the P.Pole

3 things that bug me about this city:

• There are billboards (notably from McDonald’s) that have slogans such as “There are so many hours between lunch and dinner” and “Toast is just cooked bread.” on the sides of the road. Is it just me or does that seem like a sick joke with those in abject poverty eating the butt end of it? I’m not implying that I am somehow above and beyond the consumerist mentality that this society is so infamous for, but seriously, there is such a thing as enjoying one’s wealth and advantageous circumstances, and then there are ad campaigns like these that rub it in the faces of people terribly off as it is.
• There is a public transit system that will take you just about anywhere within reasonable boundaries, but few people use it. It costs, on average, approximately $9000 less per year to travel by public transit (an option that has been subsidized to an extent by government funds which come from, you guessed it, taxpayers). It helps out the environment to take the bus or subway since it cuts down on carbon emissions. Obviously not all destinations can be reached via the public system, but good golly gosh, carpool damn it. If you’re going to work, unless your office has got an insanely high turnaround rate, I’m certain there must be at least someone else who both works in the same office and lives close to you. Why should there be innumerable cars clogging up the roads with a person a piece? People who think themselves too good to take the bus are slowing themselves (and everyone else) down by increasing traffic congestion on high-ways (which ought to be renamed low-ways), wasting fuel, time, and energy. The richer we get, the more affordable it becomes to live in inefficiently.
• That brings me to my next qualm: this place is too spread out and too focused in terms of housing and work, respectively. There are tons of wealthy people living out in the middle of farm country who work in high-end office buildings downtown (or at least relatively closer to the center of the GTA than the fringe). And this is probably a better excuse for people to drive everywhere, claiming it is a necessity: buses don’t go to the middle of nowhere and back. Whose fault is that? The transit system or the people who go house shopping miles away from where they work? Here’s the problem. We’ve got a huge urban sprawl happening (wiping out farmland, moraines, and other expanses of natural landscape), an extremely centralized business district, picky rich people who can afford to drive in and out from their expensive homes elsewhere to work, and no way to convince these people that they’re screwing everyone over.