TIME TO TACKLE SAFETY ON LRT
Last week, Edmonton Transit Service's branch manager held a news conference to allay fears about the safety of the system days after the latest high-profile violent crime on LRT property sent a 78-yearold woman to hospital.
“We have over 130,000 transit rides per day,” said Carrie Hotton-macdonald. “The vast, vast majority of those rides are completely safe.”
She's right that, statistically speaking, almost all of those 130,000 daily riders arrive without incident.
But, let's face it, if you're holding a news conference to reassure people about safety, you've probably got a problem with safety. That's what many Edmontonians believe — judging by letters to the editor, media interviews with riders and reader comments about vandalism, open drug use, aggressive encounters and a lack of obvious enforcement measures.
“The last two times I've ridden the LRT I've experienced threatening behaviour and seen open drug use in front of transit officers. The LRT was a filthy, unmaintained environment,” writes one Journal reader who now opts to drive instead of taking the train.
“Carrie Hotton-macdonald may believe that the system is safe, but neither of my kids do, and they ride it daily,” writes a father of two university students.
The assault on the senior wasn't a one-off event. A man was injured in a stabbing at Central LRT Station in March after what police describe as an “altercation.” Last year, a University of Alberta student was stabbed while he was getting off a train at University Station. And the city increased security at transit stations a little more than a year ago after several attacks on Muslim women were reported, with three occurring on transit property.
Drug use is now so prevalent that the city recently shuttered washrooms in its transit facilities to curb drug poisoning deaths. This week, the city reopened those sites with the promise of more security, hourly wellness checks, increased cleaning and other measures. That will help save lives, but should our public transit system really serve as a de facto safe consumption site?
And how did the LRT, once the pride of Edmonton, become what one internet commenter called “the crime train?”
The city and the province point fingers at each other, but they both share blame.
Successive city councils and administrations have failed to take security seriously enough on the LRT despite the massive investment in its infrastructure. In 2015, a survey showed almost one-third of respondents had safety or security concerns about ETS stations and vehicles. About one in five women, compared with one in 10 men, has actually avoided using transit because of these concerns. Fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has only made things worse.
Council took some action earlier this year by approving additional funding for an effort that pairs up transit peace officers with workers from the Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society. There will soon be seven of those teams working across the system, up from just two, in a bid to help people who may be struggling with mental illness or addictions get access to appropriate resources.
That's a good step and the city must explore further safety measures. But ultimately this is a problem that the city can't solve on its own. Mayor Amarjeet Sohi is right to ask for more help from the province to deal with the root causes of transit-system crime that fall beyond municipal jurisdiction.
“The majority of challenges we're facing on public transit stem from the fact that we're not investing enough in supportive housing, we don't have enough support system for mental health issues and we don't have enough support system for people experiencing addictions,” Sohi told reporters. “These are the province's responsibilities. They need to step up.”
With the $1.8-billion Valley Line southeast LRT expansion scheduled to open this summer, it's past the time for both governments to step up and ensure the system really is safe.