City
An Unhappy New Year's on the TTC
Today, Shameless Magazine blogger Catherine Hayday writes about a traumatic New Year's Eve experience she had on the Bloor/Danforth line. Early Tuesday morning, as she rode the subway home from a party, Hayday watched, terrified, as a group of increasingly aggressive young men harassed and threatened a homeless man. When someone pushed the yellow emergency alarm, here's her account of what happened:
One TTC employee shows up. One. Not a special constable, not even a team. In the early morning of New Years, one guy who looks like he either just came down from the token booth or is working maintenance, comes to see what the problem is.
He assesses the situation terribly, and though I don't blame him for being alone and intimidated, he determines (incorrectly and in about 5 seconds) that the homeless man pushed the alarm, and tells him to get off the train and go. The TTC employee leaves. The train continues on its way.
After working their way through the car, and intimidating several more passengers, the wannabe thugs finally got off the train, leaving Hayday and her fellow passengers relieved, but shaken.
According to the TTC's Web site, when the Passenger Assistance Alarm (PAA) is activated, first "the driver calls for emergency assistance," and then, "The subway guard or the RT driver will check the situation and take appropriate action."
It's hard to imagine that the TTC employee who responded to the alarm considered kicking the homeless guy off the train appropriate action, while leaving the eight rowdy perpetrators to harass other passengers. From Hayday's account, it seems like he was either too scared, too busy, or simply didn't care enough to deal properly with the situation.
Taking drunks off the road and putting them on the subway is a great idea, but the perpetually underfunded TTC appears to have skimped on the extra security necessary to make it a happy New Year's Eve for all.
Photo: toronto.ca
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Me? I took a cab.
it scares me how some people are afraid to stand up and confront a situation. instead, when the opportunity arose to have it dealt with they just sat there and did nothing. in my opinion those people had their ensuing harassment by these wannabe thugs coming to them.
maybe the person feels better about themselves having done "something" but that something only put a man back on the street. "Something" would have been to stop giving the young thugs the justification they already think they have as being tough, when in reality they only are tough because everyones too scared to be the first to step up. Backup would have then been called.
this isn't a grade 8 playground, grow up people.
The issue is that the TTC did not take appropriate action with the situation. An alarm is pulled, SECURITY COMES DOWN. Someone pulled the alarm, THAT IS SPEAKING UP.
If these people had the balls to speak up when they were probably pretty certain to be left behind anyways, THEN THERE'D BE NO POINT IN HAVING CALLED SECURITY TO BEGIN WITH. They could've just THROWN DOWN and had a good old fashion BRAWL.
The TTC could've ended up with a bunch of people hurt pretty badly, particularly if anyone DID have the nads to stand up to a bunch of drunken fucktards. Shame on the TTC for not doing their fucking jobs, AND THEN complain they need more money so we can have hi-def screens in bus shelters tell us that a bus is coming in 20 minutes.
When you see a municipal government reference to "take appropriate action"?... "appropriate" is a municipal code-word and has zero semblance to reality let alone human experience.
Watch out when they use the term "deal appropriately with" or "decided by appropriate staff".
Means the precise-opposite of what you think it means. And municipalities do this because they CAN.
If I were the attending official in this situation, I probably would have diffused it in the same way, albeit "wrong". Risk confrontation with 8 drunken males or remove 1 homeless man who could theoretically take the next train? I'd rather do the latter, unless I was sure the special constables, who probably were running from station to station at this time of the night, were around the corner. Getting into a vocal or worse yet, physical fight, with the drunktards probably would not be best for customer safety.
Consider also that at times like this, bystanders themselves are often drunk/exhausted/whatever, and not very sure of what's going on when events develop quickly.
Ryan C: I agree with you generally, but practically speaking where were is security supposed to "come down" from? Best case, they happen to be in the station where the alarm is pulled, but otherwise they will have to travel to the station in question. On NYE, sure, it would have been ideal to go for broke and put two transit special constables in every subway station... but this was not (and normally is not) the case.
By the time I arrived the tunnel, the police have already arrested one young guy (drunk of course). The station was full of people. I have no idea what was really happening there and how long it took the police to arrive. I can just tell that blocking Yonge and College on NYE means that they took very seriously that call. If anyway knows more about that incident please share with us.
Happy New Year.
As per the story, the person coming down did the smart thing. Rather than risking his/her own safety or the safety of the homeless person, they got the person out of harms way rather than confront a group of drunks. They did the right thing.
First, an anecdote on mobs: Over a decade ago I was at a Yankees game with a huge college group and sitting in the bleachers. This was back when the bleachers allowed alcohol and the place was ruled by rowdies in the back who pounded the benches with wood 2x4s. One guy in our group decided it would be funny to wear a full Texas Rangers outfit to the game. The rowdies began verbally harassing him whenever he stood up to cheer. Stadium security officials showed up, and rather than yell at the drunks they told the Texas Rangers guy to sit down and take off his Rangers shirt or leave. This shows that the quickest way to defuse a mob problem is to cut out the stimulant, even if that seems less than fair. TTC staff did the right thing.
Now a conservative view: Homeless people should not be riding the subway regardless unless they are quietly and are purposefully travelling from A to B, in which case they should not be so easily distinguishable as "homeless". If the individual was initially panhandling before drawing the attention of the thugs he certainly deserved to be thrown off the train regardless.
Liberal view: Government and public authorities should protect the travelling public and safeguard the right to travel in peace. The TTC was wrong in this case to not react in a way that did so. More security should have been on trains and in stations.
Realistic view: The subway-riding public always include jerks and unfortunates. Today on my morning ride on the A train in New York an entire car was unusable and unoccupied because of an asleep and very foul-smelling homeless person. Many MTA staff knew about this but did nothing about it until the train became so overcrowded (because of the 12.5% loss in capacity) that it started holding up the entire line at long station stops. At this point announcements were made apologizing for the delay ("there is a person on the train who must be removed because of hygiene problems and we are waiting for police".) A police officer was finally found after 6 or 7 stops and the person was removed. Should there be officers at every station? Should regular riders harass the homeless to get them off the train? Should subways not run at all? The answer is of course not - dealing with the public is simply inherently difficult and a constant balance must be found between providing service to all while not caving in to ingrates. The TTC has a tough job to do and while there were clearly some problems on NYE, a few people probably did not die or be injured because of drunk driving, while a great many others saved considerable money in getting home. Was the greater good still served? I would say yes.
"Homelessness: if you just ignore it, hide it, pretend it doesn't exist, sooner or later, it's bound to go away."
Now, seriously,
The TTC should provide adequate security for it's passengers...ALL passengers. No one deserves to be out-numbered and harassed, not even homeless people...who are STILL people (last time I checked.
I cannot stand it when people consider someone less of a person because of their financial or living circumstances.
Wait until the drunks harass YOU next time and no one helps you or they do hit the yellow button and one guy shows up and kicks YOU off. Hell, let the drunks decide who can ride and who can't, let them drive.
Oh, I'm homeless, it's frezing out, I'm hungry, cold, alone and...oh, great, now a bunch of drunk jerks are going to harass me just because I'm on a train. GREAT! All I need! Thanksalot, this holiday wasn't bad enough being on the street.
I don't follow your logic. You're saying it's better to harass rich people? How about middle and working class people who are significantly better off than the homeless?
People should think more before posting.