Delta councillor says the city needs more bus shelters for increased safety

A Delta councillor has put forward a motion asking for more bus shelters in the region.

Councillor Jennifer Johal put forward a motion earlier this month saying that industrial areas in Delta, require bus shelters that provide comfort, safety and accessibility for people who use transit.

Councillor Dylan Kruger who also supports the motion, tells CityNews this motion received unanimous support in council Monday night.

“What brought it forward was just when you drive down river road and you look at the busiest industrial areas of Delta…the vast majority of the bus stops in these areas, there are no bus shelters at all,” he said. “We’ve got these incredible workers working complex jobs, 12-hour shifts, waiting sometimes half an hour for a bus to come but they’re doing it in the elements.”

He said this is an opportunity to advocate for more transit service to industrial areas in Delta.

“We can invest more to ensure we have proper bus shelters… they (the public) can wait in a dry safe space,” Kruger said.

Kruger said out of the 73 bus stops in Tilbury and Annacis Island only 10 are covered with shelters as of today. He tells CityNews, that reports by TransLink found increased demand for transit service in the region.

“Ridership has increased by over 20 per cent in Tilbury since 2019, and over 43 per cent since 2022,” Kruger said. “This is a very productive part of our regional economy, it’s a huge employment centre.”

Kruger says many people in the area rely on transit and don’t own a private vehicle, hence bus stops should be better built.

He says city staff will be coming back with a report analyzing options to increase investments in those bus stops that are heaviest in traffic.

“We’re one of the few cities that’s growing our industrial base, we owe it to those workers and those businesses to invest in them,” he said. “That starts with safe and dry places to wait.”

-With files from Mackenzie Fleet.