On the other hand, maybe we should be pressing the yellow strip more. Clog up service a few days with legitimate reports and the TTC just might have to start taking the issue seriously. Right now their approach seems to be "no one presses the alarm, so there's clearly no actual problems with safety and harassment." This is totally the TTC logic used for so many other things.
We may have gone too far into the territory of "unless someone has a gun to your head, don't delay the train." The beggars know that no one will ever report them now, so they have free reign.
EDIT: How many special constables for security (so not fare inspectors) are actually employed right now? On my average TTC trip, on any mode, I see zero. Yet apparently there's something like 200 out there, somewhere? I know it's a BIG system, but I would expect to run into one of them somewhere, eventually.
Also, I know this isn't a new problem. I've seen panhandlers wandering the cars of the subway as long as I've lived here (since 2005). It was rare, but it did happen. However, it was getting increasingly worse for several years before the pandemic, and now it has exploded.
Interestingly in the past, I noted a much larger share of the beggars were women, or older men, now it is overwhelmingly young men who are much more intimidating.
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