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TTC: Other Items (catch all)

The communication was really lacking. I was at Queen. Nothing said for about 15 minutes. Then got an alert for overcrowding at Dundas. Then some annoucments and depending on the person it was either the whole line or the U. It wa sluaghable when the annoucement was no service on the U but shuttle buses above bloor. Over and hour to get from Queen to Bloor.
 
The communication was really lacking. I was at Queen. Nothing said for about 15 minutes. Then got an alert for overcrowding at Dundas. Then some annoucments and depending on the person it was either the whole line or the U. It wa sluaghable when the annoucement was no service on the U but shuttle buses above bloor. Over and hour to get from Queen to Bloor.
It's the TTC's specialty...not knowing how to communicate anything to riders.

I had a great experience last Friday with a train being stuck northbound at Dundas with a mechanical issue for over 20 mins. The TTC communicated that issue, but then that's where the fun started: they decided to hold trains southbound at Dundas for whatever idiotic reason so pretty much the entire Yonge line was crippled.

Logic would say the reason may have been to turn back trains from Dundas to head back north, but they instead of doing that they simply chose to stop service southbound without saying anything to customers. Which is the TTC's typical half-a**** approach to basically almost everything.
 
What concerns should we have now?
Concerns about one's own personal safety come to mind. Luckily for those who wanna go transit fanning, no one cares to enforce "no loitering" anymore, especially since they even gave up enforcing fares and only recently decided to start cracking down on that.
 
Concerns about one's own personal safety come to mind. Luckily for those who wanna go transit fanning, no one cares to enforce "no loitering" anymore, especially since they even gave up enforcing fares and only recently decided to start cracking down on that.
I'm not sure what specific personal safety issues are of great concern. I guess the biggest concern would be those from out of town, who have to drive in traffic to get to transit.
 
Concerns about one's own personal safety come to mind. Luckily for those who wanna go transit fanning, no one cares to enforce "no loitering" anymore, especially since they even gave up enforcing fares and only recently decided to start cracking down on that.

You've always had to be at least a little wary for your personal safety on the TTC. It wasn't all sunshine and butterflies pre COVID. I remember as a child seeing that my home station Kennedy was considered one of the sketchier parts of the TTC and being freaked out - that was 2008.
 
You've always had to be at least a little wary for your personal safety on the TTC. It wasn't all sunshine and butterflies pre COVID. I remember as a child seeing that my home station Kennedy was considered one of the sketchier parts of the TTC and being freaked out - that was 2008.
Doesn't help the TTC blatantly victim blames people for travelling alone.

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You've always had to be at least a little wary for your personal safety on the TTC. It wasn't all sunshine and butterflies pre COVID. I remember as a child seeing that my home station Kennedy was considered one of the sketchier parts of the TTC and being freaked out - that was 2008.
The media always profits from sensationalism.

I've never felt unsafe on the TTC - or on the streets in Toronto. I have in Chicago - but much of that was probably my ignorance and paranoia. And used to live in Flemingdon Park and regular walk through Regent Park commuting (before the rebuild!), and up Sherbourne from King to Gerrard!

Far more deaths as pedestrians, and even more as drivers. You are much more likely to be run over by the bus you just got off, than by a passenger!
 
I've switched cars or gotten off of streetcars because of people acting unpredictably. Maybe there wasn't danger in the moment, but I've had the sense it could get dangerous without much warning. But I agree that's pretty rare in the TTC. But I did get a good laugh when my mother-in-law told me about a student in the high school where she works deciding to get driven to school because she thought the TTC was unsafe. Car accidents are the leading cause of death among young people, not TTC incidents.
 
I've switched cars or gotten off of streetcars because of people acting unpredictably. Maybe there wasn't danger in the moment, but I've had the sense it could get dangerous without much warning. But I agree that's pretty rare in the TTC. But I did get a good laugh when my mother-in-law told me about a student in the high school where she works deciding to get driven to school because she thought the TTC was unsafe. Car accidents are the leading cause of death among young people, not TTC incidents.
Gonna step on my soap box for a second and say the unwritten social contract is leave my alone and I won't cause you trouble and vice versa, you see someone acting mentally unwell that contract suddenly goes away, hence why even if you're not in physical danger people feel uncomfortable.

