And then I wake up and realize I'm standing in the middle of a crowded aisle on a VIVA bus, heading to York University. For some unknown reason, the driver refuses to open the roof vents or turn on the air conditioning. The packed load of sweating students sways with nausea as the bus lurches through stop and go traffic, navigates around road construction and dodges the SUVs that routinely cut in front.

Those of us who travel without earbuds are treated to the cacophonous hiss and pop of 30 or 40 iPods which rhythmically bash away at the eardrums of their wearers. 

And then we arrive. And we stagger out of the bus like early morning drunks only to shuffle through a gauntlet of idling buses that spew diesel fumes which gather and linger around the walkways and buildings.

What I want to know is this: if we really are on the verge of Peak Oil; if a barrel of the stuff will soon cost more than $100; if the ice caps are melting, causing half the world to flood and other half to dry out; then, why can't we at least learn to turn off buses when they are parked?  York Region Transit is about to raise fairs to $3 a ride.  How much of this fair increase could be waived if drivers routinely shut off the engines when their buses are stopped for more than 3 minutes.

Of course, I'd prefer to see a car-less world where clean buses rule the roads. In the meantime, can we at least build buses that doesn't spew diesel and irony? Right now, they are choking the life out of us.

In any case, I did get on the bike around noon and cycled over to "Getting Vaughan Moving", an event/photo-op showcasing VIVA buses, carpooling, car sharing, electric scooters, Segways and every other mode of land transport that does not involve single occupant 4-wheeled vehicles.  I was hoping to get some interesting pictures of people on Segways, balancing on scooters, etc, but there were so many cameras clicking, I spent more time drooling over fancy DSLRs instead of taking many of my own.

It's good that the region is finally getting serious about smart commuting, but the fact that the event was held in a parking lot, and the fact that very little of the official speechifying could actually be heard (due to the din of an adjacent freeway), makes me question the motives of the whole thing. After all, the reason we have a transportation problem is because the will of the federal government, the province with the complicity of many local politicians has lead to a cancerous rate of growth and development in York Region. While the politicians preach "intensification", the GTA continues to sprawl and scrape its way toward Lake Simcoe and beyond.

In reality, we do not have a transportation problem or an energy crisis. What we now have is a population that is out of step with the full spectrum of resources needed to keep it healthy and productive. As we race to replace our best farmland with Walmarts and subdivisions, we depend more and more on Chile, China and other countries for the food we eat. We depend on a supply chain that grows longer, more complex, more expensive and more precarious with each passing year. Could we do things differently?

I like to think so. We work to control growth and conserve valuable resources (including water and farmland), we can effectively engineer abundance. We could learn to live well within our means — but only if we take the trouble to fully understand what we mean by "our means".

In the meantime, we're told to accept run-away growth and intensification (1.6 million people in York Region by 2031). The politicians smile and say never you mind the numbers. Just get in the Smartcar, take a spin on the Segway. Mill about on the steaming blacktop and chow down on the free greasy burgers. 

Shall we all just smile and get with the program? 

Donna Cansfield,  Ontario Minister of Transportation boasts about how much money Ontario contributes to the region:

Vaughan Smartcar Photo-Op-Mobile:

Suit on a Segway

Getting Vaughan Moving (can I move somewhere else?)

I'm a loyal rider and supporter of York Region's VIVA Transit system . I spend at least 2 hours a day on these fast, (mostly) efficient buses. Most of the fleet now includes an LCD TV display at the front of each bus.  It used to be easy to ignore these things (they were turned off much of the time), but over the past few weeks, the incessant, mindless, insulting crap that flickers over VIVA TV is really starting to bug me.  This stream of shite appears to be downloaded over a wireless internet connection and played back in a continuous loop using Windows-based display software. As shown in Exhibit A and B, you get the time, weather, scrolling headlines of "celebrity" gossip and any other headline that includes the word "sex", "scandal" or "explosion" in it.  Apparently we are all dying to know about the lunatic antics of Brangelina, Tomkat, Spears and Hilton, et al.

VIVA and byt^emedia (what dat?) have made a terrible marketing blunder here. Most of the time, most riders simply ignore these obnoxious flickerings. And for those few who mistakenly look up, much of the time, that screen will have already crashed with a Blue Screen of Death, or entered a perpetual reboot & crash cycle. So, it would be best for riders and the VIVA marketing geniuses to just get rid of these things now – it would free up some bandwidth so passengers could check their email, browse the web — or blog their brains out. If you VIVA suits still believe that riders can't survive without the boob tube, at least give us BBC World, or CBC's Newsworld, or CNN. I just don't want to hear about Paris Hilton's latest involuntary gyrations or Tomkat's wonky dance moves.

