Curfew: Transit won’t be reduced
The STM will not be reducing its services because of the curfew. I can already hear kvetching from Ensemble, but this is the right decision: anyone who’s out is working, and working people have to get to and from work.
Bill Binns 11:40 on 2021-01-09 Permalink
Agreed. Turning public transit on and off to control behavior would be a huge mistake. People don’t forget that stuff.
I would be in favor of credentialing essential workers and allowing cops to stop anybody after curfew to check for those credentials. The problem is that there are so many gigantic loopholes in this so called curfew that the credentialing would be almost as much work as the vaccine roll-out.
Uatu 11:53 on 2021-01-09 Permalink
I’m glad I’m not working evenings anymore. Every night heading home on the metro would probably be like a WW2 movie where I have to show my papers to the polizei
Kate 12:00 on 2021-01-09 Permalink
Bill Binns, you can download and print out a document from this page which your employer fills out, and which you carry to prove that you’re outside because of work.
Bill Binns 12:20 on 2021-01-09 Permalink
@kate I read that too. Not much of a credential though. More like the honor system. Are cops going to be making calls from the side of the road to confirm you work for a hospital or an essential florist? I haven’t seen anything saying people are even required to carry ID to match their home made essential worker form.
I think the cops have been set up to fail by the province on this. The rules are ridiculously broad and open to interpretation. They are the ones who will be publicly crucified if it turns out that one demographic received 8% more fines than another.
Kate 12:29 on 2021-01-09 Permalink
Bill Binns, I think we can assume that the people the cops will be dealing with most are not the kind who will think ahead about downloading a Word file, faking up a business name and so on. Yes, cops will have a lot of leeway on this, but they already do on many things.
Ephraim 13:15 on 2021-01-09 Permalink
How many people are we talking taking mass transit after curfew? Could it be cheaper to subsidize taxis and let the institutions print out special forms for those out after 9PM?
Kate 14:37 on 2021-01-09 Permalink
Ephraim, I don’t think anyone knows the answer to your first question yet. If after a month the Covid numbers are still bad and the curfew continues, I would hope the STM can assess whether there are any routes that are virtually unused after 8 pm, and maybe trim them back. They must already know where routes stay busy because of round-the-clock industrial installations.