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Downtown Crime

Talked to 4 Transit peace officers on their break at a coffee shop today. I'm not sure what they're getting paid to do. They can't ask people to leave LRT stations (most of the issues are related to drug use either using and a danger to themselves and the public, or dealing) cause of the lack of a loitering bylaw, and any major incidents around disorder have to be dealt with by EPS who don't show up for a variety of reasons. It's a loose-loose situation for everyone.
 
Greenspace said:
Talked to 4 Transit peace officers on their break at a coffee shop today. I'm not sure what they're getting paid to do. They can't ask people to leave LRT stations (most of the issues are related to drug use either using and a danger to themselves and the public, or dealing) cause of the lack of a loitering bylaw, and any major incidents around disorder have to be dealt with by EPS who don't show up for a variety of reasons. It's a loose-loose situation for everyone.
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Well at least they can devote their time to all those thousands of people that evade paying for a ticket. 🙄
 
Gronk! said:
globalnews.ca

Riders call on City of Edmonton to do something about transit safety concerns - Edmonton | Globalnews.ca

There's been finger pointing over the past few days over transit safety but the ones who actually use it, just want the City of Edmonton to do something about it.
globalnews.ca globalnews.ca
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Jesus Christ this is terrible. The fact in of itself that this issue is being prolonged by "finger pointing" and overall inaction just goes to show how f'ed up this whole situation is, like with all of Edmonton. If there was a huge issue with a major road/highway that was preventing people from using it/making it unsafe then there'd be much swifter and stronger action to resolve it, in the order of magnitudes. The fact that we could say that ETS is in a downward spiral right now is so messed up! I feel like the ground that's been made to promoting transit usage and development in this city is being lost at this point man 😔.

I want to ride transit and try to integrate it into my at least weekly routine, but it's very hard to have the motivation to do so when I feel uncomfortable/unsafe all the time. I'm very fortunate that I have the option not to if don't want to, and I feel really bad for those who have no other choice.

I'm not going to lie, this issue is making me question some of the ideas around police and safety I had before.
 
The poor transit system, which doesn't seem to be able to stand up for its own interests, has been made to become a shelter/supervised consumption site by those who advocate for such things. Unfortunately, this throws a major wrench in attempts to boost transit ridership in Edmonton. Our road infrastructure is not treated this way, only the transit infrastructure is treated this way !!!
 
occidentalcapital said:
The poor transit system, which doesn't seem to be able to stand up for its own interests, has been made to become a shelter/supervised consumption site by those who advocate for such things. Unfortunately, this throws a major wrench in attempts to boost transit ridership in Edmonton. Our road infrastructure is not treated this way, only the transit infrastructure is treated this way !!!
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Last time I was in town for a funeral was end of November. Now, y'all gotta keep in mind that I am currently stationed in Surrey. And I frequent the Skytrain and Central City quite often. In the 30 minute ride from Century Park to Bay Station, and the 30 minute walk from Bay Station to Enterprise on 106 ave, I saw homeless people doing drugs in one station, smoking in another station, and on one train I watched an old bum start coughing on some poor woman when he woke up and started staggering around yelling at people. The vandalism and deterioration I've witnessed downtown is next level as well. Then, near the COE tower, I heard some homeless dude muttering that he was gonna cut my fracking face. I'd like to say I'm a likeable person but clearly not to a person of particular interest in smoking meth.

Yup. The city's gotta problem. And I understand it's leadership group likes to think of itself as a progressive and woke bunch, but ignoring these types of problems and not working with the local police or investing in spread out shelters and wellness facilities runs the possibility of killing transit and killing the downtown community. Anyone who's traveled through enough cities in the states can see what's happened in other places who are a few years further down the road on these methodologies.

God forbid we start treating these vulnerable populations as dependents. If I had schizophrenia, was being preyed on by drug dealers, and had a variety of traumas, I'd sure as hell hope someone brought me in to get treated so I can get my life back. I'm just sayin'. We need to, as a society, take a more active approach to helping these people. Not just giving them a bit then sending them on their way to go find crack and smash windows.
 
This is honestly so hard to watch. While it is also happening in other cities, this is definitely the worst I've seen downtown Edmonton in my life. I am fortunate enough to be able to own a car and drive (I live in the burbs with my parents) and transit options near my house are so incredibly limited, it's a joke. We barely have bus service (one bus every half hour or so) and now all the stops in my neighbourhood are gone. I would have to walk 10 or so minutes to a bus stop, which takes at least an hour, but most likely an hour and a half to two hours, to bus downtown (depending on traffic). Meanwhile, it takes about 25 minutes to drive there. There is no LRT in my area either, and not a single bike lane for kilometres (I dearly wish I could ride my bike to shops or take the LRT, but there really isn't much by my house anyway :confused: ). That is a bit off-topic, but I wanted to give context to how privileged I am because I go to school at MacEwan, and I cannot imagine how many people who have no other choice but to take transit must be scared as hell... a couple of months ago, I had driven to school and was heading home and wanted to take a bit of a detour through downtown to see some construction projects. I drove down Jasper Ave, and I was stopped at a red light, minding my business, when suddenly I see someone throw some loose gravel/rocks at my car! It scared the crap out of me, but luckily they kept moving along. They looked like they were not in the right state of mind and appeared to be homeless, unfortunately. My point with this is that even me being in a car, I felt scared and vulnerable after that, so I can't imagine how people would feel walking down the street or taking the bus/LRT where they don't have that buffer of protection I had. I just feel so bad for everyone, man.. It seemed like Edmonton was making great progress with downtown before the pandemic, and now it's not only stagnated, it's regressed. People here already had a negative view of downtown before the pandemic, imagine how people view it now? No one will ever want to come downtown, and it will take even more effort to bring people to the area. I don't want to sound so negative, it's just that this situation is so f'ed up, and I sincerely hope our new council can bring us out of it :confused:
 