It's time to torpedo this horrible experiment.  

On the other hand, at least the 407 ETR suits are honest about what they are doing. In reality their approach is not all that different from thousands of "green" marketing schemes — like airlines that encourage flyers to pay an extra green tax to make up for the tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel they are about to ignite in the upper atmosphere. Captain: "We'll burn 183,380 litres of fuel on this flight". Passenger: "Well then, here's 20 bucks. Go plant a tree".

For too long we have allowed corporate interests to appropriate Green as a mere marketing ploy. Do you buy the unbleached coffee filters? Do you heave a sigh of relief when the 60-inch big screen TV arrives wrapped in recycled cardboard (while ignoring the 20 pounds of packing foam)? Do you pay the extra 10 cents a litre for clean gasoline?  If only these token gestures could actually save the place. 

Sadly, the emptiness and dishonesty of these schemes is just a corporate reflection of the established Liberal<=>Conservative (they are interchangeable) political establishment. Any politician who can look people in the eye and bleat about "sustainable development" in a country with high immigration, dwindling fresh water, dwindling air quality and rapid soil depletion is full of CO_{2 (or some slimy, toxic effluent).}

When we were about to turn south on Keele Street, I could see that it was completely clogged with traffic. I could also see that according to the VIVA digital display another bus was due in six minutes. So I pushed my way out and waited. Adding a few minutes to the trip in exchange for the possibility of an actual seat seemed like a worthwhile trade, especially since I could use the time to enjoy the morning sunshine and gulp air that had not just been humidified in the lungs of a hundred other people.

But when the next bus arrived, it didn’t actually arrive! It just kept-on-a-goin’. I waived to the driver to stop and he merely shrugged and pointed at the passengers standing in his considerably less-crowded bus. “NOOOOooooooooooohhhhh”, I sad, using a choice four-letter word. “Big deal”, you say, “so the bus never stopped.” I agree — this has happened to me many times while riding the TTC, but this was a VIVA bus, a hight-tech, award-winning system! If such technology can’t save us, then what will?

So I walked the last five kilometres to work, stopping briefly to photograph the Inflatable Wailing Man that stands outside Cousin Vinny’s Discount Emporium. Today I felt just like that guy, only I’m considerably shorter and fatter:

Leaving the Wailing Man behind, I walked south on Keele past the usual maze of industrial complexes and warehouses, past the 404 toll way and over the Canadian National tracks. It wasn’t so bad. The Fall wildflowers are blooming. The Monarchs are still bopping along, slowly moving southward. The air was even breathable. The industrial din was not so good, though. The cacophony of a Toronto rush hour is a terrible thing to inflict on the human ear.

Maybe I’ll ride the bike tomorrow, though I know I’ll soon ride VIVA again. The sad thing is that too many commuter students give rapid transit a short trial and then quickly opt for cars. If only VIVA would run a few of their larger articulated buses during rush hour, then those students might just stick with the bus. If not, then in a few weeks, there’ll be more room for wailing fat guys like me ;-)

Don’t set the car on fire yet
Disgruntled SUV owners torch trucks
SUV owners burn their own expensive vehicles

Whether it is better to immolate your SUV’s mortal ignition coil now or suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous gas prices for a few more years is a question that depends on your religious outlook. In other words, the burning question for some is “What would Jesus drive?”. This issue has been debated hotly ever since the Reverend Jim Ball launched the WWJD tour in 2003 and a group of happy-go-lucky (gruntled?) SUV enthusiasts countered by promoting their own personal Jesús Rivera (who drives an SUV). So it’s a complicated issue, I’m sure, but if you dig a little deeper, you may find this very helpful scholarly discussion of the topic. Me? I’ll stick with my million-dollar Viva limo for the foreseeable future.

The morning after the Americans started dropping bombs on Iraq, I woke up to my daily conundrum: how to get to work. It sounds absurd. My life is ruled by routine in so many ways, but I can not settle on a single, preferred method of transporting my carcass to and from work. It all started four years ago when I turned in my parking permit after a price increase made busing more economical than parking. So now, depending on the time of year and the schedule of the day, I may take a bus, a bike, a train, a car, walk or rely on the kindness of friends. During the worst winter storms, I’m happy to share a taxi if one can be hired.

