Gianella Scarpa is scared to take the bus every morning. But like thousands of other low-wage earning Torontonians, she has little choice but to make a harrowing public transit commute through a city in the grips of the pandemic.

Scarpa, 49, works as a part-time cleaner at a housing co-op in South Etobicoke, a job that’s been labelled an “essential service” during the COVID-19 outbreak. Her only option to get to work from her home near Lansdowne Avenue and Dupont Street is the TTC.

But she worries taking the bus means disregarding public health advice to stay safe through physical distancing.

“I try to keep my two metres from others, but it’s just impossible. I’m so worried about the virus,” she said.

On the last leg of her commute to work, she takes the 110 Islington bus from Islington station, and while she used to board at about 6:15 a.m. she now has to wait for two or three vehicles for one empty enough it feels safe to ride in. That can take at least 30 minutes and, in the meantime, merely standing on the narrow bus platform with dozens of other transit users makes her nervous.

Scarpa said she can’t afford to lose her job because she’s using the $20 an hour she earns to help put her daughter through university. Her employer has been understanding and agreed not to penalize her if she shows up late, but she doubts the other workers she sees on the bus have bosses so accommodating.

“We are poor people. We are working people. We need more protection,” she said, calling on the TTC to eliminate crowding during the pandemic by adding more service to routes like hers.

“I support my family. So I deserve good services,” she insisted.

Scarpa’s experience is one shared by thousands of other low-income workers across the city every day.

Despite the TTC reporting ridership losses of 80 per cent system-wide as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency says some bus routes are still crowded on weekdays before 7 a.m.

Last week, writer and transit advocate Sean Marshall mapped out the busy routes and noticed many ran through industrial employment lands, particularly in the city’s northwest and southwest where there’s a high concentration of warehouses, food processing plants, light industrial facilities, and industrial bakeries.

“These are industries where wages are low,” Marshall said in an interview. Employees are less likely to be able to afford a car, and the industrial areas they’re travelling to are also not easily walkable.

Workers “have little choice” but to take the TTC, he said.

TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said the agency agrees the busy routes are crowded primarily because people are riding them to shift work in industrial employment areas. But, he noted, some busy routes also serve neighbourhood improvement areas, the communities identified by the city as having a higher percentage of low-income households and lower access to employment.

Many people in those neighbourhoods have limited options, Green said. “We are their only way around Toronto for essential goods and services.”

The TTC announced April 1 it was adding at least 47 buses to 15 of its crowded bus routes during busy morning periods. The agency said it would monitor crowding, and the routes receiving extra service would change as needed.

For now, those routes include the 117 Alness-Chesswood route that connects Sheppard West station to the light industrial district south of Steeles Avenue; the 123 Sherway, a branch of which serves the Metro grocery chain’s distribution centre on the West Mall; the 119 Torbarrie, which ferries workers to several industrial bakeries near Highway 400 between Sheppard and Wilson avenues; and the 35 Jane, which connects seven neighbourhood improvement areas — including of Rockcliffe-Smythe, Mount Dennis, Weston, and Black Creek — to the Line 1 and Line 2 subways.

But so far it appears an imperfect solution. The 110 Islington route Scarpa takes wasn’t on the TTC’s initial list of those getting more buses, for instance.

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The TTC has attempted to keep regular service levels during the outbreak, in part to alleviate crowding, but it’s struggling to do so. As of Sunday, only seven transit employees had tested positive for COVID-19, but many more have had to go into self-isolation and called in sick.

The agency has reported that up to 20 per cent of workers have booked off during the pandemic, and by the end of last week the TTC was operating about 75 per cent of regular bus service.

Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, the union representing nearly 12,000 transit agency employees, says absent workers aren’t the problem, and has blamed lower service levels on TTC management mishandling the crisis.

Local 113 has told bus drivers not to allow more than 15 passengers on any vehicle, a directive that’s intended to reduce crowding but that hasn’t been endorsed by the TTC.

Green acknowledged that even as the TTC tries to add service there are “going to be exceptions where a bus has more people than we’d like in order to maintain physical distancing.”

“Our advice in these cases is that people exercise their best judgment and not board a busy vehicle as another will be along shortly,” he said.

The TTC has also urged riders to consider travelling after 8 a.m. if possible.

But Deena Ladd of the Workers’ Action Centre said many people riding the buses don’t have the option of delaying their commute. She said the food processing plants and bakeries in Toronto’s northwest operate on strict 8-hour shift schedules, with workers on the morning shift required to show up around 7 a.m.

Many of the facilities use temporary or otherwise precariously-employed labourers — a disproportionate number of whom are racialized, newcomers, and women — who make minimum wage and have little power to change their terms of work, Ladd said.

“If they say to their boss that I don’t feel comfortable going on the TTC, they can be fired,” she said.

Ladd argued that the jobs many people are riding the bus to are vital to keeping the city’s supply chain going so that wealthier homebound residents can still get groceries and other essentials when they need them.

“What you have are people now doing these essential jobs … but being paid a pittance, and having to put their lives on the line by riding overcrowded buses,” she said.

Ladd said the situation exposes the inequality of “who’s allowed to take care of themselves” during the crisis, “and who’s not.”

Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr