Calgary considering funding for better safety shields following assault on bus driver

Calgary city councillors are set to consider spending more money to equip buses with better security shields following an assault on a bus operator earlier in the month that sent them to hospital in life-threatening condition.

Following that incident, Ward 5 Coun. Raj Dhaliwal added an amendment to Tuesday’s council meeting aimed at improving operator safety that includes adding signage on all transit vehicles, warning about penalties for actions like assaults, and having up to $15 million allocated to upgrading security shields on buses.

“Right now, we have these shields, they are not even shields, they are little screens that are not really that effective,” says Dhaliwal.

While the measures passed unanimously, the $15 million budget request will go to a June 3 council meeting, where councillors will decide if they will actually go ahead with it and from where that money would come from.

“If our operators don’t feel safe at work then you have no point of increasing our services and looking at what RouteAhead is supposed to be doing in the next 20 to 30 years,” says Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp.

Dhaliwal’s amendment also included having a review done on safety and training practices, with changes done based on those findings, and any additional costs brought to council for them to consider in 2026 budget adjustment requests

“The attack on the transit operator that happened a couple of weeks ago could have ended his life, we need to understand that there’s something wrong with the system and we need to make it better,” says Mayor Jyoti Gondek.

Two men were taken into custody following the alleged attack in the early morning hours of May 14. Investigators believe the driver was attacked by the men after he refused their request to deviate his route from the regular bus route.

He was taken to hospital in life-threatening condition, but was later upgraded to stable. He is still “bedridden” according to union head Mike Mahar from ATU Local 583.

“This would prevent the vast majority of breeches of the workstation and anything that was happening in the workstation will have a drastic improvement in the security,” says Mahar about the potentially upgraded shields.

Dhaliwal’s amendment was part of an annual update on the city’s multi-year transit improvement strategy RouteAhead, where council approved a one-time funding request from Calgary Transit for $3 million in 2025 due to cost pressures because of Calgary’s growing population.

As part of Dhaliwal’s amendment, a safety status and progress report will now be a part of the annual RouteAhead update.