These are not great days for the TTC. Underfunded, undervalued and, it seems, disrespected even by the people who run it, certainly by the city and province, it is a shadow of its former self.
Now this negativity seems to have rubbed off on passengers, who treat the system with a disregard bordering on contempt.
And so, a modest proposal for the Toronto Transit Commission: Why not a user course?
It doesn't have to be long and involved, but a session that lasts an hour or two just to teach forgetful passengers about the dos and don'ts of public transit.
It would be a helpful reminder to Torontonians of the basics; and God knows we're not talking about offering your seat to little old ladies and pregnant women – those days are long gone – but simple stuff such as not blocking the doors, not hogging seats, moving to the back of the streetcar ...
Yes, you're right to wonder, do we really need to take a course to be told the obvious? The answer, sadly, is that we do. Any TTC regular will confirm, many users don't have a clue that the nature of public transit is exactly that, it's public.
It's tempting to single out kids as the worst – and indeed many seem wretchedly socialized – but businessmen, shoppers, tourists and whole families are also to blame.
The ratio of offenders remains constant and cuts across gender, age, race, and any other qualifier you can think of.
Their behaviour makes a bad situation worse. The morning and evening ride on streetcar, bus and subway is unpleasant under the best of circumstances, but the morons standing in the entrance oblivious of everything but their iPods or BlackBerrys make it more maddening still.
Then there are those who sit on the outside of a two-seat bench – typically overweight men in suits – blocking the inside. Or those who occupy one seat themselves and use the one beside them for their bags.
On streetcars, the problem now is that the front entrance has become an exit. Few bother to leave by the rear door, and drivers no longer ask passengers to do so.
Another example of TTC timidity is the recent removal of signs requesting passengers to "Stand Right, Walk Left" on escalators. Apparently, to walk is so risky, we must be encouraged to remain absolutely still and correspondingly safer.
There was a time, years ago, when the commission put up posters in its fleet that addressed the finer points of passengership. They all began the same way: "Our riders write ..." Like the civility they described, these notices have disappeared. Operators, as drivers are now called, take little or no responsibility for their vehicles; instead they are instructed not to engage – it could be dangerous.
Who can blame them?
Indeed, it seems the TTC has been all but abandoned; the notion that it forms part of the public realm and is, therefore, shared space has also been forgotten. It has become a civic wasteland.
And so a rider's course is an idea whose time has come. To make it more attractive, the TTC might consider giving grads a discount on their fare.
Perhaps these sessions would also serve to remind Torontonians that the TTC belongs to them; that might make it harder for politicians, both municipal and provincial, to turn automatically to the system when they're looking for costs to cut. At the moment they can do that almost with impunity, but it should be the last place they go.
As the TTC goes, so goes Toronto. That's something worth studying.
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