City crews having trouble keeping up with repairs to vandalized bus shelters By: Joyanne Pursaga Posted: 6:06 PM CST Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023

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This article was published 09/11/2023 (1061 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

About a third of Winnipeg’s bus shelters have been vandalized so far this year, and crews are scrambling to keep up as winter weather increases the urgency for repairs.

Broken glass affected 267 of the city’s 880 shelters in 2021, 361 in 2022 and 294 in 2023, as of Nov. 3, according to Winnipeg Transit data. Some of those shelters were vandalized more than once.

At year’s end, 132 shelters were missing glass in 2021, followed by 143 in 2022. As of last week, 115 were missing glass.

“Winnipeg Transit has been experiencing an unusually high rate of bus shelter vandalism over 2022-23,” spokeswoman Megan Benedictson said in an email.

There are 170 heated shelters.

Transit said it can’t provide the data for earlier years due to record-keeping changes.

Benedictson said Winnipeg Transit completes repairs as quickly as possible but work was delayed by a glass shortage last year and by vandalism this year.

“We continue to experience a high volume of vandalism that is contributing to our backlog of shelters in need of repair, as well as other causes, including graffiti and motor vehicle incidents. While vandalism is more common in some areas of the city, it is a widespread issue experienced across Winnipeg,” she wrote.

“We continue to experience a high volume of vandalism that is contributing to our backlog of shelters in need of repair.”–Megan Benedictson

Transit declined a Free Press interview request Thursday.

An outreach organization serving homeless Winnipeggers said the delayed repairs affect the seasonal surge in shelter use by vulnerable people desperate to get out of the cold.

“They don’t have (another) choice,” said Marion Willis, executive director of St. Boniface Street Links.

Willis said Street Links helped 14 people in shelters Wednesday, a number normal for this time of year.

As previously reported by the Free Press, the number of monthly calls to Winnipeg Transit about people sleeping in bus shelters fell to its lowest level in years in 2023 (up to the end of September), with the exception of January.

Kate Sjoberg, Main Street Project’s director of community initiatives, said the organization has also noted the seasonal rise in people sleeping or living in bus shelters.

Both Willis and Sjoberg stressed the overarching concern remains a lack of affordable housing units and surge in the number of homeless people.

“The fact is that the number of people who are unsheltered is increasing and, as the number increases, people simply need a place to stay,” said Sjoberg.

Coun. Markus Chambers, a member of council’s public works committee, said he’s noticed people staying in suburban bus shelters recently as far south as Pembina Highway near the Perimeter Highway.

Chambers (St. Norbert-Seine River) said the persistent need for shelter repairs is a source of frustration, with rising costs that could make it difficult to complete all of them.

“It comes to the point where it’s cost-prohibitive to replace them (after) every instance they are broken,” he said.

Winnipeg Transit spent about $263,000 to replace shelter glass in 2021, followed by $252,000 in 2022 and $247,000 so far in 2023.

Transit confirmed it is now preparing a trial project to test shatterproof glass and other alternatives in some shelters, though the panels would cost between 2 1/2 and four times more than regular safety glass.

The head of the union that represents transit maintenance staff said smashed glass has proven to be a persistent problem.

“I would say early 2020 is when we started seeing (this more often)…. When you go through the effort to replace the glass, especially in a larger shelter on a high-density route, and then a week later you see most or all of the glass broken again, it is frustrating,” said Chris Scott, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505.

Scott said the number of people living in suburban shelters is increasing and he guessed that could be partly linked to vandalism concentrated in the downtown area.

“(The downtown is) where the high density of housing and sheltering (in bus shacks) occurs. As (glass) gets smashed, they are forced to spread out to other areas of the city in order to keep safe and warm,” he said, adding more housing is needed to address the issue.

Kate Kehler, executive director of the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, said the delay in fixing shelters affects both homeless people and transit users.

“As the weather turns, (the missing glass) is an issue for absolutely everybody. It’s cold standing out there…. If we want the (bus) service (to grow), we need more shelters,” said Kehler.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

X: @joyanne_pursaga