Safety Partitions For Bus Operators Also Create Blind Spots

New York City Transit has begun testing Plexiglass partitions for Bus Operators on 82 Brooklyn buses, and already drivers are citing several safety issues, a Transport Workers Union Local 100 source said last week.

The pilot program was initiated at the union's insistence after Bus Operator Edwin Thomas was stabbed to death Dec. 1 when he declined to give a transfer to his attacker, who had earlier boarded the B46 bus in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn without paying.

Obstructing Their Vision

During a meeting at Local 100 headquarters, the source said, Bus Operators based at Flatbush Depot, where the partitions are being piloted, said they obstructed some drivers' view of the right-side mirror.

He also said that "when the sun hits it a certain way, the drivers are getting glare in their eyes."

Union officials and rank-and-file Bus Operators from around the system had clamored for the installation of partitions in the immediate aftermath of Mr. Thomas's murder, which had been the first on-the-job killing of a driver since 1981. Partitioned compartments are already in use on city buses in Milwaukee and Chicago, and are being tested on buses in Baltimore and Washington D.C.

Bus Operators are the most-assaulted members of the NYC Transit workforce, according to Local 100, in part because they are more exposed to passengers than their counterparts in the subways.

Most recently, a woman was arrested Jan. 21 for biting a Bus Operator on the Upper West Side.