If you’re planning a visit to Toronto and thinking of using transit to get around, please read this first.
Early in this coming week I need to make a trip to a Toronto Police station with regards to the investigation they are conducting into one George Flowers. As the station is located in a part of Toronto I don’t know well (I haven’t lived in Toronto in 40 years) I thought I’d make use of the “trip planner” on your website. To Commissioner Karen Stintz, after my experience, my advice is“fix it or scrap it”.
From the Metro Police website I had the street address of the station. I also knew where I planned on boarding a TTC vehicle, and when I expected to be travelling. So, given this information, it should be a simple matter for this planner to give me a route. Not so. When I put in the street address for the destination, it told me it couldn’t find a match. Changed that to the Division number and street – still couldn’t match it. From my street maps – six years out of date (from my taxi years) – I found the nearest intersection and put in that as the destination. Finally some success! Upon closer study, I see there is an “upper” and a “lower” street. Now from my maps, I knew they’re only block apart, so I just picked one, knowing the station is somewhere in that block and the weather forecast for most of the week is good. Went on to the next step. Waited a short while and up came three options for me. Option 1 involved a nine minute run on a streetcar (Toronto still uses them) and no transfers. Option two was a twenty minute trip involving one transfer from the subway to a bus. Option three was shown as 23 minutes and involved two transfers – from a westbound subway train to a southbound bus, then to an eastbound streetcar which would bring me back to my destination. Each option involves a walk from the stop to the intersection of about 100 yards, which isn’t too bad. But, there’s more. I just looked at this “trip planner” thingy again to try a different time of day. I typed in the destination that was successful my first attempt and was told, once again, it can’t find a match.
Ms Stintz, this is not the first time I’ve had an issue with the trip planner. Oh no. Last year I used it to find a route from the main train station to a shop on McCaul Street, in Queen Street West and University Avenue area. Oh, this time it did give me the routing without too much difficulty, but the suggested walking part of the route, well … I ignored that part of it. Granted, once again I was given three options, only one of which was truly worth considering, at least the transit part of it was. But why on earth would the TTC trip planner send me along a side street, then through an alley to reach my destination? I looked down this alley from the far end and it certainly dissuaded me from walking it even at the 10:30 in the morning I was there. This alley was lined with dumpsters, garbage trucks and delivery vans. Queen Street West, at least the section I wanted, is a vibrant tourist area. Why would I want to avoid a tourist area, with plenty of photo opportunities, and use a grungy back alley?
The TTC bills itself as “the better way”, but routing people through back alleys certainly doesn’t live up to that billing. If this trip planner is provided for tourists to help them plan their trips around Toronto, routings like this and the difficulty in finding the exact wording for either destination or origin points isn’t going to do the TTC much good. It will however be of tremendous benefit to the Toronto taxi industry. As I said back in the first paragraph, when it comes to the trip planner, either fix it or scrap it.
To my followers and readers, enjoy the rest of your Sunday and remember to hug an artist – we need love (not to mention proper directions) too.
Cat.
catsworld1 