Vancouver

A looming transit strike in Metro Vancouver this weekend has been narrowly avoided after Coast Mountain Bus Company and the union representing its transit supervisors accepted recommendations from a special mediator.

Transit supervisors were prepared to strike again starting at 12:01 am Saturday, which could have shut down bus and SeaBus service around the region. But now transit users will be able to travel as normal through the weekend and into Monday.

CUPE 4500, which represents the 180 supervisors, was the first to accept recommendations from provincially appointed mediator Vince Ready.

“While they don’t completely address our issues, these recommendations are clearly our best path towards a mutually acceptable settlement,” said CUPE 4500 spokesperson Liam O’Neill.

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A hearing at the BC Labour Relations Board to decide the future of the transit strike in the Lower Mainland will likely extend into a second day after no decision was reached Wednesday.

Representatives for transit unions and their employers, including the BC Rapid Transit Company, TransLink, Coast Mountain Bus Company, and ProTrans BC, gathered in downtown Vancouver to discuss expanding or forbidding the strike.

The employers applied to the board for an essential service designation, which would force employees back to work. As justification, the employers argued transit services are necessary to prevent immediate danger to the health and welfare of British Columbians — since the strike would impact people’s ability to get to work, get to medical appointments, and keep hospitals adequately staffed.

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Photo taken on a busy day in August 2023, from a kayak

Just saw some of their plans and the price is really competitive. Just wondering if any Freedom users here and how is your experience with them. Read some reviews on reddit but they are few months old and things change in a few months.

If you want to get a sense of how things can radically shift within the body of an organization, you need only look at how folks react to Jillian Christmas, the VAG’s first poet-in-residence.

During the afternoon I spent with her in the gallery, the sheer number of people who stopped for a quick chat was both funny and incredibly sweet. These interactions were ordinary exchanges about unlocking doors, accessing different rooms, normal chit-chat. But it was the tone that was most striking: the immediate joy and ease that Christmas creates, even in the smallest interactions, was palpable.

In an announcement on Jan. 4, Vancouver Art Gallery CEO and executive director Anthony Kiendl summed up the poet-in-residence’s role this way: “Art through the lens of poetry will inspire vibrant conversations and engagement, adding a new layer of depth and understanding to our exhibits and enhancing our shared understanding of what an art gallery can be.”

That all sounds perfectly pleasant in theory, but in practice, the work is relational, reciprocal and grounded in Christmas’s efforts at making positive change in the culture of a civic institution. From security guards to curators, Christmas talks to everyone in her efforts to create a place where every person affiliated with the gallery feels not only welcome but an integral part of the organization.

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The union representing 180 striking bus operations supervisors for TransLink’s Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) says it will suspend any strike action for the time being during the provincial government’s mandated special mediation process.

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Then just after 12 pm today, CUPE 4500 announced it will not be escalating job action until February 2 — when government-appointed special mediator issues his recommendations to both the union and the employer.

This means there will not be another shutdown of CMBC’s bus and SeaBus services or any other public transit service in the region until at least February 2, providing hundreds of thousands of public transit riders with some temporary certainty of the continuity of services.

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As of just after 5 pm Tuesday, it has been confirmed that all TransLink bus and SeaBus services will resume on Wednesday, January 24.

The public transit authority states that service will restart at 3:30 am Wednesday, but it will take some time for services to be fully up and running after 48 hours of continuous shutdown since Monday morning.

Services on the bus and SeaBus systems should be back to normal schedules by 5 am Wednesday.

This is a short reprieve from CUPE 4500’s job action. At this time, bus and SeaBus services can be expected for at least one day.

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Canadian Union of Public Employees 4500 (CUPE) appears to be following through with its original stated plan that the current shutdown of TransLink’s bus and SeaBus services across Metro Vancouver will last for 48 hours.

This means about 200 bus routes across the region and the SeaBus ferries between Lonsdale and downtown Vancouver could restart services on the morning of Wednesday, January 24.

But the restart of bus and SeaBus services could be temporary — a mere reprieve — if TransLink’s Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) and CUPE 4500 are unable to reach an agreement before another round of job escalation.

