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

[pyrateanny.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I ran into an "injury at track level" (read: "jumper") situation on the TTC last Saturday, on my way to Contra Dance, out in the east end (right at Chester station).

My husband had driven me to our neighbourhood subway station here in the west end (because I really didn't want to do the 15 minute walk in the howling wind and wet, blowing snow that night, especially wearing my dance skirt). I planned to take the subway the rest of the way, but I'd only gone a few stops (to Dundas West), when the train slowed to a halt in the tunnel and the lights went out. Then an announcement came that there was an "emergency" in the station up ahead, and that we would be "evacuating" through the back doors of the train onto the tracks.

Well, my adrenaline kicked into full gear, I started to hyperventilate, and I thought I was going to have a full-blown panic attack at being trapped in the subway tunnels with some unspecified danger blocking my escape. (Was it a fire? Would the train I was on burst into flames at any moment?)

But, looking around, the other passengers just look bored and mildly exasperated in that "Been here, done this" kind of way. So, that was quite reassuring to me and helped keep my panic under control.

The passengers started moving (very slowly) toward the back of the train, but then the queue came to a halt. As people were starting to question why we'd stopped, the driver came into our car and said that they'd changed their minds and we would actually be exiting through the front doors of the train, onto the platform (thank Goddess!).

Once we were in the station, they made the announcement about "injury at track level". [Dammit, if I'd known it was just a jumper and not a possible fire, I wouldn't have had a panic attack!]

There were some garbled and mostly inaudible announcements about shuttlebuses leaving from a different station, but I really didn't want to go that route. I had my cell phone and called my husband, intending to ask him to pick me up and drive me the rest of the way to the dance.

Unfortunately, he'd stopped to do an errand on his way home, so it was half an hour before he finally answered the phone.

I got to the dance about an hour later than I had planned. But, one of the dance organizers came in about half an hour even later than me. She'd wound up taking one of the shuttlebuses, and she said it had taken over an hour just to get between the few stations that the shuttlebuses were bridging.

Oh, and did I mention there was a snow-storm in progress while all this was happening and driving was trecherous? *g*

[rusty-armour.livejournal.com]

I don't blame you for nearly having a panic attack. Just the thought of having to walk through a subway tunnel gives me the willies. I'm glad the TTC was wise enough to allow people to exit through the front doors and onto the platform instead. It sucks that you were an hour late for the dance, but at least you managed to avoid the shuttlebuses from hell and arrive at your destination safely. And how ironic is it that you end up having problems on the subway when you were underground during the snow storm? I mean, during a snow storm, you're more likely to run into problems with buses or streetcars than subway trains.