I am not a fan of the TTC for anyone who needs to travel long distances. I took the TTC for the first time in 9 months yesterday and was reminded why I will never commute by TTC on a daily basis again. I was supposed to get to Yonge and Dundas in 30 minutes from Finch station. That is the ETA when everything goes according to plan. Well this trip did not go that way. There was a delay (very common on the TTC) downtown at Queen station. It took me 40 minutes to get to Davisville. My 30 minute trip took me an hour and 10 minutes to get from Finch station to Yonge and Dundas station. I had someplace to be and the TTC let me down.
Flashback to when I was working downtown!
... at least three times per week it would take me 3 hours to get home from work due to delays. Until the TTC can fix these delays for everyday commuters, the TTC is definitely not the better way to travel.
By all means, if you live in the downtown core and can hop on a bus or a streetcar or even walk this wouldn't affect you as much. During my commutes, while I worked downtown, three alarms would get pulled during my Monday morning commute. Each alarm is a bare minimum of 15 minutes lost in travel time. That would add an additional 45 minutes to my commute every Monday morning. How ridiculous is that!!!
Currently I drive downtown 90% of the time and I can get home really quickly after any event. I know I'm not saving the environment but until the city can improve their service, TTC will stand for take the car.
THE PROS:
- Taking the subway is a green method of transportation that helps save the environment
- Save on downtown parking costs
THE CONS:
- Major Delays
- Unreliable
- Inconvenience
- Too hot in the summer if you get stuck under ground
- Too cold in the winter whenever the doors open
- No alternate routes to biomass stations with delays
- Cannot keep up with infrastructure of the city and the current/future population in the GTA