TTC to make face masks mandatory
If agency board approves rule, riders will need to wear face coverings starting July 2
Starting next month, TTC users will likely have to wear a mask when they ride the rocket.
At a press conference Thursday, Mayor John Tory and TTC CEO Rick Leary announced a report that recommends the agency require passengers to wear non-medical face coverings will be considered by the TTC’s board next Wednesday.
If approved, the rule, which is supported by Toronto Public Health, would go into effect July 2. Children under two and people with medical conditions that prevent them from using a mask will be exempt.
“I think it is a significant step forward for us in containing the spread of COVID-19 and making sure people feel confident and safe on the TTC” as the city reopens, Tory said.
Violating the bylaw would technically come with a fine of $195, but Leary said the agency will focus on educating riders instead of ticketing them, and no one will be refused service for not wearing a face covering. “We won’t be issuing fines for these infractions,” he said.
The mayor said he expected most transit users to follow the bylaw, but he didn’t rule out the possibility that some passengers, such as repeat offenders, could be ticketed. “We’re not going to be out blitzing and enforcing,” he said. “Does that mean no one will ever be given a ticket? Of course it doesn’t.”
TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said it will take until July 2 to implement the mask rule because, assuming the board approves it next week, the agency will need time roll out its educational campaign on the system.
To ensure passengers have access to face coverings, the TTC plans to distribute one million nonreusable masks to residents on a one-time basis, with priority given to marginalized communities in neighbourhood improvement areas.
Until this week, Toronto and the TTC had resisted calls to make masks mandatory for riders, even as Ottawa, Brampton, Mississauga and other municipalities announced plans to do so. Leary and other TTC officials had expressed reservations about the difficulty of allowing for health exemptions and the potential for enforcement to create conflict between transit employees and riders.
“It seems like the city and the TTC is always a step behind,” said Carlos Santos, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, which represents a majority of the TTC’s roughly 15,000 employees. The union had been calling for the agency to make masks mandatory since early May as a way to protect riders and TTC workers.
Leary said Thursday it took the agency longer than some of its peers because “we are a large complex system” and the third busiest transit agency in North America.
Tory defended the timing of introducing the mask rule Thursday, saying he had spoken to Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa nearly every day about mandating face coverings on transit and elsewhere in the city, but until now she hadn’t recommended it. Tory said what changed was that TTC ridership began to creep back up.
Until now, ridership was low enough that “we could basically guarantee” passengers had enough space to practice physical distancing, which health experts say “is the most effective way to prevent the spread of the virus,” Tory said.
However, in an interview with the Star last week Leary acknowledged that social distancing hasn’t always been possible on TTC vehicles during the pandemic. He said the agency’s policy of limiting bus ridership to 15 people per vehicle wasn’t designed to ensure passengers could stay the recommended two metres apart.
“The concept of the 15 (passenger limit) was a guideline, that didn’t mean we were physically distancing on buses,” he said.
Metrolinx, which operates GO Transit, still hasn’t issued a mandatory mask order for its passengers. Agency spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said Thursday while the organization has required its employees to wear face coverings, “at this point” it is only “strongly recommending” them for customers.