Reasons Why Public Transportation Should Not Be Public

Where to start?
When one lives in a big city, public transportation is often the easier way to get around.

Although one would expect service to be frequent. This is not always the case, due to poor schedule adherence and other system delays.

Due to my frequent use of public transportation in the Toronto area, I was able to conduct my own study over the past four years.
For the purpose of this study, "poor schedule adherence" is considered when either the buses on the route are late more than five minutes more than 10% of the time or, late more than ten minutes more than 5% of the time.
Below are a list of the routes with the worst adherence in both Toronto and Mississauga. In order by route number.

Toronto (TTC)

1 Yonge/University subway, Frequency of delays 30%, average delay 7 minutes
2 Bloor/Danforth subway, Frequency of delays 33%, average delay 7 minutes

22/22A Coxwell, Frequency of lates 9%, average late 15 minutes
24/24A/24D Victoria Park, Frequency of lates 14%, average late 10 minutes
25/25D Don Mills, Frequency of lates 11%, average late 7 minutes
29/29B/29C/29D Dufferin, Frequency of lates 34%, average late 10 minutes
32/32A/32C Eglinton West, Frequency of lates, 12%, average late 10 minutes
34/34C Eglinton East, Frequency of lates, 11%, average late 9 minutes
35/35C Jane, Frequency of lates 11%, average late 5 minutes
36 Finch West, Frequency of lates 9%, average late 11 minutes
39/39D/39F/199 Finch East/Finch Rocket, Frequency of lates 13%, average late 9 minutes
41/41B/41E Keele, Frequency of lates 15%, average late 6 minutes
44 Kipling South, Frequency of lates: 8%, average late 12 minutes
47/47B Lansdowne, Frequency of lates 12%, average late 8 minutes
70/70A/70B O'Connor, Frequency of lates 20%, average late 10 minutes
85/85A Sheppard East, Frequency of lates 10%, average late 12 minutes
100/100A/100D Flemingdon Park, Frequency of lates 17%, average late 9 minutes

300 Bloor/Danforth night bus, Frequency of lates 23%, average late 17 minutes

504 King streetcar, Frequency of lates 21%, average late 15 minutes
505 Dundas streetcar, Frequency of lates 18%, average late 6 minutes

Mississauga (MiWay)

3 Bloor, Frequency of lates 7%, average late 14 minutes
7 Airport, Frequency of lates 6%, average late 19 minutes
11/11A/11B Westwood, Frequency of lates 8%, average late 11 minutes
19/19B Hurontario, Frequency of lates 11%, average late 5 minutes
35/35A Eglinton, Frequency of lates 19%, average late 21 minutes
89 Meadowvale, Frequency of lates 6%, average late 13 minutes

OVERALL: Service with the most lates: 29 Dufferin (TTC), Service with the "latest" late: 35 Eglinton (MiWay)

Although service is terrible, there have also been fare increases on both systems.
Mississauga MiWay was much more responsive to complaints than the Toronto TTC. MiWay customer service has always been polite and never a problem explaining the reason for the delays. However, the TTC were often rude, and would commonly blame delays on the passengers, rather than taking on the responsibility.
Although many delays may not be the fault of the transit system, and rather some external problem, the TTC has been reluctant over the years to make any attempt at improving service. However, MiWay is currently working on a major project in an attempt to improve service reliability along Eglinton Avenue, which currently holds the record for the latest buses. With an average late for the Route 35 at 21 minutes, and as much as 29 minutes, and the Route 89 averages 13 minutes late, with as much as 20 minutes.

The TTC subway is a haven for delays. Although, the average delay is only seven minutes, look at the number of delays. At 33%, that means that for one-third of the day there is at least one delay somewhere on the system. That is unacceptable.
Also, a lot of delays on the TTC are unnecessary. Below are a list of "excuses" the TTC provides for their poor subway service:

"Smoke at track level"
"Personal injury at platform level"
"Signal problems"
"Passenger assistance alarm activated"
"Emergency track work"
"Power off situation"
"Police investigation"

None of these are valid reasons to stop service, ever. Let me explain.
"Smoke on track level". Give me a break. This is a big city and those things happen. There is always smoke someplace. Stop being a Drama Queen.
"Personal injury at platform level". How does this affect service at track level?
"Signal problems". Not my problem. Fix them. This is 100% within the TTC's control.
"Passenger assistance alarm activated". Get rid of these damn things. They are more of a nuisance than anything.
"Emergency track work". Track work is not to be done during service hours. That is why the system shuts down at night. Occasional emergency work can be acceptable, but not every week.
"Power off situation". This one is simple. Don't turn off the power.
"Police investigation". No need to stop service. Just another excuse.

Another thing that really annoys me about the TTC is how they handle complaints.
As mentioned before, they do not take accountability. On top of that, they will block you from using their Facebook page if they feel you complain too much. That is a bit childish. For one, anyone who pays for the service has the right to complain, and if the service was better, there may not be as many complaints.

Overall, I feel the the public transit companies need to be made accountable for problems on their respective systems. If you make someone late for work, pay their wages. Telling someone, "Oh, well. This is a pubic transit system, and sometimes those things happen.", is not acceptable. Yes, I have been told that by TTC "customer service".

I think the problem lies with the fact that they are a public service. My thinking is that, if we were to privatize the service, allow a private transportation company to operate the system, would customer service be better?
There has always been controversy over this, saying that it could cause fares to go up. Well, the TTC keeps raising fares, anyway. Besides, right now the fare is only subsidized by 10%. How much more could the fare really go up by privatizing?
Even a privately operated company could not go crazy with the fares, because it would mean more people jumping into their cars, and fewer people using their service.
Besides, whatever the fare, it would still be less expensive than driving.

This is another thing, the TTC does not care, that is why they keep increasing the fare and not fixing the service. They need to start caring. A private company would care, because they do not want to lose customers.

It is funny how the TTC has a lot of money to "upgrade" their stations, but have to increase fare to maintain a mediocore service.

This might be something worth discussing with City Council. Let's get rid of the TTC, and replace it with Toronto Transit! (A private company)

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