It appears the city’s emergency plan needs a little tinkering.
Last Friday, with a bomb scare threatening workers at Thunder Bay’s Bombardier plant, city officials yanked transit buses off the road.
Not just a few of them, but all of them, which led to a shutdown of service for more than two hours.
Passengers en route were essentially evicted, left to find their own way to their destinations.
For many that meant walking in the bitter cold.
There has to be a better way.
Couldn’t the city have slowed service down, removing some buses from service, while still providing a scaled-down version to those who rely on Thunder Bay Transit to get from point A to point B?
Couldn’t the company, realizing the potential gravity of the situation, simply sent its employees home for the remainder of their shift, while police scoured the plant for an explosive device?
Are there not school buses sitting idle in the afternoon that could have been used to ferry up to 900 workers from Bombardier to Resolute Forest Products?
Stranding transit users is not an acceptable alternative.
The city’s emergency planning team owes a big apology to any and all who were displaced.
