Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 2, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 A 4 THURSDAY, JANUARY 2, 2020 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMNEWS I MANITOBA CITY administration is recommending more than $3.5 million of extra funding for Winnipeg Transit Plus to address Manitoba ombudsman recommenda- tions to improve the service. In a report by Winnipeg Transit, to be presented to the civic infrastructure re- newal and public works committee next week, the city says it will cost $938,149 in 2020 to implement the recommenda- tions, including hiring seven permanent staff and one temporary worker to do things such as answer emails, respond to and investigate complaints, process no-show charges, and record incidents. The budget figure would also pay for the addition of a flat-rate contract for extra accessible vehicles, so the service can transport more people than it can now. If approved, in future years the fig- ure would be $875,000 in 2021, $836,000 in 2022 and $853,000 in 2023. Coun. Matt Allard (St. Boniface), chairman of the committee, said in an emailed statement he is in favour of re- ferring the items to the budget process, but added: “We are in a very challen- ging fiscal environment.” “The provincial cuts to transit fund- ing have left a huge gap between avail- able funds and demands for service. I am doing everything in my power to avoid cuts to transit service, to move forward the transit master plan, and overall protect and improve service in spite of these challenges,” he said. “Adding a new cost in light of this situation presents more challenges, but it’s also an important part of our ser- vice that deserves attention and invest- ment. I want us to do as much as we can with the resources we have.” The Independent Living Resource Centre made a complaint to the om- budsman in February 2016, saying driv- ers with the accessible service weren’t properly trained, vehicles were not safe, and the service wasn’t reliable. The ombudsman issued a 152-page report in January 2019, with 19 recom- mendations to improve the service that used to be called Handi-Transit. Among them: allowing more people to use the service; discontinuing the rule to only pick up people within 500 metres of a Transit service bus route and replacing it with either within 1,000 metres or within the city limits; responding to complaints and following up on them; and changing policies that resulted in people being automatically charged for the service as a “no-show.” The City of Winnipeg accepted all of the recommendations. However, the status report states although five of the recommendations have been complet- ed, the rest are either still in process, partially completed, or part of long- term planning. Meanwhile, there were almost 5,000 complaints about Transit Plus in 2019. Allard said complaints about servi- ces are “normal and common,” but he would “obviously like to see that num- ber go down.” “Anecdotally, I have met with numer- ous constituents of mine who use the service who have made it clear what their challenges are, and I believe these numbers reflect that,” he said. The report shows the most frequent problem reported (823 complaints) is about schedule adherence by driv- ers. Disputing a no-show charge came second (544). There were 24 complaints of passen- gers being injured while using the ser- vice. As well, a report to the committee from Winnipeg Transit recommends about 70 vehicles being used for Transit Plus be allowed to use diamond lanes on roads. The report states while city coun- cil allowed taxis to begin using the diamond lanes permanently in 2019, Transit Plus vehicles are not able to use them because they are not considered a vehicle for hire. “Winnipeg Transit Plus vehicles are considered to be operating on behalf of Winnipeg Transit and should be al- lowed to use the reserved transit dia- mond lanes,” the report recommends. “The disability community has long advocated for Winnipeg Transit Plus vehicles to use the diamond lanes.” kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca K ATRIME — Even before the derailment, Penny Flock was having a tough day of travel.The 72-year-old had arrived at the station in Canora, Sask., Monday before 8 a.m., bags packed and ready to get on her morning train to Winnipeg. After a series of delays, Flock — who was visiting her daughter in nearby Norquay — finally climbed aboard just past midnight, joining six other weary travellers and the VIA Rail crew. About six hours later, as Train 692 drove through the small Manitoba community of Katrime before the sun rose Tuesday, the vehicle began to shake, luggage fell and Flock, wide awake amid a car of dozing passengers, began to sense that something had gone wrong. “It felt like we went through rough turbulence be- fore we came to a dead stop,” she said. At 6:44 a.m., the southbound train, which started its trip in Churchill, encountered what VIA called an “unexpected incident,” and the front locomotive units derailed, flipping over sideways and bringing the trip to an abrupt halt. Of the seven passengers on board, two were taken to hospital with non-life- threatening injuries, as were three of five crew members, all of whom have since been released. After the derailment, railway police, the RCMP, fire personnel and emergency crews were dis- patched to the site along the CN-owned track. On Tuesday afternoon, VIA, CN and the Transporta- tion Safety Board of Canada began investigating the derailment’s cause. VIA said information for passengers or their families is available through the company’s emergency line at 1-877-747-0707. “This is an unfortunate situation and we extend our apologies to our customers for the impacts on their travel plans during the holiday season,” a VIA spokesperson said, citing the derailment and the cancellation of Tuesday’s Winnipeg-Thompson and Thursday’s Thompson-The Pas trains. They added that environmental crews were dis- patched to the crash site to assist with the cleanup of what appeared to be a “minimal amount of fuel leakage” from one of the locomotives before the train was removed from the site. Dozens of vehicles and maintenance personnel were also at the scene, assessing the damage and preparing to remove the downed cars. With flashing police lights and loud machinery running along the track, many passersby stopped at the scene, some taking photos. The farmer who owns the field that borders the track pulled up in a golf cart. He said that for as long as he’s lived there, he’s never seen anything quite like the derailment in Katrime, located about 50 kilometres northwest of Portage la Prairie. Neither had the passengers, said P.J. Burton, a 67-year-old musician who’d been travelling back to Winnipeg from Dauphin. “It was a real shocker,” said Burton, shortly after arriving at the downtown VIA station in Winnipeg on Tuesday afternoon. “We were sort of sleeping or just relaxing, then all of a sudden, everything went very, very weird, and it was kind of like being in slow motion as the train derailed.” Wolfgang Welter, a visiting traveller from Ger- many who boarded the train Saturday evening in Churchill, said he had no idea what had happened when the train stopped. “I was sleeping,” he said. Flock said the derailment was a bit of a “rude awakening” for passengers and crew, who she com- mended for being attentive to the passengers dur- ing the incident. After getting off the train, the passengers were checked by first-responders, and were kept warm in fire trucks, police cars and the vehicles of resi- dents of a nearby Hutterite colony. For Flock, who has been a regular train pas- senger for years — relying on it during the winter months, when highway driving to visit family can be risky — the situation was upsetting, notwith- standing the good fortune that there were no ser- ious injuries. “I don’t know how comfortable I’ll feel the next time I take a train,” she said while en route to the Winnipeg VIA station on a chartered bus. “It can be going so smoothly until, all of a sudden, it isn’t.” ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES City administration has suggested hiring more Transit Plus staff to solve service concerns. Report calls for $3.5M infusion to improve Transit Plus KEVIN ROLLASON Frequent passenger shaken after derailment near Katrime Train journey goes off the rails MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Crews work on cleaning up a passenger train derailment near Katrime, northwest of Portage la Prairie, on Tuesday. Two passengers and three crew members were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries, but have since been released. RCMP A spokesperson said the VIA passenger train encountered an “unexpected incident” when it derailed Tuesday. BEN WALDMAN A_04_Jan-02-20_FP_01.indd A4 2020-01-01 10:33 PM ;