But on the morning after the Shock and Awe campaign began, I thought I might drive. I hadn’t started the old wreck for a few days, and was thinking about the fact that it was overdue for brake work. Braking was not going to be a problem though, because on this particular morning the engine cranked but would not catch. “No problem”, I decide, “I’ll hop on the Vaughan bus.” But as I close the car door I see the #4 pulling away from the corner. “No worries”, says I. “I’ll just walk up to Yonge and catch a GO bus south to Steeles.” Seven minutes later, I see the “C” bus crossing the Yonge and Major Mac intersection — the bus is kitty-corner to where I’m standing, waiting for the light to change. An SUV honks loudly and I’m startled to see an old Chinese man crossing against the red, causing the SUV to miss the left-turn arrow. The old man is stranded on the traffic island for a few minutes until the lights change once more. He seems relieved when the small tide of pedestrians, me among them, catches up. But the “C” bus is long gone by the time I get to the corner, so I decide to walk a few stops along Yonge until the next one shows up.

You can see a long way from the summit of Richmond Hill, but all I see is a continuous line of bumper-to-bumper tail lights snaking their way southward through the morning haze. I follow at a brisk pace, past Block Busters, past the Krispy Kreme where another line of cars idles and puffs in anticipation of coffee and sugar. Now my current plan is to hoof it to 16th Avenue and catch a Vaughan 85 bus west to Keele. The 85s don’t run as often however and I wait 15 minutes for the next one. But, it’s an 85A and only goes as far as Bathurst. The morning’s happy-go-lucky sheen is beginning to oxidize as I realize how late I’m going to be. I notice that i have subconsciously started counting the number of cars, vans and SUVs with just one occupant. If my car had only started, I know I would have counted myself among them. Mostly, I just want to get away from the noise and out of this air. I take two minutes respite at the closest Tim Horton’s and resolve to wait for the next “C” bus. It arrives within the minute and chugs down Yonge, lurching to a halt at every stop along the way.

As we bump along, I keep thinking about Iraq and North Korea, about oil and SUVs, water and the Oak Ridges Moraine, brown-outs and dozens of recently approved housing projects. I remember that the Pickering nuclear plant underwent an emergency shutdown on or about the same day our provincial government announced they would not recall the legislature. All of these items seem to be interwoven, but I can’t seem to make sense of it, can’t make the necessary connections. I’m too overwhelmed by a mental picture of the throbbing red arteries and veins of tail lights that flow in and out of this city every day. And when the Steeles West bus appears just as I step on to the sidewalk, it feels like the only thing that has connected all morning.

One place to start would be to actually run the few trains that we do have. I live one city block from a GO transit train station. Unfortunately, that service only runs on weekdays (excluding holidays) and only runs during morning and afternoon rush hour. Rapid transit can work, but only if it is frequent, clean and efficient and treats people with respect by not packing them in like sardines. York Region’s new VIVA service comes close to this ideal, but some buses are still over-crowded and scheduling can be thrown off because of road congestion.

Anyhow, congratulations to the Germans for building a big shiny train station. I don’t know if North America can solve its transporation issues, but here are a few armchair solutions to ease gridlock and reduce emmissions. Some of these ideas are crazy — maybe crazy enough to actually work — though many people won’t like them:

• Increase gasoline tax increases to deliberately push the pump price up to at least $5 a litre.
• Introduce additional toll roads for all intercity routes.
• Introduce tolls for driving into the downtown cores of major cities (as London did).
• Use the above revenues to fund busways and support local rapid transit industries.
• Discourage intercity truck traffic with high tolls and licence fees and encourage rail instead.
• Encourage truck drivers to become bus drivers.
• Require that all new and reconstructed roads have bike lanes.
• Require that car makers design cars that take advantage of RFID and/or GPS technology so that cars are “aware” of the speed limit and can not exceed it.
• Raise the driving age to 18 or 19. This will give young people more reason to use other mdoes of transportation and get more cars of the road.

Maybe you have some crazier ideas on this?

If you are still in a hurry, you could try propping up a HOV dummy in the front seat, although that approach didn’t work out well for Susan Aeschliman-Hill last month on Interstate 405 in Seattle. When she and her mannequin friend barged into the HOV lane by swerving in front of a school bus, they caused a multi-vehicle accident that injured 12 people. Yikes.

Perhaps Jason and Susan should think about car-pooling. Who knows? It could be a match made in heaven. And if it doesn’t work out, they can always opt for ‘his and hers’ flying scooters. Even that sounds safer than driving with a dummy in the front seat. Me? I’m still getting around on my trusty VIVA bus (my million dollar limo) and bicycles (when the legs feel up to it).

The PenOpticon Limo!* N.B. This PenOpticon has nothing to do with the "Opticon" that Jason Niccum was using.