The Better Way...

Is one of the great misnomers of all time. Right up there with "New Jersey: The Garden State" and "Death Penalty" (perhaps because of my hockey upbringing, that one's always confused me - it seems like a rather serious infraction.)

On at least 4 of my last 12 TTC trips, 'the better way' has cost me more than an hour of time. The schedules they post seem only to be the wild and whimsical imaginings from a team of popular fiction writers between novels. Or maybe just some monkeys working off their keep in a local animal shelter or preservation area.

The streetcar and the bus are the greatest offenders. Which makes me wonder immediately why we're not investing now to build more subways. Aren't we concerned about the enviornment? Don't we want to cut down on carbon emissions and car travel? As I waited for the Roncesvales streetcar for 30 minutes yesterday (with no excuse or explanation - although I later learned because of construction in THREE different places in a 10 block radius, a streetcar had 'malfunctioned' and backed up 4 other streetcars), I saw no less than 20 people (individually!) get into a cab and drive away. Responsive, responsible, punctual service like this is why we continue to pay more and more money for 'the rocket.'

I know money is a big issue. It has to be. Why else would the cost of riding have increased more than 58% in the last decade (the single fare cost was $1.60 in 1997 and is now $2.75.) I've been in Toronto for 10 years and the cost of living has NOT increased by 58%. So why has 'the better way'? One one of these occasions where the TTC was wildly late, the driver of the subway announced over the PA, "Please do not hold open the doors. There's a thousand other people on here who have somewhere to be." And that got me thinking. Lets say I make $10/hour. Let's say everybody on the train makes the same as me. That's $10, 000 that 'the better way' cost their own riders in an hour. I can't imagine how many more times that happens every day when I'm not involved. It's mind boggling. It's ridiculous. It's aggravating. And it's unacceptable. Public transit should be widely available, relatively punctual and affordable. Right now they're batting 1/3. If you're asking for $100, 000/month from those same 1000 patrons (a metropass @ roughly $100 x 1000 people) to ride 'the better way' and taking $10, 000 more from their pockets every third trip, you'd better improve your batting average or 'the better way' will be the extinction of public transit.