No new rider limits on buses as virus cases soar
Union for HSR drivers asks for reintroduction of passenger limits to ensure physical distancing, but the city says it’s not necessary
The city will not limit ridership on HSR buses despite a request to do so from drivers worried about spiking COVID cases and the emergence of a fastspreading variant of the virus.
The union for bus drivers, ATU Local 107, made the request to reinstitute stricter passenger limits almost two weeks before Ontario issued a new stayat-home order that will go into effect Thursday.
During the first pandemic lockdown last April, the city enforced a 10- to 15rider limit on HSR buses to allow for two-metre physical distancing. But despite a new lockdown announced in December, the city transit agency is currently allowing passengers to use all available seats.
“We are concerned about the growth in cases, but also about the new (virus) strain that is supposed to spread much more easily,” said union head Eric Tuck. “We want to do whatever we can to protect ourselves, our families and our passengers.”
Tuck said so far, public health officials have told him there is no evidence the virus is spreading on transit. Three bus drivers in Hamilton have contracted COVID so far, but those cases showed no direct link to the workplace.
The HSR is urging residents to stay home and take transit for “essential travel” only. But at the same time, the bus service says it plans to maintain “100 per cent seated capacity” to meet demand from residents who must travel for work, medical appointments or grocery runs.
The city’s emergency operations head, Paul Johnson, said public health officials do not see the need for new restrictions on bus capacity yet — in part because rider numbers are already “greatly reduced.”
HSR ridership has dropped since the city went into “grey” lockdown in December from an average of 46,000 daily boardings in the fall to 33,000 now. That’s less than one third of the 113,000 average pre-COVID daily boardings. “I expect now it is going to drop even further,” Johnson said, pointing to the stayat-home order.
Passengers are also largely respecting a mandatory mask-wearing rule. The city says adherence to the rule, which is not enforced, is close to 99 per cent.
Tuck, who drives a daily Parkdale Avenue route, estimates he is seeing about 85 per cent compliance among his riders.
Regardless, allowing 30-plus people on a single bus while simultaneously urging people to stay home is a mixed message for riders, said Callie Boehler, a healthcare worker who takes the bus daily from her home in Crown Point.
“They limited ridership in the spring when the number of cases was less than half of what it is now ... But now we can fill all of the seats? When I don’t have room (to distance) that is terrifying for me,” said Boehler, who suffers from chronic pneumonia.
Despite the overall low ridership, Boehler said some buses still fill up on busy routes and some riders still insist on not wearing a mask. (The city says about four buses bypass passengers each day because they are too full.)
Hamilton is not the only city facing calls for new rider restrictions during the second wave.
As far back as October, the union for TTC workers in Toronto called for the reintroduction of passenger limits after passengers started posting photos of standing-room-only buses.