True Patriot Love - Why Canadians Are Abandoning Public Transit

00:00:00.000 we have a transit system here in toronto that has issues we put a lot of money into it ridership is

00:00:11.680 down and people aren't even feeling safe riding it it's not just toronto montreal vancouver

00:00:18.000 experiencing the same issues uh transit is a going concern we desperately need it to work

00:00:24.720 and somehow it has problems uh no matter how much money we put into it i'm mike wickson right here's

00:00:31.120 paul micucci thanks for joining me man hey mike how you doing good uh you know what you're always

00:00:35.200 good at crunching the numbers but more than anything you and i have had uh really heated

00:00:41.040 discussions about our transit system here in toronto i feel the pressure myself as a non-transit

00:00:47.920 user because i want more people using it so that i can drive yeah we're clogged we're congested in

00:00:53.280 the city yeah of course we are and and you know as every major city we built transit so thinking it

00:00:58.880 would work and thinking that people could safely take it um and you know we were talking about uh

00:01:04.160 housing affordability a few minutes ago yeah on another show and it's you know i told the story

00:01:09.040 and the story was starting out because everyone starts out when you live in you know the urban

00:01:14.800 centers um to save money i took the go train from mississauga downtown every day it was a dream job

00:01:22.880 i was working myself up you know i just got into the business i'm in and um i took it down uh worked

00:01:30.080 all day made it back and struggled along but it actually helped me save enough money so i could get

00:01:36.800 to that point where i could buy my first house i could actually fix up that beater home i could then

00:01:42.960 go buy a beater car you know there's the progressions right and right and transit was a big part of that

00:01:49.120 because transit allowed me and i strategically and um moved right by a go station i literally lived

00:01:56.400 within walking distance because i had to start uh early in the morning get home late at night

00:02:01.920 and i wanted to make it more efficient even rental properties as you were going through that phase of

00:02:06.160 your life would say near transit yeah just steps away from the ttc you know that was a real selling

00:02:12.720 point oh yeah um now i don't know if it is quite frankly i think it's probably it's probably not a

00:02:18.000 selling point because you're the crime uh statistics show that the number of people around that transit

00:02:24.480 is causing issues yeah it's uh interesting coming up later in the program we're going to talk about

00:02:29.440 the crime aspect of this but even just at the top level numbers on transit um it's amazing to me paul

00:02:37.360 that we struggle with transit at all based on the amount of money that we've pumped into it oh yeah

00:02:42.480 the amount of infrastructure here in toronto vancouver is no different yeah a huge amount

00:02:46.880 of infrastructure money has been put in uh and i would assume in both cases propped up by the

00:02:52.560 province oh yeah and yet we still have slow moving uh customers are not happy things are behind

00:03:01.840 constructions unending yeah it's literally unending we don't have an end date on the most recent transit

00:03:09.120 uh and by the numbers ridership is down yeah as taxpayers we subsidize just as just we're talking

00:03:15.840 toronto between metro links and ttc yeah we're roughly four billion wow so that's our operating

00:03:24.400 subsidy on an annual basis just to keep these uh you know the go trains and the subways working and the

00:03:30.480 buses and and everything that outside of what we bring in and bears another four billion is put in well

00:03:37.120 we don't have great fares now quite frankly we're down uh toronto we're talking toronto now uh the

00:03:42.080 ttc alone is down 118 million people a year from its top in 2016 right that's not so long ago actually

00:03:50.320 either i mean a 10-year span of uh drop-off of that degree yeah normally you'd say okay there's no

00:03:57.760 business for this anymore but i digress yeah well again you know to be a first-class city we decided we

00:04:04.400 needed transit so we went out we built all the infrastructure and the crazy thing about it is

00:04:09.760 we continue to build all the infrastructure so not only have we not reversed the ridership equation

00:04:16.400 we continue to double down and build more and connect more thinking and this is the thing that

00:04:21.920 i can't understand why do we think people are coming back new immigrants who come to canada will 1.00

00:04:30.080 not put up with all the crap they have to endure on subways they just won't and they figured out a

00:04:36.240 way to get insurance get cars to ride share on their own they feared that they're not taking the

00:04:42.640 subway it's interesting our transit system in toronto is so bad and even people that work with

