Getting a handle on vandals

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by Craig Segal

Vandals who attacked 10 innocent bus shelters during the St. Jean Baptiste weekend were only harming themselves, says Serge Savard, communications agent for the STCUM. "It's public property and everyone pays for it. And vandalism is a factor in increasing the ticket price."

The STCUM spent $34,000 last year on bus shelter windows alone. Nine men work on bus shelters full-time; each man spends an hour and a half a day repairing damage caused by vandalism.

But Savard says graffiti is even worse, especially what he calls "scrachiti," where a message is scratched into plastic panelling. The STCUM spends $1.5-million cleaning up graffiti in metro stations.

But shelter bashers are also damaging private property, says Savard, since the STCUM owns only 930 of the city's bus shelters. Municipalities own 300. And Mediacom, an international outdoor publicity company, owns the remaining 1,100, all marked by a small trademark blue and white sign. Mediacom communications officer Isabelle Gosselin refused to divulge their vandalism budget.