In the long run, the best way to cut smog would be to ensure TTC service is faster and more reliable. That requires more government money. Once that happens, more drivers might see public transit as "the better way" and leave their cars at home.
I live downtown, I work downtown. This was a conscious decision on my family’s part. I have never learned to drive officially and the chances of me being motivated enough to wade through the 2 tier license requirements, the expenses associated with ownership and up keep for keeping a car running in the city fall into when pigs fly category. I prefer to spend my disposable after tax income on my family rather than at the gas pump or paying for parking downtown.
There use to be an old joke told in Hogtown wherein the initials of the TTC meant “take the car” rather than Toronto’s public transit. What was true over twenty years ago is only more so today.
I stopped using the TTC on a regular basis in getting around the downtown core during the first day after the last major transit strike in 1999 was settled. Why you may ask? After a few days of walking 30 minutes plus to work, I came to the conclusion that hoofing it was preferable to being assaulted by the incredibly overwhelming smell of rank body odor or having my body being held hostage by the sweat of others packed far too tightly on the streetcar. Call me old fashioned, but I like my personal space and treasure the fact I generally can breathe without gagging when walking on the street.
It’s not that I don’t use the TTC, but it’s a case of only when absolutely necessary. Two days ago, I was pushed for time and got on a streetcar at Yonge & College going eastbound at 6:30pm, long after rush hour is allegedly over. The streetcar was hot, packed and just as smelly as I remembered it, but there was another joy whose memory I had either completely suppressed or years ago it was far too new a phenomenon to register as anything more than as an anomaly in my mind.
There are now the legions of beggars who appear to ride for free whose sole purpose is to harass and demand money from those passengers who have been suckered into paying for the alleged joy of riding public transit. The $2.75 fare doesn’t seem like such a bargain after being ruthlessly subjected to 10 minutes of abusive language uttered in a pitch so high that it makes one’s skin crawl.
Of course, that feeling might have been caused when my personal harridan leaned down to shake her smelly and potentially lousy head into my face. And what did I do to earn her spleen? I politely refused her DEMANDS to share the contents of my wallet with her. For that, I went from “lady” to whore, bitch, cunt etc. The only name she neglected to refer to me as was Jew but that’s probably only because my neighbors drive rather than walk. And the really surreal part was she was not the only beggar on the streetcar at the same time. I swear they work in teams now.
I have never been fan of the horror genre so paying $2.75 to have a personal ringside seat in a real life version of Beggar’s From the Dark Dank Lagoon may seem like a bargain for some, but I am betting all those people currently driving the car to work think the price for TTC is far too high already, and no amount of money poured from the public purse into the current system will change the fact.
No comments:
Post a Comment