News   Jul 22, 2024
Resubmission Tweaks Heights for Multi-Tower Steeles and Dufferin Development
 298     0 
News   Jul 22, 2024
Hazelview and Fitzrovia Break Ground on Affordable Housing at Bloor & Dufferin
 1.2K     0 
News   Jul 22, 2024
News Roundup for July 22, 2024
 554     0 

Globe: Audit TTC for grime, new chairman asks staff

A

ahrvojic

Guest
Article

Audit TTC for grime, new chairman asks staff

JEFF GRAY

Toronto's transit system is filthy, the new chairman of the Toronto Transit Commission said yesterday, and needs a "cleanliness audit."

Adam Giambrone, who presided over his first full meeting of the nine-member commission yesterday, said the system is dirtier than it was two years ago, despite renewed efforts to clean it up.

He asked the transit agency's staff to come up with a new plan, and to do a cleanliness audit to identify the dirtiest vehicles and stations.

"I'm not just worried about some of the extra magazines on our trains," Mr. Giambrone said after the meeting. "I'm worried that if you stand in our stations, you look at our stations, they're grimy."

He acknowledged that changes to cleaners' schedules -- putting more of them on night shifts -- was one of the issues that sparked May's wildcat strike. And he said the changes didn't appear to make the system cleaner.

Cleanliness wasn't the only issue on the new chairman's mind. He also suggested revamping the TTC website, which he said should give riders more information and allow them to buy a monthly pass online.

"If you take a look at the TTC website, it looks like you took a bunch of topics and chucked them at the wall and then put them on the website," Mr. Giambrone said.

He said the changes he has in mind would likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Also yesterday, the TTC discussed two projects to overhaul subway stations. Victoria Park station, which Mr. Giambrone said is crumbling, is marked for a makeover that will cost at least $26-million. The commission also approved plans to split the $68-million costs to redevelop the Islington and Kipling stations with GO Transit, Mississauga Transit and Queen's Park.

Commissioner Michael Thompson said he was concerned about an increase over the past year in the number of drivers injured and taking time off. Chief general manager Gary Webster said most of the increase was due to a rise in assaults on drivers, and that the TTC is installing cameras and optional barriers to protect staff.
 
Also discussed at that meeting:

TTC driver attacks on rise
Officials blame it partly on overcrowding
Dec. 14, 2006. 06:22 AM
DAVID BRUSER
TRANSPORTATION REPORTER


A spike in assaults on bus and streetcar drivers has helped push up the rate of work time lost to injury by nearly 14 per cent, according to TTC data for 2006.

And overcrowding is partly to blame, say TTC officials.

"Our success is our biggest problem," said newly named TTC chair Adam Giambrone. "We know right now that we don't have enough service on the street. That could be one of the reasons."

The TTC expects ridership to hit 445 million this year, up 9 million from what was budgeted. The bus and streetcar fleets have not increased in size, though delivery of 100 new buses should begin in fall 2007.

Increasingly crowded buses mean more late buses, which leads to ever more impatient commuters.

Several bus drivers told the Star earlier this year, around the time of the last fare hike, that they feared rising prices will mean more people will try to evade fares, which may lead to more confrontations, lousier service and a demoralized crew of operators.

To help deter assault, the TTC is now installing cameras on buses and streetcars, and coming soon are hard plastic shields on a hinge that threatened drivers can close around the driver's seat.

TTC interim chief general manager Gary Webster said injuries to drivers include "someone getting on a vehicle and hitting the operator, it could be spitting on the operator, it could be a verbal assault."

Until this year, 500 TTC employees suffered injuries on the job annually; but in 2006, that number is closer to 600, according to Webster.

That means nearly two TTC employees suffer an injury on the job each day. Meanwhile, a redevelopment project, costing nearly $60 million for a new joint Mississauga Transit and GO Transit bus terminal at Kipling Station, and a new TTC bus station north of the Islington subway got the go-ahead in principle from the TTC Tuesday.

The big question now, TTC chair Giambrone says, is coming up with the funding. Cost-sharing discussions are underway between GO, Mississauga Transit and the province, as well as the city.

"We need to move this forward. The question is money," Giambrone said after yesterday's meeting.



Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Distribution, transmission or republication of any material from www.thestar.com is strictly prohibited without the prior written permission of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. For information please contact us using our webmaster form. www.thestar.com online since 1996.
 
I just don't like the idea of the shields. They give a really negative image and message, and why should much more dangerous cities like Detroit, NY and Chicago not have them, but Toronto does? The cameras are a great idea though, as both a deterrant, and as a way to put those punks in jail.

And it is interesting (but not surprising) that it's lousy service (and shitty new overcrowded Orion VIIs replacing older buses with greater capacity and faster-closing rear doors), not fare disputes or fare hikes, that are causing the increase in assaults.
 
This morning, I got on a subway train (with the annoying new announcements) and found a choice seat. I was about to sit down when I saw a cigarette butt on the seat. Yes, a cigarette butt.

The system is still fairly clean, but yes, there's grime. Part of the problem is the sudden removal of all the garbage cans at platform level, replaced with fewer useless bag holders, where the recycling bags are filled with regular garbage, making an attempt at waste diversion a failure.

Thank you Adam, for finally figuring out that the TTC website is awful. Even Brampton Transit has a better site now.
 
Most of the injuries are verbal assaults and a shield won't stop them.
 
Out of curosity, how does one get injured by a verbal assault? Though, I agree, most assaults are verbal, and I think a shield may only increase them - much easier to yell at someone behind a shield.
 
The streetcars are often absolutely filthy when you get on in the mornings - clearly nobody has cleaned them overnight, perhaps not even for days on end.
 
So will taxpayers of a certain ideological persuasion when the call for more resources to combat the problem comes.

Your point?

AoD
 
I'm still not sure why garbage containers were removed from track level at most stations (not all, they are still available at Bloor and Yonge for one). This just encourages people to leave their garbage on the train rather than carry it off and deposit it in a proper container.

It might set a better tone if the TTC itself would keep the stations looking a bit better. Ceiling slats (or whatever they are called) are removed and not replaced for lengthy periods of time. Leaks in the roof are not repaired (one has existed for months now at Kipling, and it's above ground where one would think it could be accessed easily). When the stations look shabby, and the impression is given that the TTC itself doesn't much care, it's that much easier for passengers to adopt a similar attitude.
 
I think the garbage cans were removed because some bright spark thought Chester subway platform was world class enough to rate as a terrorist bombing target.
 
When the stations look shabby, and the impression is given that the TTC itself doesn't much care, it's that much easier for passengers to adopt a similar attitude.
Click to expand...

Very true, and this applies to the whole city, not just the transit system.
 
I'll just never understand why one thinks its acceptable to leave their garbage all over the place. I hate litter and litterers.
 
The trend I hate now is crap being thrown onto track level. Those areas are quite filthy now, whereas only two years ago they were virtually spotless.

Removing those bins was probably the single-most boneheaded move the TTC has made in the past few years.
 
Funny how the portion of the population with the more refined right-wing leanings will go on about Rudolph Giuliani and how he cleaned up New York, etc. Yet when it comes time for grime-reduction here, there is suddenly the concern over money (as in cost).


Very true, and this applies to the whole city, not just the transit system.
Click to expand...

Sadly true.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top