Grand River Transit

[taylortbb]

I'm fortunate that it's only about a 15 minutes walk for me to Mill Street Station, and I work downtown. I regularly take the ION and walk home in the evenings, so doing it in the morning isn't a huge additional burden.

I have no idea how I'm supposed to advocate for people to use GRT in the future. This situation is fucking absurd and I'm livid with both sides.

If GRT was a business, shutting things down like this would lead to profit loss. Since it's a public service and the region clearly doesn't care how long the strike goes on, they have every incentive in the world to just sit back and watch people suffer. What are the workers supposed to do when the region won't bargain in good faith?

Why would you "both sides" something like this?

Edit: If people are livid, they need to contact their regional councilor and demand they make some concessions to get the system back on the road, not attack the workers or the union for god's sake. Let's have some degree of solidarity amongst people that promote progressive causes like better transit.

The union doesn't promote better transit. The GRT union was actually one of the groups actively fighting against the construction of ION. They weren't even promoting buses in their members interest, but crazy gadgetbahn schemes with new vehicle technology. I don't feel any obligation to them as "promoters of progressive causes like better transit".

I also don't think the region doesn't care about how long the strike goes on. They've got ridership growth targets and GHG reduction targets, both of which are impacted by this strike. The current strike is about discipline, specifically the region using the cameras to discipline drivers that do things like swear at passengers, or take unscheduled breaks when the bus was supposed to depart. Given how often I've been late for classes, appointments, etc due to drivers taking a smoke break and ignoring the schedule I can't say I have a lot of sympathy for the union. I don't see how the region saying they can't just stop disciplining employees that don't do their job is not "bargaining in good faith".