00:04:48.000 us will tell you that their first goal is to get a car oh yeah because it changes their life from

00:04:54.800 four hours of transit riding to go 18 kilometers to 20 minutes each way a day so there's a that's a

00:05:03.040 huge uh advantage in someone's life to cut transit out oh it is they actually before they actually

00:05:11.760 uh enhance their living conditions where they live they actually look for a car now to get off the

00:05:17.840 the public transit well if you're four hours on transit a day that's four hours of work and a part-time

00:05:22.640 job that can give you advancement and then go further out so go out and make your way to uh

00:05:30.640 pickering make your way to mississauga you know you're standing an hour an hour and a half in the

00:05:35.760 cold right yeah just waiting for the next bus just waiting for the next transit location you know it's

00:05:42.240 not sustainable and and so therefore people people don't take it they don't want to and then and then

00:05:47.280 people say well i can't get people to work at my location of course you can it's uh it's i think

00:05:54.640 the unreliability of our transit system like i said when i was a when i was a young guy i mean it was

00:06:00.800 two lines and we we took advantage of them we made our way to finch station on the bus that took a half

00:06:06.480 hour from vaughn uh and then from finch down was a few minutes and frankly it was efficient not as

00:06:13.360 efficient maybe as having a car at other times more efficient yeah but it was clean and safe and

00:06:19.360 you felt like you were going to get to your destination without much hassle or much delay if

00:06:22.880 you got a short turn oh my goodness on that bus you were freaked out because it was a rare occasion

00:06:28.240 if if a train stopped there was something major going on right yeah it seems like the unreliability

00:06:35.440 is the underscore now not the other way around that the the safety factor is not there the

00:06:42.160 reliability factor is not there that if it's something that you need to build into your work

00:06:46.640 life every day you're going to find alternatives eventually yeah and they do they do with it whether

00:06:52.480 they move uh whether they buy a new vehicle they do find alternatives and that's the challenge now we're

00:06:59.200 we're sinking all this uh public funds we're paying taxes we're increasing our capital spend you know

00:07:05.680 and it's expensive to keep all these vehicles to keep all these people it's a big operation um the

00:07:11.360 the ttc alone is 8 600 people that's that's the uh staff that's the staff and then and then take

00:07:19.600 metro links metro links is 7 222 people from your last annual report that's how many people that you

00:07:27.440 take so you have 15 000 people take this machine to keep it running every day and it's a logistics

00:07:33.520 nightmare but it but it's not working two times a day i see people on metro links every other time

00:07:38.800 yeah it seems empty maybe that's just my anecdotal observation but i see transit out there that is

00:07:47.120 unused completely yeah and uh other transit which really needs beefed up because it's it's underserviced

00:07:54.960 well the stuff coming you know i know because i go from the west into the central you know downtown

00:08:00.640 it's a disaster there's no one from you know from the square one line heading down on the bus line

00:08:06.720 yeah uh to the subway line it's it's no one's using it that that was kind of a waste that whole

00:08:13.520 mccallion through way that thing just doesn't get used at all it's sitting there vacant and

00:08:18.400 quite frankly we haven't connected and i don't even know if anyone will when we do

00:08:22.400 uh so now let me ask you something

00:08:26.880 i feel embarrassed asking you this about toronto but because in montreal it seems to work just fine

00:08:31.680 the transit system seems to deliver people uh with somewhat uh greater ease i don't know why that is

00:08:38.720 toronto vancouver um is it really it's a subway uh do we need the transit system that we have or

00:08:49.440 should we be building infrastructure that services vehicles should we it's too late we have to go to

00:08:56.000 infrastructure and i know that sounds crazy and people like oh we can't build the tunnel under the

00:09:01.600 401 and everything i don't think we can i don't i'm not thinking that that's an option you're not a

00:09:07.040 tunneller i'm not a tunneller but you're not a flat earther no no no okay no but i i just think it's too

00:09:12.560 late i think to get the uh tunnel under the 401 every time somebody says that i have a miniature

00:09:20.080 breakdown sorry to get the public trust back to get people to actually get back on that

00:09:25.200 subway or get back on that go train i think you've lost it well they did it in new york they managed

