The TTC:

Some of you might be surprised that there are other things I'm not pleased with other than the Toronto Police Department in this city that I love so much. Yes, I love Toronto and I love everything about it. But it's evident that things need to change for the better.
In this case, it's the TTC. Oh, our beloved buses, trains and streetcars do get us to our destinations.

But there are times, and more than the "occasional" times, that they are late, the drivers are rude to passengers and the bus drivers think they pretty much own the road.

My collectivist culture of East Asia can have be point the finger at the institution and blame the upper-management. But it seems that the drivers are blaming passengers. Passengers who PAY the ridiculous fare. My individualist culture tells me to blame the driver. How about we just blame both?...

I've seen my share of nice TTC drivers. For example, on the subway, a transit operator that announces each stop decided to put a little twist on to things and added little puns and some singing to each announcement like, "It's tiiiiiiiime for COLLEGE!" and "Next stop, Queen. Wave to the Queen!".
It put a smile on people's faces and some laughs, which I can tell you, went a long way.

Then there is that grumpy old guy that drives the Neilson route in Scarborough. He was SO impatient with an old man who took maybe 5 seconds to put his fare in the box rather than the usual 2.4 seconds. The driver was shaking his head, huffing and puffing and the old man had no words to say because he had to make sure he grabbed on to something or else he would've fallen when the driver accelerated suddenly.

Or how about that drive on Brimley who cut across 3 lanes almost hitting my car BECAUSE I WAS RIGHT BESIDE AND NOT BEHIND. You're lucky you didn't hit me, cuz I would've sued.


So here goes my $3 in bus fare to get on a dirty bus with a rude driver who seems really irritated that I asked if this bus route stops at a certain street, because, from what I see on the route map on the TTC website, it's friggin confusing. So excuse me for making sure that I don't miss my stop. Hm?

Royson James of the Toronto Star wrote a little entertaining article on a woman who questioned a TTC driver for being 30-40 minutes late. She was thrown off of the bus.
Not surprisingly, the supervisor that was called backed up the driver and the passengers backed up the woman.

Am I wrong to think that transit operators are providing a service? So if the service was SHIT, shouldn't the driver be more apologetic? Or at least provide an explanation.

Instead, she was thrown off of the bus (she refused to get off of the bus actually) and caused a scene.

So if that woman gets to work late and her boss questions why she's 30-40 minutes late, does she have the right to throw her boss out of the office?

I don't doubt that there are dedicated employees and upper management at the TTC, but where did those bad apples come from?

All in all...
Dear TTC: Get your shit together.