journal features

the TTC is driving me crazy

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2011.09.23

Today the streetcar arrived after I'd been waiting for twenty-five minutes - the third such delay in a week.

In fact, just on Wednesday night, it took me 75 minutes to get home, principally because no streetcar showed up for half an hour. And the driver that did show up belligerently told me that he wouldn't give me a transfer to continue my trip because I'd taken a seat just behind him before realizing that he hadn't offered me a transfer.

After Saturday's two hour marathon to travel fifteen kilometers, I'm beginning to see that the Beaches, while nice, is not adequately served by transit to make it really livable if you don't have a car. The obvious answer is to move somewhere that's at once more convenient and likely cheaper, but the problem immediately arises: what's better in Toronto when it comes to the strangled traffic?

Happily I have plenty of reading to do these days, and am able to make the most of the situation.

rand()m quote

One day you will take a fork in the road, and you're going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. If you go one way, you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and get good assignments. Or you can go the other way and you can do something [...] for yourself. If you decide to do something, you may not get promoted and get good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won't have to compromise yourself. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you have to make a decision. To be or to do.

—John Boyd, US Air Force