00:09:31.440 they managed to get people back on but then they had uh what do you call them the red hats

00:09:36.080 yeah that's uh the uh the uh oh it'll come to me uh angels guardian angels thank you thanks nick yeah

00:09:43.440 so yeah the guardian angels now do we want civilian well you have vigilante i think pretty soon you have

00:09:49.760 to make you know i'm that's a whole other discussion but i think you're going to have

00:09:54.480 to think about something because we're not doing a great job uh you know with that that incident uh

00:10:02.240 the other day on the 11th where the guy's running up and down the subway train with a knife

00:10:08.080 you know so you take a look how many people are on that subway train yeah 100 100 maybe 100 they're

00:10:14.000 not going to ride the subway again if you've been sitting there are never going back no they're not

00:10:18.000 going to they're going to find some alternative and and those hundred people are going to tell

00:10:22.400 four or five other people they're going to tell that story for the rest of their life

00:10:25.680 at everybody function they're going to have that video on their phone that pr you can't get back

00:10:31.680 from unless well look it's going to end up on our show today yeah it's unavoidable i know and that's

00:10:36.800 that's that's the challenge but you can't escape that right and and in this day and age think about

00:10:41.680 when the subway was built okay so you're just talking about kind of childhood memories what are we like

00:10:46.400 61 62 they started in the major before i was born yeah yeah and and so you know they they got it you

00:10:54.720 know the main line but in those days no one had a phone people didn't take pictures the pr they

00:11:02.320 probably had incidents you just didn't hear about them as much so you know they were able to get away

00:11:07.440 with it they were able to keep the credibility on the system going you know when people came to town

00:11:11.920 the first thing you did from a small town you said come ride the subway with right people like wow

00:11:16.400 i've never ridden a subway before right it was a big deal yeah but that's all gone now yeah right

00:11:21.280 so people the expectations of people now um and the ability to share that communication of their

00:11:27.200 experience on the ttc is is so much faster and so much so your quality has and we haven't reached

00:11:35.360 that quality bar right we're still down here and the required quality to ride that thing has got to be up

00:11:41.360 here and we're not going to get there i just i just think the chances of us making that leap and

00:11:46.320 getting to the point so you know i rode the the transit in uh london this summer oh wow yeah and uh

00:11:53.360 man okay so here's what i think works about that system that we're missing entirely first of all

00:11:58.720 there is a police station at every station yeah there are police in every station uh for the tube for

00:12:06.160 the for the underground there are transit police at almost every uh bus exchange along the way the

00:12:14.400 cars are clean there's mannerisms subway is culture there so when something's part of your culture you

00:12:23.120 take care of it yes and i think canada for whatever reason we don't have respect for our own transit system

00:12:30.720 if we did we would put more cops not just four thank you olivia chow for police in it anyway yeah

00:12:38.240 yeah on each line so there's like eight they're supposed to cover seven days a week yeah yeah for

00:12:44.000 all operating hours yeah so and i don't even know if they only have crisis workers which i think is even

00:12:50.560 get more of those in there let's get if if the if 25 of the problems that we're having in our subway

00:12:55.520 result in a an arrest that has to do with mental health then let's get them in there too yeah but

00:13:02.160 our culture is abuse the subway our culture is the subways below us figuratively as well

00:13:11.200 that we don't have this i'm a businessman going to this is my means of transit i must respect it

00:13:17.840 alongside everybody else i saw that in london i don't see that in toronto well so interesting new york

00:13:23.120 london couple things to to consider right so in london they have a very sophisticated surveillance

00:13:30.240 system so a friend of mine worked on this years ago so he went there and he actually worked on

00:13:35.680 the camera system at all major intersections and in the subway right so they they have a bunch of

00:13:41.840 stuff there that we don't have they have the ability to do for example facial recognition

00:13:47.440 so if there's a criminal at large or so if they get a picture of someone committing a crime

00:13:54.160 right away that facial recognition goes up and they track the person so every camera's eyeballs

00:14:00.000 looking and they know where he's going so they're picking up that person so if they're moving so then

00:14:04.320 they're not evading so right away they can they're they're on the the radios yeah and they're saying

00:14:09.920 he's moving up the stairs he's going to piccadilly square so they can actually follow they've got enough

