplomatic maelstrom and is blowing up on social media. A look at what's known about the balloon crossing the U.S. and what isn't.
In the field of cancer treatment, nothing is more important than diagnosing and treating the problem as quickly as possible — but according to new survey data, about one in four Canadian cancer patients report that they are still experiencing cancelled or postponed appointments.
The oldest preserved vertebrate brain has been found in a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish skull that was removed from an English coal mine over a century ago.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has said the supply of more advanced U.S. weaponry to Ukraine will only trigger more retaliatory strikes from Russia, up to the extent of Russia's nuclear doctrine.
The suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that was found floating over sensitive military sites in the western United States had been tracked by Canada's government since last weekend as it passed through Canadian airspace, sources tell CTV News.
It took 40 years, but former NHL player and coach Ted Nolan is now one of eight Indigenous ex-NHL-ers being honoured hockey trading cards as a part of Upper Deck's First Peoples Rookie Card series.
Indian police have arrested more than 2,000 men in a crackdown on illegal child marriages involving girls under the age of 18 in a northeastern state, officials said Saturday.
Alberta's high court is being asked to overturn a review board decision relating to the stabbing deaths of five young people at a Calgary house party on the grounds the former provincial justice minister interfered.
After months of driving around the city with an advertisement for a kidney donor on her bright red car, Debbie Onishenko will soon be able to rip off the decals as her search has ended.
Saskatchewan is reacting to the removal of controversial amendment G4 to Bill C-21 by the federal Liberals, which banned certain semi-automatic rifles and shotguns.
With all of the Maritimes still under extreme cold warnings Saturday morning, more than 34,000 households and businesses are without power, as of 11 a.m.
After being charged with speeding by a city-operated photo radar device, a Toronto family was able to successfully fight the charge in court largely due to one small detail.
Torontonians appear to be returning downtown in greater numbers but the pace of the city’s economic recovery still lags behind many other North American cities, a new study suggests.
Residents from Quebec to Newfoundland and Labrador are waking up this morning to more extreme cold weather. Emergency officials warned people to seek shelter and monitor for frostbite if they had to be outside overnight, as the temperature across much of Eastern Canada was expected to feel like -40 C to -50 C with the wind chill.
A reclusive billionaire who headed a Montreal tech company is stepping down one day after Radio-Canada/CBC published a report that alleged he paid teenage girls for sex for more than a decade.
Waterloo regional police issued a robbery warning Thursday evening after they said two convenience stores and a restaurant in Kitchener were robbed within a 30 minute span.
Canada's newest millionaire, an 18-year-old university freshman from northern Ontario, has achieved a lot of firsts with a recent lottery win. Here is her story.
An investigation that lasted almost two years has resulted in moose hunting violation convictions for six people and a lodge in Red Lake in northwestern Ontario.
Winnipeg police released a new image of a 31-year-old woman who has been missing since early last year on Friday in the hope it may generate new information on her whereabouts.
A fire destroyed a popular paint and hobby shop in Winkler Thursday afternoon with black smoke prompting Winkler police to close off a stretch of Highway 32 for more than an hour.
The mayors of Port Coquitlam and Port Moody want Nav Canada — the organization that creates flight paths for airports across the country — to pause its plans for a new YVR arrivals route that will direct many large airplanes over their communities.
Seventy-nine-year-old William Herbert thought the woman coming to see him was a nurse who needed to do bloodwork. But instead of helping him, it’s alleged she stole from him.
An emergency room doctor on Vancouver Island is calling on the leadership of the health authority to resign, saying harassment by Island Health officials is prompting doctors to abandon the region amid a critical shortage of health-care workers.
Edmonton transit drivers shared images showing what they see on the job. (Supplied)
Edmonton transit drivers shared images showing what they see on the job. (Supplied)
