Winnipeg Transit rolling out shatter-resistant glass to cut down on broken bus shelters

The City of Winnipeg plans to install shatter-resistant glass in bus shelters as it struggles to keep up with the rising number of shacks missing panes of glass.

A request for tender posted on the city's website seeks contractors to supply polycarbonate glazing, a shatter-resistant glass alternative.

Public works committee chair Coun. Janice Lukes says the material costs three to four times as much as regular glass.

"But in the big picture, that may prove to be less costly," the Waverley West councillor said in an interview.

The city spends between $250,000 and $300,000 a year replacing glass, Lukes said.

The number of bus shelters that had a glass break over the course of a year hit a high of 361 in 2022, according to data provided to CBC by the city. That fell to 305 last year, and there have been 233 so far this year.

But there are currently more bus shelters missing glass than there have been at the end of any calendar year since 2021, the city says.

As of Nov. 26, there were 207 shelters with missing glass, the city says. That compares to 115 at the end of 2023 and 143 at the end of 2022.

The city began exploring using shatter-resistant glass last November, at which point it was considering installing it in a single bus shelter, Lukes said.

Now, the city plans to test the material in multiple locations throughout the city, although Lukes did not know how many. That will depend on what price the city can get.

"We wouldn't replace every single shelter in the city," she said, adding the city will target areas where shelters are damaged more often than others. 

University of Winnipeg student Swayam Sangan, standing inside a shelter on Portage Avenue that was missing multiple panes of glass on Wednesday, said with winter weather here, the city should get to work.

"It's not covered entirely. Sometimes it's broken, the heating system is not working in some of the [shelters]. And so I would recommend Winnipeg Transit to look [into] that. "

Cali Alexander says she's noticed the issue of broken shelter glass is more common downtown.

"And it's hard to stay warm, especially with, like, Winnipeg weather. I don't see them getting any better any time soon, to be honest."

The problem of broken bus shelters became more common in the years after the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

"There's a lot of frustration in society," Lukes said, and "people … break the glass in the shelters."

But instead of replacing it multiple times a year, "it may be more cost-effective to put in a more expensive glass that doesn't get broken," she said.

The city won't announce which shelters are getting the new glass, Lukes said.

"We're going to just do it right and see how it fares." 

The impending launch of the city's primary Winnipeg Transit network next summer makes finding a solution to the problem of damaged bus shelters more urgent, Lukes said.

"We're in the Prairies, you know — we've got really frigid cold winds, and it's important to have shelter when you're standing there waiting for the bus."

The contract will provide the shatter resistant glass to the city through 2025, with an option of four one-year extensions.