This is it. Proof the Metro Vancouver Mayors' council is completely out of touch with reality and should be disbanded. Delta Mayor Lois Jackson wants to save “millions” of dollars by studying options to replace Transit Police with bus route and station security guards, backed up by existing local police.
Let’s recap. We just finally got armed Transit Police on Skytrain. We did that for a reason. Creating that system then disbanding it makes about as much sense as spending money on widening the Port Mann Bridge only to spend more money on tearing it down after they scrapped the idea of twining it in favour of, you guessed it, another plan that cost way more money.
The last brain storm these power hungry gluttons came up with to justify their existence was to implement a regional sales tax. Above and beyond the billion dollar gas tax already in place. I quoted an old article in the Vancouver Sun where an MLA called for the dismantling of the GRVD because it was a waste of tax payers money. 26 years later and nothing has changed.
Less government is always better. Duplication costs more money. Skytrain sucks. No offense. There are no express trains running from the suburbs to the City. One track, stop and go. That’s the system in place. Changing that now would cost too much money. Turnstiles that function are urgent. Giving free rides is bad business. Bus drivers giving 2.5 million free rides a year is insane.
There is no reason Transit can’t make money. Giving free rides by running a business on the honour system is bad business. No private company would dream of such nonsense. If you want sky train to deal with it’s debt and start making money, then stop building so many lines to Timbuktu and stop giving free rides.
When you build a new line, that costs money. It takes time to repay that expenditure. Instead of taking the time to repay those expenditures, they keep building new lines to nowhere. That creates a perpetual debt that is already being off set with a huge gas tax. Clearly the mayors’ council is the problem. They all want more for their area. Stop spending money and stop wasting money on extravagant duplication.
But the point is legitimate; is a force trained to full VPD standard, carrying sidearms ( that's the expensive part) needed to 99% of the time checking tickets? They are vastly over-trained, inevitably unionized, gang, grabbing huge salaries for little real "beat" work, I don't support their bloated salaries & budget.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of Transit police isn't to check tickets, it's to ensure public safety. One of the problems is that they aren't checking tickets and everybody is ripping off the system by riding for free. It's like having unarmed border agents. Not very wise.
ReplyDeleteOK: I see your point and I over-looked public safety. That is so important, as I've seen the effects of drugs on many riders. I've been real scared by meth-users on board.
ReplyDeleteFreddy has a valid point here, these are sworn LE trained to full standard when in fact their mandate is a limited one. It would be quite possible to have these guys making a lot less than they are, with their functions being limited to checking tickets and making arrests on transit property, similar to transit authority police elsewhere in North America. More training and equipment than Skytrain Security but less than VPD.
ReplyDelete$70K@yr (or whatever it is, in that ballpark IIRC) is a lot of money for a limited policing function. $45K would be more than sufficient I think. Just make sure the budget is adjusted occasionally so the extra isn't stolen by greedy pols......
Cost is a concern. Surely they would have thought about that before they just implemented the new system. There's no reason they can't have regular security on the Skytrain and accentuate that with armed transit police. If we have bus drivers who are too scared to collect fares from 2.5 million riders a year, perhaps some security guards making not much more than minimum wage are too. Knowing you have the back up of an armed transit cop one train stop away helps public safety. It's like all these gun seizures tied to all the drug dealing going on. Disarming our police while dealing with that puts lives at risk. Just like it did having unarmed border guards deal with it. Speaking of cutting costs, getting rid ofm the Metro Vancouver Mayors' Council would be a great place to start. That's one MC we can do without.
ReplyDeleteMayor's Council = MC, nice one LOL....
ReplyDeleteNo need to have security guards AND Transit cops. Just transit cops. Armed ones. And no need to pay $70K @ year per officer, because they are basically armed security officers, checking tickets and making arrests on transit property. For all the heavy lifting, you use VPD or RCMP. Needless redundancy costs money.
Statistics and other damned lies;
ReplyDelete"Did B.C. Transit Police Sweeten Their Stats?"
"The VPD review reports Transit Police investigated 592 violent crimes in 2010. The new report says 615 -- an addition of four per cent."
"The VPD review claims Transit Police dealt with 1,065 property crimes in 2010. The new report says 1,229 -- an addition of 15 per cent."
"And the VPD review says Transit Police dealt with 296 police obstruction issues in 2010. The new report says 359 -- an addition of 21 per cent."
"This statistical sweetening continues throughout several categories: 12 per cent more disturbances, 15 per cent more weapons possessions, 15 per cent more drug cases, 44 per cent more emergency health or fire assists and 29 per cent more disturbed persons."
This is just staggering;
"A few statistics - the ones the force doesn't like to talk about -- stayed the same. The average transit police officer made $97,980 in 2011, and still only worked about ten serious and property crimes that entire year. Two-thirds of their files are still tickets for fare evasions -- which more economical Transit Security officers can now write -- and another 6.5 per cent are for assisting other police forces."
http://tinyurl.com/a48rhs9 (HuffPo)
Incredible! These Fare-writers are getting ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND $ p/a!
How can this possibly be justified (and they want more and more cash in future pay-outs.) in a province where the average worker has seen his/her wages totally flat since 1980...?
What’s even more ridiculous is while the Mayor’s criminal council claims poverty and wants to fire all the Transit cops, they now say they want to build a new line to Langley. The Mayors council needs to be disbanded. Langley doesn’t need a stop and go skytrain with no express trains. That would take forever. Going downtown on skytrain is painful enough. Subways are for urban not rural areas. Going into debt spending absurd amounts of money on skytrains to nowhere is not fiscally responsible. They need to pay for the lines they have already built and start making a profit by installing proper turnstiles not by overburdening the public with more ridiculous taxes. Tax and spend is what they keep saying the NDP does but they are doing a worse job than the NDP ever did.
ReplyDelete