OFF THE RAILS: Data exposes crime, mental illness at TTC’s track level
TTC confirms number of people taken into custody under Mental Health Act has jumped since 2019
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A person is taken into custody under the Mental Health Act once every four times a TTC constable reports to the subway tracks, a Toronto Sun analysis shows.
The TTC has also confirmed the number of such events each year has grown from pre-pandemic figures.
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A database of “unauthorized track-level” events that involved a special constable, covering the time from January 2020 to April, was provided to the Toronto Sun after a freedom-of-information request. Some incidents also involved Toronto Police.
The events include accidental falls, petty crime and individual instances of aggravated assault, attempted murder, robbery and drunk driving. Drug use is an occasional theme with at least 26 entries making explicit reference to narcotics use, intoxication or paraphernalia. Seven entries contain the word “urine” or “urinate.”
The 1,150 incidents in that time frame involve infractions at every current subway station, as well as trouble at railyards, shuttered stations in Scarborough and elsewhere on TTC property. Cases are identified with a relevant charge even if no one was caught and charges weren’t laid.
Fewer than a fifth of the incidents in the database – 202 in total – are non-criminal events such as accidents, suspicious incidents, suicide attempts or public intoxication.
Another 190 incidents were listed as a person being apprehended under the Mental Health Act. That’s roughly a sixth of all incidents and represents more than a quarter of the total when excluding graffiti cases.
That figure also doesn’t include violent crimes or property offences in which an arrest was made and mental illness may have played a factor nor does it include suicides or most attempted suicides in the database. Four of the 36 cases listed as attempted suicide also involved a Mental Health Act apprehension.
Nearly all Mental Health Act cases list the name of a specific hospital the person in question was taken to, often the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
At least one of those cases was not that person’s first incident.
At St. George Station on Dec. 14, 2023, a person was said to have been apprehended three times under the Mental Health Act in a span of 24 hours, twice by TTC constables and once by Toronto cops. “Victim was known to TTC and TPS for multiple suicidal attempts through the system,” the entry says.
Meanwhile, on April 18 at Dundas Station, a person was seen smoking a cigarette in the tunnel. “Victim mentioned being suicidal and the hospital keeps releasing them,” the entry says.
TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said while individual offenders aren’t tracked, the agency’s constables said repeat track-level offences aren’t typical.
Green confirmed Mental Health Act apprehensions are more common than before the pandemic. From 2017 to 2019, the TTC averaged 29 such apprehensions at track level each year. For 2022 to 2024, the average was 44.
“There is absolutely a correlation between what happened during COVID and things like people with mental-health issues on TTC tracks,” Green said. Across the industry, he said, transit agencies saw people, such as the mentally ill and homeless, turn to transit systems as a place to stay when malls and libraries were locked down.
Another factor, Green said, is new training began in 2021 to help constables spot mental illness and better de-escalate incidents. Constables are now more likely to flag a mental-health episode and thus report it, he said.
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MAJORITY OF MISCHIEF COMPLAINTS INVOLVE GRAFFITI
Two-thirds of the incidents, 759 of 1,150, are listed alongside a section of the Criminal Code, the provincial Trespass to Property Act or a TTC bylaw. Most of those – and more than half of all entries – are listed as mischief incidents. Many of the 639 mischief entries relate to vandalism and many of them took place at TTC railyards.
All but 219 of those mischief cases refer explicitly to graffiti. The remaining cases include charges such as public mischief and mischief endangering life and cover a broad range of situations — from lying between the rails to, as was the case at Rosedale Station on March 22, 2022, “playing (a) game of ‘treasure hunt’ with friends” at track level.
There are also 18 listed assaults, plus two incidents each of assault causing bodily harm, assault with a weapon and assaulting a peace officer.
With no identifying information available, it’s unclear how many people were responsible for these incidents.
For example, late on Dec. 21, 2023, at Eglinton Station, charges appear to have been laid for mischief, theft under $5,000, breach of probation, trespassing and other counts for one person found behind a centre track pillar who claimed to be looking for a place to sleep. Each charge was logged in the database as its own event.
However, in a March 29, 2022, incident at Pape Station, a person was charged with mischief under $5,000 and assaulting a peace officer after a fire extinguisher was thrown across the subway tracks. That event appears as just one entry in the database.
The station with the most logged incidents was Kipling with 84, but almost all relate to vandalism, hinting at its role as a de facto railyard.
Bloor-Yonge Station, the station with the second most total incidents at 68, only saw 24 mischief incidents but led all stations in Mental Health Act events with 17. Ten of Dundas Station’s 24 incidents were classified as Mental Health Act apprehensions.
Few patterns are apparent in the data. With the exception of vandalism, no type of incident appears more common at any given place and the stations with the most incidents are also those with the highest foot traffic.
There were 144 incidents in 2020, 131 in 2021, 200 in 2022, 294 in 2023, 293 in 2024 and 89 in the first four months of this year, largely keeping pace with TTC ridership numbers.
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These incidents represent just a small fraction of the service delays the TTC endures.
In 2024, there were 26,467 documented delays and only one of that year’s 10 longest delays was captured in the Toronto Sun’s data set. In that year alone, 724 “unauthorized track-level” incidents occurred, most of which did not involve a TTC constable. However, the TTC records few details of many of these events.
Green said the TTC is considering platform-edge doors at Dundas Station, which would help keep commuters off the tracks – whether they lose their balance or want to go exploring. He emphasized that anyone who does have a reason to go down to track level – such as dropping a personal item – should find TTC staff to take care of it. Not only is it far safer, it’s much less likely to cause an agonizing delay.
