This is totally outrageous. I just heard from a young relative of mine of something that happened at the Pape Subway early this morning at around 2 AM.
This young girl, after a night out clubbing with her friends, was waiting alongside some other commuters for the route 25 bus which is a 24 hour service. It appears that the TTC locks out commuters at 2 AM, whether it rains, snows or whatever. There is no shelter outside the Pape Subway for commuters to huddle in and they are forced to stand outside braving whatever climatic elements happen to be at that time of the morning, waiting patiently for the bus to materialise, which might be anywhere from 20 minutes or double that time.
Yesterday, after the rains in Toronto, the temperature had dropped and it was a chilly night especially if you were caught outdoors wearing "summer stuff". My young relative tells me that she was shivering in the cold along with other young people and even though they requested the TTC guard to refrain from closing the doors for just a bit longer, it all fell on deaf ears.
With Toronto growing in leaps and bounds, one has to wonder why Mayor Miller and TTC would want to push for more street cars and speed railcars or whatever they are called, instead of BETTERING the services they have on offer at the present time. Keeping the subway trains operating, maybe on a skeleton basis, on weekends would save a lot of young lives from accidents that are prone to happen when people go partying during the weekends and are forced to use their own vehicles as the city does not provide an alternative measure to depend on.
It is so crystal clear that TTC, Mayor Miller and McGuinty are all about dishing out contracts right, left and centre with nary a thought for the residents of this city whose taxes actually make the dishing out of those contracts to their cronies possible.
What a sad, sad situation to live in. Corruption and mismanagement at every corner of this great city and nobody of any clout raises a voice to change the hell that is Toronto.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
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How about making sure you have enough money to take a cab if you know you're going to be out that late? That's what everyone else does.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for improving the existing system, but not by privatising.
Toronto is not a tiny little hamlet where you can walk from one end to the other within half an hour! A 20 min cab ride in this city could cost over $50.00! To get from one end of the city to the other would cost upwards of $100.00. As a student working part-time, I can hardly afford the cost of my education, let alone expensive city cab rides! If you lived in Toronto you'd know what I'm talking about.
ReplyDeleteThe TTC has been running until 2am for as many years as I can remember [1985?]. Perhaps your young relative should curtail her partying to a more reasonable hour. The private sector cabs are always available, if she hasn't spent the whole purse at the club that is.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, formatting your content into paragraphs would make the reading a lot more enjoyable.
I do live in Toronto, and I recently had to take a cab home from a late movie at the Scotiabank theatre. It cost me $30 for a small cab ride. You see, I was RESPONSIBLE and I factored the cost of the cab ride into the cost of the movie.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is an indication that you really can't afford to go out very often. You are a student, after all. You aren't entitled to be out all night clubbing at some locale clear across the city.
Dress Appropriately And/Or Adjust Celebration Schedule....I have spent countless nights, in all manner of weather, waiting for the St. Clair bus at 1 AM after finishing my shift.
ReplyDeleteRaphael - you have made my case for me by stating that the TTC had the same practice of shutting down their subway at 2 AM way back when - more than 20 years ago. What was the population of Toronto in 1985 ? Less than 2 Million ? I think we are now 3 million and counting. As the city grows, so should the transport facilities. JMHO.
ReplyDeleteI will take your advice re. paragraphs to heart.
To Anon @ 9:52 - to automatically assume that one is irresponsible for opting to take the TTC instead of a cab is a fallacy, if not down right silly. In fact, my perspective is that it is IRRESPONSIBLE to waste money on cabs when you can take city transit. Since we are all making assumptions here, I can also assume that it is people like you who spend willy-nilly (maxed out credit cards in hand)that have brought our economy to the sorry state it is in today.
ReplyDeleteI for one am very good at budgeting and the $60.00 that I can save on a cab ride each time I opt to take the TTC goes towards my savings. That is why I have NO debt. Hope you can say that about yourself.
As for the TTC itself - logically speaking, it would just make more sense to keep the subways open past closing time for pubs / clubs /restaurants and such establishments. Not only would this make our city safer (because fewer people would opt to take their cars while inebriated as they would be able to RELY on the ttc) but the ttc would actually be making even MORE of a profit by adding just two extra runs after closing time (which is approximately 2:30) .
Btw - depending on which area of the city you are leaving from, the subway begins to close by 1:20pm.
As for the comment about dressing appropriately, in theory it sounds great, but the reality is that our weather can change drastically - not just from day to day - but from morning to night. So if you have a long day at school and then part-time work and then head straight to your friend's birthday bash instead of home to change(due to time constraints) - your attire would be appropriate for most of the day - but not for the overnight chills which apparently happen in mid-July!
