By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON November 21. 2012 Transit Advisory meetings are going much better these days. Joanne Vassell-Pittman ended her stint as chair during which time she did a marvelous job under some very trying situations.
Eric Pilon, formerly with Oakville Transit, is the new chair and they seem to be off to a good start. With Mike Spicer serving as Acting Director of Transit he had some good news and some news that was not so good.
Two buses caught fire in a very short period of time. One was a 2009 New Flyer while the other was a newer 2012 bus from the same company.
They zip in and zip out of the John Street terminal driven by well trained drivers who know what to do when there is an emergency. Two bus fires in a two week period, while unfortunate, were very well handled by the drivers. The bus manufacturer is working with the transit people to determine why the fires started in the first place.
Bus fires are rare, not an everyday event and they certainly scare the daylights out of the passengers when the bus fills with smoke.
Spicer advises that the transit service has a well-honed protocol for handling these situations and in both cases no one was hurt.
The task now is to figure out what started the fires in the first place. While both buses were New Flyers the two fires started in different parts of each bus. The manufacturers of the vehicles had their technical people on site pronto and are working with Burlington Transit and the insurance company to get at the bottom of the problem.
Two buses out of service squeezes the vehicle inventory a bit but Spicer says “we still have more than enough buses in the fleet to meet the service demand”.
Should you happen to be on a bus when there is a fire – don’t panic and listen carefully to the bus driver. They really do know what they are doing – and they will get you off the bus safely.
Serving on the Transit Advisory Committee are: Eric Pilon – Chair, John Fuca – Vice Chair, Joanne Vassell-Pittman, Nicholas Civiero, Kevin Rahmer, Sonia Harrison, Brian Coleman, Jenny Wen and Cecille Wyte.
The Committee meets on the third Tuesday of each month at city hall.
