Toronto Life: September 2005 Archives

Since everybody is going to be talking about it sooner or later, I figured I might as well get the ball rolling. Hurricane Rita promises to send gas prices "through the roof" even if it doesn't completely obliterate Texas and all the home schooled children of the south. Not that I have anything against Texas, or home schooling, and not that I have no heart to feel compassion for all the suffering that is bound to happen when a Level 5 hurricane goes all PMS on us. I've just had some rather interesting experiences that will forever taint the already not so good names of home schooling and the south.

My mother called while I was at work demanding I drop everything I was doing and go fill up on gas before it goes up to the rumored C$2.00/L later today. She was even so kind as to pay off a chunk of my credit card bill so that I could do it. Score! I'm sure that high gas prices will be breaking wallets everywhere, but I find it hard to pity anyone, Especially in the case of Suburbia where it's mostly our own doing.

Take my family for example. What the hell did we need a Windstar for? We only number five. We got rid of the cottage a long time ago. We stopped driving friends everywhere. While it did prove useful on the rare occasion that I had it for school, I could have made due at lunch with a car. Moving into residence? It could have told me that I was bringing way too much. Common sense and foresight would have told us that a car was a much better choice. Now we have a car, and the can is ready to go. If I could only get my brother to stop being a lazy ass and walk to and from school we'd be set. Well more the 'to' than the 'from', since he has football practice or some nonsense and will most likely be too tired for walking. I did it everyday until I got fed up of waking up early so I could walk only to see him being dropped off right before the bell rang, or being picked up halfway home because my mother had picked my brother up.

It's a major problem with suburban society: on top of being incredibly wasteful, we're all lazy as fuck. We have 'Drive Through' everything now. (Yes I'm going to spell the 'through' because 'thru' is not correct unless you're an idiot, or lazy, or both). Sure it's nice to be able to lean out the window of my car to the point where I might fall over and smash my brain all over the bank machine I'm trying to access, but isn't it a little much? What about all the gas that I'm wasting idling there doing my business, never mind waiting in line. Oh my poor gas tank. Starting to see why I find it hard to pity people?

Since I'm only a coop student and I'm not yet bitter or jaded about life, you won't hear me complain about the taxes on gas either. I have more concern for the provincial government than the federal; the feds already take our money away and waste it on the other useless provinces or Ottawa's public transit. It would be nice to see Ontario having a tiny bit of the money that the rest of Canada saps from it. (This doesn't include the natives who I will refuse to call Canadians because it is my government given right as a taxpayer, you collectively lazy and manipulative group of people. If that 8 year old had been foolish enough to try and tell me that I stole his land, he would have been shoved into the freezer full of illegally killed Canadian Geese before he finished the word 'bitch'. Please. My families immigrated at some point or another and they alone contribute more to society than you could, instead of just leeching off of it).

You also won't hear me complain about less people wasting their vote on the Green Party of Canada now. This is more of an added bonus for me. Not that there's anything wrong with the Green Party, I swear. None of the real parties (Liberal, Conservative, NDP) will actually cut the gas tax. They might promise to cut it when election time rolls around, but none of them would actually do it. But no one is going to seriously consider voting for a party that wants to raise the tax on gas. (Except for maybe the Toronto Public Space Committee, but they're a bunch of poor communist hippies who get incredibly jealous of how hot people tend to carry iPods. Rest in peace, Spadina LRT iPod ads). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a better environment and all that jazz, but why risk economic recession/depression when I can get months worth of entertainment watching up everyone cry as they fill up their gas guzzling vans and SUVs. Ok, so I might just be a heartless bitch after all but it's just too good to not enjoy.

Yesterday, in a true testament to just how much of a loser I am, I went to the opening of York Region Transit’s new un-bus service Viva. They call it the un-bus because they want to make a distinction between Viva and their regular bus service. In a nutshell, it is suburbia’s answer and alternative to the expensive subway. Laurence, working for the TTC and being god of all things transit related, decided that we should go up armed with cameras and ride the shit out of the system (which only had part of two lines open). I have to say that I’m impressed with the service, and the fact that they got it up and running now while Mississauga Transit and Brampton Transit are still trying to figure out what the hell they’re doing.

Viva works like this: there are 2 (soon to be 5) routes. Its part of the 1system transit family, which only includes YRT and Viva but means that one fare lets your ride both of the services. Along each of the routes, there are vivastations that have oneRide machines to sell ready-for-use tickets. Six of the transit terminals have multiRide machines that sell the full range of fairs. You can also get on to Viva by using a transfer from a YRT bus.

The un-buses are of Belgium design, and painted a bright blue colour to help you distinguish the Viva un-bus from a YRT bus. Much like the subway which it is mean to stand in for, it has sets of large double doors that open all at once to allow for quick easy boarding instead of boarding just at the front like a regular bus. The articulated un-bus (read: long double bus) have tables set up for people who want to do work en route, with wi-fi coming soon. Or if you happen to be Laurence and Mike, you can put stuff on the table just because they're there, and you are so fucking cool because you're riding Viva on the first day (and you just happen to know more about it than any of the un-bus drivers and information employees).

The seats on the un-bus are incredibly comfortable (so much that it was hard to ride the TTC from York University to Downsview Station afterwards). There's a screen at the front of the bus that displays what the next station is, as well as a computer-female voice recording of the station as you arrive. The GPS system tells the bus when to play the recording, and also helps update the displays at the stations telling you how long it's going to be until your next un-bus arrives. It's also supposed to help with traffic priority at the lights, but for that to work the un-bus drivers need to be taught to stay in the proper lanes first.

I'm going to be honest when I say that I'm looking forward to them reconstructing the routes to give the Viva vehicles separate lanes, most likely in the middle of the road much like the streetcar LRT lines along Spadina, The Queensway, maybe the Harbourfront (I can't remember, but I don't think so) and soon to be St. Clair. You'll notice I said vehicles this time, instead of the un-bus. That wasn't a mistake. Part of the reason that Viva is being introduced in phases is because YRT wants to build up the ridership to turn Viva into an LRT line. I'd say subway line, but that would require tons and tons of ridership in an area that loves suburban sprawl. The centre Viva lanes already have money set aside for them, and would make traffic priority much easier to do. It would also make it the BRT system that they market it as, instead of just a glorified express bus route. But I still love it, and the concept. V is for Viva, and I'm going to Viva all night long.