Public Transit
I’m sitting on a train right now, I don’t mind it really. It’s nice, it’s fairly roomy, I’m comfy and I can sit here and type. I live in Canada, and because I was lucky enough for both of my parents to be born here and for them to meet and have me here, I’ll never know about most of the serious problems of the world. The more I travel and the more I learn – sometimes independent of each other, sometimes not – the more I realize just how lucky I am to be in such an amazing country. However, if you don’t complain about your vacuum you’ll never get a dyson. So let’s rant.
We live in a North American society where very few people take public transit. But recently with the imminent attack of climate change around the corner, us North Americans are deciding to be more eco-conscious. We’re seeing recycling bins popping up on almost every street corner and our giant corporations pretending to do the best they can to help too. The average Joe is helping the cause, We’re flicking out the lights, or running our dryers in the middle of the night, but we still encouraged to do more. Like take public transit.
But here is the really big problem with our public transit: It doesn’t work very well. We’re too rich as persons and too big as a society to create a functional public transit system. That is, until we want one.
I got a drive to Richmond Hill (a place just north of Toronto) and it took me 1h and 30mins. It was out of my way yes, but it was manageable. On the way back, I figured I’d take public transportation! To be honest it was more to save my father trouble than to save the environment… but either way, it was available. I lucked out too; I managed to never have to wait once for a train or anything! It seemed all the lights were green as I approached. And the same voyage that took me 1.5 hours took me 3.5 hours!
Wait, What?! That’s insane! Why would I want to waste 2 extra hours travelling when I could just drive? Depending on the gas prices, it MAY be cheaper… but not by enough to waste two hours.
So it seems: More important than getting the mass of commuters to take public transit is to get the public transit to be efficient and effective enough to take the mass majority.
In my mind there are two things that need to be in place for people to even consider taking the train to work – as opposed to the car.
- If not less, it must be at least the same time commuting.
- It should run you about the same price as driving there (factor in insurance and maintenance if you will).
The third thing, which we also need to work on, is a system in place that can adapt to the increased demand of the first two. These factors should out way the inconvenience of not having a car with you in the city to get you to off the grid areas.
Can Ontario do this? Yes.
Will Ontario do this? Not for a long time! As responsible and responsive as our government is it still lags behind in any sort of innovation. A private company could do it, but it may be too much for even them to handle. Without creating new tracks here’s what we can do!
