HSR hiring spree cuts down on no-show buses
The number of city buses cancelled each day is slowly dropping from pre-Christmas crisis levels even as the number of drivers unable to work remains near a record high 19 per cent.
Newly hired drivers have helped the HSR cut weekly cancelled service hours from 313 at the end of January to 81 in the last full week of February. Last October, 780 hours were infamously cancelled in a single week — an average of 23 no-show buses a day.
But gradual restoration of service was not enough for more than a dozen HSR riders who showed up at a budget meeting last week to implore councillors to beef up transit spending. Council is expected to restart its delayed 10-year transit plan when it approves the city budget Thursday, but not play catch-up on the original plan for 2018 service expansion.
“I take public transit because it is my only option. But I need it to be a better option as a young professional living in this city,” said Christine Yachouh, 23, who described to councillors her frustrations with an hour-orlonger bus commute from her east Mountain home to work at McMaster University.
Yachouh later added residents are tired of waiting for promised bus express routes intended to better connect Mountain residents to the rest of the city. Noshow buses, she added, only aggravate an “unacceptable” commute.
The cancelled bus crisis has also overshadowed a continuing “disgraceful” problem with overcrowded buses blowing by waiting riders, added longtime transit advocate Don McLean. He pointed to the city’s own statistics that show an average 400 monthly “pass-bys” of riders in the MainKing corridor alone.
HSR director Debbie Dalle Vedove said the ongoing emergency hiring spree approved by council last fall has added 28 full-time drivers, although some have replaced retiring operators. By late spring, the total number of drivers should be close to 542 — a number she said alongside scheduling changes should “largely eliminate” cancelled service.
More drivers will also be trained in the summer to be ready for fall service frequency improvements on certain routes — funded partly by a fare hike — that council is expected to approve Thursday.
Mayor Fred Eisenberger said Wednesday the HSR is “headed in the right direction” in fixing no-show buses, but added he wants to see more details about why driver absenteeism remains stuck at around 19 per cent. “When we don’t have enough drivers to put on the road, we can’t put enough buses on the road.”
Dalle Vedove said she did not
yet have a breakdown available for the 19 per cent absenteeism figure, which includes everything
from one-day sick absences to maternity leaves to emergency time off to long-term disability.
(During the worst week last October, the HSR said long- and shortterm disability absences accounted for 5.5 and 7.3 per cent, respectively.)
Driver’s union head Eric Tuck applauded the ongoing hiring — which he called “long overdue” — but added driver morale and relations with management remain “very low.” Last year, the union called for top managers at the HSR to be sacked. It refused the latest city request in January to allow drivers to work up to 68 hours a week via overtime.
Tuck said the city hasn’t provided him with a breakdown of absenteeism figures, either. But he reiterated his belief that poor scheduling and “ridiculous” overtime demands on an aging operator workforce have led to more long-term health-related absences. “You can’t fix that overnight.”