TransLink’s board will vote later today on moving HandyDART service in-house instead of contracting it out to a private company based in France, following four hours set aside to hear from delegates.
HandyDART is a door-to-door shared riding service launched in 1980 for people unable to use regular public transit without help.
Outgoing board chairwoman Lorraine Cunningham – Wednesday, December 3 was her last board meeting – noted that HandyDART serves more than 32,000 riders.
“Today’s decision is not being taken lightly,” she said. “It’s clear that this is an important topic for many. In an effort to hear from everyone and ensure our decision is thoroughly informed, we’ll be allocating four hours to public delegations.”
Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke on July 8 wrote to Mike Farnworth, minister of transportation and transit, supporting in-house transit service.
She called outsourcing the HandyDART operation to a multinational company based out of France “a travesty during a time that requires Canadian solidarity.”
In the last quarter of 2023, Locke noted, 25 per cent of HandyDART service was done by taxis, “far” exceeding TransLink’s previous commitment to limit that to seven per cent.
The first of numerous speakers at the meeting was Stephan von Sychowski, president of the Vancouver and District Labour Council. He spoke to “the many failings of contracting out, both operational and moral.”
“The in-house model does much better overall, in my view,” he said. Concerning a Customer First Plan review before the board, he said, “the report explicitly proposes that a benefit of contracting out is to save money by suppressing the wages and total compensation of the workers who deliver the service.”
Next up was Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union 1724, representing roughly 600 HandyDART drivers, dispatchers and maintenance staff, said he was a driver for 10 years.
“I’m here to tell you respectfully, but bluntly, the report you are being asked to rubber-stamp this week is built on a foundation of half-truths, manipulated numbers and outright omissions,” he said, speaking against contracting out. “Every time a contract flips a new private company parachutes in, keeps the same people and immediately starts cutting corners to hit their profit target.
“Tightening eligibility and forcing more seniors through more hoops is not cost-effective, it is cruel,” he said. “It will simply drive vulnerable people into isolation. These ideas only look good on paper to people who have never been in a wheelchair.”
He noted at that the BC NDP promised in the last election to bring HandyDART in-house.
“Mayors representing more than 73 per cent of the region’s population, including Ken Sim and Brenda Locke – and they’re hardly friends of labour – publicly endorsed the in-house model,” McCann told the board.
Sacia Burton, speaking on behalf of the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition, also called for full public control of HandyDART. “Tens of thousands of Metro-Vancouver residents rely on HandyDART to get to medical appointments, adult daycare centres and other essential services,” she said. “Now is the time to affirm the provincial government’s commitment to align this crucial piece of our transportation system as cost-effective, reliable and a functional public good.”
More to come…