Misery Routine

I know why the traffic situation in the city is so terrible, because I went through the agony of using our public so-called transportation yesterday. The only enjoyable part of it was when I was walking and not actually using the TTC.

I walked down to Silver Snail to pick up an Uglydoll for my neice. I figure that in a house full of Disney Store and Baby Gap, she needed something a little different and a lot cooler. I then walked east to University and turned north to go to the opticians to pick up my new glasses. The only problem was that I walked up to College before I realized that the opticians was one block south of Queen at King. Anyway, I got to the store and tried on my glasses only to find that the tinting was far too dark (they were sunglasses!), and that they needed to be redone. So, I wait again.

I hopped on the King streetcar to begin my journey to the doctor's office/sports medicine clinic. The car was completely packed and after a few stops, I noticed that the back was less congested. I pushed through a gaggle of unhappy people and had a little more space to breathe. I got off at Bathurst and without waiting, headed north on the streetcar to Bathurst station. I transferred to the bus and got off at Glencairn. The ride lasted about 45 minutes. I was 20 minutes late for my appointment because of the traffic problems at Bathurst and Eglinton, but they managed to squeeze me in without too much trouble. It turns out that I have a strained gluteus medius. (And now I've told the world that I have a broken butt.)

The next plan was to head south to Union Station to catch the GO Train to Ajax for the birthday party. I waited and waited for the bus to arrive and eventually it did. It was one of the new buses and I just have to say that they are one of the most poorly designed pieces of machinery I have ever seen. Sure, they do a lot of fancy tricks that I appreciate immensely, but they don't do a very good job at transporting people. There are shockingly few seats on these buses and the back of the bus is so cramped for space that most people don't even bother with it. It is also raised with a very narrow aisle which makes getting out very tricky. There is a large open area in the middle of the bus, but there are very few bars or handles to use and most people slosh around like milk in a bowl. They block anyone from getting to the seats in the back section, so instead of having 50 people in a regular-sized bus, they now have 50 people in what is ostensibly half a bus. Stinky people I should point out.

Now I can hardly blame the TTC for the discourteousness and idiocy of its patrons (the poor bastards have to deal with them everyday), but perhaps the engineers should have considered the flaw in their design. When given the choice between sitting in a cramped seat with a narrow aisle that may cause you to miss your stop, and standing in a large open area by the door there is no choice. I don't know what can be done about people moving to the back, but the designer who can do that will make a real mark on the public transport game.

I did make it back to the subway, and the lines of people to get on were maddening. These were very unhappy people trying to get home. They were pushy and wouldn't let us exit the bus. There was a thin aisle lined with the cold blank stare of commuters who know nothing of putting others first. I blame this on bad parenting which is especially sad since most probably were parents themselves.

I descended into the subway and headed west, transferred at St. George and made it to Union Station. I was too late to catch the 5:13 bus, but I noticed that there was a train at 5:33 that was heading east, so I jumped on. I discovered that it only went as far as Pickering and so I returned to the station and farted around until 5:53 and then got on the right train. If you've got time to kill and want to have a few laughs, just wander around the GO Train station at rushhour trying to make yourself as large and as clueless as possible while everyone rushes around in a panic. Oh wait, don't do that, because everyone else down there does that already! Better yet, just make sure you get there early, grab a seat, and watch the sparks fly.

What a group of people on that train. The human equivalent to gingerbread men going to their gingerbread houses. Most tried sleeping, and a few had middle-class conversations. I worked on a Kakuro and then read a book. I was stunned at how few people were reading on the train.

My sister picked me up at the train station and then it took us ten minutes to get out of the parking lot. Not only had I just spent most of the last four hours on public tranport, but now I had to wait in traffic. Eventually, we made it to her house, but each minute that went by brought me closer to facing it all again.

I was tired, bored, frustrated, and baffled at how people can do that every day. It wasn't until I got home before I realized that I had my iPod in my pocket and I could have been listening to it during all that drudgery. It made me think that I was more foolish than the fools I was following.

Talking Heads - The Big Country