{"id":489,"date":"2014-11-19T22:01:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-19T22:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rf.podcastfixit.com\/index.php\/2014\/11\/19\/bus-drivers-strand-commuters-during\/"},"modified":"2015-06-01T19:40:46","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T19:40:46","slug":"bus-drivers-strand-commuters-during","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2014\/11\/19\/bus-drivers-strand-commuters-during\/","title":{"rendered":"Bus drivers strand commuters during snowfall"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Robert Frank<\/b>
www.thesuburban.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buses were scarce while winter\u2019s first snowfall blanketed Laval on Sunday morning, while city bus drivers booked off to vote on their new labour agreement. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe drivers went to cast their ballot starting at 9:30 a.m.,\u201d Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des transports de <\/i>Laval <\/i>(STL) spokeswoman Marie-C\u00e9line Bourgault told The Suburban.<\/i><\/p>\n

She added that the drivers returned to work later in the day. In the meantime, STL management sprung into high-gear to minimize disruption for weekend commuters. Sunday is the slowest day of the week for the public transit authority, she confirmed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve assigned supervisors to patrol the city on the lookout for people who are stranded,\u201d Bourgault said in an interview. \u201cWe also have an agreement with COOP Taxi to supplement our regular service. Thirty cabs circulate in the city. On the main routes, they line up to pick up [STL] clients.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIf residents who called our customer contact line and asked for service, our agents could ask for a taxi to pick up the people who had been expecting a bus,\u201d she continued. \u201cTheir cars are identified by a sticker.\u201d <\/p>\n

L\u00e0 !<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The brief service interruption came amid STL\u2019s campaign to heighten awareness of public transit options. <\/p>\n

City signs, billboards and social media have been blanketed by a simple, one-word slogan: L\u00e0 !<\/i><\/p>\n

\n
<\/i> \u201cIt means \u2018we\u2019re here\u2019,\u201d Laval executive committee vice-chairman David De Cotis told The Suburban.<\/i> \u201cWe wanted a twist: something different to make more people aware that we exist, rather than a dull slogan. The first two weeks after I joined the board of directors, no one knew that there was an STL. Now the image is everywhere on billboards.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have a specific objective in terms of ridership, but we are encouraging people to switch to public transit alternatives, and will be monitoring to see how many people we have reached,\u201d he concluded.
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\nTime to go vote<\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Robert Frankwww.thesuburban.com Buses were scarce while winter\u2019s first snowfall blanketed Laval on Sunday morning, while city bus drivers booked off to vote on their new labour agreement. \u201cThe drivers went to cast their ballot starting at 9:30 a.m.,\u201d Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des transports de Laval (STL) spokeswoman Marie-C\u00e9line Bourgault told The Suburban. She added that the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nBus drivers strand commuters during snowfall - Newscoverage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2014\/11\/19\/bus-drivers-strand-commuters-during\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bus drivers strand commuters during snowfall - Newscoverage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Robert Frankwww.thesuburban.com Buses were scarce while winter\u2019s first snowfall blanketed Laval on Sunday morning, while city bus drivers booked off to vote on their new labour agreement. \u201cThe drivers went to cast their ballot starting at 9:30 a.m.,\u201d Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des transports de Laval (STL) spokeswoman Marie-C\u00e9line Bourgault told The Suburban. 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