\u201cAcross Canada, although safety issues are generally decreasing in frequency, many are becoming more complex to resolve,\u201d\u00a0due to the fallout of underfunded health, housing and social services, David Cooper, a transit consultant with two decades of expertise in transportation and safety policy, told the TTC board\u00a0last April<\/a>. Cooper authored in 2023 the national\u00a0transit safety recommendations<\/a>, which indicate police are one part of a multi-faceted solution.<\/p>\n What Toronto is doing about TTC safety<\/p>\n Both the municipality and Toronto police have shifted away<\/a> from a \u201cpolice-led\u201d approach, with Mayor Olivia Chow and police Chief Myron Demkiw previously saying a \u201chealth-led\u201d method is best for addressing underlying issues such as poverty, homelessness or mental health crises, with police as support where needed.<\/p>\n \u201cA police officer in every single station, that\u2019s just not realistic, particularly in light of the budget constraints the city is facing,\u201d said Coun. Jamaal Myers (Scarborough North), chair of the TTC board. \u201cI don\u2019t even think it\u2019s effective.\u201d<\/p>\n Myers said two things can be true at once: crime is declining, yet people feel unsafe.\u00a0He noted the TTC, community crisis teams and the police are addressing subway safety issues, including an increased presence of TTC special constables and other transit staff.<\/p>\n Bradford acknowledged those workers and their efforts.\u00a0\u201cI want to be clear for folks: I have a great deal of respect for the crisis workers, for the outreach teams, for the front-line TTC staff who show up every day,\u201d Bradford said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about replacing them, it\u2019s about making sure that the system has the enforcement backbone it needs so that those workers can do their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n According to a\u00a02025 TTC report<\/a>, calls for a \u201cperson in crisis\u201d are concentrated in Line 1\u2019s \u201cU-Zone,\u201d between St. George and Bloor stations \u2014 the busiest on the subway. The city is spending $1.8 million on a pilot to\u00a0expand its mental health crisis teams<\/a>\u00a0onto those platforms.<\/p>\n Stations such as TMU and Bloor-Yonge see the most amount of traffic, so they also see the most number of reported safety incidents. The TTC\u2019s least-used subway stations, such as Bessarion or Rosedale, are among the quietest, because they are in low-density neighbourhoods with little commercial development.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the most uncomfortable scenarios are when there\u2019s nobody there,\u201d Bradford said at Monday\u2019s press conference. \u201cSo I would suggest having police officers in all of our stations \u2026 if you want more people to use\u00a0Bessarion.\u201d<\/p>\n Toronto police\u00a0announced last fall<\/a>\u00a0they were dedicating four officers between Union and Wellesley stations and another four officers between Bloor and Eglinton stations seven days a week. Spokesperson\u00a0Nadine Ramadan said so far this year there\u2019s been a downward trend in general crime on TTC property.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, we also understand that lower crime numbers don\u2019t always translate into a greater sense of safety,\u201d Ramadan said.<\/p>\n There are many reasons\u00a0perceptions of safety might not match data<\/a>. Researchers typically point to media giving prominent coverage to sensational stories and rare tragedies, and elected officials using the fear of crime as a political tool.<\/p>\n \u201cI think (Bradford\u2019s motion), unfortunately, ignores what\u2019s really happening in the system,\u201d said Coun. Alejandra Bravo (Davenport), a TTC board member. \u201cIt\u2019s a way to try to capture attention, but it won\u2019t deliver on the ground because (safety) requires a lot of different personnel\u201d with different skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus of politics at the University of Toronto, said Bradford\u2019s proposal is \u201ca political statement\u201d rather than a practical approach.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not presenting any (crime) data,\u201d said Wiseman, adding that using specific incidents of crime in order to make generalizations that it\u2019s rampant is straight out of the conservative politicians\u2019 playbook. \u201cI was robbed in Puerto Vallarta,\u201d said Wiseman. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean everybody in Puerto Vallarta gets robbed.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear how much money would be needed to deploy police at every station, which Bradford proposes should be part of the city\u2019s 2027 budget. This year\u2019s bump in\u00a0police spending<\/a>\u00a0brought the service\u2019s funding to\u00a0$1.43 billion, of which about $1 billion is salary.<\/p>\n While supportive of the idea, Toronto Police Association president Clayton Campbell said it\u2019s \u201cunrealistic\u201d with current staffing levels. \u201cIt would be hundreds of (more) officers,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n Toronto police\u2019s current five-year hiring plan<\/a>, approved in 2024, already includes $20 million to hire 143 new officers this year.<\/p>\n Platform doors for safety<\/p>\n Also as part of next year\u2019s budget process, Bradford is asking\u00a0to start construction on a pilot program to install platform edge doors<\/a>\u00a0at some TTC stations by end of next year, and a 10-year funding plan for the doors along \u201cpriority stations\u201d on Line 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n Platform edge doors are generally seen as an effective safety barrier to prevent suicides attempts and trespassers.\u00a0<\/p>\n TTC data shared with the Star showed 10 suicide deaths last year<\/a>, relatively the same as a decade ago, except for a brief spike during the first year of the pandemic, and 13 suicide attempts, which was a decrease from before the pandemic.<\/p>\n The challenge of the doors is the $55-million-per-station price tag and the complex planning required to construct them. Others on council say it\u2019s a measure that would be competing with the multibillion-dollar repair needs of an aging transit system.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
City council this week is being asked to commit to moving ahead with construction for a pilot <\/p>\n Last week, Chow said she \u201cwould love to see\u201d the doors installed. \u201cHowever, we can\u2019t leave the tracks not fixed. So the state of good repair has to come first,\u201d she said of the TTC\u2019s growing repair backlog, which sits at nearly $12 billion over the next 15 years.\u00a0Chow pointed to the\u00a0Scarborough RT<\/a>\u00a0track\u2019s deteriorating anchor bolts that\u00a0derailed a train<\/a>\u00a0in 2023 and\u00a0sent five people to the hospital<\/a>\u00a0as an example for the pressing need to stay on top of that backlog.<\/p>\n Coun. Josh Matlow, a current TTC board member who has long supported platform-edge doors, said wanting to install them requires talking about\u00a0the trade-offs and repercussions in a cash-strapped city. \u201cIt\u2019s not honest to simply say, \u2018Look for efficiencies.\u2019 You need to name them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Matlow said funding these proposals would mean choosing a combination of fare increases, tax increases and\/or cuts to other services \u2014 if the federal and provincial governments don\u2019t help.<\/p>\n Bravo noted the TTC is still an outlier in North America for its extremely low levels of senior government support.<\/p>\n When asked by the Star, the province rebuffed the idea of giving more money specifically for platform edge doors, while the federal government was noncommittal but said it was open to discussions.<\/p>\n As far as the city paying for the doors itself, each one per cent property tax increase is the equivalent of raising about $50 million. It\u2019s unclear whether TTC fares would need to go up or, if so, by how much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Major crime in Toronto is down, assaults on the TTC subway are declining and violence is on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-561809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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