Monday, June 1, 2015

INCOMPREHENSIBLE TTC ANNOUNCEMENTS


DOESN'T INSPIRE CONFIDENCE IN SAFETY

It was 3 p.m. on the subway heading west from St. George when there was an announcement over the loudspeaker system which probably cost millions considering how transit and City Hall routinely spend fortunes on comparatively simple things.
I could give you the date but it really doesn't matter. This seems to happen most days on the subway.
I couldn't give you what was said. That remains a mystery, probably even to the guy making the announcement.
Then there were a few more pronouncements but we all looked at each other and shrugged. ' If you had mined the minds of everyone on the train and promised $100 for each word of the message,  no one would have collected.
Why the hell do we accept this nonsense from an outfit that spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year and can't even broadcast a few clear words into a subway car?
It remains as big a mystery as City Hall allowing the Gardiner and the Don Valley parking lot to be closed to vehicles for charity events. As someone who has at various times biked down the middle of super roads before they opened for business, let me tell you there is no special zing. It might as well be a wide sidewalk.
So it is just plain stupid to snarl Sunday afternoon traffic like what happened exactly 24 hours before my incomprehensible subway announcements, because the DVP was closed, and 401, Victoria Park, Sheppard and other escape routes were wrapped in construction bandages and slippery with rain.
If charities want to keep this nonsense up, we should campaign for donors to send their dollars to organizations that have more common sense.
There have been complaints for years about this and many better alternative routes suggested. But then of course the charity doesn't get its name in all the stories about the traffic closing.
People also have been exasperated for decades about muddled announcements in the transit system. It is a given that most of the time you have no idea what was said. It could be a real emergency or just the end of the world and another fare increase.
Doesn't fill me with confidence about how the transit workers do routine tasks despite the sweetheart union deals!

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