Transit Toronto

Bob Kinnear, the president of Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, told a Toronto press conference today, Tuesday, February 9 that his union wanted to help address the recent surge of public dissatisfaction with TTC service. Local 113 will do so by conducting a series of town hall events across Toronto to meet face-to-face with customers and respond to complaints and constructive criticism.

Kinnear also said the union wants to distinguish in the public mind those service issues which front-line workers do not control — such as fares, routes, schedules and other management and government funding decisions — from those they can control, and work on the latter. He also upbraided “a distinct minority” of passengers who are harassing and insulting TTC workers, including “video stalking” of workers taking washroom and coffee breaks.

Here is Kinnear’s statement:

“I’m here to make a few comments on the recent avalanche of media‐fuelled criticism aimed at TTC front line employees and to announce a union initiative around this issue.

“First of all, I want to thank the members of the public who have been voicing support for our members out there. It’s been expressed in many different ways but the general message has been: “Don’t pay any attention to all this noise. Most of you folks are terrific and it’s not fair that all of you are being blamed for the actions of a few.”

“We really appreciate those comments and of course I would encourage more of them. But let me just briefly address another type of passenger. I know they’re in a distinct minority and we have to put up with them all the time. But the recent media frenzy for “gotcha” pictures has brought more of these folks out of the woodwork. So let me speak directly to them:

“Listen folks: Stop harassing people who are doing their jobs. Stop insulting them. Stop waving your phone cameras in their faces as you get on the bus or streetcar. Stop spitting on them. Stop calling them lazy and overpaid. Stop taking videos of drivers when they stop for a washroom break. We’re entitled to washroom breaks, like any human being should be. Harassing people about this by taking their pictures is an affront to human dignity and a violation of simple decency.

“In Ontario, workers are entitled to a harassment‐free workplace. And even though it is also a public space, a bus, a streetcar or a subway station is our workplace. The people who work there are human beings, just like you.

“There is no group of workers in this city who are more subject to public assault than TTC workers. Every time there is a fare increase, we brace ourselves for the inevitable spike in insults and assaults. But the recent media focus on a handful of TTC workers has made a bad situation much, much worse.

Due to a disabled streetcar Westbound Gerrard at Broadview, the westbound 506 Carlton is on diversion. Eastbound service is unaffected. Shuttle buses are running.

The Globe and Mail, CBC Toronto, Newstalk 1010 and other media outlets reported this morning that some TTC workers were planning on fighting back after this weekend’s reprimand from their boss.

The news organizations told their readers and listeners about rumors of job action after a new Facebook page, “Toronto Transit Operators against public harassment” appeared. On the page, workers have been posting their own photos of rider indiscretions, after recent images of employees sleeping on the job and stopping for coffee sparked outrage among passengers.

By this afternoon, however, the same media and others, including the Toronto Star, are reporting that the campaign has “fizzled” — especially since, within a few hours, riders themselves had seemingly taken over the site, contributing even more complaints about service.

In an article by Cynthia Reason, Inside Toronto reports that Toronto’s front-running mayoral candidates came out swinging during an impromptu debate last Wednesday, February 3. The candidates spoke at an public meeting in the auditorium at Richview Collegiate Institute in Etobicoke on the TTC’s plans for the Eglinton Crosstown light rail Transit City line.

According to the article, Rocco Rossi emerged as the crowd favourite by jestfully questioning the financial viability of plans for the $4.6 billion, city-spanning light-rail line in light of “the fiasco” that was the St. Clair right-of-way project.

Taking a swipe at fellow mayoral candidate and TTC Chair Adam Giambrone, he chided that those responsible for such a debacle shouldn’t be given the “keys to the kingdom” of Transit City:

“It’s kind of like a contractor coming to you and saying, ‘you know what, I’m going to do a $4,000 job for you, it’s gonna take three months,’ and it ends up costing $12,000 and taking six months. Then they come back and say, ‘don’t worry, I’ve learned a lot of lessons here, let me do this $800,000 extension to the back of your home,’” he told crowd of more than 100 residents.

“I am not against mass transit, I am against mass incompetence.”

While Rossi took the opportunity Wednesday to call for a hold on Transit City plans to allow time for review, mayoral rivals Giambrone, George Smitherman, Giorgio Mammoliti and Sarah Thomson also took advantage of the chance - their first since filing for candidacy last month - to square off face-to-face on the controversial project.

According to Inside Toronto, residents of the Mount Dennis neighbourhood — the area around Weston Road and Eglinton Avenue West — intend to ask the TTC to build the Eglinton Crosstown light rail Transit City line beneath, rather than through, their community.

