It just gets sillier and sillier. Last week, Toronto police pulled over a bus in the east end of the city after passengers called 911 to report the driver’s erratic driving. A breath test was administered to the operator and she blew between .05 and .08. Breathalyzer readings of that level are not high enough to constitute a criminal offence but are in the “warning” range and trigger provincial sanctions. The driver lost her license for three days.
The TTC refuses to release the driver’s name or to say what, if any, punishment will be doled out for drinking and then driving a bunch of passengers. They, and the union, are taking the position that this is a personnel matter and nobody else’s business. While this is technically correct since no criminal charge was or could be laid against the driver, it’s a clear indication that the rights of the drivers take precedence over the safety of the public. So, Torontonians who take public transit and worry about driving with someone who has had a couple may want to think twice before boarding a bus driven by a woman in her 40s.
A few days later, the details of how Toronto councillors spent their $53,000 office budgets became public. One of the most scrutinized was that of TTC Chair, Adam Giambrone. There was a great deal of interest in how much he spent on taxis and other non public transportation. While the amount that he spent was not excessive and only shows further proof of what everyone already knows; that public transit is not the preferred mode of travel of those who have to get from Point A to Point B quickly, something else was revealed.
Giambrone, Mayor David Miller’s Sycophant-in-Chief was running for mayor until the very young woman he was having an affair with went to the Toronto Star and told all. She had just found out that Giambrone had a “partner” which is how the elite’s describe their common law spouses. The woman girl was 19-years-old when she began sleeping with the TTC Chair. One thing she apparently did was keep meticulous records and it seems that when Giambrone was bopping his teeny, on at least one occasion he took a cab to their rendezvous and billed the fare to the taxpayers under “ward expenses”. Although the fare was only $10, Giambrone did not deny it and despite the low amount it constitutes not only fraud but a fraud on the public. Giambrone did what every fraudster wants to do when they get caught; he paid it back by making a donation to the city. The mayor, who obviously revels in the hero worship shown by his protégé, is still content to have him in charge of the city’s public transit.
All of this comes in the wake of TTC passengers taking pictures and videos of transit employees sleeping on the job and lining up for coffee while their passengers wait on crowded buses. These pictures and videos went viral on the net and then made it into the mainstream media. Bob Kinnear, the thug that heads the transit workers union, blamed the passengers for taking pictures and not allowing the employees to do their jobs. Of course the pictures that we have seen were all of employees not doing their jobs but that was an irrelevant consideration. Solidarity forever.
When everything is added up, public transit in Toronto is not only a joke but a bad one. Of course it’s the innocent passengers who are to blame. Drinking drivers are no one’s business. Sleeping transit workers should be left alone to sleep in peace. And apparently leaving a bus full of passengers in order lining up to buy a coffee is just part of the job.
Nothing will ever change until the current crop of councillors is replaced by adults. We need a mayor who will appoint someone to head the large transit system who has experience in public transit or at least experience in making complex business decisions rather than simply the ability to go down on their knees in front of the mayor.
It’s no wonder that people who can afford it will never ever give up their cars or their taxi rides in favour of using public transit. As councillor and possible mayoral candidate Rob Ford put it, the TTC now stands for Take The Cab.
