9 hours Ago By Andrew Duffy
The Westboro bus crash inquest jury has heard 44 recommendations for improved bus safety in Ottawa, including a call to reduce speed limits near Transitway stations and to assess new drivers for proficiency on all bus types. The jury was presented Friday with a joint slate of recommendations from inquest counsel, the City of Ottawa and the bus drivers’ union, along with the families of Bruce Thomlinson and Judy Booth. Thomlison, 56, Booth, 57, and Anja Van Beek, 65, were second-floor passengers on Bus 8155 when the double-decker slammed into Westboro station on Jan.
11, 2019. Rookie driver Aissatou Diallo was driving 10 km/ hr over the 50 km/ hr posted speed limit on approach to Westboro Sation when she veered off the road and lost control of her bus on the snowy shoulder. Inquest participants jointly recommended the speed on approach to Transitway stations be reduced to 30 or 40 km/hr.
Jurors have heard three passengers died and 17 others were seriously injured when the rigid steel awning of Westboro Station’s passenger shelter pierced the shell of Bus 8155 and collapsed nine rows of seats. “What is without dispute,” inquest counsel Alessandra Hollands said Friday, “is that Ms. Booth, Mr.
Thomlinson and Ms. Van Beek, along with all passengers on Bus 8155, should have been able to get to their destination safely.” Hollands told jurors its their role to determine what can be done so that other transit riders in Ottawa arrive at their destinations safely.
The joint recommendations stopped short of calling for existing Transitway shelters to be torn down. Instead, the participants recommended the city assess the Transitway for “potential intrusion hazards” that are within three metres of the curb. The inquest has heard that seven Transitway stations still have passenger shelter canopies similar to those at Westboro Station.
Westboro Station itself has been torn down to make way for the LRT. The city opted not to dismantle the other canopies based on a review by consultant Gerry Forbes, president of Intus Road Safety Engineering, who rejected another engineer’s recommendation that the canopies come down. Using predictive statistical models, Forbes estimated that a bus would collide with the station’s canopy once every 250 years.
He said a cost-benefit analysis did not support dismantling them. City of Ottawa counsel Anne Tardif said OC Transpo introduced a safety culture following the many investigations, audits and reviews that examined the Westboro bus crash. “Put simply,” she told jurors, “OC Transpo is not the same organization today that it was in 2019.
” Tardif highlighted some of the changes introduced by OC Transpo, including the appointment of a chief safety officer, a data-based analysis of driver performance, and a new screening process to weed out driver applicants with unsuitable psychological make-ups. The transit service has also increased the amount of time driver trainees receive behind the wheel of double-decker and articulated buses, she said. John McLuckie, counsel for local for ATU Local 279, the bus drivers’ union, told the jury that OC Transpo is ultimately a safe transit system.
“Fatalities involving OC Transpo buses happen less than once a year,” McLuckie said, noting the transit system provided 68 million rides last year. “It is a system that is safe, it is a system that can be improved, but it is a system that is safe.” McLuckie encouraged jurors not to propose recommendations that would change the way bus drivers select their two-week blocks of work.
The system is governed by seniority, he said, and ensures that drivers can pick schedules suited to them. He rejected the idea that more experienced drivers should be assigned to double-decker or articulated buses. “Booking by seniority is the industry standard,” he said.
What’s more, McLuckie said, the city is so short of roadworthy buses that any restrictions on what kind of vehicle an operator can drive would make the transit system unworkable. McLuckie suggested OC Transpo could improve safety “by improving the lives of operators” through a shortened work day. Drivers can now work split shifts that cover up to 12 hours.
Nine people have died on board OC Transpo buses during the past 12 years – many more than on any other transit system in the country. In addition to the three passengers killed at Westboro Station, six people were killed on Sept. 18, 2013, when an OC Transpo double-decker bus collided with a Via Rail train on Woodroffe Avenue.
The jury is expected to begin considering its recommendations Monday. Our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark our homepage and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. RelatedParents pressure OC Transpo into reversing route changesOttawa man faces child pornography charges after police raid.
