trevorhayden
Active Member
Exactly. How is ETS allowed to run 1-car trains during rush hour? That should be criminal.
|
|
|
- Thread starter quit
- Start date
David A
Senior Member
Yes, I agree some kind of dedicated transit police would be better.
Habibfazil
Active Member
there has been a noted increase of Peace Officers and police on the system, but they need to be spread out not a gaggle of 6 ticketing 1 guy at century while trains come and go and not 1 person was fair checked, meanwhile things be happening elsewhere.
Greenspace
Senior Member
EPS is only called onto transit if there's a criminal matter taking place. TPOs and private security deal with most security issues. When things were really bad a year and we had the safety task force that's why the province said publicly they expected Edmonton to hand over transit policing to EPS, which hasn't happened and is obviously more expensive.
Also it's summer, there's less issues in general. We'll see how things are once the weather turns.
The shelter doors on many or most of the Valley Line stations are still broken or don't work. Just take them off and stop trying to fix them. It's a stupid design that can never work properly and will always be vandalized and provides a place for people to do drugs, particularly at the Downtown stations.
Also it's summer, there's less issues in general. We'll see how things are once the weather turns.
The shelter doors on many or most of the Valley Line stations are still broken or don't work. Just take them off and stop trying to fix them. It's a stupid design that can never work properly and will always be vandalized and provides a place for people to do drugs, particularly at the Downtown stations.
Seamusmuldrew
Active Member
Who are never around…
Seamusmuldrew
Active Member
1) We don’t exactly have the largest and most disposable military personnel, and this would open up a huge can of worms for municipalities wanting the feds to deploy troops to… transit centres?
2) Well it should be considering it’s an issue in municipally owned and run facilities. I think they should ask for some help from the feds, but it is not their job to step in.
3) The security on transit is not peace officers or police, they are contracted and their job is purely to dissuade bad behaviour and to have eyes on the platform.
“We have to stop pretending all issues are simply poverty. This is about crime.” Woof. I don’t know how to respond to this comment. I can’t really process the ignorance and simplicity applied here.
Deploying the military on our own citizens is just as useless an idea as everything else that doesn’t address the actual societal problems that have caused the high drug use in ETS facilities. For fare evasion? I think fare gates are worth the cost. But for homeless people? Getting the feds to spend a bunch on troops to kick homeless people out of transit facilities (which is actually not their job, fun fact!) and pulling military resources away from our already underfunded military will not make the problem magically disappear.
I would bet that running red lights is far more common than violence towards bystanders on transit, and therefore poses a more significant risk to lives. So how about we get a tank at every major intersection with their gun pointed at random drivers they think *might* run a red. That’s a reasonable use of resources, right??
EdwardEdm
Active Member
EPS has officers dedicated to Transit. While fare checks have been rare for me, one time it was by EPS.
CplKlinger
Senior Member
EPS has a couple of transit-dedicated police teams, and I believe they said a few months ago they're on track to have 50 total officers dedicated to transit by end of year.
Going off that first point, the military is being hampered enough by wildfire response; transit security duty would take soldiers away from much needed training and preparation time. And speaking of useless: During the High Level Flood response, they were tasked by a very overstretched and underresourced RCMP to help keep people out of the town. The military was very much against crossing "the line" into conducting operations against Canadians, so they agreed to station soldiers and a vehicle at one checkpoint, on one condition: They were completely for show. People trying to enter were naturally intimidated by seeing soldiers with guns, and turned away on their own accord. But had they pressed on, they could have entered the town without so much as a verbal warning.
We don't need soldiers to police transit, we need more peace officers; ideally with the province giving them more powers than they currently have. Pre-Covid, peace officers spent around two thirds of their time doing pro-active work like fare checks. Post-Covid, that number dropped to around 20%, and the rest of the time they were responding to calls. More peace officers means less workload per person, and more time can be spent doing pro-active patrols in the LRT system and on buses. Transit-dedicated police are nice too, but under provincial law (the MGA) the city is not allowed to tell EPS how it does its job (such as having people on transit beats); it can only write the cheque. The nice thing about transit peace officers is that the city can control where they go, when, etc.
