ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

This is way too cynical, and implicitly suggests that we could have a society with no police.

Spoiler alert: you cannot have a modern urban society without police. What you can have is a society with police that are more accountable and whose activities promote a better society for everybody.

For example, we’re always talking about how bad drivers are. Now obviously we could have better attitudes so that drivers in general are better, but there will always be somebody who thinks it’s A-OK to get somewhere faster by driving crazily through downtown. There needs to be a group of people whose job it is to deal with those people. Whatever you call that group of people, what they are is the police.

I have watched more videos than I should have of police interactions. They vary, and in some of them I definitely have criticisms of the police response, but in others, they show tremendous patience with extremely poor behaviour from those with whom they are interacting. In the videos I am thinking of, they are clearly putting in a lot of effort to behave in an appropriate manner. To paint all of the police as enemies is inaccurate, and perhaps more importantly, unhelpful. I find myself asking: what should the police do to regain trust? The way some people talk, I can’t imagine what they could do that would even begin to make those people happy. So what incentive do they have even to try?

[KevinL]

The police as currently conceived and operating perform a number of functions vital to society. Whether that organization is best suited to many or even all of those is facing more debate now than I can ever recall; I think in many cases they are indeed ill-suited.

As well, the type of person the institution attracts and the way they are trained is becoming increasingly incompatible with what we want to see them do, and I feel some form of renewal there would be of great benefit.

[neonjoe]

I think in the case of the TTC it was Cst Power Trip protecting the rights of motorists from the scourge of public transit. Are trams even covered by the HTA?

[dtkvictim]

I think in the case of the TTC it was Cst Power Trip protecting the rights of motorists from the scourge of public transit. Are trams even covered by the HTA?

Protecting the rights of motorists to block the intersection instead.

[bravado]

I think in the case of the TTC it was Cst Power Trip protecting the rights of motorists from the scourge of public transit. Are trams even covered by the HTA?

To steal a good one from twitter:

"Another banner day for the Occupying Army of Suburbia"

[danbrotherston]

I think in the case of the TTC it was Cst Power Trip protecting the rights of motorists from the scourge of public transit. Are trams even covered by the HTA?

To steal a good one from twitter:

"Another banner day for the Occupying Army of Suburbia"

That is a very apt comment.

IIRC from my last read of the HTA, trams are mentioned in the HTA, but they explicitly do not qualify as a motor vehicle, so probably have some rules, but distinct rules.

The law doesn't actually really matter, the cop was on a power trip...

Blocking an intersection is something cops routinely instruct drivers to do, it wasn't about the law, it was about this cop being angry at a public transit operator, and using his badge as a tool to express his anger.

And like, I know nothing about the situation or this individual, but given what I do know about Toronto traffic and TPS I'm pretty happy to assume that is true with a high confidence.

[danbrotherston]

This is way too cynical, and implicitly suggests that we could have a society with no police.

Spoiler alert: you cannot have a modern urban society without police. What you can have is a society with police that are more accountable and whose activities promote a better society for everybody.

For example, we’re always talking about how bad drivers are. Now obviously we could have better attitudes so that drivers in general are better, but there will always be somebody who thinks it’s A-OK to get somewhere faster by driving crazily through downtown. There needs to be a group of people whose job it is to deal with those people. Whatever you call that group of people, what they are is the police.

I have watched more videos than I should have of police interactions. They vary, and in some of them I definitely have criticisms of the police response, but in others, they show tremendous patience with extremely poor behaviour from those with whom they are interacting. In the videos I am thinking of, they are clearly putting in a lot of effort to behave in an appropriate manner. To paint all of the police as enemies is inaccurate, and perhaps more importantly, unhelpful. I find myself asking: what should the police do to regain trust? The way some people talk, I can’t imagine what they could do that would even begin to make those people happy. So what incentive do they have even to try?

There are three or four distinct activities the police do in in modern society.

1. Investigating crimes
2. Maintaining order (In crowds or by mediating disputes between individuals)
3. First response to injury/mental health problems
4. Traffic enforcement (maybe).

Combining these four is a very bad idea. People also have a wildly inaccurate idea of the actual activities involved in those items, and how often police do them.

For example, police spend most of their time doing 3, for which they are most ill suited for. People also believe that 1 involves lots of CSI shit, and occasionally it does, for the handful of murders each year. But when their stereo is stolen, they pretty much just do paperwork, it's more of a statistical job.

2 is the thing that police do second most often and something they are also unsuited for.

People also believe that police prevent crime, which is quite clearly not one of the four tasks on the list.

I never said all police are enemies, but policing as a whole is harmful in its current form. It harms our freedom, because police are poorly trained in law and often infringe on our rights. It harms individuals because some cops are poorly trained or poorly emotionally suited to de-escalating and thus often fail at 2. And it harms society in general because they use the excuse of the danger involved with 2 and to justify siphoning off most of the available tax dollars in society for their own use.

