21 Replies to “Riding Mass Transit Is Like Inviting 20 Random Hitchhikers Into Your Car”

  1. If you live in a public housing complex, you have a higher risk of being a victim of crime, likewise, I suspect, for using public transport.
    So, is there something wrong with this picture?
    If we had a “free press”, this would be a public scandal.
    Dress appropriately for the Toronto subway, a ballistic/stab proof vest, stab proof kevlar gloves like the police wear and a hard hat and neck protection.
    To this I’d add a Shillelagh stick in honour of St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. He drove the snakes out of Ireland with one 🙂

  2. If the assailant ever gets taken to court, he will invoke the Attila the Stock Broker, defence, “He wanted me to beat him up….”
    Notice everything the bureaucrats bring under their collective control, works so well as its function fades into history.
    Public transport, whats that?
    We have the finest schedules, never mind that no people want to go where we are taking the buses. Or wait for 2 hours to be late for work.
    New market opportunity for Torontotians, body armour for your daily commute, like the home security business, paranoia is booming.

  4. There are reasons I don’t ride the TTC subway during rush hour (over-crowding) or buses (uncomfortable) but safety isn’t an issue given there were over 500,000,000 rides last year on the TTC. The timing is ironic as Brenden Holubowich was just sentenced to three years in jail four killing four teenagers while driving drunk.

  5. I heard about this on the radio this morning, on CFRB AM 1010. It was referred to repeatedly as unprovoked. Only later did I hear that reportedly other passengers said that the victim had asked the attacker to quiet down and leave passengers alone. That seems to have provoked the attack. While the attack was in no way justified, it seems likely that it was a predictable consequence of the victim’s imprudent intervention. That is, assuming that the hoodie-wearing man shown in the news article was approaching people in the subway car, and that he was being sufficiently loud and aggressive to prompt the victim to ask him to be quiet and leave people alone, the victim was asking to be hurt.
    At the risk of crossing a line: I think it is dangerous for a non-black person to confront a seemingly aggressive young black person, male or female, who is acting out in public. There is a real risk that they will respond violently. I have read of other cases where seemingly well-meaning people intervened and were beat up. For example, for saying something to a mother who is being rough with an unruly child in a public place.
    Why were the news stories framed simply in terms of an incongruous unprovoked attack? OK, possibly they did not have the additional information, or doubted its validity. But I wonder whether there is something about the narrative – “aggressive, threatening young black man stabs peacemaker” – that newsrooms prefer to stay away from.

  7. Just think, it is the stated goal of environmentalists to force more people to use public transit ‘for Gaia’s sake’ (do you capitalize the name of a false god?) by introducing congestion taxes, higher taxes on gasoline and toll roads.
    I’ll stick with my car, thank you kindly.

  8. Cyclist….read the cop report.He was not drunk.He had zero alcohol in his blood.He was a fool for going over a 150 kmhs/hour,and not stopping at the scene.Do not fall for MADD’s crap.They are a whore instutition,same as a “social” worker or a politician.Or cops,come to think of it.

  10. Thanks for that link,marc. They DO look alike!
    More interesting at said link, “Trayvon Martin after one year”!
    Trayvon IS,unfortunately still dead despite his deification by the media, and anticipated resurrection,and there’s a cute pic of him in a cap ‘n gown from elementary school or kindergarten. Awwwww.
    I wonder if the Toronto subway attacker was as cute when he was six,and if HE could be President Obama’s son. These things puzzle me.

  11. Re the TTC, aka, Take The Car: I was on the Yonge line yesterday, just earlier, thank Heaven.
    Every time I use the TTC, I hear a message on the PA system about delays on some line or the other because of … whatever … which ends with “we apologize for the inconvenience.”
    Inconveniences are so frequent the TTC should just run the “we apologize for the inconvenience” in a loop. At some point through the day, just like a dud clock is correct twice a day, the message will be appropriate.
    Toronto’s TTC is pathetic. They advertise security personnel but I’ve never once seen one. Unlike the New York subway that has cops at pretty much every station — my husband and I saw an arrest in the subway when we were there last summer — you never see police or security personnel on the platforms or in the trains.
    As I said, absolutely pathetic. I don’t feel safe on the TTC or on Toronto streets as TTC “security” (sic) and Toronto’s Finest (sic) seem to be AWOL.
    Oh, and BTW, since this criminal broke his parole, I say lock him up for good and, if he’s not a Canadian citizen, deport him immediately — that is, if Toronto’s Finest can find and arrest him
    Jeesh.

  13. And unless Firefox is misfiring for me, it looks like the Post has nixed the comments section that had been running very politically-incorrectly from what I read when Kate first posted this story.

  16. I don’t get this whole recent campaign against public transportation. What’s the point? Is it a gun control thing? Or just a “the world is going to crap” thing?

  17. It’s just another manifestation of life in a city. The conservative middle class will eventually leave, and the top and bottom of the socialist utopia can prey on each other. Cities are an evolutionary dead end. But they’ll be useful when the plagues come to reduce the population back to what the planet can sustainably support. Plan ahead, find some place to live where you can feed yourself.

  18. Andrew: “I don’t get this whole recent campaign against public transportation.”
    I don’t have anything against public transportation. It seems to work pretty well in most big cities.
    My beef’s with the TTC. Have you ever used the TTC, Andrew? Perhaps you could enlighten us as to what’s so great about it. It’s in shambles, it’s a mess, it’s pathetic, it’s a disgrace for a city the size of Toronto.
    For eight years, Moron Miller poured Torontonians’ tax dollars into union salaries and benefits — some TTC ticket takers make over $100,000/year — and let the infrastructure of this city rot. He lives in a tony area of the city and, most likely, had a driver. After he left politics, he taught at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University as Future of Cities Global Fellow and gave courses on finding technological solutions to urban problems. Oh, the irony! At the law firm of Aird & Berlis in Toronto he specializes in international business and sustainability.
    Seeing as he trashed the sustainability of Toronto and consummately failed to come up with technological solutions to urban problems in Toronto, I wonder what his courses consisted of: cut and pastes of others’ solutions? I’ve always felt that Miller was in way over his head and was an imposter; he’s gone a long way on his blue eyes, golden locks, and private-school connections.

  19. Yeah well I hear all sortsa similar stuff about Calgary and Hongcouver’s mass transit.
    I figure it’s just a symptom of a greater problem….importing a US mindset into a small demographic.

  20. It should be said that I despise using public transportation, and I’d be quite content with never using it again. But though I’m undecided about its worth as an investment of tax payer dollars, I think its extremely silly to report all these scattered rare murders when, in the time between them, hundreds or thousands die in traffic accidents.

  21. @Andrew
    But dying in a car crash = freedom! Public transit is ENSLAVEMENT and is worse than COMMUNISM. Because of REASONS.

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