Brad Ross, longtime face of the TTC, reflects on how he changed discussion around suicide

Brad Ross, the TTC spokesperson who quickly became the public face of the agency, said Friday that he's leaving his role with a "sense of accomplishment" about how he's influenced the discourse around transit-related suicides.

"I, and the TTC as an organization, felt it was important to start to humanize the situation, to talk about it more," Ross told CBC Radio's Metro Morning.

"If we can save one life doing that, then I think we've done our job," he continued.

Ross joined the TTC in 2008. During his tenure as spokesperson, social media became the primary conduit for communicating with the public about service disruptions. He quickly amassed a considerable following, with many riders turning to his Twitter account for information or to vent about transit problems.

Ross revealed last month that he's taken a new a job as communications chief at the city, with Friday being his last day at the TTC.

Under his tutelage, the transit service drastically changed how it went about communicating track-level suicides, or attempted suicides, to riders.

Before his time, the TTC would simply blast out a message over the public address system, telling customers that there was a "power off" situation at a particular station. It took a similar approach in tweets as social media grew in prominence.

"That voice and those faceless tweets, they can't be empathetic or compassionate as much as an individual," Ross said.

So, Ross explained, he decided to take a different tack through his personal social media accounts.

"These are incredible tragedies. People lose their lives ... This is a mental health issue. It's not just a delay, it's not just a statistic, it's not just a problem on the system. Somebody just ended their life in an incredibly traumatic way," Ross told host Matt Galloway.

He started posting tweets that explicitly addressed that a particular service disruption was due to a suicide. He also included a message of support to anyone else contemplating taking their own life, with a link to learn more about TTC Crisis Link — a program that connects people in distress to counsellors via payphones on subway platforms.

"To actually use the word suicide is unique," Ross noted. "Once upon a time, you didn't talk about it because of the fear of copycats or contagion."

'People get it'

One effect of his tweets was that other riders, who would often bombard him with angry missives during service disruptions, would take a much more empathetic perspective on their travel delays.

"It turns that temperature right down. People get it. They appreciate the honesty, they appreciate the transparency of talking about suicide," Ross said.

Other transit agencies have taken notice. Metrolinx, which operates GO Transit, has adopted a similar approach to communicating about suicides on its own network.

"I leave this job with a sense of accomplishment around that, in having a hand in talking about it and changing how we talk about it," Ross reflected.

In 2017, 19 people died by suicide on the TTC network, while another 26 people attempted to end their lives. So far in 2018, 13 people have died by suicide and 30 others have attempted suicide.

TTC explores physical barriers

Of course, transit-related suicides are not unique to the TTC. They occur in most jurisdictions that have subway systems.

Some cities have dealt with the issue by installing platform edge doors, which provide an impassable physical barrier to prevent anyone from reaching track level.

The TTC is currently exploring the possibility of using platform edge doors in a study that is scheduled to be presented to its board in 2020.

While they are inarguably the most effective way to prevent suicides on subway networks, the installations come with a significant price tag.

"We're talking about well over one billion dollars ... And there are all sorts of engineering and design problems at old stations," Ross said.

He added that when new subway tunnels are built, such as the downtown relief line, they will almost surely include platform edge doors.