Transit-reliant mom scrambling for travel plans for son's medical appointment

From grocery shopping to getting to work, the impacts of Metro Vancouver’s transit strike have already been far-reaching.

In Surrey, Shauna Milne uses the bus at least five times per week.

"I'm going to doctor’s appointments, my son's high school, pretty much everywhere – that's how I get around,” she said.

She depends on transit, especially this week.

Her youngest son has been waiting six months for an appointment that’s scheduled at BC Children’s Hospital on Tuesday. 

"I can’t just cancel it,” Milne said. “He has severe scoliosis and major knee problems.”

She’s started looking at other options, including Uber, which had surge pricing during the first day of the strike Monday, resulting in significantly higher fares for many customers. 

"I'm on low income, so coming up with Uber money is (hard)," Milne said.

Should there be ongoing job action, Milne plans to take the Uber to the SkyTrain, then walk to hospital. Relying solely on ride-shares, she said, would be too expensive.

Her oldest son was also impacted Monday by not being able to get to his construction site.

“It would have taken an hour and half to walk to Surrey Central,” said Brody Milne. “(My boss) understood it all, they get that there’s really nothing I can do about it.”

Businesses feeling the impacts

The disruptions are also impacting local businesses, including Zach Berman’s store, The Juice Truck.

"I woke up to a lot of text messages and a lot of emails from staff not being able to make it in,” said Berman.

Berman has three locations across Vancouver, and said 10 per cent of his employees were not able to get to work Monday.

"We went as far as talking about carpooling and picking employees up, but that's not a long-term, sustainable thing,” he said.

“It’s hard to be able to co-ordinate, I have different employees coming from different suburbs.”

There’s no word on when CUPE 4500 and Coast Mountain Bus Company will come to a resolution, or even return to the bargaining table.

After the 48-hour strike is over, the union said members will plan for further “escalation.”