The Silent Crisis on Vancouver Transit

 🚨 I See Dead People: The Silent Crisis on Vancouver Transit

By Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita

“I see dead people.”
That line from The Sixth Sense was supposed to be fiction. But for me, it’s real life — riding the bus in Metro Vancouver.

I’ve seen people overdosing at bus stops. I’ve called the number they tell us to — 87-77-77 — so many times that they get annoyed. They ask endless questions, while the person on the ground might already be brain-dead.

I’ve called 911, too. But often I’m on a moving bus, only seeing it for a minute, if that. And by the time I’m trying to explain where it was, we’re long gone.

Drivers don’t stop.
Other riders don’t look.
Cars drive past like it’s normal.

It’s not normal.

---

🛑 The System is Designed to Look Away

I learned recently that because drivers were attacked during COVID, the union made a rule: they aren’t allowed to intervene anymore.

That’s understandable for their safety — but what about ours? What about the people dying right outside the doors?
There are no crisis teams on transit. No one trained in overdose response. No one to help unless you call — and even then, it’s a bureaucratic mess.

---

💸 If You're Poor and Not Sick Enough, You're on Your Own

I don’t qualify for the $50/year disability transit pass — because apparently I’m not disabled enough.
So I pay full fare: $13 round trip, often just to survive.
I sit next to seniors who can barely stand.
I pass tent cities where people are being evicted.
I hear about UBC expansions and new SkyTrain lines while existing routes fall apart.

They’re expanding the SkyTrain to UBC — and in the process, pushing out the soul of Kitsilano, too. Gentrification disguised as "progress."

---

🏙️ TransLink Is Killing Vancouver

No one wants to say it, so I will:

TransLink is killing Vancouver.
Killing community.
Killing compassion.
Killing the idea that public transit should serve the public — all the public — not just tourists, students, or real estate developers.

Every delay.
Every fare hike.
Every overdose we walk past.
It all adds up.

---

🤲 What Can I Do?

That’s the question I keep asking.
What can one person do when they see so much and no one seems to care?

I can’t save every person I see on the ground.
I can’t force drivers to stop.
I can’t give money I don’t have or build a shelter overnight.

But I can write.
I can witness.
I can refuse to stay silent.

So I’m saying this now:

If you’ve seen it too — the death, the delays, the despair — you are not alone.

We need a system built on humanity, not just efficiency.
We need housing before trains.
We need crisis teams before turnstiles.
We need transit justice — now.

—
✊ Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita
zipolita.com | @zipolita
#TransitJustice #TransLinkTruth #SomethingHASToChange

---