00:14:16.160 eyes on they have total total surveillance it's true the cameras yeah yeah is amazing yeah that's

00:14:22.560 that's the first thing um second thing is the number of people to your point there's someone so

00:14:28.560 they don't let uh like that gentleman in the video that you know that we're going to see

00:14:35.520 basically he uh shows up in shorts in the middle of winter

00:14:40.800 no shirt a knife in his left hand and a child's backpack yeah he would have been spotted on the

00:14:48.240 way in he doesn't get into the subway and stop before he got to the oh yeah they're they're like

00:14:52.880 okay 911 cut him off yeah come on over here we want to talk to you yeah yeah and they're turning

00:14:57.920 him around and sending him yeah so or they're picking him up and they're taking him to a psych ward

00:15:03.280 right so they're dealing with it really quick but that's the key i think is you don't see much of it

00:15:08.400 because it's dealt with quick and then alongside that once again there's this culture of respect

00:15:14.160 for the tube what's it what's it cost to park in downtown london in sanity so prohibitive new york

00:15:24.080 same thing yeah it's like 50 an hour oh yeah yeah so here's the thing right they really force

00:15:32.960 so they put parking fees or parking taxes on top of those vendors to discourage people from taking

00:15:41.440 transit into the city and there's no drive zones in the financial district exactly so there's like

00:15:46.560 that so they do stuff like so they actively say you're going to take the train and we're going to

00:15:51.920 secure you in the train so our commitment to you we haven't committed so the problem is we're not

00:15:57.360 committed to it and if we were committed we would follow we we would add surveillance we would increase

00:16:03.520 the taxes on parking and we'd have the drive lanes those are all things we would do that would actually

00:16:09.600 push people to take the train safely but we're actually just straddling them yeah you know we don't

00:16:15.360 so we don't have it on either side we don't have enough money to secure it we we don't have enough

00:16:19.280 money to put surveillance into it we don't have enough money we want the parking guys downtown to make

00:16:24.880 lots of money so we won't put taxes on them right like you cannot have your your foot in each camp

00:16:31.680 you have to make a decision and that's leadership mike see that's what we're missing right now we're

00:16:36.320 missing leadership where someone says you know what people can criticize him i know he was a little

00:16:42.160 dopey at the end with the trump stuff rudy giuliani right oh he cleaned up that city yeah good or bad

00:16:48.400 yeah right he came in and he said okay i'm a leader here are the 10 things that i'm going to do

00:16:54.160 squeegee kids like i took care of i'm going to take care of crime i'm going to clean up the cities 0.93

00:16:59.280 i'm taking the porn out of time square exactly i'm gonna take all this crappy stuff out of time

00:17:04.560 square and make it clean again and you know make it for people to dance and do flash mobs and

00:17:09.520 have new year's in again and he did it yeah we're doing you know it's a lot of touchy feely stuff but

00:17:16.160 there's no directional vision for the city and and for our major cities when you coddle everybody

00:17:23.360 nobody benefits no one best so that's why the transit system has gone to where it's gone because

00:17:29.440 you know listen it's all those 8600 people and the 7 000 people i'm sure they're all good people

00:17:35.120 i'm sure they go to work they work hard every day i'm not slagging on them if you do not have

00:17:41.520 leadership that can actually move you along so let's say okay has the ttc ever come forward to

00:17:50.880 city council or any major transit and said i want my own police force armed no have they ever come

00:17:59.120 forward and said i want a surveillance system like london no no so so then you know what you're not

00:18:06.160 serious and you're not committed and if you're not committed then you're going to end up with issues

00:18:10.720 what you have now people who sleep in the subway commit crimes in the subway so now what you're

00:18:16.960 doing is you're a catchment for all your social issues uh crime lands at the top of that list

00:18:23.840 uh and transit crime is up yeah in a recent survey 40 of canadians said that they didn't feel safe

00:18:31.840 on their local transit system yeah no of course well look at you know that that thing the other day

00:18:37.440 just case in point or sample you know quite frankly i would never and and you know you got

00:18:43.520 it those guys wonderful those uh good samaritans who actually uh took it upon themselves to move that

00:18:50.000 gentleman off the subway while he had a knife going up and down the train those guys were incredible i

