Halifax Transit is downplaying any immediate dangers on its fleet of buses after a driver tested positive for COVID-19.
The Halifax Transit website says the bus and ferry operator was informed Wednesday of the positive test and is working with Public Health to investigate the situation.
Halifax Transit says on its site that the driver has not been at work since Saturday, and that since that time, all work spaces and vehicles that the driver was in contact with have undergone cleanings in accordance with Halifax Transit’s enhanced protocol.
That doesn’t provide much comfort for other drivers and workers in the transit garages, says Ken Wilson, president of Local 508 of the Amalgamated Transit Union that represents transit employees.
“The employer posted a notice basically saying that the buses and the garages are safe to enter, to use, because their disinfectant program is taking place,” Wilson said.
“We question the disinfectant program. I tweeted that out this afternoon about what a couple of my members witnessed -- black water cleaning the same bus, all the touch points, the ferry not being cleaned at all for touch points. We’re starting to be concerned about the level of disinfecting taking place.”
Wilson said the union’s message has not changed since the early days of the pandemic in Nova Scotia.
“The majority of my bus operators and some of our ferry workers are scared,” he said. “They are nervous, they are unfocused. They are coming to work because they have to do a service but it’s really concerning. When you see 75 people crammed on a bus and they have essentially half the bus to use, that’s not social distancing and we can’t understand why we can’t have limits like other transit agencies across Canada.”
Wilson said the municipality was first in a lot of things related to the pandemic and “we were excited about that but for us to be one of the last to get a load limit, it’s concerning.”
Wilson said he doesn’t think Public Health and Dr. Robert Strang, the province’s chief medical officer of health, understand how crowded it is on a bus.
“If he thinks the lineup at Costco is bad, he should really check out a bus,” Wilson said.
Designated by the province as an essential service, Halifax Transit says it takes direction from the province regarding steps to safeguard the health of employees and residents while delivering the highest level of service that can reasonably be provided.
Over the past several weeks, the municipality says it has suspended fare collection on bus and ferry services to support the social-distancing order, increased the frequency of wipe-downs in high-touch surfaces, made the first seven to 10 seats immediately behind the bus driver unavailable to passengers, loaded passengers from the rear of the bus and limited passengers on buses to seats only.
Wilson said the driver who tested positive for COVID-19 contacted him at about noon Wednesday and confirmed the news.
“He’s doing pretty good,” Wilson said. “He’s got mild symptoms, aches and pained muscles and whatnot. He felt weird Saturday when he got off work and he decided to go and get tested because he didn’t feel right.”
Wilson said bus operators find themselves in a unique situation.
“As a bus driver, you are so hyper-vigilant when you hear a cough or a sneeze,” Wilson said. “We don’t always carry the reasonable people. Ninety-five per cent of our riders are business-minded people, they are on the bus to use if for the purpose of it, mass transit. The other five per cent spend 95 per cent of the time on the bus creating the most problems. That’s what we’re trying to address right now.”
He said elimination of the fare exacerbates the problem with passengers who don’t need to use transit taking a bus for a joy ride or to see where it goes.
