Mayor Rob Ford says he did not illegally drive past the open front door of a streetcar on Dundas St. W. last Wednesday, as the president of the union representing TTC workers alleged last week — and the union president believes him.

Ford, speaking Tuesday in a rare media scrum in the City Hall press office, said he drove past the closed back door but stopped in advance of the open front door.

The driver then “came out and accosted me,” Ford alleged. Referring to the streetcar as a bus, Ford said: “I don’t know exactly what was said. He says, ‘Get behind the bus.’ I don’t have to get behind the bus, the back door’s closed.

“I talked to (TTC chief executive) Andy Byford,” Ford said, “and asked him, ‘What is the rules on that one? When the back door’s shut, are you allowed to move up to the next set of doors?’ As far as I know, yes. And everybody does it.”

Police Staff Sgt. David Stirling confirmed that the Highway Traffic Act requires drivers to stay back two metres only from a door that is open. He added that it is still “probably most prudent and safe” for drivers to stay behind the streetcar entirely if the front door is open and back door is closed.

Bob Kinnear, president of Local 113 Amalgamated Transit Union, said he now accepts that Ford stopped before the open front door. (He had said last week that he was not entirely sure what had happened.) But he said the mayor still endangered passengers’ safety by passing the closed back door.

“Even if the front door’s open, you’re not to pass the rear doors. Because the rear doors are active. What I mean by that is any passenger, at any time, can step down onto the steps and exit the streetcar,” Kinnear said.

Last week, Kinnear said that he had been told Ford passed an open door. He said the driver then left his seat “to advise the motorist, not knowing it was Mayor Ford, of the seriousness of the violation, as well as the concern for our passengers.”

Ford called Byford directly to complain about the driver’s conduct. The driver was told not to leave his seat in the future, but he was not disciplined.