TTC employee urinates in public at Runnymede subway station

CANADA - You know you're a TTC employee when...

TTC riders catch you sleeping on the job, brawling with passengers and texting while on the road.

But on the morning of June 15th TTC rider Gary Pieters saw an uniformed TTC employee at Runnymede subway station walk to the side of the building, stop near a laneway, unzip and urinated in full view of people on the bus and people walking by.

The employee finished, “casually zipped up his pants” and remained near the station.

“It was just disgusting,” says Pieters. “You can imagine how, you sit down on a bus and you expect to have an uneventful ride to your workplace, and the first thing you see when you hop on the bus is this type of behaviour.”

Pieters immediately contacted TTC customer service by phone, then followed up a week later to provide identifying information.

Chris Upfold, the TTC’s chief customer service officer, acknowledged the incident, and says the employee's behaviour was “unprofessional and unacceptable.”

“You have the assurance of the TTC, and my personal assurance, that the employee was identified and appropriate action was taken,” says Chris Upfold.

But these events just seem to keep happening. Is it because TTC staff suddenly don't care about their reputation? Or is it because many people now have cellphone cameras and keep catching them in the act?

Just last week a TTC driver and a supervisor scuffled with riders when the supervisor grabbed a woman's camera away from her when she was filming one such incident in which the driver was bullying a middle aged woman to get off his street car. There has also been other incidents of drivers attacking passengers, proof that its not just the passengers who need to control their tempers.