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LRT Safety

The military would only be mobilized in an emergency. Perhaps transit security could board the early trains and visit the stations early in the morning.
 
Seamusmuldrew said:
Sure, but shouldn't we go the 'not crazy' approach and just increase peace officer presence (of which there is currently a negligible amount) on trains and stations? Typically, liberal democracies don't send in the armed forces to enforce bylaws.
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The challenge is 1) training new officers (police/peace) takes a lot of time and money 2) it’s city money vs federal 3) we use a lot of security who have little sense of intimidation or physical training to stop criminals. Your average male college athlete could probably beat up most of our transit police…without being on meth or using knives…

We have to stop pretending all issues are simply poverty. This is about crime. Drug use in areas that should be safe for kids, the elderly, etc is a crime. Full stop. If you aren’t cool with a teacher or sports coach for your kids doing tranq, why are you justifying any tolerance of it on transit. Kids use that space and need to be protected. This isn’t a bar, adult area, or even a sports venue where we tolerate a bit more “intoxication” as a society and that no one is forced to go to.

This is key infrastructure that many people depend on and deserve to be safe and protected on.

Our current approach isn’t working.
This is a national crisis in every city.
We can’t afford to pay for turnstiles and police to the level we likely need.
So the federal government should deploy its resources (military) to protect its citizens.

All sorts of cities do this globally, usually due to tourism being higher/terrorism risk, or due to simply higher military presence in their society. Our time to make changes.
 
edm13 said:
The military is more ‘not crazy’ than whatever the hell we allow to happen in our stations now. I dunno, I’ve been to lots of places in Europe, such as Italy, that happily display their riffles. We need a reset and a clear message sent as to what we allow and don’t allow on public transit
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We don't need the military, we just need a bit more enforcement than the so called security guards often hiding in the corner, texting or ignoring problems.
 
trevorhayden said:
I won't take transit until the military is frisking the buttholes of every passenger who boards the train....except me of course because I am perfect in every way.
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Ah yes. A good ol strawman.

What’s your solution? Cause what we’ve been doing for 5 years hasn’t worked… and a lot of people have been hurt, tens of millions in lost revenue, tens of millions in additional costs, and public perception has tanked.
 
thommyjo said:
This is about crime. Drug use in areas that should be safe for kids, the elderly, etc is a crime. Full stop. If you aren’t cool with a teacher or sports coach for your kids doing tranq, why are you justifying any tolerance of it on transit.
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It seems to me that the question isn't about whether people should be able to do tranq on the LRT not. The question is what is the appropriate response to social disorder and in my opinion police are only one small part of the solution.
 
David A said:
We don't need the military, we just need a bit more enforcement than the so called security guards often hiding in the corner, texting or ignoring problems.
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Can't really blame the security officers who have no means of defending themselves when a potential issue arises.

And all they can do is call EPS/Peace Officers to come assist them and by the time most of them arrive, they suspects have probably taken off.

I maintain a dedicated transit police of some kind (EPS/Peace Officers, etc.) needs to be an option, and not just a once in a while thing.
 
FYI - Once you're on the train there's no way for TPOs to check your fare. You can show any old Arc card, they don't have any devices or otherwise to check.

I took the LRT during KDays and again during all of Folk Fest. I found the stations and trains to be very safe and clean, but that might just be because of the special events. I was happy with the overall experience. Our community members were there but no one acting up or openly doing drugs.
 
Things have been definitely better even without special events. There's still issues here and there (even what I see) but there has been a noticeable increase in TPO's handing out tickets and patrolling. I still think permanent TPO presence in Churchill should be a priority, but I've been seeing less and less instances of loitering on the LRT shelters on my daily transit commute.

Frankly more worried now about being able to find a seat on the trains once September starts rolling in lol
 
bodsbods9090 said:
Can't really blame the security officers who have no means of defending themselves when a potential issue arises.

And all they can do is call EPS/Peace Officers to come assist them and by the time most of them arrive, they suspects have probably taken off.

I maintain a dedicated transit police of some kind (EPS/Peace Officers, etc.) needs to be an option, and not just a once in a while thing.
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Yes, I agree some kind of dedicated transit police would be better.
 
David A said:
We don't need the military, we just need a bit more enforcement than the so called security guards often hiding in the corner, texting or ignoring problems.
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there has been a noted increase of Peace Officers and police on the system, but they need to be spread out not a gaggle of 6 ticketing 1 guy at century while trains come and go and not 1 person was fair checked, meanwhile things be happening elsewhere.
 
EPS is only called onto transit if there's a criminal matter taking place. TPOs and private security deal with most security issues. When things were really bad a year and we had the safety task force that's why the province said publicly they expected Edmonton to hand over transit policing to EPS, which hasn't happened and is obviously more expensive.

Also it's summer, there's less issues in general. We'll see how things are once the weather turns.

The shelter doors on many or most of the Valley Line stations are still broken or don't work. Just take them off and stop trying to fix them. It's a stupid design that can never work properly and will always be vandalized and provides a place for people to do drugs, particularly at the Downtown stations.
 
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