Reasons why the TTC sucks

As much as I usually love the TTC, there are often those inevitable moments where you'll think "I hate the TTC." I had two of those today. I think I'll make this a regular feature.

Reason #1

I was on the way to work in the morning when the train stops mid-station. Turns out there was a "personal injury" at Spadina station. I really hope it wasn't a subway jumper.

So they announce that there will be shuttle buses between Keele and St. George, without explaining why any station other than spadina wouldn't continue to operate. The train I was on let its passengers off at Ossington, and we waited two hours for a shuttle bus.

The TTC's excellent management skills led to the following problem: The shuttle bus started picking up passengers at Keele, and were always full by the time they got to Ossington, which severely irked the people waiting (including myself). After two hours of waiting, we get news that the subway is running again, and I finally made it to the office.

I realize that the initial "personal injury" situation wasn't the TTC's fault, but the response could have been much better. Explaining why you can't do something goes a long way in satisfying your customers. The TTC didn't explain why every station betweek Keele and St. George had no service even though the incident occurred at Spadina. They cobbled together shuttle buses which were slow, late, and always over capacity. If a passenger has to wait 2 hours when trying to get to work in the morning, your response has failed.

Reason #2

Rude/idiotic drivers. The majority of bus drivers are nice and polite people. But when you run into the idiots, it really irks you to no end. Most TTC users are familiar with the situation where a driver makes a quick stop to hand the wheel to his replacement. This is usually done without a hitch, but my driver and his replacement decide to have a chat today, and we were literally sitting there for about 4 minutes. That's a long time when the bus runs every 10 minutes.

Now that I'm ranting already, let's add a few more reasons. The TTC recently advertised that it can now help people in over 100 languages. Did nobody bother to tell them that it's not their job? And fine, it could be a useful service, especially for new Canadians. But how about buses that run on time, expanded service, clean premises, and courteous employees? Take care of the damned basics before deciding to spend time and money on language services.

Also, the TTC website sucks. It is the ugliest, most useless piece of garbage ever.

Finally, does anyone know why it is that Islington station smells like barf EVERY morning?

The Market at Work

A neat NYT article on the Dabbawalas of India.