Transit Safety Update (April 2023)
Two weeks ago, we had a presentation from the Edmonton Transit Service Advisory Board on the perception of safety for youth on transit. The results were not surprising in that many youth did not feel safe using transit and that was the case for their parents.
During that meeting, I spoke to some of the concerns that I have with how we are currently communicating with Edmontonians about the work we are doing now and some of the additional actions that will be taken soon.
While I don’t use transit as often as I did during my first year on council, I try to use it at least a few times a month to experience it for myself. Over the last month, I had the chance to use our transit system 5 different times. That included both bus and LRT trips and I used it during peak hours as well as weeknights and on the weekend. Although my trips and the vast majority of the 1.25 million transit trips per week are safe, it’s going to sound odd to say but that doesn’t matter. When people don’t feel safe, we have a serious issue that needs to be addressed.
There has been action over the last year but it doesn’t appear to be delivering on the results that we were all hoping for. It started with a transit safety and security update in February 2022. This report to council included a request for funding to increase staffing resources focused on safety and security. The funding request was approved unanimously and you can learn more about that below:
That report also mentioned we were working on a larger Downtown Core and Transit Safety Plan. As we were nearing the completion of that plan in late May/early June, the provincial government also requested that we produce a plan that details actions that we will be taking. Since that work had already been underway, we were happy to share this information with the provincial government because as you can read in the plan, actions are required from both the City of Edmonton and the provincial government. The following table provides a good overview of the many different actions required to tackle this serious issue:
The provincial government accepted the plan and I would encourage you to read through the entire plan as it shows what had already been implemented at the time of its approval and what was still required by both the municipal and provincial governments. With the exception of the sharing of information, I believe we can safely say that every action identified under City jurisdiction was funded and implemented. But since we aren’t adequately sharing information with Edmontonians, I often see comments suggesting that nothing has been done in the last year or so.
One immediate action I think we need to take as a city is to provide weekly updates to Edmontonians about what actions the City is taking, what actions EPS is taking, and what actions the provincial government is taking to help improve safety and security in our transit system.
There are pros and cons to this approach. One of the cons is that by talking about it that frequently, do we cause people to become more fearful of transit? While that is possible, I think the risk is low. Right now, I get emails, calls, or am tagged on social media posts almost every day with concerns related to transit. The messages are coming from riders, particularly women and parents, and from managers or business owners reaching out on behalf of their staff who use transit. In some cases, it’s about an assault like I saw on the news on Friday, in others it can be people who are clearly in need of support using the transit centre as a shelter space.
If those are the only stories people are hearing and reading about, I think it creates a worse perception of the system than if the City of Edmonton were proactively discussing the actions we are taking and the results they are having.
Beyond what has been actioned in the Downtown Core and Transit Safety Plan linked above, there have been additional actions taken by the city to work on improving transit safety and security. In December 2022, we approved a significant increase in our budget for Transit Peace Officers (TPOs). This funding increase will result in an approximately 30% increase in the number of TPOs and the exclusive focus of these new TPOs will be to work in our transit centres and ride the LRT/buses. The new officers are in the process of being hired and trained and are expected to start working in a few months.
EPS has also stated that they have redeployed resources to the downtown core, Chinatown, and transit centres. One thing that wasn’t made as clear as it needed to be is that EPS does proactively patrol our transit centres. There was a question asked in a press conference where it was incorrectly stated that in order to EPS to patrol transit centres, they need to be asked by TPOs. That is not true and EPS does complete proactive patrols. As noted above, I think along with the City being more clear about the steps we are taking to improve safety, I believe EPS should be part of those weekly updates to make it clear to Edmontonians how things are going and where improvements are needed.
Another change was a further increase to the COTT listed in the first image. If you haven’t heard about the COTT, take a few minutes to visit this link and watch the video about how this team works. In terms of the action taken two weeks ago, we both increased the number of teams from 5 to 7 and we extended the contract for an additional 3 years to August 31st, 2026.
Aside from the three changes above, we also approved the following changes in our 2023-2026 budget:
An additional $7 million for 2023 to the Edmonton Police Service to improve enforcement.
Since 2019, the Government of Alberta reduced the City’s share of automated enforcement revenues from 73.3% to 60% effectively reducing the EPS budget by $7- $8 million annually. In order to deal with this funding shortfall and to permanently reduce EPS dependency of this unpredictable and declining revenue, Edmonton City Council made a significant decision to replace traffic enforcement revenues with a $22.3 million annual property tax levy.
$15.2 million for the Healthy Streets Operations Centre located in Chinatown to improve safety in the Downtown core, Chinatown, and other nearby business districts.
$13.5 million over four years for additional transit enforcement and social services support, including hiring new Transit Peace Officers. (This is related to the TPO point above).
An additional $35 million in capital funds and $18.7 million annually in operating funds for Affordable Housing and Homelessness Prevention. (It’s important to note that housing is not municipal jurisdiction but we still believe it is important to try and help with this).
An additional $6.6 million annually for the Affordable Housing Grant Program that provides municipal property tax relief to affordable housing providers. The Government of Alberta continues to collect its share of property taxes from affordable housing providers.
$10.8 million over four years for 24/7 Crisis Diversion to reduce pressure on EPS resources.
$3.7 million annually for the Public Washroom to improve cleanliness and public health.
$1.2 million annually for the Problem Property Initiative.
