Transit strike

Ah, the joys of living in a large city in the summer. Lots of cars, lots of heat, and lots of angry transit workers. Makes for a nice combination.

Today, I weathered my first urban transit strike. One was threatened last year, but was averted at the last minute. Now, I live a good distance from campus. Not what you would call walking distance, but if I absolutely had to walk, I could. It isn't even the distance, really, it is just the time it would take me to walk that far. Walking for four hours during a day just to go to a one hour class is a little silly. Thankfully, we have a car. Lots of people don't though.

So I had heard about the strike possibility last night, and when I woke up this morning, traffic was backed up outside as far as the eye could see either way. It was also quite warm today... 34 C (or about 93 for you Americans out there). This did not make idling in a hot car any more fun, let me tell you. So, I had to drive to campus. This sucks for two reasons. One, the parking is rediculous. $1.50 for a hour of parking. Two, the traffic. Oh God, the traffic. It was insane. I actually found a reasonably good route... I took Crescent Circle down to Avenue Road, then hopped on Dupont and wove through the back streets until I hit St. George, which no one uses because it doesn't really go anywhere but through campus. Avenue was very heavy traffic, but it was moving better than Bathurst would have since there is no parking along it and there is along Bathurst. So, I got to campus in "only" 40 minutes. On a normal day, this would take me 15-20 minutes and in the middle of the night, 10. I think if I had taken Bathurst, I could have burned up an hour.

I left early so I wouldn't get stuck with everyone then leaving work at 5, but it still took me 30 minutes to get home... with a very quick stop into the store. The traffic is still awful out there, but at least the buses are going again (though in this heavy traffic, not going very well I shouldn't think), but the subway will not be up until 7 pm or so. Hopefully tomorrow, things will be back to "normal."

Workers of the world, unite! The machinery of capitalism is oiled with the blood of the workers! There, I've been Marxist.