Will it take a serious weather related injury and subsequent lawsuit before the city of St. Albert takes the necessary steps to ensure the safety of its transit passengers?
Recently temperatures were dangerously low. Passengers continue to be expected to dress appropriately for the weather, 40 to 60 minutes on a bus that only provides full on heat or off, a full work day in an office environment, followed by a 75 to 90 minute bus ride home. This is all predicated on a bus system that connects.
When the commuter buses are late and connections are missed, passengers can expect to be dropped off at the lower station with no adequate shelter from the elements to wait for next local connection. They can't seek shelter, as they can't guess when the connector bus will actually arrive. The NextBus system seems to regularly fail in bad weather when it is needed most or it is not being repaired on buses that have identified it is not working (823) and has not been working for over a week.
Passengers cannot be expected to dress appropriately for sweating it out on the bus only to be abandoned at the curb in -30 weather.
When a paying passenger gets on the bus expecting a smooth transfer to complete the trip, they are relying on the transit system to look after and protect them for the entire trip. The City of St. Albert is not living up to this expectation.
The Village Landing terminal has a heated office on site, although it does not belong to the city, where passengers could seek shelter if it is open. The lower terminal has only glass shelters at the center of the terminal that offers almost no protection except from the wind. Bus stops extend all the way down the street with no shelters for them at all.
With our weather, I do not expect the bus system to work perfectly all the time, but the city of St. Albert has a duty to protect its passengers by providing adequate shelter from extreme weather especially during delays caused by the weather. This could be as simple as providing a stationary bus passengers could wait in until local connections arrive. Set a reasonable threshold that includes wind chill factors that governs when this goes into effect. A little overtime for a mechanic or driver is a lot less than a lawsuit.
Fix the NextBus system or get rid of it. How much are we paying for this unreliable system?
Build adequate usable heated shelters at both terminals. (Please don't use the LRT as a reason to delay, as we all know how far away that is.)
We pay higher rates for public transit than Sherwood Park ($105) and they have the heated Bethel Terminal.
We should be receiving better, safer service.
Peter Wooldridge, St. Albert
