Social disorder in Calgary’s LRT stations has been a growing problem for years. A broken economy coupled with an opioid addiction epidemic has led to an explosion of addicts on the streets. Many homeless addicts have taken to using LRT stations and trains in the city as heated shelters and it has come to a head.. MORGAN: Closing Calgary LRT stations punishes commutersDiscarded used syringe in Westbrook LRT station, Calgary. .Anybody regularly commuting by LRT these last few years has seen it. Addicts have set up camp within stations and openly consume drugs within them. Discarded syringes have become commonplace along with other waste. Many addicts become aggressive and they often confront commuters, aggressively. This reduces the number of people willing to ride on city transit, thus allowing addicts to further fill the void and things just continue to get worse.. MORGAN: Closing Calgary LRT stations punishes commutersMan smoking heroin or meth on a Calgary train .It was almost a year ago when the Western Standard posted a video of a man openly smoking crack on a Calgary train. I can’t link to it because YouTube bans videos depicting drug consumption and the Western Standard was reprimanded for it, despite it clearly being news. Before the video was pulled down however, it made waves and was referenced during a special meeting of Calgary City Council. To its credit, council at the time increased the security budget for transit stations and dozens of new peace officers managed to maintain a degree of order in transit facilities. The solution was only a Band-Aid, however, and the problem with addicts has again become acute..While most of us feel compassion for addicts and want to do what we can to help them break free from their plight, we can’t pretend these addicts are harmless. Addicts are normally desperate people who aren’t in their right minds. Crime and disorder always come with gatherings of addicts as they spread out and try to find funds to feed their habit. Robberies and break-ins are at their highest in the city in areas near LRT stations, along with other crimes. The map below illustrates a clear correlation between crime rates and LRT lines. It can’t be ignored.. MORGAN: Closing Calgary LRT stations punishes commuters .The darkened spaces are where crime is highest and it is no coincidence that most of those high crime zones follow the path of LRT tracks..City officials are between a rock and a hard place. They’re facing increasing complaints from commuters and citizens living near LRT stations due to the collections of addicts in the area. When peace officers evict these addicts from stations, however, the city gets branded as being heartless and cruel to addicts. We saw that when a video was released by CTV showing addicts being ejected from an LRT station on a cold night. The addicts in the video had been consuming meth and had been aggressive with transit users, but that backstory was lost as the Twitter mob attacked Calgary City Hall over the incident..City hall finally realized the situation on Calgary’s transit system is untenable. In typical fashion, however, it responded with a half-measure that serves nobody well..Beginning today, a number of LRT stations will be closed to the public at 10 p.m. every night. Transportation for addicts will be offered so they may be moved to appropriate shelters and facilities if they’re willing. Meanwhile, commuters using the train to get to work in the evenings will be forced to stand on cold, unheated platforms as the buildings will be locked. How is this fair to law-abiding, taxpaying transit users who simply want a safe, warm ride to work?.I am happy that Calgary’s city hall is at least recognizing we can’t allow LRT stations to continue to be used as defacto drug consumption sites. Closing the stations to everybody is hardly a solution though..I like the idea of offering transportation to addicts when removing them from stations. Tossing them out on cold nights is heartless and could be dangerous. We can do this while still keeping stations open though. Yes, it would still take enforcement that may get physical at times, but whoever said that things would be easy?.What people have to understand is many shelters won’t take in people who are seriously drug-impaired or who want to consume drugs. They simply can’t. It’s dangerous to everybody else in the shelter and order cannot be maintained. That’s why addicts gravitate to other places such as transit stations despite shelter space being available..We need to find a way to provide shelter to addicts displaced from transit stations and other inappropriate places. Perhaps warehouse spaces can be rented somewhere or heated tents set up. It doesn’t have to be fancy, it just has to be warm and relatively safe. It’s not as if Calgary is short of commercial space. I am sure there’re some other creative ways this problem could be resolved..For now, however, while addicts will no longer be able to spend the nights in LRT stations, they will still be displaced in cold weather. Meanwhile, innocent commuters will be punished as they lose the heated spaces their transit fares and tax dollars contributed to building..The City of Calgary has admitted there’s a problem. That’s the first step in finding a solution. There are some more steps required though, and banning commuters from LRT stations at night is not a reasonable approach..Think harder guys..Cory Morgan is Assistant Opinion & Broadcast Editor for the Western Standard.cmorgan@westernstandardonline.com
