Barking Space

Scenario A – I wake up in the morning (later than I should), and make my way through the morning rituals. I leave the house, and walk down the street to the corner, where my fellow commuters are waiting for me. The bus arrives, and we get on, and I get to work at a reasonable time.

Scenario B – I wake up in the morning (later than I should), and make my way through the morning rituals. I leave the house, and as I walk down the street to the corner, I see a bus go by. And I think to myself, I should be ok to make the next bus. And just as the thought is compelted, three more buses fly by, making their way towards the subway station. I shake my fist in the air because I know that the next bus will take longer to arrive than if I were to just walk to the station.

Scenario B happens a lot more than Scenario A, I assure you.

Now please, before fans or employees of the TTC become annoyed, I’d like to state a few things. I take public transit pretty much every day. I really admire a lot of the folks that work there. I am quite certain that most of the problem is because of scheduling and organization more than anything.

Why do buses seem to travel in herds? Why are most of my homeward-bound subway rides these days plagued by tons of delays and several declarations of my train being out of service?

A friend of mine commented that it takes her the same amount of time to bike to the airport as it does to take public transit. A direct ride would be quite fast, but add a bunch of transfers at connection points, and you are looking at significant delays.

How to solve the problem?

I am not really sure. I think that something has to be done to reduce the “herded bus” syndrome. It seems that there is a delay between the arrival of a bus to the station and the departure of it. If it is the matter of reducing driver fatigue, perhaps they could have a rotation. Have one spare driver waiting at the station who would replace the next driver. That driver could take a short break while waiting for the next bus, while the rested driver could immediately depart the station in the waiting bus.

I also think that it would be good to extend the subway up to the airport under Highway 427, and across Sheppard to the airport area as well. I think that this would reduce the number of cars on the road by a good number, and a lot of people would be able to go downtown a lot easier. However, his would require some funding, I would think.

There is always a struggle to fund our public transit system. I think that if we wanted to secure funding, we should force the members of Parliament to attend a series of important meetings in Toronto, and make them take public Transit to get there. They would be late, and grumpy. I am certain that this tactic would secure the funding we need.

Keep in mind that my ideas could be totally wrong. Most of them are based on playing a PC game called Transport Tycoon Deluxe. Perhaps not the best research tool for the job…

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