Special feature Oak Bay seniors contribute to the community. Page A11-A14
NEWS: History in your neighbourhood /A3 ARTS: Island hip hop artist finds inspiration /A10 SPORTS: Cubs spring training calls Mariners grad /A16
OAK BAYNEWS Watch for breaking news at www.oakbaynews.com
Friday, February 22, 2013
Riders abandon B.C. Transit as delays continue Megan Cole News staff
Sharon Tiffin/News staff
A little off the top Oak Bay Municipal parks worker Briana Lapierre starts the cleanup of branches after crews topped a large tree near the first hole at the Henderson Golf Course. Crews took the top of the tree off to prevent it from breaking and becoming a hazard to golfers.
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B.C. Transit is continuing to play catch-up with bus maintenance following three-month long job action by the Canadian Auto Workers Local 333, but as it attempts to get back to business as usual, ridership numbers are dropping. “(Monday we had) 36 cancelled runs,” said B.C. Transit corporate spokesperson Meribeth Burton. “We have about 3,200 trips a day Monday to Friday, so one per cent cancelled isn’t great but it’s better than we have been providing.” B.C. Transit has been cancelling runs on some of its higher frequency routes in an attempt to provide maintenance to the 45 to 50 buses Burton said are parked at this time. “I think we were just in survival mode for the three months of the job action,” she said. “(The buses we Meribeth Burton have parked) require eight or more hours of repair on them.” The Canadian Auto Workers have asked B.C. Transit to keep the work in-house and they are posting between 60 and 70 hours of overtime in each garage every day to get the system running normally as quickly as possible. “If it wasn’t for the job action our workers would have done the work already,” said Canadian Auto Workers Union Local 333 president Ben Williams. “At B.C. Transit we obviously perform all of the maintenance on the vehicles for Greater Victoria and that’s how we want it to stay.” According to Williams there has been talk from B.C. Transit of contracting out the work but union members are working long hours to keep the work in house. “It’s their work and nobody wants to see their work taken elsewhere,” Williams said. Contributing to the long work hours and backlog of maintenance is an overall shortage in skilled trades people in the industry. PLEASE SEE: Trades shortage aids backlog, Page A5
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