JayYEG said:
This is honestly so hard to watch. While it is also happening in other cities, this is definitely the worst I've seen downtown Edmonton in my life. I am fortunate enough to be able to own a car and drive (I live in the burbs with my parents) and transit options near my house are so incredibly limited, it's a joke. We barely have bus service (one bus every half hour or so) and now all the stops in my neighbourhood are gone. I would have to walk 10 or so minutes to a bus stop, which takes at least an hour, but most likely an hour and a half to two hours, to bus downtown (depending on traffic). Meanwhile, it takes about 25 minutes to drive there. There is no LRT in my area either, and not a single bike lane for kilometres (I dearly wish I could ride my bike to shops or take the LRT, but there really isn't much by my house anyway :confused: ). That is a bit off-topic, but I wanted to give context to how privileged I am because I go to school at MacEwan, and I cannot imagine how many people who have no other choice but to take transit must be scared as hell... a couple of months ago, I had driven to school and was heading home and wanted to take a bit of a detour through downtown to see some construction projects. I drove down Jasper Ave, and I was stopped at a red light, minding my business, when suddenly I see someone throw some loose gravel/rocks at my car! It scared the crap out of me, but luckily they kept moving along. They looked like they were not in the right state of mind and appeared to be homeless, unfortunately. My point with this is that even me being in a car, I felt scared and vulnerable after that, so I can't imagine how people would feel walking down the street or taking the bus/LRT where they don't have that buffer of protection I had. I just feel so bad for everyone, man.. It seemed like Edmonton was making great progress with downtown before the pandemic, and now it's not only stagnated, it's regressed. People here already had a negative view of downtown before the pandemic, imagine how people view it now? No one will ever want to come downtown, and it will take even more effort to bring people to the area. I don't want to sound so negative, it's just that this situation is so f'ed up, and I sincerely hope our new council can bring us out of it :confused:
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Thanks for sharing!

And I think what we are missing in the mindset held is areas like hospitality and entertainment. First impressions matter a HELL OF A LOT. It doesn't matter if it doesn't happen all the time. It doesn't matter that someone like me who is downtown a few times a week has only had 2 or 3 bad experiences in 5 years. All it takes is 1 person to have a bad experience, feel unsafe, think its dirty, etc and now their whole friend circle will be impacted.

And perception/reputation is so hard to build and so easy to lose. Someone can have 10 great experiences downtown at bars, concerts, visiting a friends condo, going to a festival...but 1 bad encounter with someone on drugs or 1 time getting mugged or having their car broken into and all that trust can be broken.

Same with transit. The first time people use the LRT for a concert or sporting event. Or to go to university as a first year. We need their experiences to be incredibly positive and the negative ones have to be 1/100. If a 17 or 18 yeat old smaller girl has a bad encounter with a guy on drugs who seems potentially violent, we've lost them as a customer...potentially forever.

Compassion and control do not have to be a paradox. We need to control the situation with police, increased cleaning, more patrol, marketing campaigns, etc. Then also extend compassion to those in bad places by investing in our social services.

Compassion must extend to the everyday citizen. Yes we know better than to treat every homeless person or person on drugs as a criminal and to just arrest them and throw them in jail. But there has to be a stronger approach than the current when kids, the elderly, and women especially are not safe downtown.
 
Found out that yet another long-time resident/good friend and his partner are moving out of Downtown (they own two properties) due to 'how bad it has become and the very real safety concerns for his female partner', how unkept it is and how little action is taking place to resolve things. He is a Downtown advocate, consciously supports a lot of local shops/restaurants and recently (18months ago) moved into one of the new towers and was excited to remain until about 6 months ago. He is fed up with the level of vandalism/theft in their parkade/neighbourhood and the daily harassment just walking their dog.

That's what, 5 or 6 of these stories in the last year or so that I can sadly share now. All good HHIs with significant locally focused spending being lost.

When are we going to acknowledge the very real challenges facing those living/residents of the Downtown. This level of disorder would never be accepted in most other neighbourhoods in the city and no, we should not expect this kind of thing because we choose Downtown as our community.
 
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How about when is the province going to finally step up? The CoE is flailing and failing in regards to this situation, but their hands are tied in so many ways. Meanwhile, our provincial government has completely turned a blind eye.
 
IanO said:
Found out that yet another long-time resident/good friend and his partner are moving out of Downtown (they own two properties) due to 'how bad it has become and the very real safety concerns for his female partner', how unkept it is and how little action is taking place to resolve things. He is a Downtown advocate, consciously supports a lot of local shops/restaurants and recently (18months ago) moved into one of the new towers and was excited to remain until about 6 months ago. He is fed up with the level of vandalism/theft in their parkade/neighbourhood and the daily harassment just walking their dog.

That's what, 5 or 6 of these stories in the last year or so that I can sadly share now. All good HHIs with significant locally focused spending being lost.

When are we going to acknowledge the very real challenges facing those living/residents of the Downtown. This level of disorder would never be accepted in most other neighbourhoods in the city and no, we should not expect this kind of thing because we choose Downtown as our community.
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Do you know where they are planning to go after leaving downtown? Sticking somewhere close?
 
They want to be semi-central, but the value proposition is not there in many cases and he works outside the city/was doing the reverse commute so this might pull them further afield.

Bird in the hand Edmonton, bird in the hand. Alas.
 
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