TTC

I take local transit quite a bit to get around since I don't have a car and don't usually go to far from home. Most of the time it's convenient and relatively inexpensive (compared to owning a car), I probably spend about $20-30 a week on transport which is probably less than what most drivers spend on gas alone in a single week.

In Toronto there is a constant discussion about transit and traffic and what to do about it since things seems to been going from bad to worse. The problem is pretty simple, Toronto is a city that continues to grow at a quick pace and transportation isn't growing fast enough to match it. I recently read that Toronto (just 416 area, not the suburbs) will add half a million people in the next 5-7 years but we have no long-term (heck, no short term) plan to improve transportation. At rush hour you can often watch 2-3 streetcars go by that are so packed you can't get in them and it's not uncommon for the same to happen with trains. The system is so packed that you can't imagine where all these new people will go, they certainly won't be driving since that's even a worse problem.

So what's the fix? I certainly don't know but I'd imagine it would take a politician with some leadership and big balls to do something that will initially seem unpopular (tolls anyone!) but probably help way more than it hurts.