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Transit strike impacts SeaBus sailings

More than 60 SeaBus sailings had been cancelled by Tuesday afternoon and bus riders are bracing for further impacts as the transit strike continues.
SeaBus passengers

More than 60 SeaBus sailings had been cancelled by Tuesday afternoon and bus riders are bracing for further impacts as the transit strike continues.

Unionized bus drivers and maintenance workers began job action across Metro Vancouver on Friday with an overtime ban on maintenance work. So far the main impact of the strike on the North Shore has been a reduction in the frequency of SeaBus sailings at peak times during the evening rush hour.

But Mike McDaniel, president of Coast Mountain Bus, warned those impacts could spread as the strike continues.

TransLink is making use of about 150 spare buses to get around the need for overtime work on fleet maintenance, but as those are used up, “we get to a point where we can’t maintain the buses,” said McDaniel at a press conference. “The spares will become not spares and we will need to begin cancelling service.”

On Tuesday, the bus company and the union still appeared to be far apart on issues of wages and break times for bus drivers. The bus company is offering an increase of 12.2 per cent for skilled trades and 9.2 per cent for transit operators over four years, according to McDaniel. The union argues their pay is still well below that of other transit workers in North America.

Currently what Coast Mountain is offering and what the union has asked for represents a $608-million gap across the next 10 years, said McDaniel. He said paying for that would wipe out plans for about five years’ worth of transit expansion across Metro Vancouver. New Westminster Mayor Jonathan Cote, chair of the TransLink Mayors’ Council, urged the two sides to get back to negotiating this week, saying the job action “is impacting commuters and some of the most vulnerable residents in our region who rely on public transit.”

But the union warned unless Coast Mountain comes back with a better offer, their strike will likely escalate to include a ban on bus driver overtime as well. Check for service impacts at alerts.translink.ca.