Check this out.

Seoul’s subway system opened in 1974. It currently has over 290 km of track, 266 Stations, 8 Lines, and at the most, its 1,100KRW per ride (roughly $1.10CAD). In addition, they are expanding the system by at least three lines as I type.

Toronto’s subway system was opened in 1954!!! It currently has a pathetic 69 km of track, 69 Stations, 4 Lines, and costs what these days; $2.50? There are ten stations with bathrooms? What is up with that garbage? No subway to the airport?

Public transit in North America is so bad…I don’t know if I could ever move back.

My current bike is a road bike, and I can’t use it all the time: the tires are too slippery for ice, I get muddy when it rains or has rained, and because I have to lean forward I can’t bike with a violin, and can’t take anything with me that doesn’t fit in my backpack.

I still hate Toronto traffic for biking, though. In the morning I ride on College street for just two blocks, between St George and Elizabeth Street, and there are always AT LEAST two delivery trucks parked in my lane. Bikes have to swerve around the delivery trucks into car traffic, and that’s way more dangerous than not having the lane there in the first place (and being in the car lane the whole time). It makes no sense. The delivery trucks and commuting cyclists use the lane at the same time of day…
And then people start cycling on the sidewalks, and that’s just making everything worse.

Okay, rant over.

Up until this winter, I was still feeling kindly towards the venture because we get a 2 hour bi-directional transfer that lets us hop on and off at will. I still walk just about everywhere, but it’s nice to have the option of running errands locally in lousy weather for the price of a single ticket.

But starting late last fall, because of the right of way construction and because of the track repairs at the St. Clair and St. Clair W. stations, they started playing a completely stupid and wasteful random shuffling of streetcar and/or bus service between Yonge and Keele.

First there was nothing but bus. That was cool.

Then there was streetcar from Yonge to St. Clair W. station and changing points west, like Oakwood, with the transfer to a bus taking place outside the station, as winter started to get bitterly cold. No vehicles of any kind were able to get into that station.

Then they started allowing the buses into the station, but the transfer to the streetcar had to take place outside. If you stayed on the bus all the way into the station BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THE CHANGE, it was a good 3-5 minute walk in the cold to get to the nearest streetcar stop. Walking around the right of way and sidewalks when the snowbanks were at their worst was especially fun. Oh, and the sidewalks were often never properly shoveled and were dangerously icy. Nice.

And then this week I found out that the streetcars now started their route inside St. Clair W. station instead of several blocks west at Oakwood. I waited 10 minutes at Bathurst one morning waiting for a lone streetcar to show, and finally grabbed a bus and went in the station, where a tired looking employee told me that yes, there should have been signs on all the shelters about the change, but that somehow hadn’t happened.

So now that it’s warmer, I have definitely mapped out a cycling route to Yonge St that bypasses St. Clair itself and have confirmed with the training centre that it’s OK to store my bike in the office. I still don’t know why the TTC ever decided to go to that patchwork service instead of just running a single bus back and forth for a couple of years, even after I phoned their customer support line and tried to get an answer from somebody. Idiots.

“The Star is taking a week-long look at the GTA’s transportation crisis. Today’s story looks at how a German city has conquered the challenge of moving people quickly and efficiently.”

http://www.thestar.com/transportation

Google Maps says it’s longer (6.8 kilometres vs 6.3 taking Dundas), but it feels shorter.