The Bus Riders Union (BRU) in Vancouver, British Columbia is a non-profit organization that advocates for better public transit services in Greater Vancouver. It has strongly criticized TransLink for such things as raising bus fares. It has also criticized the approval of the construction of the Canada Line rapid transit project, claiming that it would be built at the expense of adequately maintaining the bus system. The BRU is modeled after the Los Angeles-based Bus Riders Union. Like its Los Angeles counterpart, the Vancouver BRU argues that transit issues disproportionately affect people of colour, women, and poor people. The BRU engages in various protest, advocacy, and educational activities, and has approximately 950 members.
The campaigns waged by the BRU include a fare strike to protest against rising fares and a campaign to restore the "night owl" late night bus service. The "night owl" bus campaign, launched in 2001, succeeded after Translink voted to reinstate the service in April, 2004. The BRU is also campaigning for more wheelchair accessible and clean air buses.
On October 22, 2005, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF), at their Fourth Biannual Award of Excellence in Toronto, awarded its top prize to the Vancouver Bus Riders Union. The CRRF identified the "night owl" bus campaign victory as one of the factors which influenced the Awards Jury, chaired by Mary-Woo Sims.
Famous quotes containing the words bus, riders and/or union:
“If Rosa Parks had taken a poll before she sat down in that bus in Montgomery, she’d still be standing.”
—Mary Frances Berry (b. 1938)
“There where the course is,
Delight makes all of the one mind,
The riders upon the galloping horses,
The crowd that closes in behind....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“It would be unjust, and moreover Utopian, for Shakespeare to direct the shoemakers’ union. But it would be equally disastrous for the shoemakers’ union to ignore Shakespeare.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)