The City of Prince Albert has leased six additional buses and sued the company that it bought seven other buses from in 2019. (Susan McNeil/paNOW Staff)

By Susan McNeil

City transit

City sues bus company for $6 million

May 10, 2022 | 3:16 PM

The City of Prince Albert has filed a lawsuit against the company that supplied it with transit buses three years ago, saying that Vicinity Motors/Grand West Transport failed in its obligation.

The city bought seven new buses that were delivered in 2019 but pulled them from service after cracks were found in the frames of several buses.

In addition to the $3.34 million it spent to buy the buses, the city wants compensation for lost ridership revenue, ad revenue and for the discounts or compensation it had to offer long term riders.

“How it led to a lawsuit is they failed in their commitments,” said Mayor Greg Dionne in a news conference this afternoon.

He said the company had committed to a repair plan for the buses that satisfied the city and that has not happened.

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The city sent one of the defective buses back to the company and another to a repair place in Edmonton, Alta., but the issue still failed to resolve.

The new fleet was under warranty, with the city making a claim in 2021 but no repair plan has yet been presented and only three replacements have been delivered.

Of the three replacements, two have had operational issues and the remaining three were to be delivered in July of this year.

However, Dionne said he got a call from Vicinity saying they cannot supply new buses.

In order to keep its transit system operational, the city bought school buses and repainted them, and compensation for that is included in the claim.

Now, the city has found another six conventional transit buses that are already located at First Canada’s lot in the north industrial area.

“That’s when we went on the hunt, if we can’t get free buses from them, we’ll lease them and put them as part of the lawsuit,” he said.

SGI still needs to inspect the vehicles and some small changes need to be made, such as adding running lights to them.

Three of the six buses should be operational in June and the remaining three shortly afterwards.

With the addition of these six buses, the city will have enough to run its regular transit service and have a spare bus in case of breakdowns.

The new buses are wheelchair accessible via a lift at the back of the bus.

Ultimately, Dionne said what the city wants from Vicinity is to have the six buses they bought fully operational in the transit system.

The statement of claim has already been filed in Prince Albert Court of Queen’s Bench.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow