For the past 3-4 years I have rarely driven into the inner core, using transit instead. But I'm still habituated to the auto as the preferred mode when I want to run a quick errand etc. Recently I have attempted a couple of drives downtown when transit just seemed too awkward. So much for that! All my recent auto experiences in the city have convinced me, it's No Place for Old Men in Cars (and I'm not that old). The growth in auto and bike traffic even in the last 3-4 years on routes I have used for a long time is striking. I am rethinking ever taking my car downtown again.
"No Place for Old Men in Cars" Killin' me-self laffin' on that one. It's so incredibly true. I was just commenting on that yesterday being driven downtown yesterday with a friend. I was lamenting when I was younger, driving professionally (Cab and Truck, also had motorbike licence and what was then a 'Commercial' licence) that 'back then' it was getting wild, but at least you could pretty-much suss what people were going to do, even if they shouldn't. Now, it's just complete madness at times, completely illogical moves made by frantic drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.
PS - Without taking a side, I have to observe that both cyclists and drivers are just getting stupid in the city.
I'm a cyclist, an avid one, and in phenomenal shape for my age (the silver lining of thyroid cancer for decades, albeit it's no picnic, joints and connective tissue take a beating, like an old sports car with a muscle engine) and it's gotten to the point that I saw another cyclist indicate a turn today...and thought "that's exceptional". Some still do it! (Not many, let alone look over their shoulders to gauge what's behind them). It is crazy. The only saving grace is that 'Thank God they're doing that on a bike, and not in a car". I've been hit by other cyclists at an increasing rate lately. God knows how I kept my temper with some, their actions were so incredibly stupid. And they think somehow that wearing a helmet spares them being culpable for their actions.
I'm already seeing the reality out there: people will do what's convenient for them, ignoring rules if it gets in their way of getting somewhere or wastes their time.
Exactly, and this is an extension of Paul's points. It's the ME generation. I have some sympathy with the 'Distracted Walking' legislation, save that it would be completely unenforceable, and therefore over-reach.
When people see the oppposite sidewalk stopped, they just go. Then you get the lemmings effect where one person crosses on a red, a few follow, and before you know it, there's a rush of pedestrians walking across on a red and right turning traffic backs up, holding up streetcars down the road.
Time and again! To demonstrate this to the extreme, because I'm beginning to believe in Darwinian Justice for many of them, is parents pushing their baby-buggies *blindly* into traffic. They have *no ffffing idea* of what is on-coming, or if traffic is going to stop, so they test fate with their children. My God...
But the issue with this pilot is that it was compromised to work for interest groups rather than follow a strict traffic planning model based on science.
And this is where enforcement *must be sustained and effective*! 'Distracted Walking' could never be enforced, cars disobeying road rules can and should. In fact, it is the only way to make an already compromised project work.
I'm still convulsed on Paul's "No Place for Old Men in Cars"...that's a keeper! And now retired, I just don't get the point of subjecting myself to the ordeal. It's brutal! I still have my European and Californian drivers licences, my Ontario one long ago expired because I didn't send them money one year. Why in hell would I want one back here? It could be of use to relieve a driver on long-distance, but I just couldn't handle driving in Toronto or other Ontario cities again. I can admit that. I wish a lot of others would admit it too. We'd all be better off.
The major roadblock to the use of the TTC is the lack of the 2-hour transfer, if one does not have a pass of some kind. With the 2-hour transfer, one can stop off at one stop for banking, make another stop for shopping, and another for dry cleaning or whatever. With the prohibition against stopovers, people could still continue to do errands with their car, making the same stops on a single trip.
This is so blindingly obvious that it's hard to know how to comment...except this is Toronto...
I became aware of this practice decades back in Southern California, *car universe* at that time, and yet it was such an incredibly obvious and highly civilized idea back then, it's even more-so now. It's where I first saw bike racks on buses too...
