As we've discussed before on this blog, I take the bus. If you're in the mood for a light-hearted and ultimately somewhat life-affirming post, may I suggest you go this older post instead of the one you're reading now? Among other things, you'll learn the phrase "Hobbsian logic of a traffic jam," which I now realize is something I should say way more often.
This post is just about my GTA commuting experience and ways it which the forces that control the universe have created outcomes that strike me as strange or surprising or whatever. If you know me, you know I spend a lot of time commuting between Toronto, my home base, and Waterloo, where I work. There isn't space here for the endless discussion of why I choose to do this, but let me just say it has less to do with "important culture" and more to do with the texture of big city life, which is something that cheers and comforts me big-time.
For a long time, I took the Greyhound commuter bus, and for a long time, it was a reasonable option. It goes right from downtown right to the university where I work, and it has a reasonable schedule. Lately the Greyhound has been a bit more annoying, with more lateness and added stops, partly due to traffic and factors beyond their control. And lately the GO system -- the public transit system for the Greater Toronto Area -- has expanded service to include Waterloo. Would the GO be a good choice?
The first surprising thing is how complicated the answer to this question is. Like a lot of transit, everything is set up for commuters who are living in the town and working in the city, so if you're trying to go from Toronto to Waterloo in the morning and back in the late afternoon, you are not their primary target audience. From this it turns out that there are zero straightforward ways to take the GO and at least three complicated ways.
I have an 800-word note on my phone outlining the options and I'll try not to bore you with the details. But basically if you're going from the University there are roughly three options: 1) you can take a bus from the University to a mall in Mississauga, and then wait, and then take a bus from Mississauga to Toronto. It's not a "timed transfer," which means if you miss the connection you're SOL. Also it takes about three hours, for a trip that is about an hour and twenty minutes by car. 2) you can take a Waterloo city bus to the Kitchener bus station, then catch a GO bus to the Bramalea station, then change there for a GO bus from Bramalea to Toronto. That is a timed transfer. Interesting fact: the Bramalea station is so large and confusing that the first time I tried this, I almost missed the connection despite a ten-minute layover. Takes a bit less time than option 1. 3) you can take a bus from the University to the mall in Mississauga, then take a Mississauga city bus from there to the Western-most point of the Toronto subway system, then hop on the subway to take you into the city. This takes the least time, but has the most unpredictable connections.
The most surprising thing to me in all this is how hard it is to avoid the insane traffic right around Toronto itself. The Greyhound and options 1) and 2) all involve getting to the edge of the city and then sitting in massive traffic jams with all the other people driving in and out of the city. Only option 3) allows you to to bypass some of this traffic by getting on the subway at the edge of the city. But weirdly, the express bus you'd take from the Mississauga mall to the subway takes the same congested route -- highway 427 -- that is part of the worst commuter chaos. This means when I take option 3), I take the local Mississauga. Which is fine -- but how weird is it that a commute makes most sense when it goes through tiny residential neighborhoods in a city that's just somewhere along the way.
Relatedly, it is surprising that there are not more options for connecting to the Western edge of the subway system instead of staying on a bus all the way into the city. If you live in the city, you know that once you're on a subway, things go like gangbusters; there's no traffic, you zoom along, it's great. Of course I would rather be on the subway for twenty minutes than spend fifty in traffic, even if it means extra connections switching routes or whatever. What makes this the most strange is that you'd think city planners would be interested and motivated in getting as many people off the road in the area of the city as possible. Why not have every bus drop off at the subway stop at the edge of the city?
Also, as I mentioned, it is strange that the local Mississauga forms a key component in the most efficient trip. The mall in Mississauga is a kind of transit hub for the GO system. There is, I think, train service that runs between this mall and the station in Toronto. But it only runs at certain times. And they are not the times that I am traveling. Given that traffic is one of the most-discussed problems facing Toronto, and given that everyone wants to incentivize public transit, wouldn't you think this route would be popular enough to have a train running all the time? Or at least some kind of improved express bus? It seems so weird.
I could go on and on, but those are my main issues. There's some talk of making Pearson into a hub, and then you could take the UP express in and out of the city, and as far as I'm concerned that would be awesome, so yes, please.
While we're talking about strange or dysfunctional transit situation, I'd like to close by discussing the trip from Kitchener-Waterloo, where I work, to Hamilton, a town about a fifty-minute drive away. I have friends in Hamilton, and I'd love to be able to go from work to see them. There used to be a Coach Canada bus that went this route reasonably well. But that folded for some reason.
Now, as you can see if you zoom in on the screenshot at the top of this post, that trip without a car is at least 2 hours and 40 minutes. I guess this is because no one wants to go between these places. But still, it seems sad!
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