Council to vote on hiring safety officers for city buses in November

A new Saskatoon transit worker support system received the green light from the city’s transportation committee.

During Tuesday’s meeting, councillors unanimously voted to recommend six new, uniformed Community Support Officers (CSOs). The decision will happen during budget deliberations in late November.

According to a report from administration, the officers would patrol “problematic” bus terminals and routes to ensure transit driver and passenger safety.

Darcy Pederson, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 615 President, said they welcome this news.

“We’ve been asking for this for a long time. We welcome it. It would be nice if it would have come earlier, but there was a lot of work that needed to be done between ourselves, transit, fire to get us to where we are today,” he said.

Pederson said transit drivers and passengers have been subject to disturbing and sometimes violent behaviours.

“We’re seeing everything from verbal abuse towards our operators, getting spit on, physically assaulted, punched, kicked. We’ve seen guns and knives on the buses, bear spray, people using illicit drugs on the buses and our operators are being assaulted — and the riding public is being assaulted as well,” he added.

The city report said although incidents can happen on any route, two terminals and about 20 percent of the routes are especially problematic.

While the report stopped short of naming those routes, Pederson did not.

“The routes travel from downtown to Confederation Mall via 22nd Street and 20th Street. Those are the routes that seem to have more … we call negative interactions,” he elaborated.

During the committee meeting, Ward 3 Coun. David Kirton said he welcomed the potential addition of the six new CSOs.

“This will be a proactive way to offer support to those who may need it, but also keep the violence and the threats and the abuse down. The drivers deserve it. The transit system deserves it because we want a transit system that is going to be appealing.

“And it’s only going to be appealing if it’s reliable and if it’s safe,” he said.

The cost for the officers will total $482,600 in 2024-25 and will have to come from the next multi-year budget.

Pederson said if ultimately approved by city council, the officers would still need to be hired and specially trained.

The earliest they could be on patrol would be in June 2024. Still, Pederson said he’s hopeful.

“We can see a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.