One more thing: I talked to one councilor about this a couple years ago, and they complained that peace *and* police officers (soldiers too) can only do so much. Peace officers and police are often playing a morbid game of wack-a-mole. They remove people from one station, the people go to another. Perhaps they get arrested, but then released soon after. Rinse and repeat. That's a big problem that is worth discussing too.
Last edited:
thommyjo
Senior Member
Again, it’s a strawman to end your comments with such exaggerated stupidity. Insinuating that’s an equivalent act to what I’m calling for is just intellectually dishonest.
1-2) we use troops for many other emergencies to help bolster manpower when we are under resourced. And sure, transit is a municipal area mostly…but it’s also given tens of billions by the feds and provinces. And many of the legal challenges and drug crisis epidemic issues we are seeing are considered national problems. Housing, healthcare, security, gangs, weapons, black markets…those aren’t on a city to tackle by themselves.
And again, many other countries…”western” “wealthy” countries use military or highly armed/trained personnel in transit systems. It’s not like it’s a radical idea.
What’s radical is not taking swift action when guns, knives, needles, ODs, and violence are happening weekly on a transit system 10%+ of our resident depend on.
“Deploying on our citizens”. Dude, that’s a twist. How about “deploying to our stations to protect vulnerable citizens from those committing crimes and violence”?
It’s not about homeless people. It’s about criminals. They’re not the same. But too many progressives let criminals hide behind the actual victims of houselessness and poverty.
You seem to be suggesting all issues are related to poverty? You don’t think theres any personal agency to crime? When a grandma gets pushed on the train tracks by a red alert gang member doing an initiation task, should her family should feel sorry for the gang member and not demand better protection?
cent
New Member
OR
We could continue advocating to get help for these folks. How has the city been doing with providing help to these folks? The non-violent ones perhaps as the violent ones tend to be repeat offenders.
Violent criminals are much more complex. I think more investments in youth programs, as some of the LRT's violent offenders are, may be a better spending so they're not tempted on joining gangs or worse, criminal organizations.
We could continue advocating to get help for these folks. How has the city been doing with providing help to these folks? The non-violent ones perhaps as the violent ones tend to be repeat offenders.
Violent criminals are much more complex. I think more investments in youth programs, as some of the LRT's violent offenders are, may be a better spending so they're not tempted on joining gangs or worse, criminal organizations.
Seamusmuldrew
Active Member
I’m exaggerating slightly because I don’t wish to take this completely ridiculous idea seriously. Most people consider traffic deaths and violence to be normal, despite the huge loss of life that it brings, but it doesn’t make me intellectually dishonest to use it in a comparison, it just ignores the normalization of the crime. Idk about you but I consider drivers a far greater danger to those walking (undeniably inclusive of transit users) than violent people on the train. Tanks or other military equipment at intersections would intimidate drivers and likely lead to fewer traffic violations. I’m not saying we should do this, I’m purely making the comparison to show how dumb this idea is.
As CplKlinger said before, the military itself is against enforcing local laws on Canadian citizens, which is what you are proposing. The Canadian military steps in when there is an imminent emergency like a natural disaster. Not someone smoking crack at Churchill station.
I find it funny that you accuse me of intellectual dishonesty while in the same breath deny the connection between homelessness and disorder on transit. “Taking swift action” on disorder on city property isn’t a novel, never-attempted strategy, and it inherently targets homeless people because that’s by far the largest source of disorder on transit. That’s the approach that’s used time and time again and it doesn’t work. When EPS disassembled homeless encampments, they characterized this action as for the sake of public safety. They then justified that showing the weapons they found. Did that suddenly fix any problems? Would it have worked if the military had done it? I do think the military has a part to play in combatting the root causes of the drug problem (and similarly the gang problem) since you’re right, they are national crises, and doing this work is actually part of their job. None of that happens on an LRT platform.
thommyjo
Senior Member
The military suggestion is also slightly extreme because it’s meant to point out how “not serious” our responses have been.