Also yeah more people die driving but what is the KMs traveled per death ratio? What is it when you cut out risky behavior like driving late at night etc. Even if statistically you're more in danger in a car you have control or at least the illusion of it vs basically being up to chance who comes onto the train?
 
Concerns about one's own personal safety come to mind. Luckily for those who wanna go transit fanning, no one cares to enforce "no loitering" anymore, especially since they even gave up enforcing fares and only recently decided to start cracking down on that.
If we would just enforce the bylaws against fare evasion, loitering and public nuisance/obstruction there would be few to any issues about the insane and intoxicated acting out on the TTC.
 
deciding to get driven to school because she thought the TTC was unsafe. Car accidents are the leading cause of death among young people
Since she presumably would be driven by her parents, and not drive herself, technically this wouldn't exactly fall under the "car accidents among youth" statistic.
 
Doesn't help the TTC blatantly victim blames people for travelling alone.

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Diamond and Diamond are the sensational ones here.

These cases are run by insurance companies, and it's about apportioning the share of blame to decide whose insurance company has to pay.
It is typical to put in an endless list of possible reasons from beginning to end no matter how bizarre.

She was on drugs;
or if she wasn't on drugs she was drunk;
or if she wasn't drunk she was careless;
or blah blah blah [insert 40 more reasons]

This is boilerplate, standard for every civil lawsuit from pushed in front of a train, to I slipped and fell and missed two days work.
Diamond and Diamond would and have used this in their own lawsuits. Throw everything at the wall and maybe something sticks.

But BlogTO exists to selectively quote things into infotainment for the terminally online.
 
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Concerns about one's own personal safety come to mind. Luckily for those who wanna go transit fanning, no one cares to enforce "no loitering" anymore, especially since they even gave up enforcing fares and only recently decided to start cracking down on that.
No loitering also applies to the homeless hogging up a bench for themselves while the train is jammed pack full in rush hour. The cost to enforce this along with bikes, pets and large objects being brought on the subway during rush hour is very expensive. So they rather leave it at status quo.
 
If we would just enforce the bylaws against fare evasion, loitering and public nuisance/obstruction there would be few to any issues about the insane and intoxicated acting out on the TTC.

And as I said upthread, how exactly does someone decide what is and isn't loitering? If we stick to the spirit of the rule then we have to ticket anyone who is standing around taking photos instead of using the transit system for traveling (AND anyone who is waiting for someone to arrive by a specific vehicle!), which would be spiteful; and a waste of time.

And how does someone decide what is and isn't a public nuisance? As I also said upthread, the language the bylaw uses is very vague. As something of a miserable bastard myself, I could argue that someone with low quality headphones with music bleeding our of them, through no fault of their own, is a nuisance. Should they be ticketed? What about someone who on an empty subway train sits uncomfortably close to me? What about if I'm deeply religious and I see someone wearing a Pentagram shirt, or a woman showing immodest amounts of skin? At the end of the day, public transit is here to serve a diverse cross section of society, and we're not always going to get along.

If the bylaw was any good, it wouldn't use meaningless word salad but outline clearly the types of behaviours that it finds unacceptable. Leaving it up to the discretion of an inspector or constable is a stupid idea, these types of low level positions of authority are well known around the world for attracting some of the very worst types of people, petty authoritarians who couldn't hack it as cops who love to make the lives of little people as unpleasant as can be. (See also: retail managers).

It's all well and good to just say "enforce the bylaws!", but if the bylaws are vague and unhelpful then that doesn't actually achieve anything.
 
Thanks. Confirms my point re Toronto being one of the first if not the first. Most bans appear on busses but not rail for obvious reasons...

The ony one in the list where Ebikes ban on rail may exist is Boston...where the rule is vague... And scouring the internet forums, looks like they prevent the motorized scooters and not Ebikes (or not enforced).
Other places include Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Madrid.

Madrid even had a battery explode in a train carriage in October last year - luckily with zero injuries...

metro-madrid.jpeg
 

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