While these additional resources will help, I’m not sure it will solve every issue and we need to recognize that there are still some significant actions needed from the provincial side to fully implement the actions identified in the Downtown Core and Transit Safety Plan listed above.
If you weren’t already aware, there is a significant discrepancy between Edmonton and Calgary when it comes to the number of shelter spaces and the funding provided to help those experiencing homelessness. Mayor Sohi put together a chart recently to help show those differences:
As you can see, while we have around the same number of unhoused people, Edmonton has far more people sleeping outdoors and far fewer permanent shelter beds. Seeing how big of a gap exists, it’s not surprising that transit centres can often be used as a space for those seeking shelter.
Beyond addressing the total number of beds, one of the most immediate changes that could be made by the provincial government that should provide a lot of help is to adopt the minimum emergency shelter standards. Since most shelters across Alberta don’t operate 24/7, unhoused people will often leave the overnight shelters early in the morning and will seek refuge in transit centres, parks, beside businesses across the city, and many other locations.
The Government of Alberta’s own Coordinated Community Response to Homelessness Task Force released a report late last year which recommended that they implement the minimum emergency shelter standards. To date, they have not been implemented nor has the funding been provided to the shelter operators across the province to put those recommendations into action. We will continue to engage the provincial government and offer to help them fulfill their own recommendations which would be a huge step forward.
The provincial government has done an excellent job over the last few years with increasing the number of addictions treatment beds. They have surpassed their original target from a few years ago and I thank them for investing in addictions treatment spaces.
Like with shelter spaces, addiction treatment beds are just one tool in the toolkit and we cannot exclusively rely on those to solve our problems. If we could, we wouldn’t still be dealing with the issues that we are facing across all of Alberta. I will continue to support their further investment in this space but since we are dealing with a record number of drug poisoning deaths, we also need to address the gap in short-term harm reduction spaces to ensure that those who are struggling are able to stay alive in order to then access the more permanent solutions.
Finally, there is still a significant gap for 24/7 supportive housing. As I have written about previously, former Premier Kenney did announce funding for the operations of the 24/7 supportive housing units that the City of Edmonton built in partnership with the federal government and housing providers but the units built over the last 4 years is not enough as seen in the graphic above.
Although housing is not municipal jurisdiction, we did approve a significant amount of funding for housing in the 2023-2026 budget but even with the federal funding recently announced, that won’t result in enough units built to help everyone. Considering the size of the provincial surplus and that housing is their jurisdiction, we hope to partner with them to ensure the construction of all the necessary units of 24/7 supportive housing and the operations of those units. As we have seen, 24/7 supportive housing saves lives and it saves the provincial government money. You can learn more about that from this post I wrote.
If those actions can be taken, I believe we will see a significant improvement in transit safety and security as well as improvements in safety in our core and on our main streets like Stony Plain Road. City Council needs to be prepared to approved further funding for TPOs, COTT, and/or EPS but we will make that decision based on the results that we see once the new resources referenced above have been fully activated.
Once those new TPOs start, we need to regularly communicate the results and show Edmontonians what is working and what isn’t working. Then, we need to make adjustments as needed and ideally, work in partnership with the provincial government to help solve these challenges.
At the start of this post I mentioned that while the majority of transit trips are in fact safe, it doesn’t actually matter if that is the case. That’s not normally the position I take on an issue. Facts should matter more. But when it comes to safety, perception is critically important because if someone doesn’t feel comfortable using our transit system or visiting a particular part of the city, trying to fact check someone who has those feelings is not going to make a huge difference with how they feel.
Chief McFee has talked about needing to focus their attention on dealing with the actual bad guys and then getting those struggling with mental health and addictions into treatment and 24/7 supportive housing. There are definitely those two different groups in our transit centres and the bad guys who are causing harm need to be arrested and held accountable for their crimes. While those who are struggling need to have proper access to care and support because a transit centre is not the right place for them to get that care and support.
I believe the actions that have been taken are positive but clearly more needs to happen. If the provincial government is unwilling to fulfill the actions in their own recommendations, we will need to look at spending even more on enforcement. The issue is that enforcement can help with the bad guys but it doesn’t really help with those who are struggling. Those people can be moved from one place to another but that doesn’t address the problem, it just means someone else has to deal with it.
One final note is that on a number of posts, I do see people suggesting that the Mayor and City Council should be using transit regularly. I agree that council should be using transit and fortunately, for the first time in my time on council, that regularly happens.
Our City Manager uses the LRT almost every single day to City Hall. That has never happened before. Our ETS Branch Manager rides the bus almost every day. That has also never happened before.
During my first year on council, I used transit every day at all times of day. Biking is my primary method of transportation now, transit is my second option. While I’ll let my colleagues speak for themselves, this is the first time since serving where a majority of council uses transit regularly (multiple times per week). We’ve never had that before and in fact, beyond former Mayor Iveson who used the LRT most days, it was rare to have councillors use our transit system regularly.
I believe that personal experience along with the feedback from each of you is what helped to inform the changes above and what will continue to inform changes over the coming months. We must stay on top of this and I hope that will include more regular updates to Edmontonians so that you can hear firsthand what is happening and how that is working. I’ll do my best to share what I can with you and please continue to report back to me on how you feel on our transit system.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this post. I know it is a long post but based on the ongoing correspondence, I wanted to take the time to share everything that has been happening in one area that you can easily reference.
