I’ve been thinking on and off about posting this for a while now, and since Transit City has been in the news lately, I thought this was a good time to write this post. I’ve always wondered why Transit City or subsequent Ford renditions of the future of the TTC – Karen Stintz-approved or not – never included any sort of additional line south of Bloor, considering how crowded the Yonge-University-Spadina (YUS) line gets during rush hour. This was actually something I brought up at a meeting about Transit City at one point, only to have City officials scramble for some stupid excuse of it being in “the next phase.” Well, by the time any second phase is approved, YUS would be even worse. We’re talking 2025 or later, here. Think about it.
See, I live downtown. I am a city girl. I am a CONDY (Condo Dwelling Yuppie). I rarely drive. I don’t even use the car to go grocery shopping, unless I have to buy several bags of food and/or going to a store that is far away. I find that food shopping in a moderately old world style is better – I don’t have to have an over-stuffed refrigerator, for one, and the food I buy ends up being fresher because I’m replenishing more frequently. There’s no need to freeze. And walking is mindless exercise – you’re giving yourself a bit of a workout without really knowing that you are. I realize that not having to drive to go food shopping is a privilege, but this isn’t the point of the post. The point of this post is that it seems the most vocal people online when it comes to Mayor Rob Ford’s anti-bike lane policies seem to come from those who say that the policies are anti-poverty and only anti-poverty. Instead, people really should be wording it as anti-urban and perhaps even anti-sophistication – and in many ways, I am getting this kind of vibe from both the ranters and from Ford’s camp.
The reality is that usage of public transportation as well as cycling is not something that is exclusively for those who can’t afford cars. It’s something that people who live in the downtown core just do. It’s a chosen lifestyle. Traffic downtown is a major problem, and really, the only reason why people drive is because public transportation in Toronto sucks. Look at how crowded the Yonge-University-Spadina line is in the morning! I was very surprised when the original Transit City plan didn’t include another north-south line – nor did any subsequent versions of transit, TTC Chair Karen Stintz-approved or not. It’s something that we desperately need down here and I’ve often wondered why this was never in the debate. It’s as if they’ve forgotten us.
Image credit: TTC pulling into station from Wikicommons