00:18:56.400 don't even know where they got the courage to do it to be honest with you the guy was well you know what

00:19:00.880 crime is sort of the next leap in this discussion i'm going to get jeremy grimaldi to come in and have a

00:19:06.960 chat with us but first have a look at this footage uh shot in the ttc and then of course the uh chief

00:19:14.080 of uh or one of the uh police representatives uh and uh olivia chow mayor of toronto reacting to it

00:19:22.160 and we'll see jeremy on the other side of that

00:19:28.000 and in addition we're expanding the neighborhood community officer program

00:19:46.000 to toronto's underground transit neighborhood the ttc subway system we will dedicate four officers

00:19:54.880 between union and wellesley station and another four officers between bloor and eglinton stations

00:20:03.200 this will allow us to have seven day a week dedicated coverage on the young line to ensure transit

00:20:11.280 riders feel safe and secure on their commute that's a model of policing that builds safer communities

00:20:20.080 together and that's what we are doing more today these officers work in the same neighborhoods every

00:20:27.840 day they get to know people over time and build trust when that happens crime goes down and people feel

00:20:35.440 safer jeremy grimaldi a gta crime reporter for metro land joins us jeremy thanks so much for taking the

00:20:42.480 time today anytime glad to be here you know it's uh i love having you on but it's always on the heels of

00:20:49.360 something wild that has happened in crime in the gta this time uh it's on the heels of a video of

00:20:57.360 actual citizens riders on the ttc chasing down an armed assailant uh who's obviously struggling

00:21:06.080 mentally and uh maybe even on drugs and uh i guess you've probably seen that uh that video indeed yeah

00:21:13.440 it's it's shocking it's it's wild times and canadian crime or gta crime whatever however you want to

00:21:19.120 describe it but i i i haven't seen anything like it and it's a new phenomenon it wasn't like this 10 years

00:21:26.160 ago no it seems like we were on a trajectory uh you know uh paul and i just before this uh having a

00:21:32.640 a discussion um off off camera and we'll add to that on this show that although ridership is down

00:21:40.000 confidence in uh the safety as a rider as a ttc passenger uh certainly in toronto vancouver's having

00:21:46.480 similar scenarios um overall canadians don't feel safe on transit and things like this i think are

00:21:52.720 certainly contributing to it and we're seeing it almost right away because people are posting it

00:21:56.400 obviously but this trend of reduced ridership uh i think has a lot to do with how people feel about

00:22:04.480 being on transit yeah it's it's a it's an interesting phenomenon uh we've seen it uh in the united states

00:22:15.040 as as the violence has grown on their public transit systems we're now seeing it in canada

00:22:20.800 uh in in vancouver and in can and in toronto i mean what what's happening i think is without without

00:22:30.480 looking at the numbers this is just anecdotal is that those that can afford to uh get somewhere

00:22:36.640 via another mode of transport will be oftentimes choosing that other mode of transport because of

00:22:43.200 the some of the things we see uh in newspapers um and online daily yeah i can see what you're

00:22:51.360 saying i mean and also that one feeds the other it's almost a it's cyclical in the sense that okay

00:22:56.640 look i've got to find another means of transportation whether it's uber cab my own vehicle uh you know

00:23:02.960 that becomes part of the consideration um that drives people into creating of course more traffic

00:23:10.160 issues and things like that but it it's it's not really and i took a look at the numbers and maybe

00:23:15.680 i've misread them uh and i'd be curious to know what your what your opinion is it doesn't look like

00:23:21.440 any of this is random there's almost a uh pattern to this that makes this kind of crime preventable and

00:23:28.320 of course olivia chow is now saying that we're going to have uh subway uh community officers but it

00:23:34.960 doesn't really seem like the numbers of officers would be able to cover off uh enough of this

00:23:41.440 safety requirement yeah this is multifaceted first of all uh i i would say it's similar to the argument

00:23:51.520 that police use uh every budgetary cycle where they say well you can cut our budget but that means

00:23:58.160 fewer officers that'll mean more crime it doesn't really work like that because you know you don't

00:24:04.160 have police officers hiding behind trees waiting for things to happen things happen sort of randomly

00:24:11.440 first of all and second of all a lot of the people committing the crimes are unstable and so a lot of

