The Toronto Transit Commission and Toronto’s city council have tried just about everything to convince riders the transit system is safe. But a reputation of lawlessness persists.
In January last year, 67 per cent of TTC users said they felt satisfied with their personal safety on the system. By November, that had dropped to 58 per cent, TTC data shows.
“It’s a comfort issue. The perception of safety is just as important as the actual numbers to bring back riders,” said David Cooper, founder of Leading Mobility, a transit consultancy.
Frequent disturbances by people suffering from drug addiction and mental illness have created an atmosphere of insecurity and fear, city councilors and transit experts agree.
But there’s broad disagreement on how to address the problem. Many things have been tried, ranging from strict law enforcement sticks to harm reduction carrots.
On December 20, the TTC passed its 2024 budget, which includes $28.2 million in new funding for its security, community safety and well-being program.
“Given the evidence that we had, and the resources we have, and the terrible financial state of the TTC, it’s the best we can do,” said Dianne Saxe, Ward 11 city councilor and TTC board member.
The TTC is not an institution with the capacity to deal with mental health and homelessness issues, experts say. But it is increasingly forced to play that role, Saxe explains.
‘It’s scary’
Saxe, a TTC user herself, said she was on the subway a month ago when a man started screaming and taking off his clothes.
“It’s scary — especially for an older woman like me, but he wasn’t harming anybody,” she said.
“We have frequent interruptions of service because we have disturbed people making a disturbance. But it is rarely a police matter.”
Saxe says violence is actually quite rare on the TTC, and most mentally ill people should be attended to by someone specifically trained to deal with a mental health crisis.
“They’re more likely to be able to calm somebody down because they tend to be less frightening for the person in distress if they’re specifically trained for that kind of interaction.”
As part of the new funding package, the TTC is increasing its mental health and social support staff with 20 Streets to Homes outreach workers, 20 community safety ambassadors and 50 temporary security guards.
The funding will also go to de-escalation program training and maintaining full-day coverage of the transit control security desk.
It will also add six special shelter bus operators, which move homeless people sheltering in subway systems to city-run shelters.
This is an example of the TTC coping with challenges it isn’t designed to solve, Cooper says.
“Should this be something that the TTC is budgeted for? Or should that be coming from, let’s say, the housing administration budget from the city?”
“Safety is not a public transit issue. Public transit is a public space where what’s happening in the rest of our city is also playing out,” said Shelagh Prizey Allen, director of TTCriders, an organization that advocates for improved transit.
“We are seeing the impact in public transit of policies like city-wide clearing of encampments and inadequate shelter capacity.”
When homeless people have nowhere to go, especially during the winter, social workers will give their clients tickets to get into the TTC, Saxe says.
‘Time and a place’
Councilor Stephen Holyday, Ward 2 city councilor and TTC board member, says personnel trained for mental health crises do help, but police officers offer unique value.
“When someone is in the middle of a disturbance and creating angst among passengers or even posing a risk, I think there is a time and a place for [law] enforcement,” he said.
Last March, Holyday put forward a motion at city council to extend a program that funded 80 police officers patrolling the TTC on a daily basis. The motion was lost in a 15-10 vote.
“I found that disappointing, because I think the public wants to see uniformed officers. They prove that they brought value in the number of arrests and firearm recoveries they made,” Holyday said.
Saxe voted against the motion, in part because she says the city can’t afford it.
“We shouldn’t be asking the police to do things that somebody else could do, because the police can’t keep up with the things they absolutely have to do.”
Instead, special TTC constables are granted authority to use force when a rider is breaking the law. They also enforce transit bylaws, such as fare evasion.
As part of the new funding package, the TTC is hiring 50 special constables. The officers are in various stages of training, the TTC said in a statement.
“Whether it’s a customer service or special constables uniform, having more people out there is positive and makes it easier for someone to report an incident,” Holyday said.
The TTC is also hiring 160 new customer service agents and 30 new station supervisors, which it says will lead to more effective responses to safety incidents in the field. The TTC says the sight of more staff means better deterrence and also leads to quicker response times.
“We know that when issues arise on the TTC, people are twice as likely to report them to TTC station staff and operators than by other methods,” Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said in a statement.
“I think what everyone is trying to figure out is: How do you have the right person at the right time, in the right situation and the right response?” Cooper said.
Saxe neatly explains that sometimes you need a special constable, sometimes it’s the police or maybe a social worker.
“We need all these different functions, and they’re not interchangeable.”