Breaking these items into different roles in society would lead to a far far better division of powers and of training. But that would require bold and significant changes to our society which police strongly oppose (and they wield significant power to do so).

As for regaining the trust of society, it is absolutely mandatory that police do so. The ONLY practical difference between the police and a criminal gang of thugs, is that one is trusted by society at large. If police lose this trust, that's what they become. So they should want to gain that trust, because if they don't, it changes the nature of what they are pretty significantly.

But, it is also possible to do so. Yes, some people are extreme and will never trust police, but most people are on the margins, they can go either way, and every time they hear about a corrupt officer getting protected by the police, every time they see a "blue line" flag. Every time the police act as though the public is the enemy a few people are pushed over that margin into the other side. The same people (or different people anyway) will be pushed back if those situations play out differently, if the department removes corrupt cops, if the department prevents officers from wearing a flag which implies a line between the public and police. Etc.

[dtkvictim]

This discussion probably aught to be moved to the WRPS thread.

I never said all police are enemies, but policing as a whole is harmful in its current form. It harms our freedom, because police are poorly trained in law and often infringe on our rights. It harms individuals because some cops are poorly trained or poorly emotionally suited to de-escalating and thus often fail at 2. And it harms society in general because they use the excuse of the danger involved with 2 and to justify siphoning off most of the available tax dollars in society for their own use.

Ignoring the rest of the post, I think you may want to clarify here: When you say policing is harmful in its current form, do you mean to say you believe it's a net negative? As in, if the police vanished tomorrow society would be better off for it? That the manner and degree that they infringe on our freedoms is worse than the effect that bad actors have on our freedom? That the public financial burden of police is worse than the economic impact and personal financial burden of not having police?

Or do you believe that it's a net positive, but that the underlying pluses and minuses don't add up as ideally as you would like? Possibly trending towards net negative, but not there yet?

I think those are two very different positions to hold, and probably drastically changes how or if someone wants to respond.

[danbrotherston]

This discussion probably aught to be moved to the WRPS thread.

I never said all police are enemies, but policing as a whole is harmful in its current form. It harms our freedom, because police are poorly trained in law and often infringe on our rights. It harms individuals because some cops are poorly trained or poorly emotionally suited to de-escalating and thus often fail at 2. And it harms society in general because they use the excuse of the danger involved with 2 and to justify siphoning off most of the available tax dollars in society for their own use.

Ignoring the rest of the post, I think you may want to clarify here: When you say policing is harmful in its current form, do you mean to say you believe it's a net negative? As in, if the police vanished tomorrow society would be better off for it? That the manner and degree that they infringe on our freedoms is worse than the effect that bad actors have on our freedom? That the public financial burden of police is worse than the economic impact and personal financial burden of not having police?

Or do you believe that it's a net positive, but that the underlying pluses and minuses don't add up as ideally as you would like? Possibly trending towards net negative, but not there yet?

I think those are two very different positions to hold, and probably drastically changes how or if someone wants to respond.

I don't think the "net value" makes sense in the context you are discussing. If tomorrow all police forces in Canada were disbanded with no replacement that would obviously be worse than the current situation. But that doesn't mean that the police are a net positive. It simply means that the disruption caused by such a sudden and significant change to society would be substantial. Even leaving aside the question of policing that would leave hundreds of thousands of people suddenly unemployed which alone would be a huge social problem.

The other problem with "net positive" is that it implies a world where police don't exist. But that isn't the alternative to policing. If police didn't exist, what would exist instead. Even fiscally, what would we do with that ~100 million dollars a year. Surely we are not simply burning it. What are we funding with it instead? Is it returned to the taxpayer, does it fund alternative agencies which do more good. This is why the "net negative" question is almost impossible to answer in our complex world. I can construct a fantasy universe where that money is spent on academic pursuits and unlimited power and matter conversion is invented and now we live in a post scarcity world...obviously in that fantasy world, police are a net negative. But it's just a fantasy, but it's no more fantastical than a world where we take ~100 million dollars per year of tax money and put it in a big furnace and burn it without doing anything with it. So obviously that money must do something else.

But lets ignore all that, and consider hypothetical worlds that are at least reasonably logical and not fantastical:

1. Our world.

2. An ideal world with police funding largely transferred to non-police agencies handling mental health and road enforcement; and with the remaining (much smaller) policing budget split between frontline officers handling crowd control and dispute de-escalation, and investigative/office staff taking crime reports.

3. A world that eliminates one or both of the remaining police duties (crowd control officers, and investigative staff) and returns that money to taxpayers (but remember, this is far far less than the amount currently spent, because we are still funding non-policing agencies from 2).

