A streetcar names annoyance

They're a relic of the past. Those bright red behemoths rolling noisily down Toronto's streets. Councillor Rob Ford says we shouldn't expand their service. A lot of Torontonians agree with him. It's time to end the reign of the TTC's streetcars.

They've been a land mark of Toronto since the beginnings of the city as a major metropolitan area. Today's Red Rockets exist for nostalgia more than anything else. They worked when they were first installed in the 1920s. Then again, downtown Toronto had a fraction of traffic it does today. Skip ahead 90 years and the trams are little more than a nuisance.

A debate came up in the office yesterday about just how noisy they are. A lot of residents complain about being woken up by them. They're also a menace to traffic. They're limited to moving along the centre lanes of roads, often blocking traffic if cars are parked along the street. Passengers have to step into a live traffic lane to get on and off. Sure, the cars are supposed to stop but we all know the don't. In response to the safety issues, the city has built dedicated streetcar only lanes on some streets such as Spadina and St. Clair. The latter caused an uproar by local businesses due to the reduced parking and traffic flow issues it caused.

The city is actually planning on expanding this already antiquated system. They want to install multi-car light rail trams like the ones used in many European Cities as part of the Transit City project. This includes expanding streetcar service to the airport. It makes little sense to do this. All it does is add more traffic to already congested roads.

Rob Ford says he would scrap Transit City all together. What the usually frugal councillor is proposing would cost a bundle. Get rid of the streetcars and replace them with subways. As much as the city badly needs some fiscal restraint right now, he's right. Subways are a more permanent solution to the transit problem. Since they run underground, they're not affected by traffic and weather. Therefore, they can run faster and carry more people. They also don't block car traffic or generate noise pollution. For all the time and money they spent digging up St. Clair Ave., they could have built another line connecting it with the existing Young line. There are plenty of areas that would benefit from additional north/south and east/west routes.

Toronto residents have been screaming for better subway service for years but nobody wants to pay for it. The two subway lines have four times the daily ridership than all the streetcar lines combined. If you want to improve Toronto's traffic, just spend the money instead of wasting it. The TTC doesn't need more relics of the past. With most of their vehicles dating from the 70s, it has enough of those already.