Car Free Day - You Ain't Ready Toronto

This morning as I was waiting for the good ol' 53 bus to take me to work, I scanned the front page of the Toronto Sun, as I usually do from its bright red box on the street corner. This morning's page displayed a picture of a gridlocked Toronto street with the headline "Car Free Day?". As I considered the irony of the situation, I began to think of the consequences of a car free day, if it was say, legislated by law, on the infrastructure of Toronto.

I recently visited London, England and was in awe of its public transit infrastructure. In addition to an underground subway system with multiple lines and several crossovers which extended out far into the suburbs (making any trip to any location within the city and the outskirts quick and painless), there were also extensive bus lines, light rails, and train services - all for one fee within the same system. Compare this to Toronto and...well it's a little easier to grasp the differences when it is visually represented:My point in this little rant is - Toronto's excuse for a public transit system simply couldn't hold the volume of riders it would absorb should even a small percentage of the people on the roads take transit on a regular basis. The system is deeply in debt, falling apart (weekly delays during rush hour due to failed signals among the most common), and its bus services can barely keep up with the current demand. It's often more than once a week that I'm forced to wait nearly 20 minutes for a bus during rush hour. When it finally arrives, it's a blessing if I can avoid being physically assaulted by the hordes trying to simultaneously board the bus, acting as if it will leave 2.7 seconds after it reaches the station. And that's a walk in the park compared to what occurs when the subway system is partially or entirely shut down: I have witnessed people push, trip, and even kick fellow riders in such situations.

For those of you who ride the TTC frequently, who get stuck in the tunnels and are horrendously late for work on a semi-frequent basis because there was a problem at ONE station in our ONE system and, due to the ONE line we have going in ONE direction, and have to wait until the all clear, you know one thing - Toronto, you ain't ready for a car free day.