Police seek witnesses after fatal bus collision

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This article was published 14/11/2017 (2895 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg police are seeking witnesses to a fatal collision between a transit bus and pedestrian downtown Monday.

A 58-year-old man was struck at the intersection of Fort Street and Graham Avenue around 3 p.m., Const. Rob Carver said, adding the Winnipeg Police Service hopes to speak with any witnesses who were on the bus or in the area.

Early indications are the man was crossing east on Fort Street on the north side of Graham Avenue when he was hit by the bus, said WPS spokeswoman Const. Tammy Skrabek. “There’s some information he fell and banged his head.”

Carver provided few details, saying it could taint information from potential witnesses yet to come forward.

The last time a pedestrian died after being hit by a Winnipeg Transit bus was April 7, 2015, when 72-year-old Gloria Davey was struck at the intersection of Keewatin Street and Burrows Avenue.

Winnipeg Transit has 637 buses and about 1,100 bus operators.

Graham Avenue is a busy corridor, Carver said.

“The whole nature of a transit corridor is to bring lots of commuters through,” he said.

“It’s a situation where there are lots of buses, lots of commuters, lots of pedestrians, and just people in the area sharing the same space.”

Although Monday was the extension of the Remembrance Day weekend for some people, the closure of the Graham transit corridor backed up traffic for several kilometres.

“When I was leaving (police downtown headquarters), the buses were backed up in all directions,” Carver said.

Traffic investigators were at the scene until about 9 p.m. Monday, and further details were not available, Skrabek said Tuesday.

A City of Winnipeg spokeswoman said the incident is still under investigation, and she couldn’t add much more, other than “the safety and security of Winnipeg Transit’s employees and customers is a top priority, and support has been made available to the employee involved,” she said.

Anyone who witnessed Monday’s incident is asked to call WPS investigators at 204-986-6271.