#topd

Guest Feature: THE ABSOLUTE STATE OF THE TTC

Thursday July 16th 2020

Joshua Cavello has tired eyes, over his morning coffee. The sun is still creeping up from the horizon, red bleeding across the sky: bathing the downtown streets in a gentle, rosy glow. Cars are already congesting the roads, TTC buses rumbling down their silver grids. It’s been a long night. He mouths the edge of his silver fountain pen, as he considers how to answer the posed question: ‘what is the Toronto Police Precinct doing to protect citizens after the rash of TTC related incidents?’ On the table in front of us is a thick folder of printed out articles detailing the particulars of an onslaught of destruction of public property, aggravated assault, and armed robbery cases emerging from our public transportation system recently. He flicks through them with a calloused thumb. 

“We’ve increased our constable presence on the shuttle buses and street cars themselves,” he says. “As well as assigned officers to bus stops and the stretches of streets in between them.” The fountain pen swirls over his Rhodia pad, leaving glittering trails of blue-green ink over its surface, the glitter dispersing unevenly and shimmering. It’s a nervous tic, an anxious gesture- as he taps his other hand on the leg of his pants, a drumming beat that’s slightly off key.

“Special constables haven’t done anything to mitigate the financial hemorrhaging the TTC is experiencing due to unpaid fares,” I point out. “What makes you think that they’ll be more effective in keeping our city safe?” He closes his eyes for a moment, eyelashes casting delicate shadows over his cheekbones. He looks impossibly frail in the rising light, cheeks hollowed out and the sharp edge of his jaw rasped over with the beginnings of five o’ clock shadowing. 

“The transfer to an electronic system has been difficult. The entry fee- 6$ for a Presto card, has admittedly, posed some issues. Still, I’d hope that our citizens would understand the importance of contributing to the local services that are provided to our city through funding from tax-payers. We all benefit when we all pitch in,” he says. The words sound hollow, trite. He doesn’t address the question, not really. This is typical for representatives from the police force: skirting around issues that they can hand off to legislators and budget balancers, blank faced accountants in suits and pencil skirts. From the tone of his voice, it’s clear that he doesn’t want to continue this conversation.