Amid the storied history of horrific Toronto transit tales, there is the experience of Asmait Abraham and her 12-year-old son Simon.
On a frigid morning in February, Abraham left Simon waiting for the 59 Maple Leaf bus to take him to school. He waited and waited, but unbeknownst to him bus service had been disrupted. For two hours Simon stood in the cold with a crowd of other passengers, Abraham says. When he finally got to school he collapsed. She says his feet had turned blue.
Simon recovered, but his ordeal is only an extreme example of a common hardship faced by residents in many parts of Toronto. Abraham, who lives near Weston and Lawrence, spends a lot of time waiting for transit. It takes her three buses and a subway ride to get to her adult education class each morning, and two buses to get to the grocery store. The service is supposed to be frequent, but it isn’t always. “When they come, they come two, three, four buses together. If you miss them, you have to wait I don’t know how long,” she said.
Reminds me of the time I took transit is Burlington, during one of those whatchamacallit freezing weather alert days. It was fine getting to where I was going from the Appleby GO station, but little did I know they changed the route I was taking back a few days since I planned my route.
ReplyDeleteEnded up standing outside in the freezing cold for 30 minutes waiting for a bus that never came, finally decided to go to the nearest Tim Hortons/gas station to grab some food and call a cab. I was literally shivering for 15 minutes inside trying to warm up. A local was also waiting with me for a bit for the same bus, and he came in about 5 minutes later to call a cab too.
Never again. Eff you Burlington-Hypothermia-Inducing-Transit!
59 Maple runs every 12 minutes in the AM peak period... if you're waiting for more than 30 minutes, you should conclude something is very wrong and change your plans.
ReplyDeleteTricky for a 12 year old to assess. What do you change your plans *to*?
DeleteExactly. What's a kid to do?
ReplyDeleteI know that, trying to address just this kind of situation out in Courtice, Durham Transit suggested that I make sure their customer service number was programmed into my son's phone so that, if the bus was noticeably late in the morning (anytime, not just in the winter) my son could call to find out if there was a service disruption. Durham Transit even said that, in that case, they would call the school to advise that students taking that bus would be late. We've never had occasion to put that to the test, but it might be something for Ms. Abraham and her son (who no doubt has a phone and if not, should if he's using public transit) to consider. Poor kid. :-(
ReplyDeleteWhen I were a lad I used to walk 20 miles to school. Uphill. In me bare feet! And it were minus 20 outside and the sidewalk were made o' broken glass. Kids today etc etc
ReplyDelete