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rfmcdonaldShawn Micallef's most recent article in eye weekly, "The end of my love affair with the TTC" (cached at Google here), is a bit of a jarring denunciation of the Toronto Transit Commission--subways, streetcars, buses, likely other modes of transport--that I wouldn't have expected to be written by a prominent urban activist.
I'd have to agree with Micallef to a certain extent. Very recently, I blogged about how the 29 Dufferin buses on Dufferin Street keep bunching up and not appearing for tens of minutes at a time. Then again, the 26 Dupont bus run almost as regularly as their schedules exist. It's a matter of luck, I suppose, that some buses and some other routes work effectively where others don't. I'm just somewhat lucky that I've decent TTC service. (It also takes me only a dozen minutes or so to walk to either the Dufferin or the Ossington subway stations, so I shouldn't complain too much.)
I am still in love with the TTC. Take its streetcar system, one of the few remaining in North America. Over at Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen asked why people liked streetcars. The general consensus seemed to be that proper streetcar lines were great, providing smoother rides for larger numbers of people than buses. The romance of the streetcar is something that I get, too. Not that I don't like the subway's speeding, knitting together widely-separated space on the urban map in record time. I can only imagine how long it would take for me to bring Shakespeare to the veterinarian without the Bloor-Danforth line. I even like the buses, those motorized vehicles that--as the below video, taken on Dupont Street travelling eastbound from Dovercourt to Spadina shows--slice so efficiently through neighbourhoods.
There is a sort of dysfunction to my romance with the TTC, I suppose; I may still be coasting on the euphoria that I discovered in 2002, when I finally came into contact with an efficient public transit system on my first trip to Toronto. It's persisted despite that, despite strikes and rude personnel and late streetcars and buses and subways interrupted by unexpected delays. Micallef might be happier sticking to biking and taxis, but those aren't nearly enough for me. Without the TTC, I don't know how I would have gotten to know Toronto as a whole. For letting me love Toronto all the better, I guess that I love the TTC despite everything,
This isn’t an easy decision to make and lines from a Sinead O’Connor song keep running through my head: “This is the last day of our acquaintance / I will meet you later in somebody’s office / I’ll talk but you won’t listen to me / I know what your answer will be / You don’t love me anymore.” Such an intimate part of my life is going to end with a perfunctory email to TTC headquarters, making it all even sadder.
Thinking of Metropass subscription as abusive isn’t meant to mock more serious physically and emotionally violent relationships, but the pattern is similar. The TTC controls a big part of our lives, and when it doesn’t work like it should, our lives are affected. I’ve found I automatically apologized for the TTC’s faults, and defended it, even when the inner rage hadn’t completely vanished. I’m aware and sympathetic of federal and provincial funding issues that have strangled the commission, but, then, there I am on the corner having paid for a ride that hasn’t come, feeling like a sucker. By buying a Metropass, I’m enabling this kind of activity, a passive acquiescence to too-often crummy service. If I walk, I’m leaving money at the corner. If I wait too long and have to take a cab, I’m resentful now of the cab money I’ve paid out. I didn’t notice this when I lived on a subway line, but now that I rely on a streetcar, it happens too much.
[. . .]
It was a fine romance in the beginning, as most relationships are. The Metropass replaced the car I left behind when I moved here. I bought the first few at the booth but soon had it delivered every month. The money is withdrawn automatically and it would arrive in a brown, unmarked envelope, like illicit transit pornography. (I regret that as I quit the Metropass, their design is just starting to get interesting as the TTC is finally incorporating some of its iconic images onto the card.)
The Metropass was liberating because I stopped thinking about how I was going to get someplace. I had this thing that allowed me to get on and off the system at will. Two stops or across the city, it didn’t matter, the city’s electric nervous system could be ridden at will. I’d shame friends into getting one too, suggesting it was a terrible drag if one was without a Metropass as we rolled through the city, because they didn’t have the same freedom as the those of us who did, or worse, they insisted on cabs. Cabs aren’t fun because they can’t compete with the way the TTC functions as Toronto’s living room, and I’ll miss that the most: overhearing and bumping into the rest of the city.
I'd have to agree with Micallef to a certain extent. Very recently, I blogged about how the 29 Dufferin buses on Dufferin Street keep bunching up and not appearing for tens of minutes at a time. Then again, the 26 Dupont bus run almost as regularly as their schedules exist. It's a matter of luck, I suppose, that some buses and some other routes work effectively where others don't. I'm just somewhat lucky that I've decent TTC service. (It also takes me only a dozen minutes or so to walk to either the Dufferin or the Ossington subway stations, so I shouldn't complain too much.)
I am still in love with the TTC. Take its streetcar system, one of the few remaining in North America. Over at Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen asked why people liked streetcars. The general consensus seemed to be that proper streetcar lines were great, providing smoother rides for larger numbers of people than buses. The romance of the streetcar is something that I get, too. Not that I don't like the subway's speeding, knitting together widely-separated space on the urban map in record time. I can only imagine how long it would take for me to bring Shakespeare to the veterinarian without the Bloor-Danforth line. I even like the buses, those motorized vehicles that--as the below video, taken on Dupont Street travelling eastbound from Dovercourt to Spadina shows--slice so efficiently through neighbourhoods.
There is a sort of dysfunction to my romance with the TTC, I suppose; I may still be coasting on the euphoria that I discovered in 2002, when I finally came into contact with an efficient public transit system on my first trip to Toronto. It's persisted despite that, despite strikes and rude personnel and late streetcars and buses and subways interrupted by unexpected delays. Micallef might be happier sticking to biking and taxis, but those aren't nearly enough for me. Without the TTC, I don't know how I would have gotten to know Toronto as a whole. For letting me love Toronto all the better, I guess that I love the TTC despite everything,
