I\u2019ve been wronged by the TTC just as much as the next guy, probably more, and I just take it in stride. Within the last couple months the TTC has destroyed my perfect on-time record and shortchanged me upwards of $170! It\u2019s just a mediocre public service, I remind myself. I was able to maintain this principle until they confirmed that come January, they would raise the price for this miserable service to a laughably high level from an already ridiculous amount!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Where is all of our money going anyway? It certainly doesn\u2019t seem as if the TTC is using it to make any improvements. One recent waste of our money was the St. Clair Streetcar project: dedicated lanes for streetcars to make service faster. Several years behind schedule, it\u2019s almost finished. Most of the track is open now, and it somehow takes me longer to get to school! Thanks a lot. Any chance the TTC can serve my soon-to-come early sign-ins?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n As far as I\u2019m concerned there are two ways to run an organization like the TTC. Either as a cheap, poor-quality service where patrons are mistreated, schedules aren\u2019t met and facilities are filthy, but fares remain cheap. Or, it could be run as an expensive, quality service where customers are treated as deserved, service is timely and facilities are adequately hygienic, but customers pay the price. I\u2019m okay with either of these scenarios; but the TTC offers neither. They offer a combination of the two.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The TTC offers us loyal patrons a dismal service at a high (and constantly rising) price. No normal business could sustain this. Of course, customers would not remain loyal to businesses that mistreat them amd rip them off all at once. So why do commuters remain loyal to the TTC? It\u2019s because they have a monopoly. The controlling influence in a monopoly can do great things for a business. Personally, I admire a business that can appropriately take advantage of a monopoly, but there\u2019s a difference between a business and the TTC. The TTC is a public service and a business is a profit-motivated enterprise. The monopoly the TTC has is one given to them by Torontonians, and so Torontonians should be benefiting from it as opposed to suffering. The TTC, however, doesn\u2019t hesitate when inflicting mass pain and suffering on us with their monopoly.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n As one of our public services here in Toronto, the TTC owes it to us to stop taking unfair advantage of its monopoly and must do one of two things. Either choose to become cheap and remain inferior – or start providing quality service and remain priced for royalty. We as students, the most powerful group of customers of the TTC, must respectfully remind them of their duties and the standards they must uphold. Until such a time that the TTC chooses to stop bullying their loyal clients, they will remain an organization of bullies. Some say it\u2019s not a good idea to run from bullies; well, at least it\u2019s faster than taking the TTC.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n AHRON SEMAN I guess I\u2019m a TTCer. Don\u2019t blame me; I wouldn\u2019t take it if I didn\u2019t absolutely have to \u2013 there are just no other options. It\u2019s not completely horrendous; it eventually gets you where you\u2019re going (most of the time). It\u2019s just that sometimes it seems as though the TTC isn`t aware they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graffiti.ntci.on.ca\/2009-10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graffiti.ntci.on.ca\/2009-10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graffiti.ntci.on.ca\/2009-10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graffiti.ntci.on.ca\/2009-10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graffiti.ntci.on.ca\/2009-10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/graffiti.ntci.on.ca\/2009-10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":385,"href":"https:\/\/graffiti.ntci.on.ca\/2009-10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graffiti.ntci.on.ca\/2009-10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graffiti.ntci.on.ca\/2009-10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graffiti.ntci.on.ca\/2009-10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"TTC\"](\"http:\/\/graffiti.ntci.on.ca\/2009-10\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/TTC.jpg\" "\\"TTC\\"")
<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"