Keeping watch at Union Station

The GO Transit security team keeps a sharp eye on passengers, including me, on an open section of rail line at Toronto's Union Station.

GO Transit, full metal stop

Commuting in and out of Toronto is always a challenge as the roads are always busy but at rush hour the simple 45 minute drive becomes two and a half hours. Add in the cost of parking and many people end up using public transit. Most public transportation works only within a municipality, although some routes do mingle, so that if you travel through more than one municipality the best bet is GO Transit. Not surprisingly the trains have the same shortcomings as any other method; weather and breakdowns can happen at any time - but sometimes it seems like Friday is the day for breakdowns.

Today, yes a Friday, the Georgetown line had a major problem as the 4:15pm train from Union Station decided to break down in Malton right beside the International Centre. For an hour and a half they worked on the train but could not get it running. Finally another train came and pushed the broken down train to the Bramalea station where we got out of old unfaithful and moved into the working train.

Train 247 pushes train 601

The Corridor Club - A GO experience

Boinkin on the train! The modern and luxurious GO Transit commuter train comes complete with bathrooms and apparently some of the passengers are getting to know each other quite personally with members joining the "Corridor Club". The practice has been coming up in conversations as people read (and write into) the free evening newspaper t.o.night in their "Shout Outs (email link to submit your own shout out)" column and which includes talk of banana and oreo cookie eating.

The shout outs are usually full of compliments (l laughed so hard, cute, beautiful) and verbal high fives, complaints of other passengers (loudly burping, boring old prude, complete moron, etc) and the occasional request for corridor club action, or boasting of having got some action. Here is a shout out from the October 18, 2010 edition "Looks like BB is looking for more that just initiation into the club, sorry BB I could not wait any longer, I received my initiation last night. Signed, previously Mile high member now Dual Club Membership." For the other side of the coin here is Concerned Observer saying "...there are a lot of weirdos out there, just look at the corridor club".

Now I see bumper stickers pasted over newspaper boxes on the streets of Toronto which state "The Corridor Club .com ....you know who we are". Their online tag is "the place where commuters come together".

The Daily Commute

Over 1.2 million people are said to commute into and around Toronto and I happen to be one of them. For me the almost two hour ride, each way, on the GO Bus and GO Train is a huge commitment of time to get to work. Like many I enter downtown from Union Station and head up Bay Street towards the Eaton Centre.
The trains and buses disgorge people by the hundreds who grab other forms of public transportation or just walk where they want to go.

I always find it fascinating to see the people as we march in one direction, en masse. Occasionally someone fights through the crowd in the opposite direction - hoping not to get run over. Usually on our city streets there are people going both directions, it never seems a focused movement, that is until rush hour, then with a single minded purpose we are heading north from Union in the morning (pictured) or back south to Union in the afternoon.

Walking is the best part of the commute. During nice weather many people keep above ground, catching a few rays and getting some nice excercise before the start of the work day. If the weather is bad more people stay underground until the last possible minute using Toronto's fabulous PATH system.

No GO Transit - Signal Problems Bring Delays

I was heading out to Union Station when a coworker showed me an email saying that signal problems had temporarily shut down some GO Trains - just in time for rush hour.

This is what Transit Toronto said of the issue "A major disruption to all GO Train service is currently underway. As a result of problems affecting CN’s signals and radio communications, GO Transit has had no choice but to suspend all GO Train service at this time, affecting thousands of commuters heading home during the afternoon rush hour."

Hoping that the problem would be fixed I ventured out in the very light snow that had started earlier in the day. I went in the entrance off of Bay Street and noticed that there were a ton of people around the customer service area. They really weren't announcing any problem over the intercom, however the display boards showed a number of Wait and Cancelled status alerts. Not knowing if things were soon to be fixed or if I should look at alternative ways of getting home I just hung and explored.



Eventually trains started to come into Union and they announced each one over the loudspeakers. My train showed up about 30 minutes after it usually arrives. Lining up on mass on the platform, standing 6 or more deep, we waited for the train to stop and the doors to open and then the river of people poured into the two sets of door in each train car. All in all we left Union Station only 15 minutes past the official departure time so the delay was minimal. As a bonus the bus arrived at the last station just after we arrived.

PS You can check the status of GO Trains and Buses on their website here.

Out and about

The City's views change during the time of day. In the early morning while people are getting ready to come downtown the streets are sometimes clear of people and the bright morning sunrise creates some nice reflections off the windows of the office towers.

The wildlife in downtown Toronto is limited to seagulls and pigeons and furry little rodents like squirrels.




Along Queen Street West the urban landscape remains full of advertising - the new Harry Potter movie is apparently playing while a man takes his favourite ladder out for a bike ride through the University intersection.

Terminator Salvation - 5.21.2009

The future is ours to make - and my future includes the new terminator movie - Terminator Salvation, with Christian Bale as John Connor, leader of the resistance. The movie opens May 21 at a theatre near you.

The previous movies and television series were fantastic and I certainly look forward to this new installment. Judgement Day has finally come and gone and now humanity must fight for it's very survival.

The poster shown above is plastered over a GO Transit train bound for Toronto. The following picture was made on the Terminator website - just upload a picture and start to play. Although my picture was real, it was shot after my fight with Cameron (Summer Glau), John’s Connor's friendly terminator robot.

