Toronto Transit Commission aka: TTC

was here in Toronto 1984. I found it to be clean and a quick efficient form of transportation. I can’t count the MONORAIL in Seattle since it’s above ground! Since then I’ve used the Chunnel,the Tube in NYC,Paris & London as well as the Bart in SF!

You know the phrase, “dumber than a sackful of hammers.” I’ve used that zinger once or twice.

The other day, I encountered my first-ever sackful o’ hammers. Really and truly, someone gave me a sack full of hammers, a bag with 2 hammers in it. Does that phrase apply to the giver or receiver of the sackful of hammers? Hopefully neither one.

It all started when someone wanted me to deliver some tools to someone else who I was on my way to see and it would have been really out of their way to deliver them themselves. Got that?

Except that my plans had changed on the fly and I was no longer going to pass Go and collect $200 and see this other person who was expecting the hammers (with or without the sack I guess) right after seeing the person with the sack. Still with me?

I was now going back home via the tube/metro/subway or local historical nickname, The Red Rocket, because the original trains were red. What’s happening with the ultra-high-security on our public transportation systems? It was so ultra that it’s almost like it’s not even there. That is such good customer service!

Or, conspiracy believers gather round, maybe the security ‘scanned’ me without me knowing it and ‘they’ determined that I was indeed carrying a sackful o’ hammers which was no immediate threat! Or better still, if the sack full of hammerage jangled or made noise as I carried it, then those hammers could no longer be considered dumb!!

Imagine the action desk at the Counter Terrorist Unit in the subway security office… they’re all huddled around the monitors, watching my every move, until one of the agents yells to everyone that he hears a noise…. what is it…. “OK, everybody stand down, it’s just a sackful of hammers but they’re no longer dumb, I repeat, the hammers are no longer dumb and are not a threat. Call Jack Bauer, these puppies are no longer a threat!”

Remember your Mom always saying, “don’t run with scissors.” That’s how I felt when the doors opened at my station. Don’t run, just walk, it’s just a couple of hammers on a subway train, nothing to get excited about. It’s all in support of someone else’s DIY project.

Now if you needed to go to someplace like Home Depot and get an extension ladder, you might want to avoid the longer subway trips in getting the thing home! And do try to minimize transfers between trains. Especially with a ladder during Morning or Afternoon Peak.

Trust me when I say that you all in Toronto have nothing to complain about when it comes to mass transit. Compared to rail and bus service in Chicago (CTA), the TTC’s service is a godsend. All times I’ve been in T.O., I’ve never waited 40 minutes for a train (rush hour or late night), I didn’t have to cringe at the smell of urine (or worse) or some homeless person, I didn’t have to worry about sitting in a puddle of urine, I’ve never waited 20 minutes halfway between stations with my nose in some person’s armpit, people didn’t hurl themselves onto the tracks during rush hour, et al.

According to http://www.themap.ca/

Regular Metropass Price: $99.75 per month
OR
Metropass Discount Plan: $91.50 per month
Federal Tax Credit: – $14.18 per month
Actual Cost of Metropass: $77.32 per month

$2.25 cash a ride or $2.10 per ticket. You can get a day pass which is about the price of 4 tickets.