Minding the gap for the Better Way

Today’s Toronto Star has a full-page feature on last weekend’s Toronto Transit Camp. It’s a good feature that tries to show the rest of the city why people like us care deeply about making our transit system better.

These ideas emerged during last Sunday’s Transit Camp, a day of out-of-the-tunnel thinking on how to improve the Toronto Transit Commission, specifically, its clunky website, its shelters, its subway cars and the way it communicates with its riders.

The 100 or so campers were young, in their 20s and early 30s, mostly people who work in the communications and tech industries and university students, all madly in love with transit. The TTC is symbolic of their relationship with the city — but more about that later.

They wore toques and scarves, and some stayed in their parkas because the ballroom at the Gladstone Hotel on Queen St. W. was frigid. Peering over their shoulders, watching as the younger people moved images around on their white Mac laptops, were the 50-somethings, the people who run the TTC, listening and learning. And politicians were hovering, too. Adam Giambrone, the TTC Chair, spent the day there. Vice-chair Joe Mihevc was also present.

Gary Webster, 55, interim general manager of the TTC, took notes. “Several years ago this is not a group I would likely spend time with on a Sunday,” said Webster. “But if we don’t show up we send them a message we don’t care … we have to think of it more from their point of view than we usually do.”

Many saw this as an important turning point, if not a history-making event: here were the TTC brass and politicians listening to their riders, the people who use the beleaguered system, and young people at that.

If any of our Spacing Wire readers have found other articles and posts by Transit Camp participants please post links in the comments section. I posted a round-up of my experience earlier this week with links to other blog round-ups.

photo by Rannie Turnigan