If services restart on Wednesday morning, the 180 bus operations supervisors currently on strike will revert to the “baseline” job action disruption of an overtime ban, which first began on January 6.

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With a highly disruptive and confusing public transit strike well underway, starting today, there is an air of uncertainty with getting around Metro Vancouver — especially if you don’t have access to a car.

But according to TransLink leadership, at this time, the job action shutdown of services will be limited to Coast Mountain Bus Company’s (CMBC) bus and SeaBus services, and it will not spread to all three SkyTrain lines and the West Coast Express commuter rail for at least the foreseeable future — today (later Monday) and tomorrow (Tuesday).

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Expect very significant inconveniences with getting around Metro Vancouver on public transit starting today, Monday, January 22, as negotiations between TransLink subsidiary Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 4500 over the weekend have failed.

As a result, it has been confirmed that all TransLink bus and SeaBus services will not operate starting this morning, and this suspension of service due to strike escalation is expected to continue for at least 48 hours — at least until Wednesday morning.

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Photo Taken August 2023.

Could a full shutdown of Metro Vancouver’s bus and SeaBus services starting early Monday, January 22 morning be averted?

Both sides in the ongoing labour dispute appear to be giving negotiations one more attempt. In a bulletin Friday afternoon, TransLink’s Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) stated it has been invited back to the bargaining table by veteran mediator Vince Ready on Saturday, January 20, and they have accepted to re-engage in talks.

“We hope that an agreement can be made that would avoid disruptions for our customers,” reads the bulletin.

If the full walkout proceeds, it will begin at 3 am on Monday, January 22.

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Metro Vancouver’s public transit buses and SeaBus services could be severely disrupted starting Monday morning following a threat made by the union representing 180 bus operations supervisors this morning.

Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4500 issued an ultimatum calling on Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC), the TransLink division responsible for operating and maintaining the region’s bus and SeaBus network, to reach a “fair collective agreement” before the start of service on Monday, January 22.

If an agreement is not reached, the current job action of an overtime ban will significantly escalate into a complete walkout of the 180 supervisors who coordinate, lead, and oversee thousands of bus drivers, mechanics, engineers, and operations and maintenance workers.

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It’s been a wild weather week in BC, and it’s not over yet. Freezing rain is falling in parts of the south coast, and it’s expected to stay wet as the warm-up is not far behind it.

“A Pacific frontal system combined with lingering cold air under outflow conditions will produce an extended period of freezing rain,” the warning from Environment and Climate Change Canada reads in part.

“The freezing rain will persist through [Thursday night] over Surrey and Langley then transition to rain. Freezing rain will continue through Friday morning over Abbotsford and Friday afternoon over Chilliwack then change to rain,” it added.

I saw these installed on the Arbutus Greenway today. This doesn't look in any form wheelchair, stroller, one wheel, skate board or bike friendly to me at all.

Is there any practical reason to build those barriers to justify making life harder for above mentioned groups?

Photo taken September 2023. Early morning to catch the Amtrak Cascades... which as of the latest schedule change we don't have to get there as early anymore.

Heavy snow and freezing rain are apparently on the way for parts of BC’s South Coast, according to a new weather statement from Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) on Sunday.

In the statement, ECCC is warning parts of the Lower Mainland could be in for potentially heavy snow, starting on Tuesday evening.

The moisture in this system is expected to mix with the arctic air we’ve already been experiencing, which will bring “a messy mix of rain, freezing rain and snow.”

Original Joe's at Cambie and Broadway used to be great for this.

Trying to think of a bar with a window view of a busy street on a hill...

Photo taken July 2023. Some festival was happening on the other side of the lake.

There is no end in sight to the job action of bus operations supervisors for Metro Vancouver’s public transit system.

Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) says the union representing 180 bus operations supervisors is asking for a 25% wage increase for their members over three years.

During a press conference this morning, CMBC spokesperson Mike Killeen said the union’s expectations for the wage increase are “not realistic,” and that this is the “sticking point” in the negotiations.

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