B.C. Transit has started an internal review after a Regional District of Nanaimo Transit bus driver refused to continue his route when a homeless man, wanting a ride to a cold weather shelter, boarded the bus, but had no money to pay the fare.
The incident happened Wednesday at about 6 p.m. at the bus stop on Front Street near the Port Place Shopping Centre.
Josh Zane filmed the exchange between himself, the homeless passenger and the driver and posted it on Facebook, which shows the driver refusing to proceed even after Zane paid for the homeless man’s fare and a transfer. Instead the driver called for a transit supervisor to attend the scene. The video does not show details of the incident before filming started or afterward.
“The bus driver was refusing to give him a ride, so the guy just sat down,” Zane said. “So I decided to pay his fare after we’d been sitting there a few minutes. We’d probably been sitting there for about 10 minutes by the time I started shooting the video and paid his fare.”
Zane said the estimated 15 passengers on the bus were asked to disembark and wait for the next bus to cycle through the stop. Zane said the delay from the time the dispute began until the next bus arrived was about 45 minutes.
Zane said the driver refused to give the homeless man a transfer, but instead gave it to Zane after the man departed the vehicle.
At one point in the video the driver mentions he’d had trouble the night before with two other homeless passengers.
“I was pretty agitated in the video, but I did calm down a lot … I just feel when someone’s being discriminated against because of their economic status, that’s just not acceptable to me, so I had to step in,” Zane said.
Regional District of Nanaimo Transit deferred comment to Jonathan Dyck, B.C. Transit communications manager, who said in an e-mail to the News Bulletin an internal review into the incident was underway and policies regarding those who can’t pay to ride transit is left to local governments to work out with social service agencies.
“For example, the RDN provides free or discounted fare products to the local homeless shelter and other social service agencies to distribute as they deem appropriate,” Dyck said. “While everyone is required to pay their bus fare, these programs allow people to ride the bus when they may not always be able to afford transit.”
Daniel Pearce, acting general manager for RDN Transit transportation and emergency services, said it’s policy that people cannot ride a bus without paying a fare.
“However, drivers at their discretion – our management does support them – if they feel somebody is endangered or needs direct assistance, then they can give them a ride,” Pearce said, adding the driver followed protocol by stopping the bus and calling his supervisor.
Police were also called, but did not attend.
“In this situation the driver did not proceed because they did not feel it was safe to operate the bus at that time,” Pearce said. “Unfortunately there was much more to the incident that took place and, due to the language that was used and the approach on the operator, transit management and B.C. Transit fully support the operator in making that decision of parking the bus and waiting for assistance.”
To view the video of the incident, please visit http://bit.ly/2l5pnAq.