And the local City councillors, Frances Nunziata and Frank Di Giorgio are hosting a public meeting this Thursday, February 11 to discuss the TTC’s plans for the line between Jane and Keele Streets.

An article by Inside Toronto’s Fannie Sunshine reports that residents say that the TTC must build the line underground through Mount Dennis so that it can reduce the amount of property it needs and lessen the noise and environmental impacts of the line. An underground line would also increase safety by allowing passengers to avoid crossing to a platform in the middle of the street.

The TTC is making minor changes to its services, starting Sunday, February 14.

(Although the official date for the service change is February 14, just one change actually affects service on Sundays. Most of the changes relate to Monday-to-Friday services and, since Monday, February 15 is Family Day, a statutory holiday in Ontario, they don’t come into effect until Tuesday, February 16.)

Transit Toronto reader and frequent contributor David Fisher recently toured the stations along the 01 Lakeshore West line, where GO Transit contractors continue to work on a project to install a third set of tracks.

Here’s Dave’s progress report:

The new platforms at both Clarkson and Oakville Stations are finished. At Clarkson, workers still have to build the new south tunnel and entrance. Elevators at both stations are still a few months away from being in service.

GO has now replaced the escalator to platform 3 at Port Credit Station with a staircase which should be open this month. The other escalator is blocked off and work on removing it should start this month. The contractor has rebuilt the west end of platforms 1 and 2 which are now ready to go back into service after been rebuilt.

At Appleby Station, all work on the platforms should be finished by May.

Last month at Burlington, contactors were removing the escalator to Platform 3 and had already taken out the escalators to platforms 1 and 2. This month, both platforms and the north and south entrance ones are gone.

Trains should be running on the new #1 track by May.

Transit Toronto reader Robert Wightman has been keeping us in the loop about GO Transit’s ongoing construction at Brampton GO Station. Robert visited the station last Friday, February 5 to see what the contractors were up to that required the City of Brampton to close Railroad Street again — and also update us about what was going on.

On Friday, contractors blocked the street with a crane that was swinging in preformed concrete slabs and curbs to extend the south platform farther east. They put in about 21 metres (70 feet) of concrete curbs and the edge of the accessible platform.

The contractors have also installed most of the remaining windows on the buildings for the elevators and enclosed stairs on the south side and the elevator on the north side. Robert says that “They are certainly moving faster than before. They won’t be done by the end of February but it is starting to look like they will, eventually, finish.”

The City of Guelph is closing

• Suffolk Street East at Woolwich Street

for a construction project this week.

Guelph Transit is detouring buses during the project.

After a barrage of media and passenger complaints, including videos and photographs of drivers, fare collectors and other workers apparently behaving badly, Gary Webster, the TTC’s Chief General Manager, sent the following statement to all TTC employees today:

“I don’t know about you, but I am becoming increasingly tired of defending the reputation of the TTC; tired of explaining what is acceptable and what is not; and tired of stating the obvious: that much of the behaviour being reported is, indeed, unacceptable.

“You have heard me say that I am proud of the TTC. I still am, but I am not proud of what we have been dealing with over the last several weeks.

“Two weeks ago, I said that the vast majority of TTC employees care about the organization and do a good job, but we can all do better. I asked everyone to respond well. Some of you did. Clearly, some of you did not.

“We all have to accept responsibility for allowing the TTC to drift into a culture of unacceptable operating discipline. In other words, we have deemed it acceptable for some employees to not do all aspects of their jobs.

“We have two choices. We can continue to react to issues, deal with individual employee problems, and hope that the rest of our employees get the message, behave themselves and not get caught doing something they should not be doing.

“The other choice, and the one we are going to take, is a much broader approach. Expectations need to be clear, especially for frontline employees. And employees need to be held accountable for their poor performance.

“We are in the customer service business, but some of the behaviour our customers have encountered recently would suggest otherwise. Our customers pay a fare and the City provides hundreds of millions of dollars every year to the TTC. This public transit agency belongs to the very people we serve.

“As Chief General Manager, I am ultimately accountable to our customers. As employees, you - and you alone - are accountable for your actions. The culture of complacency and malaise that has seeped into our organization will end. I hold all of management responsible to make this happen. Reviews and plans are under way to address systemic issues regarding customer service, but real change starts with you.”

In a news release, the TTC says it will not respond to media inquiries this weekend for comment on individual photographs or videos it receives from the public.

Passengers with specific complaints or concerns can contact the TTC directly at 416-393-3030 or online at http://www3.ttc.ca/ContactUs/ComplaintsComplimentsSuggestions/Suggestionscomplaint.jsp.