[Amare]

Someone decided to post a video of the P1 at College last Thursday on Worldstar. Don’t know if it’s against the rules since it’s NSFW.

Definitely not appropriate to post such a video. The person involved has a family. They don't need to ever know that such a video exists.

I just read the story and saw the video myself for some background on the whole thing (I wont post it but if anyone really wants to see it the Toronto Sun has it on their site). I dont know what the man's current status is, but clearly he caused the incident himself and fully acknowledged he was on drugs afterwards. Not only that, but he was involved with a car accident a couple weeks prior to the incident at College which i'm sure he most likely caused with his drug use.

This is just another example one man's sheer stupidity which led to the unnecessary delay of thousands of commuters.

 

[44 North]

I just read the story and saw the video myself for some background on the whole thing (I wont post it but if anyone really wants to see it the Toronto Sun has it on their site). I dont know what the man's current status is, but clearly he caused the incident himself and fully acknowledged he was on drugs afterwards. Not only that, but he was involved with a car accident a couple weeks prior to the incident at College which i'm sure he most likely caused with his drug use.

This is just another example one man's sheer stupidity which led to the unnecessary delay of thousands of commuters.

Well that's actually a relief to hear he survived and is doing well (relatively). Train may not have been moving fast, but still the momentum.

 

[Johnny Au]

Bring on the platform screen doors!

I would rather pay an extra five cents per trip and have platform screen doors.

 

[smallspy]

Bring on the platform screen doors!

I would rather pay an extra five cents per trip and have platform screen doors.

Platform screen doors wouldn't have prevented him from pulling the power about a half-hour before that video was filmed.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[amnesiajune]

Bring on the platform screen doors!

I would rather pay an extra five cents per trip and have platform screen doors.

The cost would be more like 50-75 cents per trip for several years.

 

[TransitBart]

In response (partly) to the last comment.

Now that the minimum wage is going to $14.00 / hour, how about raising TTC cash fare to $3.50 with a two hour timed transfer? The latter is in place. Adult PRESTO full fare is $3.25. Effective April 1, 2018.

The proposal above should apply to all local transit in the province, but I'll speak from what I know which is TTC. In the case of the TTC, John Tory's children-ride-for-free should be rescinded.

Read this part carefully. If you are working, then this proposal may not be troublesome. This leaves us with the non-working populace. If the province wants to deal with the non-working populace, it should be done through the social benefits system, not as a forced subsidy from the agency itself. Transit agencies are in the business of delivering good transit. They have their own bills. Capital costs. Operating costs. These topics are debated endlessly here.

The province should also deal with this so that access to transit is not a hodge-podge of benefits from municipality to municipality, and also to preserve scare transit dollars for transit.

Discuss.

 

[Richard White]

This leaves us with the non-working populace. If the province wants to deal with the non-working populace, it should be done through the social benefits system, not as a forced subsidy from the agency itself.

That will likely not work as planned. My father has been an bus operator out of Birchmount and Eglinton for 30 years this January. There are certain routes like McCowan which run through high density, low income areas that are well known by operators for passengers being "unable to pay a full fare". Essentially there are repeat offenders who attempt to abuse the system by using invalid (old, wrong direction or route, etc) transfers or by claiming they can't pay a full fare for whatever reason.

Supplementing social assistance recipients to help with transit will not accomplish anything. They will still try to use their 3 week old transfer from another route as a metropass and still not pay a full fare.

Without getting racist, other routes such as Kennedy and Markham Road experience similar issues wherein older Asian passengers attempt to evade paying a fare by using an invalid transfer. I have seen it with my own eyes in the area of McCowan and Steeles, where when they get caught they pull money out of their pocket to pay or pretend not to speak English.

Supplementing peoples income to pay for transit won't help, what is needed is a tougher stance on fare evasion and more enforcement.

Right now operators being pressed for time on their routes take a blind eye to fare evasion because they don't want to be assaulted or written up for being behind by too many minutes at the ends of the line.

 

[TransitBart]

That will likely not work as planned. My father has been an bus operator out of Birchmount and Eglinton for 30 years this January. There are certain routes like McCowan which run through high density, low income areas that are well known by operators for passengers being "unable to pay a full fare". Essentially there are repeat offenders who attempt to abuse the system by using invalid (old, wrong direction or route, etc) transfers or by claiming they can't pay a full fare for whatever reason.

Supplementing social assistance recipients to help with transit will not accomplish anything. They will still try to use their 3 week old transfer from another route as a metropass and still not pay a full fare.

