Toronto mayor backpedals on shaming transit cheats
Stepping up fare inspections more likely than vigilante-style transit justice

thestar.com
By David Rider
Nov. 22, 2016

Mayor John Tory is stepping back from his controversial suggestion that TTC fare evaders be shamed in Toronto newspapers.

Tory first suggested the vigilante-style justice Monday night, hours after Toronto transit commissioners approved a 10-cent fare hike - the sixth rate increase in the past six years - amid reduced service on some routes.

Taking calls from the public as part of his regular appearances on CP24, Tory heard from “Doug” who suggested the TTC’s “proof of payment” system - where people can board streetcars’ back doors and prove they paid upon demand - is draining millions of dollars from the cash-strapped system.

Tory said he has discussed the issue with senior TTC officials, including a suggested need for more fare inspectors.

“I even said we may have to get to the stage where we have to shame people and publish their picture in the newspaper and say this is somebody, who for the sake of a TTC fare, you know, made everybody else pay,” the mayor said.

“So, I don’t know what we’re going to do about it, but I can assure you they’re going to be some steps taken in the coming months . . . we can’t afford to have the good people pay, the other people rip the system off and we end up without all that money that we need to help run the system.”

Asked Tuesday morning about his comments Tory said he was just “musing” about naming and shaming and more tradition solutions will likely be employed.

“I think the more likely course of action that’s going to be taken is to have a better deployment of fare inspectors, of which we have some now, perhaps we need more, perhaps we need to deploy them differently,” Tory said.

“I was more musing about that because I think if you had the first people who had their picture appear in the paper saying ‘They chose to avoid paying their fare on the TTC at the expense of everyone else travelling, and at the expense of the public transit system,’ I think you would find behaviour would change.”

Tory didn’t specify if he was talking about using surveillance photos. It is also unclear how fare evaders would be identified.

Users of the Presto card need to tap a device at the back door. Metropass users, however, can legally climb aboard, ride and leave without showing their cards unless fare inspectors, who ask all users to show proof of payment, board the streetcar.

Tory’s tough talk got a cool reception on social media, with some Torontonians noting malfunctioning Presto devices mean riders are often waved on to streetcars and subways without paying.

Transit blogger Steven Munro tweeted: “The naming and shaming should be of councillors who will not properly fund the TTC. Always someone else’s job.”

As well as approving the rate hike, commissioners sent the TTC budget to city council with a funding shortfall of at least $61 million.

In July Bob Kinnear, president of the union representing TTC workers, blamed wide-spread fare evasion on poor implantation of the province’s Presto card system and city council’s March 2015 decision to allow children 12 and under to ride free, allowing slightly older kids to evade payment.