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Casey 1, TTC 0. A Toronto fairytale.

Once upon a time, not really all that long ago (July), there was a young man who'd had the foresight to sign up to the TTC's Metropass Discount Plan. He was eagerly (okay, maybe not THAT eagerly) awaiting the arrival of his pass for the following month. Usually it would arrive somewhere between the 15th and 20th of the month before, but for some reason, it seems that it would not be so this time. Oh he would wait. And wait. And wait. But the beginning of the month would come around, and there would be no pass in site! So, to his horror, he had no choice but to purchase a SECOND Metropass, knowing fully well that the first one would still be charged to his bank account, regardless of whether or not it actually came in.

Well this wouldn't do. This would not do at all. So he decided to contact the office that administers such matters related to the Metropass Discount Plan. It took him a couple of weeks to do it (for this is the way it goes in his line of work, as there is always much to do and little time to contact these administration offices), but he did eventually contact them through the magic of e-mail. After some back ans forth, an agreement was made for our young hero to bring in both passes so that a refund could be made. 

But he only had the pass that he shouldn't have had to have gotten in the first place! What would he do?

Deus ex machina! Through a stroke of luck, the August monthly pass was delivered with the September pass! Huzzah!

On the 23rd of August! Not so huzzah!

But anyway, with both passes in hand, he forged a path to the MDP office in the TTC main office in the distant land of Davisville Station. There he waited in line. Fortunately, said line was short, for he was on his lunch break. When he made his way up to the window, he was surprised at two things:

1 - How FRIENDLY the guy on the other side of the glass (which he wondered whether it was bullet-proof) was
2 - The fact that they had WORKED together SEVERAL years ago

It is a small world after all! So all was well that ended well. Forms were filled, conversations had, and our hero went home $121 richer (to be paid 4-6 weeks later, for this is apparently how long it takes to write a cheque)!

The moral of the story? Never screw anyone over, for you never know when they might be the one giving you your money!

--case p.

Views // Posted December 14, 2010
Dec 14, 2010
meznor said...
Mez, 0; TTC, 2 (+ all those other times they screwed me over at Jane station):

Yesterday, it took me almost an hour and a half to travel 5km of Subway. How, you ask? I left around 7:45am, like I normally do, and upon arriving to Eglinton station, find out there's been a delay at Finch going south. This means scores and scores of people had piled up, waiting for the subway, and it would likely take a few trains before I'd be able to squeeze my little 5'0 self into the tube.

"A few" would have been fortunate. Fully five subway trains passed us by, each separated by 5-7 minutes (one which was completely empty but "out of service" - gnashing of teeth commenced at that point). So I think, there's gotta be a better way... (but isn't TTC the better way?) I go to the toll collector and ask if there's some alternative to subway, a surface route perhaps on one of the major arteries of Toronto, nay North America, Yonge street. He tells me kindly that there's a bus that comes every 10-15 minutes, and punctuates the sentence by saying, "But it's cold outside." As if I am not aware of this. Then, he also says, "You're better off waiting for a train." I tell him five trains have already passed, and I couldn't get on all of them, and the mass of people keeps increasing behind me, not decreasing, and it's become a mob scene. 'it's probably faster", he says.

I disregard his advice, because he's living inside a bubble, and I'm the one being crushed by large bodies and suffocated, so I go upstairs and wait for a bus.

It's 8:20 at that point. The 8:27 never comes. I wait another 20 minutes in -26 weather with the windchill, and finally, FINALLY, there shows up a bus.

I got to work an hour later than I normally do. The way home was no different - waiting at College, four trains had to pass before I could manouver into the sardine can, pushed up against the glass, having ornery TTC drivers screaming, "DON'T LEAN ON THE GLASS" over the speaker, and "IF YOU LEAN, YOU'RE JUST DELAYING THE TRAIN." I wonder if they've ever tried to pack in 20-25 people into the little operator's booth and told their peers to not touch the walls. I'd have to have some kind of Matrix powers in order to comply with their wishes.

Moral of the story: For every Casey story, there are at least two Meznor stories about the TTC. I wager to guess significantly MORE than two.

Dec 15, 2010
Casey E. Palmer said...
That's a pretty shite story about the current state of affairs of the TTC - sorry that your day was so horrible! Coming from the east side yesterday, I can feel your pain a bit - we didn't have your monstrous delay, but my train was Sardine City from the get-go. If you couple that with the fact that the train was inexplicably crawling along at a pace I could've outran, it was a rough ride.

When we got to the Yonge/Bloor interchange, I was going to wait for the Yonge train going south two stops to College, but that's when I saw the effects of the delay first-hand - there were easily a good 3-4 trains worth of people on the platform waiting to catch the train. While it was quite a sight, no way I was sticking around for that, so I walked the 15 minutes or so it took to get to work from there. (If I stayed in the shelter from the buildings, it wasn't nearly as bad.)

So I guess MY new moral is that the TTC forces me to adventure. Albeit a bit too often.