No soft soap for OC Transpo’s grime fighters
Reporter spends a day with the crews who keep city’s bus fleet spic and span
This one’s for Priscilla.
After this newspaper published a story on its website in November detailing the highlights of the transit commission’s 2018 budget, she posted in the comments section the following:
Can they please hire ppl to clean them ... Buses are absolutely disgusting. Had to complain about a chicken carcass left on bus for at least 3 weeks ... Just watched it decompose to just bones on the daily ride ... Ewwwww ... And they smell like piss all the time.
Regardless of whether she’s ever actually been on an OC Transpo bus or was just trolling, her complaint led me to this sprawling bus garage on Industrial Road, where I’m down on my knees scraping bits of chewing gum off the floor of bus 6433.
“The chewing gum is basically everywhere. It’s always the worst,” says Jozef Ciaston. The 55-yearold has been a garage attendant here for almost 12 years, but he did similar work in Greece and his native Poland.
To get a closer look at how OC Transpo maintains its fleet, I volunteered to spend a day helping him clean a bus.
The top-to-bottom scrubbing of an articulated bus usually takes up to five hours; add at least an hour for double-decker buses. At a minimum, buses are scheduled for interior cleans every 180 days. But it’s often less time than that because a bus can be sent in early if a driver notices it’s looking grungy or it becomes what’s aptly called a “sick” bus. That’s when someone vomits or spills a drink all over the place.
Ciaston hands me green latex gloves and a scraper. We begin at the back of the bus and work our way forward, scraping away at gum, bits of dried food and stickers slapped on seat backs. Ciaston vacuums each seat as well, discovering along the way a busted cushion he’ll need to replace.
Sometimes, he finds discarded needles or lost mittens, but on this day, all that turns up is a shiny dime. No chicken carcasses, Priscilla.
He moves quickly and methodically through the articulated bus, scraping with one hand and vacuuming with the other.
Then he grabs a canister of wipes to clean away graffiti and sticky sticker residue.
The purple wipes are so nasty he dons two extra layers of gloves, just to be safe. “I don’t take any chances.”
Next, he carefully covers the window seats with garbage bags and then drags two hoses aboard: One shoots foamy green soap onto the walls and windows, while the other sends out a high-pressure spray of cold water to rinse everything down.
He hands me a brush attached to the end of a long wooden stick and I begin scrubbing down the windows and walls, again working from the back of the bus to the front.
It’s remarkably satisfying to wash away all the grit and grime that has built up over the several months since Bus 6433’s last bath.
“It’s already looking better,” says Mark Westphal, head of OC Transpo’s fleet and facilities maintenance department.
But Ciaston frowns. “Still lots of gum.”
With much of the dirt washed away, it’s easier to spot the blackened circles of discarded gum. We grab our tools again and chip, drag and scrape until the stubborn stuff gives way.
Crisp white rags in hand, we dip into a bucket of soapy water and wipe down the overhead heat ducts and speakers, as well as the yellow safety bars that passengers cling to whenever a bus brakes suddenly. Ciaston also wipes down the dashboard and vacuums the driver’s seat.
While he gives the floor a final rinse, I pop over to the parts counter to collect a new seat cushion.
Once the replacement seat is installed and Ciaston gives the bus a final inspection, he drives it a short distance to another corner of the garage. There, blasts of warm air bring the interior temperature to at least 32 degrees, drying Bus 6433 out quickly enough to get it back on the road in time for afternoon rush hour.
Given the free service and all the jubilation of the previous night, you might think Jan. 1 is the messiest day on the job. But it’s actually July 2, the day after Canada Day, that buses — and many Ottawans — are often in the worst shape.
“People like to party,” Ciaston says with a grin.
Throughout the work week, there are 804 buses in service across Ottawa during the morning rush hour and 817 every afternoon.
Despite what Priscilla might think, none of them hits the road without being inspected first.
Overnight, at each of the garages, there’s a process known as countdown, which is exactly as it sounds — a clock counting down until the wee hours of morning, when a fleet of buses must be ready for another day of service.
It goes like this: A bus pulls in, attendants empty the fare box and give the vehicle a once-over quickly to collect any garbage. Lost and found, too. Then they check fluid levels — fuel, oil, windshield cleaner — and refill as needed. They check tire pressures. All of this in, ideally, five or six minutes, Westphal says.
If the floor is filthy — as it often is after a snowstorm — they’ll give it a quick scrub. And, if necessary, the final stop before the bus returns to the tidy rows outside is the exterior wash-and-dry station.
But if the “check engine” light is on or a seat is soiled, the bus will be set aside for repair or cleaning the next day.
About 200 vehicles go through countdown on a given night at “Indy,” Westphal’s nickname for the 170,000-square-foot garage on Industrial Road (there are also bus garages on St. Laurent Boulevard, Colonnade Road and Queensview Drive).
“People don’t see any of this,” he says.
Perhaps if they did, they’d keep the gum in their mouths.