Our York Region readers will have a sunny day to take a long bike ride or gridlocked drive around the GTA as Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 will go on strike at 4AM tonight. We would like to hear from Yorksters about their strike experiences — how do you get around if you rely on the bus? For those of us living & working in the city centre (that is, within the old City of Toronto borders) it is relatively easy to get around using active transportation options. In York, where nodes are much more spread out, these options are fewer. From The Star:
A temporary reprieve for about 35,000 York region commuters who rely on Viva rapid bus service was yanked off the table tonight after its drivers voted to strike early Thursday morning.
“We are a democratic union and our members have spoken,” said Bob Kinnear, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, in a statement released Wednesday night after drivers rejected a tentative settlement forged last weekend with Veolia Transportation Inc., the private company that runs the service for York Region.
“Veolia management knew that the strike would begin (Thursday) if their offer was turned down and I have informed them of the results of the vote,” he said.
Viva’s drivers, about 160 of them, were set to walk off the job at 4 a.m. Thursday after 61 per cent of union members voted against the deal, Kinnear said.
Photo by wyliepoon.
14 comments
I blame David Mill… oh wait
Bob Kinnear strikes again (pardon the pun). Now the 905 has a small taste of what the 416 has to deal with.
Also, while I see your point Shawn, even for people reliant on the TTC, not all of us have easy access to “active transportation”, either due to age, health, distance (not everyone can ride a bike to work, even if they wanted to), or the opportunity to just run out and by a bike. I certainly live too far to work to bike there, especially in the PM, despite the city posters asking me “why I don’t bike too.” The last TTC strikes were certainly harder for people who live outside the old City of Toronto or have to commute much farther.
But York has options due to the multiple contractors that make up York Region’s transit system (apart from TTC and Brampton drivers under joint contracts with York, all of the routes are run by one of several private conrtractors, like Laidlaw/First Group, Miller and Travelways. This is one saving grace where YRT, minus Viva, will still be running, providing a partial option to everyone who lives or works on a Viva route (Viva Blue is paralleled by the local 98 and 99 routes, Purple paralleled by route 1, Orange paralleled by 77/77A and TTC 107). Plus the transit modal split is much lower in York.
This strike does not have the same effect as those insulting strikes called by Kinnear in 2006 and 2008, though the almost complete lack of notice to transit riders smacks of Klassic Kinnear.
Sean, I just wanted to point out that the Viva Purple route is only paralleled by route 1 for about half the journey. Route 1 ends at Yonge, while Purple goes all the way to Keele (York Univ).
My personal experience during this strike (so far) was better than I expected. I normally rely on Viva to take me to York University. With the Viva out of the picture, there is no actual YRT bus that takes you to York University unless you live on Jane St, or live in the Thornhill area.
So, that said, my only option was to take the GO bus. It was hard enough to get to a GO station to begin with, but once I got there I was surprised to see that there was not some influx of riders taking GO instead of Viva. A few Viva riders ran from their stop to the bus after realizing there was no Viva service, but aside from that the bus had a few empty seats still.
It was a very expensive trip and I don’t think saving 25 minutes of my trip is worth the premium fare, but at least it’s working for me so far.
I will not however be taking it back home though, because the first bus back to my station is at almost 7pm, which is ridiculous.
“Bob Kinnear strikes again”
That made me laugh out loud, a lot.
Another crime by a union. Beyond time to abolish all unions. Veolia should just fire them all. Driving a bus should pay less than driving a cab, since they don’t need any knowledge of the city.
so here’s my experience today.
got on the bus going south at ~6am. Most of the stops had 5-6 people waiting. took a good 35 min to get to finch from 16th ave. when it usually takes ~20 during the same time. city news was there reporting but no sign of any picketers.
coming back home at around 10:30, the 99 bus was packed as i’ve never seen before. even in the pre-viva days. heading up to richmond hill centre, that’s where the picketing was happening. they are blocking buses for roughly 10 min each on the way in and out. with the bus full and emotions running high, as we were let through, a good chunk of people were giving the one finger salute to the bus blockers.
so the usual bus ride of 30min doubled into an hour because of this business.
I take double-fare to Finch subway about a third of the time (i.e. when I can’t get a lift), including this morning.
The Clark 5 bus, which runs to Yonge then doubles the 99 and Blue and so on down to Finch station, was running well. Traffic seemed a bit heavier, but there is always a flotilla of buses in the HOV lane anyway, so it was a bit hard for me to notice the difference.
Raffi, out of curiosity, where are you coming from? No connecting buses to the YRT 3?
Disparishun, I live in the inconvenient spot located in the middle of 4 possible GO stations on two separate lines.
There are a few connections I could theoretically make to get to the 3, but in all honesty I was not ready to deal with the strike and the effects of it, so I opted for the GO instead. As long as it only lasts today or tomorrow, and ends by Monday, I’m good.
My only sticking point is now I want a partial refund on my monthly pass for YRT. I’m paying for service that I’m not getting. Again. Why do I always end up relying on the service that goes on strike at the time?
Reality Check: The union did enable the rejection, but the fact does remain that it was workers themselves who voted to reject the offer.
Abolish workers?
Raffi,
The info on refunds is located at http://www.yrt.ca/news/strike.asp. It’s at the bottom of the page.
Thanks for that info, Alex. I managed to find that shortly after making that post. Looks like I’m going to have to make a trip out of my way to get it, though. I’ll have to go next week some time.
Gloria… consider this radical idea…
No unions. Workers are treated as individuals and recognized for their work ethic, performance and contributions as individuals when determining their receiving a raise or promotion.
It might just work.
Jeff, sometimes I wonder why it’s so difficult for people to imagine a world without unions. Thank you for making it that much easier.
I can tell you why Raffi: cuz it would look like the life in urban North America pre-1920s. Instead of nation of labourers we now have a nation of service industry people (something like 30 or 40% of the work force). Those not unionized would make shitty, shitty money, a wekened economy, and we’d have even more over-educated people doing menial jobs.
I think unions abuse their collective bargaining power routinely, and act very much like big bad corporations. But I don’t believe we want a work force and soceity even further apart on the wealth gap. We’d be more like those guys down south, and their economy seems to be humming along just nicely these days, don’t ya think?