I always win

City hall apparently thinks that no one in Toronto needs a car. Most car-owners will effectively see their annual registration / licensing fees increase by 80% .* Bad car owners! Bad! Don't you know that the TTC will magically transport you anywhere you want to go, in a 100% stress-free environment? The TTC never goes on strike , and its operators are hardly ever unpleasant. BAD CAR OWNERS! BAD! And when you're not taking the TTC, you can walk. The weather is never inclement. Or hey, ride a bicycle! You won't be breathing in any pollution or particulate matter, because the public transit system is so efficient, hardly anyone drives! Heck, they're eventually going to rip down the rest of the Gardiner Expressway . We're on the verge of using matter-energy transport. Or flying carpets. Who needs cars? Bring on the $60 annual Personal Vehicle Tax! That'll learn them right-wing, conservative, car-drivin' rednecks up real nice! (They're...

I've come to the conclusion that people who enjoy hot, humid weather are part reptile. Please allow me to explain... If you were on the southbound 6 Bay bus at 8:40 this morning, I was the guy in the aviators (wearing a shirt & tie) with rivulets of perspiration flowing down his forehead, nose, earlobes, and neck. I'm sorry. I was clean, and I was wearing anti-perspirant... but it was stuffy as Hell in the back of that bus, and for some reason, most of the windows were closed. The relative humidity this morning was well into the 60% range, and it was already near 30°C with the humidex. (The bus was one of the old GM "fishbowls" ... no air conditioning.) I had grabbed the only available seat, next to a non-opening rear window. I stared at a girl sitting in the back corner of the bus &mdash next to one of the closed windows &mdash and I couldn't figure out how she was surviving . Other people were starting to open windows, but the bus was stuck i...

No more sugar rationing! The war is over. Breadlines are a thing of the past! Food is plentiful. TTC tokens become available again! Now that the Toronto Transit Commission price increase has taken effect, commuters can actually buy tokens again. The price has increased to $2.25, but this is a bargain compared to the $2.75 cash fare many riders were forced to pay because of the recent token rationing policy . Those fancy tokens must be made of gold and platinum for the TTC to be so anal about them! "Tokens are expensive to produce … we simply don't have enough if everyone stored 100 at home." - TTC chair Adam Giambrone I am sure that some riders stockpile tokens at the old price. But Giambrone is delusional if he thinks that we all have a few hundred extra dollars lying around to invest in subway tokens. People buy tokens for two main reasons: they can save a bit of money compared to regular cash fare, and they can enter a station via turnstile. (That second featu...

To the woman who got on the 6 Bay bus (nearly empty) yesterday, sat in the back (where I was the only passenger), and opened the window (when the driver was considerate enough to have the air conditioning turned on, given the fact that it was hot and muggy outside): you could have sat somewhere else you're the type of woman that has a space heater under her office desk and uses it in July (when the power grid is groaning under threat of imminent collapse), aren't you? it could not have been less than 74°F inside that bus. Seriously... get your fucking glands checked or something. yes, bitch, after you get up to leave, I will close the window with an amount of force that will make you turn back around and look at me while you're exiting from the front fucking door and not the rear door like you're supposed to. That's exactly the kind of passive/agressive way I roll.

Here's how some of us had to get to work today--with a smog advisory in place from Environment Canada: To the union leaders of the Toronto Transit Commission: whatever public sympathy you had was already hanging by a thread. This morning's illegal walkout just ran that thread through bleach. Meanwhile, I'm going to try and find one of these for the walk home:

The Toronto Transit Commission says that in the 45-minute peak of morning rush hour, the Yonge subway line is currently at full capacity. No additional trains can be added. In The Globe and Mail yesterday, TTC chief general manager Rick Ducharme said, "People say it's crowded, and I always say, if you go in those 45 minutes, that's your problem, because I can't help you." On the increase in commuting times in general over the last couple of decades, Ducharme said "live with it. We're a bigger city." So the people who have to get to their downtown jobs by 8:30 or 9:00 should plan on extra idle time downtown? Perhaps lounge at Starbucks or hit a gym, while paying for an additional hour or two of child care in the morning? Hey, maybe the Bay Street business community will warm up to 'flex time' and let people stagger themselves in a spectrum of start-end times. You know, because we've already seen such willingness to bend antiquated men...

Part of me so wished that the driver of the TTC bus I was on this morning hadn't practiced good defensive driving, and instead had hit the Infiniti SUV that cut him off by city hall. We weren't going fast. No one would've been killed. I've ridden this route for years. On one near-miss occasion, I was sitting behind the bus driver, who remarked, "I could've hit that car, but I don't feel like doing the paperwork tonight." I love it . Infiniti idiot: do you think you're a match for a vehicle that is several times your weight and size? Do you think that driving an SUV makes you invincible? Bring it, mofo.

I don't judge anyone who drives their vehicle * to work in the Greater Toronto Area. Yes, our freeways and commuter arteries are a gridlocked mess most of the time, but it's no wonder. There is little coordination amongst the transit systems of the outlying cities, successive provincial governments have slashed funding to GO Transit , and Toronto has a bad habit of ripping up pre-existing rail lines and turning them into long, skinny parks (or ignoring them altogether). And then there's the TTC . The Better Way , my ass. It took me 50 minutes to get home from work tonight. If I get a bus right away, it takes me 20 minutes. Walking takes 35. The problem tonight, I think, was that a bus was missing from the regular pattern of service on the route. This accounts for my 25-minute wait at the stop. Luckily it was only -5c tonight, so I didn't freeze to death. Between the unpredictable wait times, the oft-surly drivers, the beat-up buses, and the multitude of crazy...