ttccomplaints.com

Adam Giambrone might be interested to know that, astoundingly, 10 TTC operators have been punched, spit on or violently threatened during the past 24 hours.

“Every day a TTC driver is assaulted.”

— TTC Commissioner

Adam Giambrone, Nov. 7, 2008

It’s an utter disgrace. It’s virtually open season on TTC workers right now.

In fact the atmosphere in some sections of the TTC, in the wake of the recent cellphone journalism, is one of angst, mistrust and poison.

Most of the haranguing seems to be over fare disputes.

“There is an undeclared war between some riders and some staff,” a TTC management insider said. “There is wrong on both sides and it has to stop before somebody gets really hurt.”

People already are getting hurt. One woman was before the courts at College Park Thursday charged with assaulting veteran bus driver James Lockhart along Rogers Rd. after, a police source says, the driver was “allegedly being punched from behind and his hair being pulled.”

Charged with assault by fast responding 13 Division officers is Bonnie Clayton.

There was also a 17-year-old in court charged with assault by TTC special constables “for spitting in the face of an operator.” A source alleges “to add insult to injury, the last thing he heard was ‘I am going to get my friends to come back and do to you what was done to Jaime Pereira.’ ”

Recall “what was done” to bus driver Pereira? He was blinded by a gunshot in 2005. Pretty disgusting remark over 25¢.

“Normally we have about 50 employees a month assaulted or criminally threatened,” a TTC insider said. “If this keeps up at this pace, the number will reach about 300 a month.”

Is this OK with everybody? I mean these people are your neighbours. They are not the Taliban. Are we really that mad at real people doing human things — like falling asleep, going to the ATM, going to the bathroom or ordering a coffee?

There’s no question in some cases there should be some slaps on the wrists and kicks in the rear, but that is all. It has to be kept in perspective. It seems to me that some are piling on TTC staff and because of political agendas and cellphone-camera vigilante-style justice it feels like a runaway train — we have no clear idea where it’s going to crash, but we know that it will crash.

It’s scary, actually. It feels out of control.

“Enough is enough,” Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 President Bob Kinnear said Thursday night. “We definitely have to communicate with the public to improve things, but in some cases we feel our members are being made scapegoats as a result of inadequate management.”

He feels the fare hike and confusion over tokens is the reason for the heightened bad mood on the TTC. “Imagine if the price of milk goes up in your grocery store and it’s tolerated that people go up and punch the clerk in the mouth,” he said. “That would be unacceptable and so is this.”

On the rising assaults, Kinnear said: “We are monitoring it and calling for calm.”

Kinnear said a number of staffers are expressing a feeling of “anxiety” and are nervous in a “climate of fear” on the front lines.

“Our members feel like they are all being painted with the same brush. There are a lot of insults being thrown at operators and some are telling me they are afraid to go to the bathroom because they don’t want it put up on YouTube.”

TTC Commissioner and Councillor Bill Saundercook rightfully said the mood of acrimony and gotcha justice on the TTC has to come to an end. “It’s getting out of control,” he said.

When you have 10 operators assaulted in one day, it certainly is.