00:24:19.440 times they don't have control over necessarily what's about to happen so it's not as you as if you could

00:24:24.720 predict you know a lot of cars are being stolen in this neighborhood let's scout out that neighborhood

00:24:30.480 uh this is a wealthy area and there's been home home break-ins in in the in the city let's let's

00:24:36.880 let's look at this and send officers there it's not something that you can do in that way um so you

00:24:42.560 can you can try and put more people down there but it's it's really a i i would say an institutional

00:24:48.000 problem um that that we've got to tackle in different ways you know it's funny you say that and

00:24:55.760 and recently uh calgary just cleaned up their streets they uh they did a program whereby multiple

00:25:02.080 arrests were made in a certain area where people needed to access transit uh into the core or out

00:25:08.160 of the core of the city and they went and cleaned up that specific area by making arrests putting people

00:25:15.360 into hospital making sure people got institutional uh help as they needed it and uh you know otherwise

00:25:21.920 were connected with family uh accordingly uh if they had outstanding warrants they were you know

00:25:27.440 before a judge to deal with those so that has proven to clean up that area pretty effectively pretty

00:25:34.880 quickly i don't see any moves in toronto like this yeah they're very controversial and i and again i

00:25:41.600 don't know if that's to do with alberta's uh mandatory drug rehab uh rules that they they're planning on

00:25:51.200 instituting or or talking about instituting but it's one of those things um we i think it was

00:25:58.800 under harris took away a lot of uh the mental health uh uh you know housing uh not it's not housing

00:26:08.880 treatment centers i should say right um and and since then the problem has spilled onto our streets

00:26:15.600 and and and since since covet it's it's grown exponentially and and you can see that in the ttc

00:26:22.640 numbers and and though these mental health issues are a hard one to wrap your head around

00:26:28.160 um and a very expensive one i was going to say i think cost and uh you know the the number of people

00:26:34.880 that it takes to be applied to that uh as a solution um can be a challenge but i think these are

00:26:41.440 challenges and you mentioned covid well we came out of covid addicted to fentanyl uh that was you

00:26:47.760 know so prevalent on the streets by the time covid was over that there was another pandemic happening

00:26:53.840 in the form of uh you know mental illness due to drugs on the street um and so i can see that it's

00:27:01.280 compounded my worry is that we think policing is going to be the issue we have a very limited uh transit

00:27:08.720 system in toronto compared to other metropolis cities uh that are very underground in many of

00:27:15.200 these cities in europe and and you know in america uh mexico for example uh they have seemed to have

00:27:22.400 found some solutions to you know per capita keep crime down as much as possible are you seeing out

00:27:30.080 there any promises outside of olivia chap putting community officers in here uh that might usurp crime

00:27:36.400 in transit no um you know i just did a story the other day uh about a man who uh went into metro he

00:27:47.520 was hungry he's an alcoholic and a drug abuser he went to grab sandwiches uh and beer what walked out

00:27:55.280 security guards stopped him uh he showed a closed pocket knife and he was charged with um uh robbery

00:28:04.720 um and he he faces now a serious sentence and i asked him you know where where were you living

00:28:11.040 before and he said i wasn't living anywhere i i i sleep on the subway and i sleep on buses when i

00:28:17.600 need to keep warm and it just goes to show you um you know we also talked about the fact that a lot

00:28:24.080 of people are in prison because they want a bed and three square meals a day but it just goes to show you the

00:28:30.000 where where where do where do these people go when they're freezing and hungry and cold uh and need

00:28:37.600 shelter a lot of times it's the ttc and if you think that um that's okay or if you think that that

00:28:45.040 there's not going to be problems as a result uh you got another thing coming so i i think we have to

00:28:50.160 grapple with larger issues to actually start solving the problem now putting putting uh guards down there

00:28:57.600 uh you know it i i just don't know what it's going to achieve because a lot of times unless they're

00:29:04.960 police officers it's a limited amount of things that they can do but that's true you you almost

00:29:10.720 might we almost might need more infrastructure in our transit system that meets mental health drug 0.99

00:29:18.160 addiction uh uh homelessness head-on uh alongside policing yeah i just a stat i found um interesting

