A subway car named desire

Re What’s the deal with the hot subway cars? Sept. 8 Watching Mayor John Tory travel across Toronto in a hot subway car made me think of the famous film A Streetcar Named Desire. Angst, desire, pain and financial ruin endure under present day Toronto just as they did in the sweaty low country of 1950s New Orleans. The tears and the sweat both are present and drip downward — the tears of “I feel your pain” politicians and the sweat of commuters. Salt water with no fixed purpose.

Life and art often imitate each other, and it may be possible to predict the future by referencing these past dramas. The short version is that it will end badly and he will be carried off to a place of refuge in 2018. It will if he continues to ask for budget reductions while wanting enhanced maintenance of 20-year-old air conditioners. Twenty years ago they were fresh and beautiful and now sadly the bloom of youth has faded.

Outsourcing of maintenance is never considered as Mayor Ford would have, and Tory is left to depend on the kindness of public sector unions. He claims that he looks forward to working with the TTC management, but as a senior manager himself he should know there is nothing for him to do.

Top TTC managers have responsibilities and are fired if they consistently fail to deliver. Tory asking how is the work progressing is like the child in the back seat asking “are we there yet,” and believing that they are navigating the car based on that participation. At least let him clang the bell — ding ding. It’s enough to give everyone involved a bad case of the vapours! Brian Beckett, Nepean, Ont. I am not quite sure why Mayor Tory has decided to look into the subway’s air-conditioning system now that the summer is almost over and following weeks of record-breaking heat and humidity. As a regular subway user, he should have felt the heat! Robert Ariano, Scarborough