Shatter-resistant bus shelters smooth as glass — so far

Preliminary results from Winnipeg Transit’s shatter-resistant bus shelter panels shows they have been a smashing success.

Two months after the polycarbonate panels were installed at several “high-use” transit stops, only two panels have had to be reinstalled because they were knocked out of their mounts.

The city has installed the “virtually unbreakable” panels at 22 sites so far as part of a one-year pilot project that was announced in October. Winnipeg Transit spokesperson Megan Benedictson said Wednesday those panels have cost $88,000.

After the two panels fell out, the city addressed the issue by changing its installation technique. One shelter was also damaged in a collision and removed from service, Benedictson said.

The city said in October the program could be expanded if it proved effective.

The material is 250 times more impact-resistant than safety glass and is used by several other Canadian transit systems, the city has said.

Coun. Janice Lukes, chairwoman of the public works committee, was encouraged by the early results but is waiting to see how they hold up in the winter.

“Bus shelters are, I’d say, more aggressively used in the winter,” Lukes said. “We’ve got to get through a really cold winter and the drama that happens in the bus shelters then.”

The city opted to test polycarbonate, in part, due to the increasing frequency of replacing glass panels due to vandalism.

Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 28, the city repaired 349 shelters — the second-highest number over the past five years. Approximately 70 shelters in the city are in need of glass repair.

City data show 267 bus shelters were impacted by broken glass in 2021, followed by 361 in 2022, 305 in 2023 and 237 in 2024.

The city spent $147,593.90 on replacement glass for bus shelters in 2024. The figures for 2025 were not made available by early evening Wednesday.

The material cost for polycarbonate per shelter is about $4,000 — about 15 per cent more than glass — but compared to the maintenance cost of glass, Lukes said the city is getting bang for its buck.

“It feels almost cost-neutral when you think about the glass and how it breaks, then you have to send a team out to clean it up, then another team to reinstall it,” she said. “I’m confident we’re going to be ordering this again.”

The city plans to spend $7.4 million on bus infrastructure in 2026 and $7.9 million in 2027, Lukes said. Once the department reviews the new spine-and-feeder transit system, more shelters are expected to be installed.

There are currently 705 bus shelters across the city. Approximately 150 shelters were removed from stops as part of the transit network’s overhaul.

Transit is assessing the conditions of the frames of those 150 shelters with the goal of having those in good condition relocated.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca