There is indeed the hope nourished by the agreement in principle announced early Wednesday morning, but there are also the obligations of real life. They were more than 3000, on a citizen’s Facebook page, asking for help to get around Quebec City or offering to help out complete strangers, stuck because of the bus strike of the Réseau de transport de the capital (RTC). The duty took a few passengers on board.
In the morning in the Saint-Roch district, Delphine Parrent gets into our car. She arrived on Saturday from Pau, in the south-west of France.
“I am very attached to solidarity, I believe in it a lot,” says the social worker. She could not have tested Quebec brotherhood more quickly.
Tuesday, three days after her arrival in the country, she asked for help on the Facebook group “Entraide RTC en Grève Québec”. She had to go the next day to a job interview at a daycare center in Sainte-Foy.
On the way of about fifteen kilometers that she travels with The duty, she salutes the selflessness she has witnessed so far. “This mutual aid system that has been set up on social networks reflects what I came here for and what I felt from afar, from my country. It’s a beautiful coincidence, ”she notes.
Afterwards, she wonders how she will be able to get home. “It’s impressive when you arrive somewhere to say to yourself that you have to manage. Taxis are quite expensive,” said M.me parent. She says she is surprised by the complete suspension of public transport services. ” [En] France, we never have zero buses. It does not exist. There is always a minimum service that is put in place. »
Not just the Summer Festival
The RTC serves a population of 580,000 inhabitants, and the market share of public transport (modal share) is just under 10%. For tens of thousands of people, therefore, the strike of the 935 RTC bus drivers means finding new ways to get to work, to get to meetings or to do the shopping.
“I am a mother with a nine-year-old girl with a disability; She is deaf. So, I can’t ride a commuting bike with her, it’s not possible because it’s too dangerous”, explains Andrée-Anne Blacutt in an interview with The duty.
She observes the announcement of a panoply of measures to mitigate the probable impacts of the strike on the Festival d’été de Québec (FEQ) with perplexity.
“We emphasize the FEQ, but there are many other things before that,” she points out. “I don’t think that’s what should be the first battle, to say, ‘oh my God, the FEQ, how are we going to get there if there’s no bus?’ That’s what made me angry, ”continues the young woman.
She says she is overturned by the decision of a judge of the Administrative Labor Tribunal, who concluded on June 9 that the services of the RTC are not “essential” within the meaning of the Labor Code.
“For me, public transit is an essential service. I didn’t even think it was possible [qu’il n’y ait plus de services d’autobus]. Honestly, when I saw that, I said to myself: come on! I find that at the limit, it puts people’s lives in danger, ”she said.
One thing is certain, the decision complicates the lives of thousands of people. On the “Entraide RTC en Grève Québec” page, requests for transport from one end of the city to the other continued to appear on Wednesday, pending the outcome of the strike vote.
RTC drivers must register their votes as of 1 p.m.