I'm a Vancouver resident, and I'm actually surprised that the TTC shuts down at all. Here in beautiful rainy Vancouver, while many bus routes do have a "last run", buses on certain key routes (particularly those that lead to and from SFU and UBC) switch to "night bus" schedules after their last normal run. Night buses run once an hour along the routes until normal schedules resume in the morning.
ReplyDeleteIt hasn't cost Translink very much, and has done much to obviate problems like the one you describe in your post. Rather than suggesting that some other organization attempt to build the massive infrastructure required to manage public transit for a city the size of Toronto (with the cost passed either to taxpayers or consumers), why not circulate a petition to start a similar practice, or lobby your MPP or MP for federal funds to support such an initiative?
Privatization of essential services is not the cure-all that the neo-conservative viewpoint seems to believe it to be; often simply garnering sufficient public support can have the effects you wish in a faster and more cost-effective way.
As an addendum to my previous post, here's a consumer advocacy group which devotes its time to (successfully) lobbying the TTC for improvements to transit. You may want to get involved, and effect some of the changes you want to see!
ReplyDeleteAnon 11:32
ReplyDeleteWow, that was really cool how you made the discussion about the presence or absence of my personal debt. Are you seriously attempting to smear me to lend support to your point? You know that doesn't work, right?
I have no sympathy for people who delude themselves into thinking that they deserve public transit either a) because they can't afford cabs, or b) because it would reduce drunk driving accidents. The solutions are a) don't go out as much, or have cheaper outings, and b) don't drive drunk.
Jaysus...I thought conservatives were the ones always going on about personal responsibility. The strange thing is that I support extending the transit operations, but I'm fully aware that it will cost more in taxes. Are you?
to anon @11:32 - actually, no. What was really cool was you trying to make YOUR point by assuming that a)me taking the TTC equated to me being irresponsible, and that b)me being a student(grad,Ph.D or o/w) meant that I was not supposed to be out "clubbing at some locale clear across the city". Seems like you don't like it too much when people make assumptions about you.
ReplyDeleteNow we know that doesn't work, right?
So, from your statement it seems that if people can't afford cabs, they should not feel entitled to efficient public transit. See, I would have no objection to that if our society did not have to contribute to the coffers of the TTC via our taxes (yes, I did think about taxes - economics 101) . However, as soon as you start to pay your taxes - you SHOULD have a say in where that money goes and how it is being used (unless you are an NDP supporter - in which case you may as well hand over your entire pay cheque and just let the collective dictate how you should think/behave/live.)
As for your 'solutions' - using your line of logic it would mean that:
- if my cable company cut off reception for a couple of hours every day - your solution would be to watch less TV rather than ask them to fix it because you are paying for services.
or
- if my utilities provider did not provide electricity reliably, your solution would be to always keep candles handy instead of asking them to provide it.
or
- if my telephone company raised the rates of home phone services exorbitantly, your solution would be to stop using the phone.
well ... you get my drift I'm sure ...
To Artful Nudger: thanks for the information and link! I will get in touch with them.
Anon: You are describing situations where your service changes; of course you're expected to ask for the service back. The TTC situation is a situation where the service was never offerred. To do so would require reducing service somewhere else, or raising taxes. Rarely, you can fix an inefficiency.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this conversation has become uninteresting, particularly given the amount of misinterpretation or misunderstanding on your part. The more we continue to discuss this, the more you are forced to defend your assertion that it is somehow NOT irresponsible to ignore the very real additional costs of traveling across the city late at night. Good luck with that.
To Anon at 10:45PM and to The Artful Nudger:
ReplyDeleteThe TTC does not shut down at 2 AM. The TTC runs 24-hour buses on several routes, with 30 minute service and more frequent service on routes that parallel the subway. The TTC says that 86% of Toronto is within a 15-minute walk of an all-night route.
There is a PDF map showing the routes: http://www3.ttc.ca/images/fixedImages/TTC-bluenight.pdf
As for the TTC closing the doors at 2 AM: they have to close the doors and lock them when the subway closes. They need to close stations so that people can't get down to the subway tracks and hurt themselves, not to mention cause other damage.
As for the lack of a shelter at Pape station: while there is no shelter per se, the station building does have an overhanging roof that offers some protection from the elements.
Dave:
ReplyDeleteYou are, of course, absolutely correct. The night that I was at the cinema I CHOSE to take a cab rather than wait the 1/2 hour (or more) for the bus. In my haste to make a point about responsible, realistic forward planning, I neglected to mention that the buses run 24/7 on major routes.
Your other points are well taken also.