The latest seismic shudder to shake the suspiciously flimsy foundations of the Greater Toronto Area - emphasis on area - began with a shiver on the platform of the Oakville GO station on the morning of Feb. 11, with the temperature hitting -30.
"This was my third or fourth day in a row being late," recalls the shiverer, Patricia Eales, a single mother from Oakville working in a downtown office. The scheduled train to Toronto was long overdue. The public address system crackled. The announcer admitted he had no idea where the train was.
Normally, they just say, "GO Transit apologizes for any inconvenience and thanks you for your patience." But hearing the plain truth uttered in such blighted conditions - one working day after GO announced new fare hikes - appears to have inspired Ms. Eales.
"We were all huddled together for warmth, basically, and I said to those closest to me, 'You know, I think there needs to be a petition. If I do one up, will you guys sign it?'"
She collected 17 signatures that day. She returned the next day with slips of paper for people to sign. A month later, she is administering a gigantic online cry of commuter rage with more than 9,100 names attached. By the time she presents it to the GO Transit board this Friday, Ms. Eales will be leading the largest rider-led transit protest in living memory.
What's notable about Ms. Eales's petition is not just the numbers of people who signed, but the comments they registered - more than 800 pages of detailed and credible horror stories of chronic lateness, constant breakdowns and contemptuous service. They make the Gardiner Expressway sound heavenly in comparison to GO Transit.
I had never commuted to work by car, and I never wanted to. In the New York City metro area, no one in their right mind would. But one winter of GO trains and buses changed my mind completely. My hours recently changed so that I'm able to drive to work with Allan, whose hours don't work with the GO schedule, and it is such a relief.
One snowflake falls, and the GO bus is at least an hour late. I understand that weather effects public transportation. Of course I understand that. But if you operate a transit system in a winter country, you should be able to deal with winter. Several mornings I waited upwards of two hours for a bus. By the time a bus arrived, six buses worth of people were waiting.
The petition reads as follows.
In recent years, since initiating a major infrastructure renewal program in 2005, GO Transit has been plagued with frequent service disruptions, often leading to trip cancellations, and stranding passengers at GO stations. In addition to several major service disruptions, GO trains also routinely arrive at their destinations late. Weekday passengers travelling to Union Station during the morning rush hour should expect their trains to arrive in downtown Toronto at least several minutes late. GO has blamed many of the disruptions on long-delayed construction projects it has recently undertaken. It cites underfunding by previous Ontario governments for delaying critical infrastructure improvements necessary to handle GO's growing passenger volumes. Passengers though, are more likely to fault GO directly, alleging that the agency shows little concern for their schedules, and fails to provide accurate information when major delays occur.
To that end, we the undersigned sign this petition to request the following:
- 50% rebate on fare paid when GO transit is late more than 20 minutes to final destination
- Better notification of transit cancellations, modifications and delays
- More cars added to trains to ease the overcrowding, which causes safety concerns.
This petition will be presented to the Board of Directors at their monthly meeting on Friday, March 14, 2008.
More power to Patricia Eales. I'm heartened to find someone doing more than complaining, uselessly, to their neighbours or co-workers.
If you live in the GTA and are dissatisfied with your GO service, you can sign the petition here.
4 comments:
Yep, simply complaining never gets you anywhere.
The 501 Queen streetcar that runs east-west along most of the GTA has been plagued with problems for ages. Commuters have been kicking up a fuss about it, including an acquaintance of mine who started up a petition about short turns in the east end, and it appears that the TTC is
finally listening. I was completely skeptical about my friend's petition getting anywhere, or the TTC's ability to respond to complaints at all in general, but I guess it wasn't the only mass complaint, and if enough people speak up, their voices get heard.
The Queen car is bad....but TWO hours!!! Regularly!! Wow.
I came across
this while searching on the net for an article about the recent investment in the Queen car. It refers to the Queen car, but applies ANYONE who has dealt with an underfunded transit system can relate. It's kinda cute. (not sure if the links even work...I'm a bad html tagger...)
That 501 Streetcar is apparently very old and very famous. It goes all the way out to Long Branch, next to where I used to live in Port Credit.
I hear people used to take it from the motels on the Lakeshore in Etobicoke to party in the big city. (The last motel just closed this week. It was only used for movie sets for a long time.)
Anyway... that is very cool about the TTC petition. Good luck to your friend and all the riders.
And no, those links don't work. :) You can just paste in the URLs if you want.
Humph. They didn't work. For what it's worth..
First one was this: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2008/01/24/queen-streetcar.html
Second one was: http://spacing.ca/wire/?cat=49
It's a real shame that the GO service has declined to such a state. In the days that I lived in Oakville it was very reliable. I still remember the schedule and knowing that if you weren't going to get there in time, there was no point in hoping the train might be delayed, it never was.
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