“The absolute wrong thing to do,” Green said, “is to just jump down and get it yourself.”
UNDERGROUND UNDERWORLD
The most alarming of the 1,150 track-level incidents in the database given to the Toronto Sun was something the city has already heard plenty about.
An attempted murder, on April 17, 2022, was widely reported on at the time, and involved a woman shoving a stranger onto the Bloor-Yonge tracks. (Edith Frayne was later found not criminally responsible due to mental illness for that action and two related assaults. Those assaults were not represented in the database.)
An aggravated assault, previously reported by the Sun, involved a stabbing on a train platform on Oct. 6, 2022. The entry suggests the arrest may have taken place by the westbound tracks at Warden Station. The incident caused a 110-minute service delay.
In an email, Toronto Police told the Sun that Akquille Samuel was arrested and faced “several weapons-related charges” in that incident. The status of that case was not immediately clear.
In another case that made headlines – listed as assault causing bodily harm from Nov. 26, 2021, at Bloor-Yonge Station – a man, who was carrying a box, was pushed to the tracks. While reports at the time said the victim was dragged for only a short distance, the entry estimates it was “40 feet,” although the victim refused medical treatment.
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The database even includes a mainstay of TTC news coverage: The wayward motorist who finds his way into Spadina Station.
“Suspect drove vehicle into streetcar tunnel and onto the tracks” for about 150 metres, the entry for Sept. 25, 2022, says. “Suspect stated he was following GPS and accidentally entered the station. Suspect ignored signs of entry and multiple flashing red lights … Suspect failed sobriety test given by TPS.”
Most of the incidents are labelled as mischief and while that usually refers to vandalism, it can be much more.
Some ne’er-do-well threw a bicycle wheel onto the tracks at Queen Station before fleeing on the next train on June 20, 2022. When the metal of the wheel contacted the power rail, it “caused a loud explosion and loss of power” as smoke and sparks prompted a train evacuation. That led to a 101-minute delay.
On Feb. 3, 2024, there was more trouble at Queen Station when someone threw the “bottom half of an office chair” onto the tracks as a train was pulling in. The suspect boarded a train, then left through the Eaton Centre exit. That one resulted in a 53-minute delay. (Toronto Police could not say if charges were laid in either Queen Station incident nor in several other events described in this story.)
A robbery at Danforth and Broadview Aves. was labelled as mischief. The suspect was seen at track level at Broadview station, heading west toward Castle Frank, before noon on Oct. 24, 2021. The suspect climbed over the fence of a nearby home and got away – but subway service was delayed by 64 minutes.
Also cited as mischief was an incident on April 10, 2022, when a crook took to the tracks at Summerhill Station while being chased by LCBO security guards. A suspect was seen ascending from the tracks at nearby St. Clair Station. Commuters had to endure a 46-minute delay – but a bottle of Grey Goose that was found on the tracks was returned to the LCBO.
A mischief charge was laid on April 29 of this year after a person was seen on the catwalk past the end gate at Spadina Station “squatting with their pants around their knees (and) smoking an (unknown) substance.”
Vandalism on the TTC is sometimes political. In February 2022, a car at the Keele yard was spray-painted with a tag, said to be 25 feet long, that said “Freedom Convoy 22.” In 2024, “Gaza” was spray-painted on a wall at Old Mill Station and “Free Palestine” at a tunnel entrance at Spadina Station.
BIZARRE INCIDENTS INCLUDED
Some of the behaviour described is bizarre, such as a January 2022 incident in which someone was spotted at track level at Bloor-Yonge. “Patron returned to platform with pair of shoes, not his,” the entry says. “Said felt sorry for shoes.” While the entry is labelled with the Criminal Code charge for mischief, it says the person was merely “cautioned.”
On May 17, 2024, at Eglinton Station, a male was brought back to the platform, where he told an officer he heard “voices telling him to go to track level and to act like a monkey.” (He was taken into custody under the Mental Health Act.)
One person, before he was arrested for trespassing at Wilson Station in March, “advised he was ‘chilling like a villain.’”
Some of the incidents are honest mistakes, but even those can lead to painful delays.
When a fare collector heard a beeping sound coming from an item on the track at Don Mills Station, service was suspended for a half-hour – only for cops and transit enforcement officers to learn it was just a lost security tag.
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CONSTABLE-INVOLVED TRACK-LEVEL INCIDENTS BY YEAR
2020: 144 incidents
2021: 131 incidents
2022: 200 incidents
2023: 294 incidents
2024: 293 incidents
2025 (January to April): 89 incidents
SUBWAY RIDERSHIP BY YEAR
2020 total subway passengers: 85 million
2021 total subway passengers: 67 million
2022 total subway passengers: 129 million
2023 total subway passengers: 168 million
2024 total subway passengers: 181 million
TOP TTC STATIONS FOR INCIDENTS
Kipling, 84
Bloor-Yonge, 68
Sheppard-Yonge, 46
Spadina, 37
St. George, 29
Rosedale, 28
Wellesley, 25
Finch, 25
Eglinton, 24
Dundas, 24
MOST COMMON TRACK-LEVEL CRIMES
Mischief (including related charges): 639
Trespassing (includes TTC bylaw): 60
Assault (including related charges): 25
Theft under $5,000: 13
Uttering threats (including related charges): 4
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