Many of us have become accustomed to seeing open drug use, seeing violent outbursts in public spaces, vandalism, ODs, etc. but we shouldn’t be. If we actually care about those dealing with addictions AND everyone else, the approach many Canadian/American cities have taken the last 15 years isn’t compassionate, safe, or working.
I’m with you on the car stuff, but it’s a bit off topic. I bike with a baby and sometimes people comment on the “safety” of it. I often joke that they’d never say that about me driving the baby to jasper on highway 16, even though serious and fatal crashes happen more there than me biking MUPS in the river valley! So I’m with ya.
But there is also perception. Even if an assault doesn’t happen, gang members, people high on drugs, or those uttering violent threats is enough to make many people not use transit again unless they have to (another way out inaction harms vulnerable people most…the elderly, lower income earners, immigrants, the disabled).
And as many people say “why don’t we address the root cause”. Of course. Military solves squat for that. But that’s a seperate goal, and a generational challenge. It’s so multifaceted. It’s about kids having safe homes and the foster system, it’s about access to drugs, it’s about stopping gangs, it’s about social supports, employment, affordable housing, addiction and recovery programs, domestic violence and counselling, etc. those that act like “housing” fixes everything are just as simple minded as the idea that “military fixes” this.
But we need a separate goal. 1) all the drug, homelessness, poverty challenges needs work.
But a seperate goal (yes related, but not fully dependent), is 2) transit safety. Our transit will be safer if we make progress on those first, for sure. Our transit can also be safe while we still continue the long journey to solve those more complex issues. See Vancouver and many other cities. Safe transit, clean stations, protection of critical infrastructure for the good of all residents. Yet, still a massive amount of work to do on drugs and houselessness.
The military suggestion is simply an extreme way to point out that 1) our city and others have failed 2) our sense of urgency has been so lackluster that we seen hundreds of serious violent offences and thousands of issues every year for 5+ years now. 3) we’ve completely lost public trust in the current approach and only an extreme approach will rebuild the average persons trust.
The slow addition of a few more security guards and peace officers…even if it legitimately makes stuff a few percentage points better… does nothing for everyone that’s sworn off transit. And it does nothing to the criminals that continue to exploit our transit and harm others with 0 fear of consequences for their illegal behaviour.
What did airports do after 9/11? They beefed up security hard and noticeably (I remember military men with machine guns while going to Disneyland in 2002 in the airport). Some of that was legit to try to stop future attacks. But also it’s an attempt to make the general public feel safer and that action is being taken.
When a 5”4 security guard with 0 weapons and who walks around texting all day gets added to an LRT station, I don’t feel any better. That’s the problem. We don’t allow gangs and drugs inside schools, we shouldn’t allow them inside LRTs stations. 1 guy high on drugs walks through a school park and we do a school lockdown and call the police. Think of the difference in response. Kids still use our LRT, yet people with knives and drugs are around all the time. It’s all a choice and about priorities and what we choose to tolerate.
My personal opinion is that tolerating any of this is transit is completely unacceptable and I think the general public has also voiced that by the steep decline in public safety perceptions and transit use, and all the negative stuff written online.
IanO
Superstar
We don't need more security, we need to ask more from our fellow citizens and have basic expectations met.
I've never been in a system that has such sketchy entrances, disorder at times and folks doing what they do on trains. Never.
I've never been in a system that has such sketchy entrances, disorder at times and folks doing what they do on trains. Never.
jason403
Active Member
This is a nice sentiment in theory, and is currently being attempted. The problem is you can't help people who don't want help.
It simply comes down to enforcement. As drug users and fare evaders realize they will be ticketed or arrested to a higher probability, less will go on transit, thereby giving even more time to existing officers to deal with remaining problems. Even those who don't overly care of consequences will lessen their taking transit for the simple fact of being hassled (where now they are generally left alone).
Drug use will then spillover to outside of transit centers and other areas, however we are not trying to solve drug use and homelessness here, the mandate is to increase transit security (which is why we are seeing very low results with current strategy - it goes off into so many areas).
David A
Senior Member
The destroyed doors on Corona Station are still boarded over. I think it has been a year or two now. It gives the impression that upkeep and security on our LRT system are a low priority for our city.