Edmonton city councillor pushing for turnstiles for transit safety
Posted December 12, 2023 7:03 pm.
In light of two recent violent attacks at LRT stations, one city councillor wants to explore bringing turnstiles to two different transit stations for two years and see if it’s a feasible way to address disorder and violent crime on transit.
Recently the city has seen an assault by two young girls that left a 55-year-old woman unconscious and in critical condition. Earlier last month, also at the Coliseum Station, a 58-year-old man was on a bus in the area when he was attacked and left with significant facial injuries.
“‘It’s like LRT roulette, it might only be one incident that happens a day, or one incident that happens at that platform, or only happens a few times a week, but I don’t want it to be me, or I don’t want it to be my kids so I won’t take that chance, and you can throw all the statistics at me you want, its not safe and I won’t take it,’ that’s the feedback that I’m getting,” said Tim Cartmell, Edmonton City Councillor.
READ MORE: Edmonton City Council putting forward a motion for turnstiles following latest transit assault
But what impact would turnstiles have on crime?
Back in May, the City of Calgary considered them for the C-train line, but a report found a fully closed system is not feasible and would not improve public safety.
“I think that most of Calgary’s system is exposed outdoor platforms, and so those are first of all difficult places to isolate a fare gate, but secondly, they aren’t as inviting of places to congregate in if you are trying to get away from the elements, get away from the winter, that sort of thing. Whereas we have several stations that are much more protected in that way and become places of congregation and I think that is one fundamental difference,” said Cartmell.
The lead consultant in that study says contrary to what officers are seeing first-hand on Edmonton transit, many committing a crime on Calgary transit actually pay their fare.
“The challenge is we could not find a correlation between fare gates and safety because the purpose of a fare gate is to collect fares, the purpose of a fare gate is to spread that infrastructure so you can collect fares, get additional ridership data. If there is some sort of issue or dispute, they will ask if you paid your fare as an enforcement tactic, and a lot of times people do pay fares in that sense,” said David Cooper, Principal of Leading Mobility Consulting.
“I have not seen a study on that. When I’ve spoken to front line police officers, front line staff it’s actually the other way around. It didn’t matter if people were committing crimes or not, they were actually paying fares oddly.”
Cooper says during the study, he got to spend time with front-line officers, which is where he noted the similarities between Calgary’s and Edmonton’s transit systems and he noted that many altercations occur where people pay their fairs.
“The first interaction they will have with an individual if there is some sort of issue or dispute, they will ask if you paid your fare as an enforcement tactic, and a lot of times people do pay fares in that sense.”
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Cooper adds that unlike in Calgary, many of Edmonton’s transit problems don’t happen on the platforms, he says they happen in the stairs and access points of the stations.
Lastly, Cooper noted that ridership itself has a major impact on transit crime.
“Ridership is actually a huge deterrent [of crime] if you have a lot of people in a train station or on a transit vehicle. Crime is based on opportunity, and the opportunity is created when you don’t have that visibility when you don’t have other people around,” he explained.
Cartmell is optimistic there are enough differences between Edmonton and Calgary transit for turnstiles to be effective.
“There are distinctions and differences in our ecosystems, there’s certainly differences in at least 7 or 8 of our stations that are different from the typical Calgary station, different enough I think that I think it’s worth considering a pilot,” said Cartmell.
However, councillor Michael Janz is skeptical.
“There’s many aspects to this, it isn’t as simple as putting up a gate. We know that in other cities this doesn’t work. They have fare gates and are still having problems.” “Ultimately, fare gates only work for law-abiding people who will pay for their ticket,” said Janz.
City Council had a lengthy discussion Tuesday on their ‘By-monthly update on the Transit Safety plan’.
The report shows non-violent crimes are going up on transit compared with last October and November. It also indicates crime severity is going down and ridership is going up.
The motion on turnstiles is before council this week. If passed, the committee will then explore the next steps.
