When a fare is foul and fraught, low-cost liberty is lost

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/12/2024 (644 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s cold out now, so I’ve retreated inside my car as it finishes filling up with gas. Looking over my shoulder at the digital display on the pump, the numbers fly by: $41, $42, $43.

Just like that, a freshly-earned $100 has gone into the tank, most of which will be used to get me to and from work, where I go to earn the money to fill the tank again. Sisyphean.

A transit bus rumbles by in the early-morning darkness, and I pause to consider other ways to get where I need to go.

I used to love taking public transit. As a young adult, it was a ticket to freedom of movement, adventure and a lesson in getting to know one’s way around town. Friends and I would co-ordinate a specific bus to meet on, and it would collect us at various stops and deposit us downtown for a night of adventure.

I was so familiar with the bus system that when I first learned to drive, I’d still follow the bus routes, because that’s how the city had been knit together in my mind.

So why now is this such an impossible idea to me? Why am I making the choice, day after day, to drain my money and energy away instead of choosing the option that in most other cities is more convenient and cheaper?

Why am I making the choice, day after day, to drain my money and energy away instead of choosing the option that in most other cities is more convenient and cheaper?

I started writing this column a day before reading my colleague Russell Wangersky’s piece in last Saturday’s paper, in which he discusses the vigilance required to commute by bus, and the toll it takes on his sense of peace and autonomy. I anticipate the same feelings, but because of my gender, I feel even more vulnerable — to the point of not making the attempt.

My particular commute would require first hopping on the bus along Sherbrook, and transferring at Notre Dame. But my workday starts at 7 a.m., and these aren’t great locations to stand alone in the dark for untold minutes waiting for a bus that may not arrive.

City-wide, fewer and fewer stops are shielded from the elements. Efforts at making these shelters less-attractive temporary homes for the vulnerable have sadly also had the effect of making the bus less attractive to the rest of us.

I wish I could have faith the situation will improve in June, when Winnipeg Transit’s planned route overhaul is complete.

Unfortunately, the issue isn’t so much the raw convenience and route coverage of the transit system, but the transit-adjacent, very real threats to safety and peace of mind.

The issue isn’t so much the raw convenience and route coverage of the transit system, but the transit-adjacent, very real threats to safety and peace of mind.

Last month, the city made the decision to increase the number of safety officers on buses and to direct city police downtown to check in with drivers and riders more often.

I understand that’s probably the fastest solution to implement, but it doesn’t address the underlying safety issues that rob riders of their sense of safety.

While these November announcements might go some way toward making transit a more attractive option for commuters like me, it also feels less like those independent days of youth, and more like we’re being escorted by a security detail through our own city.

It feels…like we’re being escorted by a security detail through our own city.

I try, here and there, to take my family on the bus, especially if we’re visiting somewhere downtown. I’m hopeful one day my kids will feel the same sense of freedom and adventure a bus ticket can bestow, and begin to learn how the city is laid out and where they are within it.

But I know right now we’re a long way from the reliability and safety of the network we had just a few decades ago.

The sad truth is the current dysfunction that is Winnipeg Transit does not exist in a vacuum. The lack of shelter and safety at bus stops, the unpredictability of fellow travellers, the uncertain reliability of schedules — these issues are tied to some of the same realities that challenge our quest to be a vibrant city.

So for now, I’ll shiver in my car, watching my paycheque drift away as exhaust, dreaming of an adventurous past and imagining a time we’ll meet up on the bus again.

rebecca.chambers@freepress.mb.ca