Saskatoon investigating reports of violence on city buses

Saskatoon city council has asked for a report on the extent of violence in the city’s transit system.

The request comes after a motion by Ward 3 Coun. David Kirton to put safety officers on buses.

“I want to make sure we have a safe service as well,” Kirton said. “It’s not just the operators I’m worried about, it’s the riders as well.”

Kirton said he has heard of reports of violence against bus drivers and riders alike.

“We’ve had operators who were held with a screwdriver to his ribs, a passenger recently stabbed in the downtown terminal. There are mace attacks in the downtown terminal and on buses. I had a report from another operator where an operator was basically assaulted with the handset of the bus radio,” he said.

“There are angry passengers who will actually smash buses.”

He said that some reports indicate windows have been smashed and broken on buses by guns, perhaps a pellet gun.

“There have been multiple times the bus operators and riders have been threatened with this violence,” Kirton said.

“I want to make sure we have a clean, reliable, and safe transit system.”

Bus Riders of Saskatoon spokesperson Robert Clipperton told CTV News the group has advocated for transit officers before.

“What we were thinking was, you have two or maybe four officers to the whole city,” Clipperton said. “Some of the major urban centers that have rapid transit of some kind often have officers who are outside. Officers who do random fare checks, as opposed to somebody collecting the fares all the time. And we thought that kind of model might work really well.”

While Kirton’s motion was not passed, council has asked for a report on how much violence is happening on buses.

Kirton said that the internal monitor was investigating and would prepare a report for the council at some point in the future.

“Basically this motion is asking the administration for information on how much violence there is. Give us some statistics on that instead of my anecdotal efforts to show people what is happening on our buses.”