Without getting racist, other routes such as Kennedy and Markham Road experience similar issues wherein older Asian passengers attempt to evade paying a fare by using an invalid transfer. I have seen it with my own eyes in the area of McCowan and Steeles, where when they get caught they pull money out of their pocket to pay or pretend not to speak English.

Supplementing peoples income to pay for transit won't help, what is needed is a tougher stance on fare evasion and more enforcement.

Right now operators being pressed for time on their routes take a blind eye to fare evasion because they don't want to be assaulted or written up for being behind by too many minutes at the ends of the line.

All of this should be dealt with through the PRESTO system. Perhaps PRESTO with ID.

 

[Richard White]

All of this should be dealt with through the PRESTO system. Perhaps PRESTO with ID.

I can see that being a human rights issue. You would essentially be publicly branding people as low income, social assistance recipients. Not everyone wants people to know they are on assistance.

If the TTC were to create a pass with ID identifying passengers with low income you can bet your ass they would be sued.

 

[amnesiajune]

I can see that being a human rights issue. You would essentially be publicly branding people as low income, social assistance recipients. Not everyone wants people to know they are on assistance.

If the TTC were to create a pass with ID identifying passengers with low income you can bet your ass they would be sued.

The city has already said that they're gradually going to roll this out through Presto. They'll have a discounted fare, and everyone who qualifies can designate one Presto card for the discounted fare category. Next year it'll be opened up to ODSP and Ontario Works recipients. In 2019 it'll be opened up to low-income residents who get housing or child care subsidies. In 2020 it'll become available to anyone below the LIM + 15%

https://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/...nnel=de8f727e05c79410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD

 

[Richard White]

Hopefully in time this will allow us to phase out student and senior discounts, in addition to free trips for children.

The free trips for kids is stupid... they need to be charged something but I think it was a PR move to avoid problems.

You won't believe how many times I saw people plop their "baby" (think 5 year old) into a stroller just so they can avoid paying a fare, when they get caught they claim he is under the age where he needed to pay a fare. People will always find a way to find a way to scam the system.

What needs to be done and I will say it again is a hard line on fare evasion. Drivers should be told to park their vehicles until the person pays their fare or call it in to the division and await police or special constables. Yes that is over the top but if you give someone a slap on the wrist every time they won't change their behaviour.

 

[amnesiajune]

Hopefully in time this will allow us to phase out student and senior discounts, in addition to free trips for children.

The program is only for adults over 18. It could let us phase out senior discounts if seniors ever decide to stop voting extremely often. But in any case the discount is literally just that those adults will pay the student single ride/metropass price.

 

[amnesiajune]

What needs to be done and I will say it again is a hard line on fare evasion. Drivers should be told to park their vehicles until the person pays their fare or call it in to the division and await police or special constables. Yes that is over the top but if you give someone a slap on the wrist every time they won't change their behaviour.

Fare evasion is extremely uncommon (and I don't really care if anyone thinks they see it happening all the time - I trust the TTC's studies on this). In all likelihood a hard line program will cost a lot more to operate than it recovers in revenue for the TTC. It doesn't accomplish anything except satisfying people who feel slighted and thirsty for justice, and it's very easy for abuses of power or discrimination against marginalized groups to happen.

 

[Richard White]

Fare evasion is extremely uncommon (and I don't really care if anyone thinks they see it happening all the time - I trust the TTC's studies on this). In all likelihood a hard line program will cost a lot more to operate than it recovers in revenue for the TTC. It doesn't accomplish anything except satisfying people who feel slighted and thirsty for justice, and it's very easy for abuses of power or discrimination against marginalized groups to happen.

Do you really think operators report EVERY instance of fare evasion or that people will admit to it? If anyone does a study to see if someone does something illegal chances are you will get a pretty convincing response saying it does not happen.

Most if not all bus operators let it slide and don't report it. If they report it they will only have paperwork to do later. It is not worth all the paperwork and reporting when it happens on a daily basis. THAT is why it does not show up in the studies.

 

[amnesiajune]

Do you really think operators report EVERY instance of fare evasion or that people will admit to it? If anyone does a study to see if someone does something illegal chances are you will get a pretty convincing response saying it does not happen.

Again, I really don't care if you choose not to believe the TTC's figures (and I sure hope you aren't one of the people who obsess over "evidence-based decisions"). Fare evasion doesn't cost them much money, no "hard line" program will ever recover more than a few million dollars of revenue, and it'll have a lot of drawbacks that I already mentioned.