Heated bus stops don't provide much comfort from the cold

IF you're looking for a cozy place to wait for public transit to arrive, you might want to huddle in one of the teepees at The Forks, not the city's new heated bus shelters that debuted this fall.

That's because the temperature at the teepee Thursday afternoon was -16 C near a small fire pit, a slightly warmer temperature than at least two of the heated bus shelters in Winnipeg's downtown core.

A bus shelter on the east side of Main Street and Pioneer Avenue, where the heater was cold to the touch and a door to the shelter blew open continuously, was about -16.3 C.

The temperature of a bus shelter on the west side the street? Approximately -16.1 C.

The new bus shelters are part of an $142-million upgrade to public transit announced in February 2006, but they've left a lot of commuters interviewed by the Free Press cold. Literally.

"It's annoying, to say the least," said Joyce Luff, a 75-year-old woman waiting at a shelter at Portage Avenue and Colony Street who said she finds the heated bus shacks wildly vacillate in temperature depending on their location.

Luff said she finds the shelters provide protection from the wind, but she's confused about why she can barely feel the warm air pouring out of the shelter's heaters. Many commuters interviewed by the Free Press Thursday shared the same concerns.

Outside Luff's shelter around 12:30 p.m. Thursday, it was about -25 C, and inside the temperature was about -16.8 C.

Nearby, Paula Bird-Apetagon was waiting with her five-year-old daughter in a bus shelter on the south side of Portage Avenue near Edmonton Street.

Gaps on the north side of the shelter where the shelter's walls did not touch the ground meant cold air entered and chilled her, she said.

Heaters emanated a bit of warmth when a reporter placed her hands directly on the heater underneath benches in the shelter. It wasn't good enough for Bird-Apetagon.

"I don't feel the heaters, at all," she said.

"If they're going to have heaters, they should be working."

Another bus rider at a heated shelter at Polo Park said she didn't have complaints -- at least compared to the technology 25 years ago. Some commuters recalled wooden shacks on Portage where they used to wait for transit.

"It can't be perfect, it's too expensive," said Cynthia Fines, 45.

Lauren Tennenhouse, 20, another rider in the same shelter, said the bus shelters are fine during mild weather but don't cut it when serious cold sets in. She pointed to open spaces on the walls of the heated bus shelter.

"(The wind) comes right through the cracks," she said. At least three City of Winnipeg bus drivers told a Free Press reporter they've received complaints during the last week from riders about cold temperatures in certain heated bus shelters.

According to a December Free Press article, there were 37 new heated bus shelters installed in the city costing from about $23,000 to $44,000 each, depending on their size. There are 71 heated shelters in total and another estimated 800 unheated bus shelters in the city.

A city spokesman, contacted Thursday afternoon, said the shelters are designed to provide temporary relief from the cold. He was not able to say if the city had received complaints about the bus shelters.

"The shelters are to provide temporary relief from the elements," said Ken Allen, spokesman for the city's public works department. Allen said the warmest part of the heated shelters are the benches over where the electric heaters are operating. As of Thursday, he said, all the heated shelters were working.

"The shelter provides a break from the wind," he said. Allen encouraged those with complaints to call 986-5700 with their concerns. "We want (the heated shelters) to be working as they're intended to be working," he said.

All temperatures were taken with a digital thermometer with an external sensor specifically designed to measure outdoor temperature. The thermometer was placed on the ground in the shade, in all bus shelters for indoor temperature or adjacent to the bus shelters for outdoor temperatures.