Halifax adopts new transit safety policy, union says it doesn’t go far enough – Halifax | 24CA News

Until not too long ago, Halifax was and not using a security bylaw for its public transit system – and as reviews of disturbances continued to rise, so did safety issues.

But on Tuesday, Halifax regional council unanimously permitted a brand new Halifax Transit bylaw. The pointers look to enhance incident responses by introducing disciplinary measures like handing out fines or suspensions to disruptive passengers and imposing time restrictions on folks utilizing transit amenities as shelters.

Violation of the brand new bylaw may see passengers fined wherever from $100 to $10,000 or banned from transit amenities for as much as six months.

Although town taking a step towards strengthening protections for each passengers and transit operators might be seen as progress, some throughout the workforce nonetheless have some issues.

“We’re still going to be calling in and waiting for a police officer to show up for any enforcement,” stated Shane O’Leary, the president of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 508, which represents transit staff.

He stated the brand new bylaw nonetheless makes bus drivers depending on an “already understaffed” police power to take away problematic passengers, including that he’d prefer to see Halifax Transit supervisors have the ability to problem tickets themselves.

“If it’s a criminal act, yes, call the police, but if you’re just being rowdy, causing trouble and being disruptive, you should be allowed to be charged,” he stated. “We have these guys out there in security belts and puncture-proof vests, why can’t they write summary offence tickets?

“By waiting until it’s an actual crime, somebody’s going to get hurt,” he added. “And every day we wait, an operator’s life is at risk.”

He stated Halifax Transit wants its personal “transit police” for the bylaw to be totally efficient.

Coun. Waye Mason, who chairs town’s transportation standing committee, stated there’s been a rise in “casual violence and lack of order” in transit programs all through Canada — and Halifax is not any exception.

“Our bus operators are being attacked,” he stated. “We don’t want to see anybody being attacked like that…. It’s not right.

“It’s pretty hard to recruit people to drive a bus if they’re afraid they’re going to get beat up.”

According to the bylaw, duty will fall upon the police to handle the severity of a disturbance – and in response, problem offence tickets or distribute transit bans to passengers who trigger any vary of disruptions, together with assaults, vandalism and interfering with passengers boarding, driving or leaving transit.

Additional security protections are being put in place to guard transit operators, together with penalties for many who impede the operation of a car or delay its departure.

Mason stated strain to determine security rules for the transit system got here when attorneys knowledgeable the Halifax Regional Municipality that it was incorrectly utilizing the province’s Protection of Property Act to ban folks from town’s buses.

“It can only apply to property. It can’t apply to buses…. It was determined that wasn’t legal,” he stated. “So we had to get this bylaw written very quickly to cover that gap.”

Safety safety officers

During Tuesday’s council assembly, Phillip Herritt, director of transit operations for Halifax Transit, stated he’ll return to council in November with a report on constructing a “safety officer program,” which could match the invoice for O’Leary’s suggestion.

“Through next year’s budget process, (we will make a) request for the required resources, people, equipment … to actually create and staff that program,” Herritt stated in response to a query about coaching new officers, apart from police, to implement the principles.

Herritt stated Halifax Transit shall be finding out different transit programs all through the nation to higher perceive what’s required to construct an efficient security officer program.

The bylaw presently states that “enforcement for the Halifax Transit by-law will reside with Halifax Regional Police and the RCMP.”

In a followup e mail on Thursday, O’Leary stated that was the primary he had heard any dialogue of incorporating security safety officers.

Mason stated till the report in November, bylaw enforcement will rely closely on police.

“But the idea is to also have these other officers who aren’t at the expense of the police … who’d be able to enforce these rules,” he stated. “It’d be police or any bylaw person who’s sworn in as a special constable. The problem is I don’t think we have anybody trained and sworn to do that for transit.”

Those who obtain bans have as much as three days to enchantment their case to a bylaw administrator. If their ban stays, a non-compliant rider may very well be fined for returning to Halifax Transit property previous to their suspension finish date.

The new guidelines apply to all Halifax Transit property, excluding ferry companies, together with buses, terminals, bus stops and passenger shelters.

The report supplied a protracted listing of restricted conduct on transit property that included violations resembling carrying harmful weapons, partaking in any exercise that will endanger one other passenger and performing a reside musical act with out the permission of town.

‘Assaults are happening on a regular basis’

O’Leary stated numerous disturbances happen at Halifax’s Mumford and Lacewood terminals, in addition to the bridge terminal in Dartmouth.

“At the Lacewood terminal, they literally have to lock the terminal down at three o’clock in the daytime,” he stated, including that the terminal not too long ago needed to lower off its Wi-Fi to scale back the variety of folks congregating across the space to make use of the web service.

As for the present state of employees, O’Leary stated Halifax Transit staff have the best charges of sick time, long-term incapacity and turnover within the metropolis. He stated drivers are quitting inside weeks of being employed “after they find out what it’s really like.”

“You shouldn’t have to get on the bus and keep your head down and keep your mouth shut and hope not to get assaulted. Our operators have to do that,” O’Leary stated.

O’Leary stated his union has put “a lot of pressure” on Halifax’s council within the wake of the uptick in offences, including that these issues weren’t receiving a lot consideration till latest enhancements had been made to the monitoring of incident reviews.

“None of those were tracked properly for the longest time,” he stated. “Now they’re allegedly tracking them so that they can give us a number of assaults and find out where they’re happening.… You can’t just ignore it.

“We’re out there worried about our safety.… We’re not a small town, we’re a big city where assaults are happening on a regular basis.”

The report stated no group engagement was held in drafting the bylaw as a result of “rapid increase of security incidents on Halifax Transit and the time-sensitive nature of the report” however stated an upcoming security program plans to collect outdoors enter on the modifications.