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globalnews.ca
I wonder, does Scamerjeet Sohi take transit to work? Does he have to take the LRT at 9pm?EPS may be spreading fear with remarks about violence downtown: criminologist - Edmonton | Globalnews.ca
One detective said Edmontonians should be 'extremely cautious' on transit and on downtown streets and to avoid interacting with people who give you uncertainty.
I agree. I sometimes wonder if any of these advocates have traveled to large cities in Asia or Europe where it is common for people of all ages, to be out walking, taking transit in urban areas. It's not normal for streets to be hostile. Your grandmother or child should be able to walk places on their own and feel completely safe. No people yelling, tripping out, approaching or intimidating you. Until we reach that basic milestone, we've failed to build a safe city.
He says he uses transit regularly, but he's also a former bus driver so aside from probably seeing a lot during his career as one, I can gaurantee you he's very attentive to what the union and ETS operators are saying.
THIS!
To your point, our estimated homeless population is around 2800. Toronto's is estimated at 10,000 and GTA is technically 4x larger than us. I'm not sure what Vancouver's is.
I read somewhere (trying here to find the article) that Vancouver's homeless population was similar to the GTA's. They do have a serious problem with this there, but it's less visible than here for a few reasons... Living between here and there did give me anecdotal evidence that this is true.
These are some of the reasons why you don't notice as much. But it doesn't mean it's not as bad as ours (or even worse, number-wise. If you consider that Vancouver Metro is about 2.2x larger than Edmonton's, if their numbers are about the same as the GTA, meaning that they have around 3.5x more homeless than we do, they have a bigger problem, and that it is just well masked.
Vancouver is not masked - its highly visible with several areas for the city hosting the homeless, drug pushers, addicts and thugs looking for trouble,
Same here.....as in 100 levels above YVR's. You couldn't pay The Oracle of Omaha to live there...certainly not myself either.
You did miss the part where I live between the two cities, right (and funny enough, I stay downtown on both cities...)? I'm in Vancouver every other week, and no, Edmonton is not worse than Vancouver, it's just not hidden by what you have just mentioned a couple of postes earlier,. Pointing out that the problem there is just as bad, is not saying that things are not bad here (although, mind you, personally will never be able to see Edmonton as this dangerous crime-ridden place everyone talks about, but personal experiences give us different perspectives, don't they?).
A really interesting side note (that I can relate with you with not being able to see Edmonton as a crime ridden place), is that I overheard some conversations from someone with a delegation from South Africa who mentioned that the streets of downtown Edmonton were so safe and that there were barely any beggars/homeless people around. They did notice them, but they actually felt safe in our core. They also apparently did (from what I was told) explored a large chunk of downtown as well during their stay, so it's not a case of an isolated spruced up area.