I think 2 would clearly be better than today.

It's also possible that variations of 3 could still be better than today, but that to me is less clear--but not impossible.

That being said while all 3 options are consistent and non-fantastical hypothetical universes, I really only find 2 plausible at all...I don't believe 3 would ever exist, nor do I actually think anyone is asking for it, so I think asking about is is kind of moot anyway.

[kps]

IIRC from my last read of the HTA, trams are mentioned in the HTA, but they explicitly do not qualify as a motor vehicle, so probably have some rules, but distinct rules.

It's all online.

In general, “‘motor vehicle’ […] does not include a street car”, but many sections refer to “motor vehicle or street car” or “motor vehicle, street car, road-building machine, self-propelled implement of husbandry or farm tractor” (covering most of the other powered default exclusions).

In this case, it's up to the city:

145 (1) The council of a municipality may by by-law prohibit a driver or street car operator approaching, at an intersection, a traffic control signal showing a circular green or green arrow indication from entering the intersection unless traffic in front of him or her is moving in a manner that would reasonably lead him or her to believe he or she can clear the intersection before the signal indication changes to a circular red indication.  R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 145 (1).

[Bob_McBob]

Riders question LRT reliability after freezing rain disrupts service – again

[danbrotherston]

This is getting ridiculous!

But this is also getting more common. When I was a kid freezing rain was something that happened every couple of years...now it's something that happens many times a year. And this was the exact finding of the study the city commissioned on the effects of climate change on the region. The fact the train cannot deal with freezing rain is existential. At some point we are going to be choosing between keeping ineffectual bureaucrats and incompetent contractors or having a train service. When freezing rain is a weekly occurrence, if the train cannot operate during it, then there is no train.

[nms]

The Ion has now been in operation for over 1000 revenue days; it has been sidelined for parts of "at least" three days according to that CTV report. Overall, a pretty good operating track record. That being said, we know that the LRVs can be fitted with ice scrapers when bad weather is expected. What I don't know is, in cases where the ice isn't present, does the scraper add any kind of wear to the catenary itself? How do tram lines in places like Finland manage? Or is the case there that weather is generally drier (eg mainly snow and not freezing rain) and therefore a different operating condition?

If freezing rain, as opposed to snow, is the problem, then someone may have to dig into the operating agreement to figure out who pays for increased operating costs due to climate change. My bet is that it would be the Region that pays.

In October and November, many motorists put on snow tires for winter driving and leave them on until March. If we only put them on ahead of each storm, it would slow us down too. But, the winter tires would be in much better shape because they were only used for a handful of days.

[tomh009]

Freezing rain is plenty common in Finland. And yet they manage trams (Helsinki), LRT (Tampere) and nationwide electric train service.

I would really like to see an answer from the region to the scraper question.

[Bytor]

The Ion has now been in operation for over 1000 revenue days; it has been sidelined for parts of "at least" three days according to that CTV report. Overall, a pretty good operating track record.

More than that. It was three days this past (2022/23) winter alone. There has been at least a half day of lost service every winter since service started.

That being said, we know that the LRVs can be fitted with ice scrapers when bad weather is expected.  What I don't know is, in cases where the ice isn't present, does the scraper add any kind of wear to the catenary itself? How do tram lines in places like Finland manage?  Or is the case there that weather is generally drier (eg mainly snow and not freezing rain) and therefore a different operating condition?

The problem is definitely freezing rain and not snow. he problem is that the ice buildup on the catenary wires can only get a millimetre or so thick before the regular pantograph shoes. The special scraper shoes can handle much more but they add extra wear on the catenary wires. Snow just rests on op of the catenary wire and does not block contact by the shoe.

In Finland and elsewhere when deicing solution is not enough ot not practical, they just put the special shoes on when the freezing rain is coming and leave them on until it is no longer in the forecast and just budget appropriately for a faster catenary wire replacement schedule.

If freezing rain, as opposed to snow, is the problem, then someone may have to dig into the operating agreement to figure out who pays for increased operating costs due to climate change. My bet is that it would be the Region that pays.

The contract requires the trams to keep running up to an hourly accumulation rate of 12.7mm per hour or 25.4mm over every 2 hours. That an inch thick that GrandLinq/Keolis is required to have a solution that works, whether de-icing fluid or scraper shoes.

So climate change, per se, is not really in the picture as a worry, as nothing is said about the frequency of freezing rain events, just the accumulation rates of the ice during them.

In October and November, many motorists put on snow tires for winter driving and leave them on until March.  If we only put them on ahead of each storm, it would slow us down too.  But, the winter tires would be in much better shape because they were only used for a handful of days.

There's no reason whey they can't look at the weather reports and put the scraper shoes on at 4am before that trams go out for the day's service.