Across Canada, violence towards transit workers has been increasing, including in the City of Regina.
Darcy Kluge, the President of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 588, said they are aware of 10 incidents involving transit workers in 2023.
Kluge said that improved safety and workers must be prioritized.
“Things like increased enforcement, better education and working with the community should be considered. We need support from our employer to look at the increased incidents and work together that can find solutions to help reduce and hopefully eliminate incidents. We are always open to discussions on improving our members’ safety.”
Kluge said that members had experienced physical assault to the operators, punching and being spit on, daily verbal assaults, robbery, fighting between passengers, and an incident just last month where a passenger had brought a gun onto the bus.
Regina Police Chief Evan Bray said they are also aware of “aggressive behaviours” towards transit drivers and passengers and noted that addressing the issues can be challenging.
“A lot of it has to do with putting some rules in place around how people can use transit,” he said. “There are some frustrations I know with the availability of people not having money for the bus and the bus drivers not feeling safe to engage in a confrontation with them about using the transit services as opposed to having the pass or the funding to pay.”
Bray said that there are some short-term solutions to help address the behaviours.
“It may need police to be involved; it may need us to have some police officers a little bit more present around bus stops in certain areas or even on the buses,” he said. “That’s something that we are going to continue to work with.”
He said long-term putting police officers on buses would need to be a more sustainable use of resources.
“We have talked about ways that we could use our community engagement officers potentially on the routes where we’re seeing frequent problems, identify ways that maybe we could make that happen intermittently in a way that might help send a message and help the passengers feel safe on there as well as the operators of the transit buses.”
Bray added that they have had some “really good” conversations with regular transit system users and that it will take ongoing conversations to deal with the issue.
“Anytime we have a situation where there are repeat challenges with safety, the more we can do to dig into that challenge and find a sustainable change without having to post a police officer at a business location or on a bus, the more we can do to make it sustainable so that the system itself and the policies that it operates under maintain a level of safety for everyone involved, the better it’s going to be.”
Mayor Sandra Masters said that City Manager Niki Anderson has been conversing with Chief Bray regarding the aggressive behaviour on buses.
“I think the safety and well-being of our employees is of paramount importance to the city. I think the City Manager is on that, and clearly, Chief Bray is tuned into that, as are the personnel, the balance of the personnel with the RPS.”
Masters said that all options are on the table when it comes to addressing the safety of residents.
“When we did the warming bus this past winter, we did higher security and put them on the bus. That’s not something that is completely out of the realm of possibilities,” Masters noted. “However, having the City Manager work with the head of the union as well as the RPS just to address those concerns is really what’s underway right now.”
