The Simon Tonekham Statesman

Do you guys remember there was a slogan by a major credit card provider that always ask the viewer, “What’s in your wallet?”. Well in that case, that company is Capital One and they decided to pitch in financial support for providing the TTC free rides on the transit system – streetcar, subway and buses! The TTC haven’t done this for almost 30 years. In the past, it’s business as usual for many riders – even on New Years’ Eve. But some TTC attendants like to “break the rules” on letting passengers in so they won’t pay the fare – that’s a bad idea to some and that’s in my humble opinion. If you live in Toronto and/or going to attend the celebrations in Toronto, you’re in luck. However, there’s one drawback: the free service does not start until 12.a.m on New Years Day – Jaunary 1st, 2008.

Many other transit systems in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) are offering similar or relatively identical promotions like the TTC. For example, Durham Region Transit is teaming up with Ontario Power Generation or OPG (the province’s power generator) and the Manufacturing and Technology Centre on providing free transit service from 8a.m. to 2a.m. GO Transit in the meatime will provide free rides after 7p.m. until end of service (All times Eastern). It is uncertain for Durham Region Transit, as they are in a middle of a $2.3 Million CDN deficit and it could rise…..As for GO Transit, their bus drivers are currently planning to have a strike sometime on January 7th, 2008. Which is blasphemy because, people will have nowhere to go! This is the worst experiences I had as a college student.

Today, I was catching a bus home from Oshawa to Ajax (I was at the Oshawa Centre to do some Boxing Day shopping). I showed my UPASS to my bus driver (a universal transit pass on my Durham College student ID card. UOIT students and Trent @ Oshawa students also participate in the program and it’s included in the tuition) and the bus driver told me that the UPASS is NOT valid on holiday service. I’ve tried to persuade him that it is valid during on holidays, but the driver refused my claim. I was then forced to pay with my leftover DRT adult ticket. Another colleague of mind – this time a UOIT student showed the UPASS to the driver and she got the same response as mine. She was then forced to pay cash as a result. She didn’t got angry at first and for myself, I tried to cool down my frayed tempers. By the time I left the GO bus, I was mumbling to myself on my head. Shortly after the incident, I briefly recorded the bus number, the date and time of the incident and where the incident occurred. I filed a complaint to GO Transit and to the Better Business Bureau. To view my progress of the BBB report, click here.

This is the third time that I got ding’d! The first time I got ding’d was a DRT bus driver thinking that my pass is not valid. My second incident happened when another (you got that right), another GO bus driver checked my pass at the back and she thinks that I had altered my pass, but what I was suppose to mean is that the inked that the student ID office stamped for me got smudged. So after that, I have to get my student ID replaced. This is a very bad experience for me, I’m considering to file a lawsuit against Durham Region Transit and GO Transit (the problem is, i don’t know where to start and as the old saying goes, it’s up to the courts to decide). The College’s paper had written an article about the UPASS misuse and you can view it right here. Here’s what a co-ordinator for student identification services referred about me:

“The onus is on the bus services. Some drivers don’t check, and it’s up to them to enforce it. We had one guy come in and he’d written over his stamp in marker……as if we couldn’t tell it was his handwriting. We will re-stamp cards if they become faded, scratched or damaged, though. It happens.” The bottom line is that using a fake stamp on campus ID cards is considered fraud.

Anyways, free transit rides are a sure thing that the TTC has finally get their hands in their pockets. To close it off, I would like to say best wishes for a better 2008. If you are going to a public place, like an arena (such as Oshawa’s Celebrate 2008 at the General Motors Centre) or a square (like CityTV’s New Year’s Bash 2008 at Nathan Philips Square in Toronto), this is my take home advice for you: Remember to be kind and generous to other people at this time of year. If you exaggeratedly filed with excitement, you have decided to break it. Just like the song by a band from Vancouver, B.C. called Marianas Trench. The song goes like this:

A thousand promises that never seemed to help me before
A hundred less and I would stumble till I found the back door
With nothing left to think I'll probably sit around and ignore
The apathy it always leads me
It always finds a way to break me down...

And that's when I decided to break it

Remember what the phrase in a scene in the “Decided to Break It” music video:

“Failure is not an opinion. It’s inevitable.”

You can view Marianas Trench’s music video below. To learn more about the band, please visit www.marianastrench.net:

References:

http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_18024.aspx

http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20071226/free_TTC_071226/20071226?hub=TorontoHome

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/288699

http://680news.com/news/local/article.jsp?content=20071226_094649_4740