The GO Transit experience

Update: If you want to know about the Corridor Club check out my post here.

I have always loved the excitement and visual feel of Toronto and I often come as a tourist to take in shows, shop and enjoy some of the many attractions that the City offers. Lately I have been coming more often as my department has transferred to the big smoke and my homebase location will officially be Toronto at the end of March '09.

Now if you want to get into Toronto as a commuter you are talking about rush hour travel through some of the busiest roads in the world. If you can swing variable shifts you can hope to avoid some of the worst travel, but otherwise you are stuck in a slow moving piece of metal, praying you don't get into an accident, see an accident, or go to the bathroom before you have an accident.

If you leave early enough you can try to beat the morning rush hour but unless you leave Toronto late at night you are going to be smack dab in the middle of the evening rush hour (which starts around 2pm). The best time to travel in and out of the City would be from 10am to 2pm. During this time I could drive into Toronto from my home in about 45 minutes. In rush hour traffic each leg of the journey takes about two hours - and I hate the continuous stop and go travel that rush hour brings. Throw in winter weather and hefty parking charges (it costs $17 a day at the building where I will work) and you are pretty much describing hell on earth. PS I see that a lot of event parking costs have risen to $30 in the downtown core - yikes!

So I have decided to use GO Transit. You get all the benifits of being a green consumer, i.e. mass transit, save gas, reduce pollution, etc, while avoiding the hassle and costs of driving into the City. The cost of a round trip ticket from Acton to Union Station in Toronto is currently $19 and you can write part of the costs off in your income taxes. You can also buy your ticket on the bus. I have found the GO system to be pretty efficient and they run pretty close to on time, most of the time.


I can walk up to the intersection right beside my home and catch the GO Transit bus at 5:56am which then takes me to the Georgetown GO Station in about 20 minutes. Now, I remember taking regular transit buses when living in North York but the GO bus is special - luxurious even, in comparison. The seats are soft and comfortable and the backs can be put back for more relaxing travel. The heaters blast out warm air and you enjoy the ride as you rock back and forth high above the other cars and vans. Snowing, who cares, you are not driving and these mammoth vehicles laugh at snow.

Pulling into the Georgetown GO Station, we grab a free paper, head through the underground tunnel under the railway tracks to the waiting GO train and pick your favourite seat - it's the beginning of the route so at this time there are plenty of seats. The trains is ready for it's 6:25am departure, making all regular station stops on it's way to Toronto's Union Station - hub of our little world. The GO train is pretty unique, it is a two story beast, usually painted the GO colours - green and white, but sometimes with large advertisements plastered and covering a complete car. The seats are a smaller and more rigid than the buses and it is usually colder in the train in winter especially if you are leaning against the windows along the sides of the train.


While you need tickets to get onto a GO bus the GO trains are 'proof of purchase', meaning you do not have to show a ticket to get on a train, however you do need to have proof of purchase (also called a ticket) if asked. I was on a train one morning and over my shoulder was a loud voice announcing 'tickets please' and a guy looking like a GO cop without a gun wandered the aisles checking everyones tickets. The girl across from my seat did not cancel one of her ride tickets (you can get multiple ride tickets which you poke into a machine when you want to ride the train) and got a fine. She was also fortunate not to get Tazed.


The seating arrangement of the trains makes for the most uncomfortable ride - we are always told not to point and not to stare at people; it's rude, and yet we board these trains and we have to stare into the faces of strangers - face to face, eyeball to eyeball. I can only imagine the design favoured squishing as many people into seats as can be possible and that requires people to be face to face. It's not that the seats are unduly uncomfortable but it is instead the layout that produces this uncomfortable feeling - where do I look? The choices are turn your head and look out the window (try doing that for awhile and see how much your neck hurts), read a book to pass the time (gives you something to do and you can avoid staring at people), sleep or pretend to sleep (I hope you don't drool, snore or miss your stop) and the final option - stare at people. The ride in from Georgetown to Union takes just a little over one hour (arriving about 7:20am) and at the station you join the crowds pouring out of the trains and down into the bowels of Union Station. Here is a Youtube video of the train ride as the train leaves Union Station. And here is a train as it pulls into platform 3 at Union Station.






One of the interesting parts of our great city is the PATH system which is an underground tunnel complex tying together various buildings winding it's way under the streets of Toronto in the downtown core. PATH is the world's largest underground shopping complex with 27km of tunnels and stores. I couldn't find out if PATH is an acronym or if it just stands for the obvious 'course or track' for travel. If it was an acronym it would probably be 'People Are To Hurry' which probably also included 'Or They Will Be Run Over.' PATHOTWBRO didn't make sense for small signs so they shortened it to the easier and smaller PATH. Still, go slow and see what will happen - don't say I didn't warn you. Or you could always venture above ground in the slush and snow and brutal cold of winter - your choice.


As the commuters wind through the free PATH system, first through Union Station (trains) and into Union Station (TTC subway) then proceeding northwards to the various towers and businesses along the route, you realize how much like ants we really are sometimes. It takes about 20 minutes walking to get to the Eaton Centre (Yonge-Queen) and into my nearby office - total trip time almost two hours. Repeat in the afternoon, day after day, year after year - maybe that's why not many people are smiling during their commute.



Here is a Youtube video of the train travel between Brampton and Georgetown. We pass by a bunch of deer in the farmer's field in this rural area of the GTA (for now).