The
political cartoon in my last post made me think about yesterday's trip downtown.
I needed new tires on my bike and it was also due for its 24K service, so I made and appointment for Toronto Harley for the work. I usually go to Davies Harley north of the city on Yonge, but for a change, decided to try the downtown shop instead.
It started off as a pretty cool day, sunny but only about 6 degrees, so I dressed in several layers and put on my heavy leather jacket. After dropping off the bike, I decided to try to get back home using public transit - what Toronto refers to as the TTC or 'the better way'.
I ended up taking all three modes: first an electric streetcar from Bathurst along King to Yonge; then down to the Subway to take me north to the Sheppard/Don Mills station, and finally transferring to the bus which took me to my house. The whole trip back on the TTC system took just over an hour and a half. Rather long, I thought, for the 'better way'.
Despite living here for over 25 years, it was my first experience on a streetcar and bus; I had been on the subway system once or twice, but that was a long time ago.
Some things that surprised me: The streetcars are surprisingly quiet when running. I was sort of expecting to hear a lot of rail noise, but didn't. The subway is dirty - very dirty. There seems to be this black dust over everything, including the subway cars, making the originally clean aluminum train cars look a dirty grey. I did not dare touch anything. I can't see why it would be so hard to pressure wash them every now and then.
There appears to be no chivalry or politeness on any of the TTC modes of transit. It is a pushing a shoving match of everyone for themselves, as they race to get one of the few rock hard seats. Seats, which I must add, are even smaller than those on airlines; I always thought
they were small, until I sat beside someone on the subway.
While the frequency of TTC vehicles in the downtown core leaves passengers with a minimal wait, this lengthened considerably as I approached my home north of the city, where my bus only ran every half hour. Fortunately, my wait for the bus was only about 15 minutes.
Returning later in the afternoon, I planned it a bit better. I called the TTC to ask when the next bus was due to stop near my house, and left the house just in time to catch it, and avoided a long wait. Catching the subway and street car was also almost immediate with no wait time, as they run much more frequently. So, I arrived back at Toronto Harley about 15 minutes faster than my morning trip home.
I picked up my bike around 6pm. Despite it being rush hour, I still made it home in about an hour.. faster than either of my trips on the 'better way'.
In the parking lot, I met another guy who was also picking up he bike. We began to chat a bit - I mentioned that this was my first visit to the service dept at this location, that I wanted to try somewhere else since I was not completely satisfied with the service at Davies. He said just the opposite - he has had nothing but bad, uncaring service at Toronto Harley, and he was thinking of going to Davies for his next service. Apparently, his bike was in the shop for over a week, and every time he called to inquire about it, he was treated badly. They told him to stop calling, that it will be ready when it's done, and they would call him when it was ready. There was a sense that the service techs did not care: it was just a job, and they did not care about the customer. Hmmm.. sort of had me wondering what kind of service my bike got. Needless to say, I rode home very cautiously - hoping my wheels would not fall off.
Someone should remind them: "The customer is always right - even when he is wrong!"
My main reason for trying them out was that they are supposed to be moving to a new location north of downtown.. on Lawrence, just west of Victoria Park. If and when that happens, they will be ideally situated and quite close to my home. But, for now the new place sits vacant, despite all the Harley signs on the building. I suspect the decision to open this new larger facility was made before the economy tanked, and now they are sitting tight - probably trying to get the funding to complete the move.. or maybe even reconsidering the move altogether. After all, Harley is not immune.. it is a luxury bike for many, and when times are tight, luxuries are the first things to be cut back.
Even their stock value has tanked over the past few years:

Getting back to the 'better way' - I think the close contact with all those people on my two TTC trips may have given me a cold. I woke up this morning with a scratchy dry throat and a bit of a runny nose. I guess the TTC is an ideal place to pass along a cold or flu. Let's just not hope there was anyone there with the Swine Flu that is running rampant right now.