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Edmonton city council has moved away from a proposed $7-million pilot project for LRT fare gates and will instead explore whether a change in spending on security could improve rider safety and payment of fares.
On Wednesday, Ward pihêsiwin Coun. Tim Cartmell, who originally brought the fare gate proposal forward, introduced a motion asking staff to examine the impacts if council were to reallocate the LRT Commissionaire budget towards transit police officers, automated passenger counters or other interventions. Council voted unanimously in favour of the motion.
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Staff is expected to have the report back to council on the various options outlined in the motion in the New Year, but it did caution that the Commissionaire services are significantly less expensive than transit police. Costing 87 per cent more, city staff said although the transit police would be better equipped with more authority to deal with transit safety problems, the cost of paying officers will result in less coverage in fewer locations.
The report will be part of a broader examination city staff is undertaking to better understand the specific safety needs of different stations. Part of the struggle in making those assessments is accurate ridership data, but as older LRT cars are replaced by newer ones in 2028 with automated passenger counters that allow riders to pay on the train, the city will consistently have more accurate ridership data.
The fare gate project was initially brought up by Cartmell, who said at the time that he’d heard from the public that transit fare gates might help with the public’s perception of safety on the city’s LRT.
In September, staff brought a proposal to council to test fare gates at Churchill and Belvedere LRT stations for two years. For 20 gates at Churchill and 10 gates at Belvedere, the cost for the pilot project was estimated to come in at more than $7 million combined for both locations. The goal was to improve rider perception of safety, which would in turn improve ridership and ensure proper payment of fares. After a lengthy discussion in the urban planning committee, the evidence suggested gates would unlikely solve either problem.
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“We don’t necessarily need gates. What we need is for the people that are actually there to keep us safe,” said Cartmell at the September meeting.
On Wednesday, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said the gates weren’t likely to be effective.
“What we know from administration’s recommendation, what we know from experience from other municipalities, as well as what we heard directly from the union and the bus drivers, is that fare gates in our context do not work,” said Mayor Amarjeet Sohi to reporters on Wednesday.
For its part, Commissionaires representative Kevin Roberts said as a contractor, the company couldn’t comment on the city’s decisions.
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