Taking the “Better Way”

[rusty_armour]

It’s always such a jolly adventure travelling to work on the TTC. This morning as I walked into Eglinton Station, I saw a woman yelling, “There are no trains! No trains!” As I was on TTC property, I assumed the woman was a nutjob and exchanged a mutual eye roll with a woman who had just entered the station as well. When I reached the northbound platform, a train was sitting there, so I assumed nothing was amiss. Of course, the TTC announcer waited until after the train started moving to inform everyone that there would be no subway service between Lawrence and Finch because there had been an “incident on the tracks” at York Mills Station. Silly TTC announcer. We’re not complete idiots. We know that an “incident on the tracks” usually means that someone has jumped in front of a train. Anywaaaaay, we were informed that the train would be turning back at Lawrence and returning to Eglinton Station, but that shuttlebuses would be travelling from Lawrence to Finch. As I had absolutely no intention of standing in a huge crowd of people hoping to squeeze on to the fourth or fifth shuttlebus that came along, I re-traced my route back to Eglinton Station to catch a Lawrence bus to Don Mills. If I’d known earlier (e.g. before boarding the train), I could have just taken a bus in the first place and saved myself ten minutes. Oh, well. The TTC will have its little games.

The fun and laughs continued on the bus platform as a large number of people milled around trying to figure out what bus to take. I found this confusing as I was sure the shuttlebuses were leaving from Lawrence Station, not Eglinton. I suppose it’s possible that these people were also trying to avoid the sheer hell that is shuttlebus service. However, would it have killed them to consult a route map instead of jumping on every bus that pulled into the station to ask the drivers if they were going to Sheppard? And, yes, now I’m forced to concede that most TTC customers are complete idiots, so I guess the TTC is somewhat justified in treating its patrons as such.

In the end, I was 40 minutes late for work. Of course, if I had gone with my other travel option, I wouldn’t have made it to work at all, so I suppose I should be grateful. Yes, compared to walking to Markham, the TTC is the “better way”.

Comments

[rusty-armour.livejournal.com]

If you ever do walk to Markham, please post about it so I can alert the proper authorities.

LOL! I'll be sure to do so -- once I've recovered from my exhaustion! *g*

Yeah, same problem in Ottawa with OCTranspo and people never consulting route maps. You'd think they were difficult to read or something.

I mean, I know Canada has an illiteracy rate (like every other country in the world), but surely there can't be that many people who can't read route maps or signs. Oh, well.