CityNews Rewind: Why The TTC Has Started To Install Cameras On Buses

The T.T.C. has begun to install its long promised security cameras in buses throughout the city. At the start, 100 of the all-seeing eyes will be put in. But the end of next year, the lenses will be looking at you from every bus and streetcar.

The goal – to capture everything and anything that goes on in the vehicles as a means to deter crime.

But what prompted this expensive move?

T.T.C. drivers have increasingly complained about being assaulted by irate passengers, just one of the many reasons for the wildcat walkout that left over a million people stranded May 29th.

Drivers report being spit on, hit, and even scratched in disputes over fares.

Jowell Lowe is a perfect example of that. He was viciously attacked two years ago by some people travelling with a grudge.

“He grabbed my right leg, twisted it, turned the toe to the heel, pulled me down the stairs and I landed on my back,” he remembers. “I was trying to get up and I took a couple good kicks and punches from both gentlemen. The passengers on the bus came down to ask what was happening. The gentleman put his hand on under his coat like he had a gun and they all turned and ran.”

Two years later, Lowe still needs to go for therapy three times a week to deal with the torn ligaments in his knee and a rash of other chronic injuries.

And it all started with a stupid disagreement over a transfer.

 “It was a 10am transfer that he came northbound with,” he recalls. “He was trying to use to go southbound at 3pm. I told him the transfer was no good. Eventually he said he didn’t have a fare and he started arguing.”

That prompted the union to insist they’d no longer argue about fares.

And while workers being assaulted is a serious issue, nothing quite compares to the incident that sparked the call for the cameras in the first place.

It was a shock to the city and it came during the evening rush hour on November 28, 2004.

That was the day a group of teens misbehaving on a bus at Jane and Wilson were called out by a 24-year-old passenger. One of the suspects pulled a gun and began shooting, as the 40 or so people on board ducked the flying projectiles in horror.

When it was over, the hero passenger lay badly wounded and 11-year-old Tamara Carter was also hit. She lost some of the sight in her left eye and the bullet narrowly missed her brain.

“All I heard was a gunshot,” she told CityNews months later. “And then I ran off the bus and my face was full of blood.”

Her mother was devastated that her little girl got on board a public bus and emerged as a shattered child. “If she did turn a little bit, shift her head a little bit, she could have died,” Sandra Hill cried just days after the incident.

The little girl was afraid to use the T.T.C. after that, paralyzed by the fear it could happen again.

“She’s scared to ride the bus again,” Hill conceded. “I have to give her confidence and tell her you have to have hopes and it’s not going to happen again.”

Both hope the cameras will help to ensure that outcome sticks.