It seems as though the TTC may be reading your comments. At least halfway.

In the previous post about commuter lots, many of you remarked that instead of building more parking lots or investing time and money into parking, transit systems across the Greater Toronto Area should instead “provide viable alternates like well-served feeder bus routes” and more.

The TTC seems to be taking half your comments to heart: tomorrow’s Commission meeting will feature a vote on eliminating free parking perks to Metropass holders. Instead, Metropass holders would have to pay the daily parking fee — which can range from $2-6 — like everyone else.

It’s obvious that $6 is much cheaper than the surrounding lots that charge almost three times that amount, but I’d argue that the change won’t do much to eliminate the crowding that’s already happening at the lots. What it will do, I’m guessing, is increase the amount of cars driving in to the downtown core.

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As those of us who rely on the TTC as our primary means of transportation know all too well, the legal strike of late April 2008 hit the city by surprise. Surprise quickly turned to anger, and the blogosphere and media erupted with calls for the union to not only be legislated back to work, but to permanently forfeit their right to strike. Quickly legislated back to work in a historic Sunday sitting of the Ontario legislature, the two sides have been negotiating behind a press blackout while people continue to call for the TTC to be declared an essential service.

On Friday, to much fanfare across the blogosphere and the newspapers, both the TTC and the Amalgmated Transit Union (ATU) local 113 spoke out against being declared an essential service.

Yet what I find fascinating is the quickness by which progressive transit activists turn against the right of organized labour to carry out a labour disruption. In this post, I’d like to quickly run down the historical roots of this antagonism, and then argue that in a liberal society – one in which many rights have been conceded by modern trade unions – we have to be willing to tolerate disruptions in the interests of both human rights and liberal democracy. This all speaks to a central question: Should the TTC be declared an essential service?

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This is the first in a series of observations, questions, interviews, opinions and answers about the human experience of using transit.

I grew up in the suburbs and couldn’t articulate why I disliked it. Then, in the middle of high school, I moved ‘downtown’ and couldn’t quite articulate why I loved it.

It’s having different destinations to visit. It’s getting around to different places. Transit is cheap and easy and I felt I had achieved a level of teenage urban independence.

After university, transit turned into an item of necessity. I was a commuter. Waiting for 2 minutes or 25 minutes – waiting was exhausting. Was it worse to have already paid subway fare and hear that there was a delay or emergency, or to calculate how many full trains I would let pass before I would squeeze into one and squeamishly smile at the unhappy commuters whose personal space I was invading.

There are positive transit experiences.

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There’s one thing you notice in downtown Toronto whether you’re a pedestrian, bike rider, driver, or transit passenger: there are too many cars on the road.

A typical trip down Yonge Street reveals broken traffic laws, high tempers, and an inability to get anywhere fast. So how do you fix that?

London’s idea to keep some cars off the streets in their core is a congestion charge.

The premise is simple: if you drive into the congestion charge zone between 7am and 6pm, you pay the city a tidy sum of £8. Any surplus revenue generated by the charge goes to improve London’s transport infrastructure — which, essentially means that people driving into the city are subsidizing things like public transit and road repairs.

Certain vehicles — like alternative fuel cars, buses, and motorcycles — are exempt from the charge in an effort to promote more sustainable ways of traveling in the core.

The system, which launched in 2003 with tons of controversy, is now an everyday part of London life. The system is monitored by CCTV cameras and automatic number plate recognition, and drivers can pay their charges online or purchase cards that allow them multiple entries over designated amounts of time.

This then begs the question: is it time for Toronto to institute its own congestion charge for cars driving in to the city core?

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It’s 8:03am and you’ve just pulled up across the street from the south parking lot at Kipling TTC Station after dropping off your wife at work in Brampton and your kids at the day care in Mississauga. The north lot is always full by 7:30am, but you’re banking on the south lot to still have some spots left.

It doesn’t; the lot has been full since 7:45am, and now you’re stuck driving into downtown Toronto for work. Again.

This isn’t an isolated incident: commuter parking lots (adjacent to GO and TTC stations) do not have enough space to accommodate the multitude of commuters that are looking to leave their cars and take public transit to work every day.

Recently, I got a few friends together to find out just how hard it is to get parking at transit hubs in and around Toronto. The results are sad, but expected:

• Kipling Station (GO, TTC): Lots full at 7:48am.
• Etobicoke North Station (GO): Lots full at 7:39am.
• Cooksville Station (GO): Lots full at 8:06am.
• Finch Station (GO, TTC): Lots full at 8:42am.

Cars that try and squeeze into the lots — particularly those that try and take up the spots occupied by snowbanks in the winter — are actively ticketed by the lot attendants, and privately-owned lots surrounding these commuter lots often charge in excess of $25 to park for the work day.

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To some people who have spent their whole lives downtown the 905 might seem like something out of M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Village.’ Stray too close to Steeles and the monsters in their SUVs will jump out and grab you…

In a recent discussion board thread about improving transit in Mississauga, one opinion about the improvements already in place was that “unfortunately, the political response has been with absurdities like creating HOV lanes on the 403 (taking away an active traffic lane from an already-congested highway), dedicated diamond lanes, giving consideration to bicycles and other such nonsense.” While this might not represent the opinion of the average 905er, my 15 year experience in the suburbs suggests that sustainable transportation, as a culture, may not be the default frame of mind.

The 905 isn’t the most sustainable place to live. It’s not the most walkable or transit-friendly place to live either. But, it is a place where many people have chosen to live, and many more will continue to make that choice. It’s not going away, and if we want to transform this region into a place where sustainable mobility is the first and best choice, then we have to work within the confines of the low-density, car-oriented suburb. (more…)