Passenger Safety on the TTC: Rider Perspectives

I hadn't been concerned until recently - the 2 most recent incidents have been a lot closer to home. So now, yes, I'm a little more worried. ...not so much that I'll stop using the TTC all together, but it's just an other reason I'm itching for the warmer weather so I can take my bike out of storage!

Perhaps they could take some of the monies spent on posters and brochures teaching riders how to use a freaking escalator and apply it to more security personnel?

These incidents are serious and no doubt need to be investigated to see how they can be reduced. However, if you compare the number of fatalities and injuries on the TTC to the number that occur in traffic accidents on roads and highways around the GTA, transit is far safer. Almost 1.5 million people take the TTC daily; many of these incidents above (namely, the shootings) were targetted at specific individuals. The fact that the participants happened to be on TTC property when the altercation took place was incidental. Traffic accidents, meanwhile, happen many times per day and are completely non-targetted and can happen to anyone.

It puzzles me that many people who are scared to take public transit for safety reasons think nothing about climbing into a car or crossing a street in Toronto, both of which are statistially far more dangerous than riding transit.

Because we all know that ~$2,500 in posters is about the same as $50,000 plus benefits.

I don't mean to be flippant because both me and my family live a stone's throw from Vaughan and Oakwood (really closer to Eglinton than St. Clair, by the way) but adding a security guard here or there really isn't the answer. Anyone stupid enough to 1) carry a gun and 2) use that gun will not be deterred. What that area in particular needs is some social infrastructure. Vaughan & Oakwood has a great, great deal of poverty and simmering gang/violence issues but its got precious few community resources to stop the cycles of poverty and violence before it gets to the point it did today (so no, I'm not saying that if we'd just hugged the thug who pulled the trigger today he would have reconsidered).

I see both o_O and Laurence's point, but I also think that there is a case to be made for some sort of security system. At the station nearest my home (Islington) I recently saw two transit workers basically trapped in their booths, while a group of guys banged on the plexiglass shouting and threatening them. Both ttc workers were on phones calling for assistance. It was clearly tense and riders sped up their pace for a few minutes before the 'hooligans' fucked off. No security or outside assistance came in the time that I saw.

That being said, I'm not changing my ridership in any way and I don't think these extreme and (still) isolated incidents are not an indication of the ttc being wholly unsafe. But anyone who has taken a late subway by themselves, know what I'm saying when I say there IS room for improvement.

I'm more worried about the quality of service on the TTC than I am about the quality of the security.

Last Friday evening, my commute was made a little longer and more interesting when a fellow patron hit the yellow strip in the subway to set off the emergency alarm and summon security. I actually didn't mind this -- he did it because I was being followed and physically threatened by a huge drunk native guy.