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Morning Brew: TTC suicide barriers, St. Clair LRT class-action lawsuit, Ontario deficit lower then expected, Durham officer accused of street racing, stabby strip club
The TTC wants to install suicide barriers at subway stations on the Yonge line, despite facing chronic funding shortfalls. At a cost of $10-million per station, this is an extremely costly proposition... but the theory is that it would save lives and make the system run more efficiently. Is this a prime example of a nanny state and waste of money, or is this money well spent and is it the TTC's duty to protect people from themselves? Every year, more than 20 people jump in front of subway trains.
It seemed like only a matter of time. A class-action lawsuit in the sum of $100-million has been launched by businesses on St.Clair Avenue against the City of Toronto, the Province, and the TTC. 100 people are expected to sign on to the lawsuit, which is the result of the dedicated right-of-way LRT streetcar construction project that went over double the estimated budget and is was incomplete for many years. The lawsuit accuses the organizations of public abuse of authority, insufficient oversight, and gross negligence in the construction and delivery of the project respectively... which lead to many commercial enterprises suffering huge losses.
Slow but steady recovery of the economy is being cited as the reason for a slightly lower than anticipated provincial deficit of $21.3-billion for fiscal 2009-2010. It's still a record high deficit for Ontario, but it being lower than originally thought bodes well for the government's 7-year plan to get out of the red and into the black. The budget will be revealed today, and preserving education and health care services are said to be priorities
A Durham region police officer has been charged with street racing. Although a spokesperson for the force wouldn't reveal what speed he was clocked at, we do know that the infraction occurred in an 80km/h zone and that in order to be charged under the controversial law, a driver must be doing 50km/h above the limit. Doing in excess of 130km/h, eh? Tsk, tsk (off duty or not).
And things got stabby and bloody outside a Blansdowne strip club yesterday. Three workers were treated in hospital for non-life-threatening stabbing injuries after a dispute escalated and turned violent and a knife was pulled. Nothing says Club Paradise like the sterile waiting room of a hospital and assault charges.
Photo: "Caution: Driver Just Doesn't Give a Shit Anymore" by -- brian cameron --, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
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The trains won't stop because a Metro dropped by a passenger blows onto the third rail and catches fire.
The trains won't stop because someone climbs down on to the tracks to retrieve a dropped wallet.
The deafening screech of the brakes will be greatly lessened.
The air at platform level will have far lower amounts of brake dust (PM2.5/PM10)
The platforms will be cleaner because brake dust residue won't be on them
The ventilation can be improved, particularly in summer, so that any cooling won't be overwhelming by a gush of hot air from the tunnels.
In Dubai, they are putting screen doors on an LRT system. But they are all Holt-Renfrewy out there. This is Toronto, the "No Frills" city.
If they only do some stations then I, a suicidal guy, will ride up to one that doesn't and jump there.
Stupid people are winning. That ain't good.
At $10M a station, this is just an april fools joke a week too early.
The TTC needs to be privatized or something and run it like a god damn business!
C'mon - at $10M per station and a system sorely in need of expansion with limited funds to do so this is political suicide (no pun intended).
Adam G - make yourself useful and shut this down.
The automation runs the trains more efficiently which means better service.
Do I believe it could be done cheaper than 10MM per? Absolutely! Just take the project out of TTC hands and you will have it better, sooner and cheaper. For example, call HK and get their barrier contractors to quote on the job.
Once again, the barrier idea is a 'politically correct' one. The term is to cause chaos, hatred and milk the savings of all taxpayers.
Life must be difficult below Cloud 9.
I wish you all the best of luck in your incessitant worry of public transit, social issues and the plight of the working class.
'Tis all so boring and trite.
The entire process through which the city does it's work needs to be revamped. There is absolutely no incentive to speed up projects or come in on budget when they can just start whining at budget time and get whatever increases they want.
As to the suicide barriers: couldn't we install some sort of pressure washer system on the front of the subway trains to hose off the mess from the jumper and just keep the train moving? If it only takes 17 minutes to investigate the death, you TTC types are spoiled. The city routinely closes major roads for hours on end to 'investigate' a fatality. I use the quotation marks because there are usually 9 or 10 bored cops standing around, yakking amongst themselves while traffic is backed up for blocks, as happened on Jarvis a year or two ago when a Civic hit a pedestrian.
The banner of 'safety' is raised high to cover all forms of laziness and ineptitude, but who is ultimately going to pay for all this?
Richmond has had 2 lanes blocked for 2 weeks now, just passed University -for what?
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Uhhh, they're building something called a "condo".
It'll be blocked for another 10 months or so.
Suck it up. Or move.
the key benefit is 'staff reductions'. Look at it as a way to reduce staff numbers, aka break the union strangle hold, which saves $$$ and runs the system more efficiently.