Public Transportation: From The Streets

Tess Kalinoswski, a transportation reporter for The Star lowers herself to ride the bus the work, in some sort of commuter challenge about clean air or lowered CO2 or saving dolphins. She comes up with a few gems, such as that buses take longer than cars and that they sometimes don't leave on time. I'm sure the third installment will also offer valuable insights such as that some of the commoners who take the bus don't invest their estate fortunes in the stock market, some eat at a strange place called 'McDonald's' and some don't even have a house, never mind a summer home!

The tone of this article reminds me of something you might find in a 17th century journal of a European explorer, one of those dead white men who 'discovered' the New World: 'It seems the natives have taken to living in huts and refuse any offer of tea and biscuits that are so graciously placed before them on fine bone China'. This the paper that speaks for the GTA?

The Post ran an interesting piece on the war on the car on Saturday which could best be summed up thusly:
"One size does not fit all," Mr. Soberman says. "There are people who say, 'I live in the city and I don't own a car and I go every place by TTC.' To which my response is, 'Good for you. Call me in 10 years or 15 years when maybe you're married and you got a couple of boys and girls who play hockey.' "

The plans to increase the use of public transportation is admirable (or I should say, forcing people to take public transportation) but there is an obvious need to improve the system. I grew up in a town that had an excellent public transportation system... if you lived in between the two major shopping malls. If you happened to not live in that 20 minute drive stretch then you were out of luck. This is a city that had a large student population and no bus that went to the train station nor the bus station.

The one problem that isn't mentioned in both of these articles is the lack of common courtesy when taking public transportation. And the crazy, bat-shit people. There have been numerous times when I've been on the subway, the bus or the street car when I've wanted to stand up and scream 'We're living in a society here!'. People who talk to loud on their cell phones ('I'm calling from the GO Train. Yeah, the train. Where am I? Just passed Mimico station. Yeah, Mimico. Oh wait, here comes Long Branch station...), people who refuse to move to the back when people get on, people who lay their shopping bags on multiple seat, people who bring bicycles onto buses (wha tha fa...) and most infuriating of all, people who try to get on the bus while people are still exiting.

And then there are the crazy bat-shit people, who make the ride more interesting but more stressful. A few weeks ago I was called a 'faggot' by a fellow city bus passenger because my hand brushed his boots. The fact that his boots were on the seat next to me (we were sitting on bucket seats) didn't bother him. He then ranted and raved about 'faggots', mostly mumbling to himself, and when we got off the bus said a few things to some woman seated near the door. Two weeks ago there was a young guy who was listing and lolling around the bus, and started complaining that there was this guy, Phil, who always ripping off his hours and something about Jews.

I'm not saying that the crazy bat-shit people shouldn't take public transportation. In fact, I'm saying that they should be strongly encouraged to do so, as it would be better that they weren't behind the wheel of a moving vehicle when the lights went dim and the Virgin Mary appeared to tell them to punish the unbelievers and Libras. But it's a trade between sitting in a car with your own craziness or sitting on a crowded bus with other crazy bat-shit people.