Fare gates could be on the way for Edmonton public transit stations

Fare gates at a SkyTrain station in Vancouver. (Shutterstock)

After a recent attack on an Edmonton woman inside Coliseum LRT station, calls for more safety measures on public transit platforms have surfaced again.

There are more officers coming to Edmonton to patrol transit areas, but that won’t be in place until sometime next year.

So Edmonton City Council is reconsidering the idea of fare gates.

The idea was first explored as a tool for safety and security in a 2011 Council report. In February 2022, the Enhanced Transit Safety Plan report identified it as an idea to explore further.

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They’ve been brought forward again by a councillor as a notice of motion.

Two weeks before the November 26 incident, a man was also attacked at the same station after boarding a bus.

How much they’ll help in solving the problem, however, is still unknown.

“Should the motion pass and Council directs Administration to produce a report, we would provide a variety of options for consideration and explain the impact we expect each option to have with respect to transit safety,” Carrie Hotton-MacDonald, branch manager with Edmonton Transit Service for the City of Edmonton, told Daily Hive Urbanized.

Typically, fare gates are used for fare enforcement and to stop public transit from losing money to fare evasion. They require payment in order for the gate to open and give the rider access to the paid zone in the station.

In other cases, they are used as a physical measure to control access to a paid zone area for people to board a train or a bus.

“Different cities use different styles of fare gates depending on their infrastructure, needs and desired outcomes,” Hotton-MacDonald said.

The notice of motion is expected to go to Council on December 12.

Fare gates are also in use on many major public transit railways around the world, including on the subway networks of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

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