00:29:29.440 when i before i came on that i looked up um one out of every four times a ttc constable reports uh to the

00:29:37.680 tracks a person is taken into custody under the mental health act that's 25 percent of the time

00:29:44.880 down there um he's he's arresting someone uh under under mental health so i i think i don't think you

00:29:52.880 need to go much further than that so yeah no a quarter of the cases is a pretty strong uh supporting

00:29:59.440 story for we need help prior to these people ending up in our subways and on our buses yeah

00:30:07.520 uh well look uh a couple of the things before you get out of here that i'd love to touch on

00:30:12.000 uh overall across canada a recent study came out saying that people have a lack of confidence in uh safety

00:30:20.160 in our transit system in our stations and uh on the the vehicles themselves this is sort of a new i've

00:30:27.520 never heard of a report like this it's obviously arriving on the heels of a pretty serious increase

00:30:35.040 in crime on our transit systems looking ahead do you do you see this as a constant reporting like

00:30:41.440 transit system crime as its own category seems like a new thing frankly yeah i'm a i'm a father of a

00:30:51.200 couple teenagers and i i've always you know i've traveled the world uh everywhere i go anywhere i've

00:30:57.440 ever gone i always sing the praises of canada um being and toronto specifically being basically the

00:31:04.560 the safest urban area or one of the safest urban areas in the entire world um now having having said

00:31:12.240 that now what we have is 40 percent of riders on the ttc feeling unsafe um when i was a kid

00:31:20.480 the ttc was the safest place you could be really like honestly not to be old old guy talking here 1.00

00:31:27.280 but no i i don't think it was all that long ago to be honest with you i i think jeremy we were talking

00:31:33.600 you know 15 years ago i remember being in the city and happily getting on the transit happily avoiding a

00:31:40.960 taxi just to do a couple of stops i would call an uber now yeah for sure and so now my when when my

00:31:48.240 kids want to go downtown uh you know i still say take the subway but in the back of my mind i'm

00:31:54.960 always wondering because you know every time i go down in the subway there's someone talking to

00:31:59.200 themselves or yelling to themselves yelling at people you know my life's been threatened a number

00:32:05.120 of times by random uh individuals and not i don't think they're necessarily violent or going to do

00:32:12.160 anything that's not my fear my fear is i send my kid down there and uh you know someone says something

00:32:18.560 like that to him it it it's a there's a there's an impact there's a negative impact that doesn't

00:32:24.320 necessarily need to happen and i do think twice now so i don't blame people for thinking twice and i heard

00:32:31.360 my wife recently say you know to the to our kids uh your dad thank you your dad will drive you

00:32:37.680 uh you know as far as you need to go uh don't be taking transit unnecessarily uh please we'd rather

00:32:44.080 you took an uber uh you know an expense that families are going to have to take on that some

00:32:48.640 people cannot uh seems to be the only alternative or getting stuck in traffic delivering people in

00:32:55.040 your lives places we needed a stronger transit system to begin with and we spent so much money on

00:33:01.840 it as ridership goes down we need it to be safe so that it can expand it can actually have meaning

00:33:08.640 in our cities in vancouver uh the clogging is beginning on the roads their transit system is

00:33:13.520 important in toronto it's it's almost essential in my mind to keeping the city moving at this point

00:33:20.000 because it is so congested with traffic we can't let our transit system fall victim to crime

00:33:25.280 no and it's it's fallen precipitously like it's it's been five years and it's gone kind of berserk

00:33:33.680 down there um and it's it's sad to see but i just i urge people to kind of get a grip on it because

00:33:40.800 you don't want to lose that because it was an institution it's not a great institution as you say

00:33:46.160 it's limited but it it was something that that you could be proud of people were respectful of each

00:33:52.480 other and and and at the moment it's it's turned into something that that's not that and and i i

00:33:59.680 think you know uh we should we should we should not let be okay with it jeremy i tell people often

00:34:07.040 that you are the last eyes on crime in our nation from a journalistic standpoint i really appreciate

00:34:12.720 your time on this sadly soon we'll need you again i'm sure thanks for joining us always uh thanks thanks

00:34:19.680 for the words and and having me

True Patriot Love - December 31, 2025

Why Canadians Are Abandoning Public Transit

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