Image via video screenshot
By Michael Laxer
In a grotesque, wildly disproportionate move that is so indicative and symbolic of life in the neo-liberal, iron fist austerity city that is Toronto, the city's transit authority, the TTC, has decided to deploy plainclothes fare inspectors to intimidate and harass its riders.
Seriously.
The great minds running the city's transit system think it is a worthwhile idea to do this like "evading" or forgetting to tap for a measly $3.35, $2.40 (youth) or $2.30 (seniors) is akin to a Miami Vice cocaine bust or something.
This comes as Toronto is in an ongoing, unrelenting cost-of-living crisis driven by outrageously unaffordable housing costs and rents, a situation that has not gotten any better since the election of a "social democratic" mayor, Olivia Chow, in 2023.
In fact, the idea of plainclothes thugs spying on transit riders was first floated and tried in 2018 under her reactionary predecessor John Tory. Another sign of how little changes when overt right-wingers are replaced by quisling liberals and "progressives".
The move is guaranteed to result in the targeting of kids, people living in poverty and people from racialized and marginalized communities because that is the way initiatives like this always play out, especially given the overall demographic composition of transit users. Truly a vile approach that will cause fear and stress and will drive people away from public transit, which is perhaps the, at least subconscious, goal. The fines for "fare evasion" are already ludicrously high topping out at $425, far higher than the vast majority of fines that car drivers face for not paying for or for illegally parking.
Added to this is the question of how riders are supposed to know if the random person on the bus or streetcar asking to see their ID or debit/fare card is legitimate or not. As the advocacy group TTC Riders asks "Does the TTC really expect transit riders to hand over their credit and debit cards to strangers claiming to be fare inspectors?".
I certainly wouldn't, and neither should anyone else.
How about how uneasy and even scared many women and girls might feel if approached by male plainclothes alleged "officers"?
One can only hope that there is enough backlash from transit riders and residents to pressure the "progressive" mayor and her allies on council to force the TTC to walk this back. Before the inevitable conflicts that will likely end in violence from these fare "police" or the intervention of the real ones.
It is the perfect example of how the city's bureaucrats and politicians unthinkingly engage in their daily war on transit riders and people living in poverty instead of working to make transit truly affordable, easily accessible and welcoming for all.
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