Unsafe and unsettling': Saskatoon transit users speak up

Mary Fedun has been using Saskatoon’s transit system for decades. She often attends city council meetings, but can’t stay for the late ones because she doesn’t feel safe riding the bus in the evening, she told council’s transportation committee this week.

“If you start asking drivers, ‘Are you afraid?’ almost two to one they will say yes, which I find alarming and quite disturbing,” she said.

Bus riders’ experiences vary depending on the route, Fedun said, describing public intoxication and people screaming on buses travelling through the west side of the city.

“If it’s unsafe for drivers, it’s unsafe for fire community support workers and it’s very unsafe and unsettling for passengers,” she said.

“I would never recommend Saskatoon Transit to anyone.”

Since last summer, community support teams overseen by the fire department have been part of the city’s response to increasing crime and disturbances on city buses. A report on the team’s progress in its first year is expected to reach city council sometime in the third quarter of this year.

Another transit user, Cameron McMillan, told the committee he’s been a daily customer for the past 20 years and has a background in security.

“Over the last five years of those 20 years, I’ve personally seen a dramatic uptick in misconduct on the bus,” he said describing a range of incidents from simple disturbances to open consumption of alcohol and drugs, aggression, threats and weapons possession.

“As someone who rides the bus every single day, I have never seen a (fire community support worker) on the buses or at the terminals outside of the downtown terminal,” McMillan said.

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The support workers should be riding buses for a minimum of four hours on a variety of routes, he told the committee.

“That visible uniformed presence will reduce some of the misbehaviour.”

McMillan said he would like the city to adopt a policy similar to Calgary’s, where transit peace officers ride buses and have authority to remove people when needed.

Fire Chief Doug Wegren said the fire department understands this is a significant issue and is working to resolve it.

“I’m not complaining that we don’t have enough (resources). It’s a complex problem that we’re trying to figure out,” Wegren said.

Mayor Cynthia Block noted the community support program has a full contingent of 12 workers now, and asked Wegren if he’s satisfied with what he’s seeing.

“Am I satisfied? I see improvement, but it’s a process,” Wegren replied.

He said changes to management, scheduling and data collection are underway.

The support workers’ time is split evenly between monitoring buses and terminals, and patrolling the business improvement district, Wegren said, adding that statistics have little effect on public perceptions.

Block asked him if they’d still be having this conversation if everyone in the city was safely housed.

“Speaking as Doug, and maybe not the fire chief, that makes a lot of sense to me,” Wegren replied. “As the fire chief, it also makes a lot of sense. If people have a safe place to be, they’re likely to be a lot happier and we can avoid these problems.”

Coun. Robert Pearce asked why the fire department’s community support workers are patrolling the downtown business improvement district if the city also has alternative response officers patrolling there.

Rielly Knock, the fire department’s director of community relationships, said alternative response officers are sworn peace officers with more authority and different mandates.

Administrative staff told the committee that any redirection of services would require further discussion with the business improvement district, and more reporting to city council.

Knock said the bus routes with the most riders are the same routes with the most incidents.

“It’s very important to try and free the police up for the calls that are a higher priority,” Knock said.

“Not everybody that is acting out or is causing a problem is a criminal.”

Original StarPhoenix Article | Click Here