It depends on what you do for a living. Traffic or not, driving is often a better option. There’s no way in a hell a sales person is going to carry their projector, screen, and box of pamphlets and samples on the streetcar. A contractor isn’t going to carry his tools and materials on the subway, and even if he could, if he has to hit 3 or 4 buildings in a day, he’ll waste a whole bunch of time standing around waiting for the next bus.
Those are the obvious examples. I work in tech. There are some days that I can expect to be at the office very late. What if I get stuck past the operating time? $40+ cab/uber ride home. What if a nurse or doctor has to stay a little later to care for a patient?
We also have an aging population who are still working. My mother can’t stand/walk for more than 20 minutes because of an old knee surgery. It’s just impractical for her to take transit. There are many stories like hers. Not only that, if I’m traveling with my family or group of friends, each one of us has to pay a fare. At that rate, it’s cheaper to drive and park somewhere.
There’s also a lot of riff-raff that make riding the TTC at best uncomfortable, at worse, down right dangerous. We all know about the Zantas, Sammy Yatims, and drunks that so often haunt our rides.
And to top it all off, winter causes service to be a huge crap shoot. Track switches get frozen, the streetcars get derailed, and buses have to wait for streets to be cleared. On some days, it’s so cold, you need a full snowsuit to keep warm while waiting, then you get on the train or bus and sweat your balls off.
All that being said, I am not a car whore like Rob Ford. Here’s my laundry list of changes:
Full removal of on street parking in the core. No exclusions. I love the recent king street changes, but they needed to go further. Roads are for moving, not parking. Bayview and Queen St are brutal for this.
Barriers along Richmond and Adelaide. This will turn these roads into mini expressways and will deter delivery drivers and others from hopping out for quick stops and cutting off a lane.
All-red stop lights (like at Yonge and Dundas) at more intersections for brief moments to allow swarms of people to cross.
Explicit right turn signals at certain intersections (King and Spadina comes to mind). Will prevent the dangerous dance cars and pedestrians have to do to move around.
At least 1 floor public parking on all new condo/tower builds. Or perhaps the number of public parking floors is determined by the size of the building.
24 hour TTC service, 7 days a week. If you can’t run the subway because of maintenance, run some bus loops.
Cart/trolley rentals so tourists, sales people, or contractors don’t have to strap all their stuff to their bodies.
Enclosed waiting areas for streetcars and buses, with lots of seating. We just need more seating in general around the city. You don’t realize this until you have an injury and need to sit a lot. What the hell is it that the busiest stops in the city have like 6 seats?
More security teams. You’re going to have to give them more than a baton, some of these guys are huge and are so fucked up on drugs or booze, you can’t talk them down. I know this is controversial, but we can’t let these guys run the show, which seems to be the case way too often.
Higher consequences for violent and/or abusive behavior (including speech) while riding on the TTC. I am trapped on the subway or streetcar while it’s moving, I can’t count on fleeing if things get hairy. The consequences need to be higher than if we were just out on the street.
This turned into a much longer post than I imagined, but damn it felt good to get that out of my head.