A rash of attacks on Toronto transit has led to increased security. But TTC and police have not offered the data to back up their actions.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
A slew of violent attacks on passengers has spurred the storyline that Toronto’s transit agency is sliding into chaos, sparking alarm among some riders and prompting then-mayor John Tory and police to beef up security on trains, buses and streetcars.
What’s less clear is whether there is an actual rise in serious incidents on transit.
Neither the police nor Mr. Tory’s office would produce any of the data upon which they based their decision to increase security, though both touted a data-driven approach. Mr. Tory recently announced his resignation in light of an affair with a staffer, but remained in office until Friday to finalize a budget that includes money for increased transit safety.
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The Toronto Transit Commission releases some statistics about crimes on the city’s transit system, but does not consistently break down that data to distinguish between violent crime and less serious incidents such as mischief. And what little data the agency releases is months out of date, making it impossible to put the recent rash of high-profile incidents into context.
The public data vacuum makes it hard to assess the extent of the actual problem on transit or the decision to spend an open-ended amount of money, expected to climb to tens of millions of dollars, on heightened security.
“That is of grave concern to me,” said Alok Mukherjee, former chair of the Toronto Police Services Board. “Incidents happening back to back has been turned into a crisis … statistically, it doesn’t prove anything.”
Among the worst incidents in the past year include a woman pushed onto the tracks in April. She survived. Another woman did not survive being set on fire last summer at a bus stop. And a woman was fatally stabbed on a train in December.
After a woman survived being stabbed on a streetcar last month, police responded by detailing an extra 80 officers to patrol the transit system. Some critics dismissed this, saying that a show of force would be less helpful than more mental health supports.
These high-profile incidents threaten to undermine efforts to lure back riders who stopped using transit during the pandemic. But it’s unclear how the attacks feature into any longer-term safety trends.
The TTC offers some safety information in regular reports from chief executive Rick Leary. These show a rise in offences against passengers, relative to ridership, since the pandemic began. But that captures both more and less serious offences and the reports don’t tend to include month-over-month data. Where they have included the absolute numbers of offences, at times these have gone up relative to ridership changes and at other times declined.
The most recent report includes data from November.
The TTC was unable to produce specific tallies for that one month of the number of assaults, thefts, mischief and incidents of harassment – all of which are categorized as offences against passengers. TTC spokesman Stuart Green said the agency would only release detailed data going back several years in response to a freedom of information request, which can result in fees and take months.
At Metrolinx, which runs GO trains and buses, chief safety and security officer Martin Gallagher stressed that there is only a small number of incidents on that system. Spokesman James Wattie promised to provide specific numbers after the interview but later said this would be available only with an FOI request.
“There’s anecdotal evidence that people feel [concerned] about their safety, due to very high-profile, incredibly alarming incidents that have occurred in a short period of time,” said midtown Councillor Josh Matlow, who is often described as a potential mayoral candidate.
“So therefore the mayor reacted to that reality. But I have not seen any data to demonstrate that the TTC is in fact less safe than it was previously. I also haven’t seen any data to demonstrate that the mayor’s reaction will make it more safe.”
The steady drumbeat of news coverage has helped further the perception that there is a growing problem. In the absence of comprehensive data from the transit agency, police or mayor, anecdotes have dominated the debate.
One of the few long-term sources of public information – though still inconsistent – is the police operations Twitter account. Here, officers tweet out incidents they feel worthy of public notice. In recent weeks, critics have accused the police of boosting their tweets about incidents related to the TTC. But a longer look at this account suggests the overall trend is down.
Comparing the nearly three years of police alerts from when the pandemic hit Toronto – a period that saw many riders leave transit and a rise in concerns among some of those still on board – through the end of January with the same length of time before, shows the number of warnings about stabbings, other assaults, aggressive behaviour and indecent exposure on the TTC were down sharply. Also way down were police alerts about knife and gun calls on transit agency vehicles and property.
Other trend-lines worsened.
Over the past three years, police issued alerts about five shootings or attempted shootings on the transit system, compared with one in the three previous years. Someone pushed a fellow passenger onto the tracks, or attempted to do so, three times in the last three years. None of them died. In the earlier three-year period, one person was pushed onto the tracks. He died.
But over all, the number of safety incidents flagged by police was cut in half since the pandemic began.
What has definitely changed is the amount of media coverage incidents on transit are garnering. For example, the police Twitter account documented a flurry of offences against passengers on the TTC in the summer of 2018.
In five incidents over five days, a man reportedly armed with a knife chased three women, another person brandished a machete at a woman, a man exposed himself and performed an indecent act on a train and platform, a man with a knife broke the window of a train and a person was stabbed. No stories were written in response, according to a Dow Jones Factiva database search. More recently, 85 stories about transit safety were published in the second half of January alone.