Riders are trapped in a rolling billboard
I ride the streetcar often and don’t always pay attention to where it is, lost in thoughts, a podcast or reading. Suddenly I’ll hear a chime and wonder if I’m at my stop. I’ll quickly look out the window to see where I am and get frustrated, even feel a bit of panic, because I can’t see out of the window. Where am I?
I’m on a streetcar “wrapped” in an ad and the view is obscured.
I don’t know what is being advertised because I, and every other TTC passenger, is treated merely as a billboard despite being paying passengers. Little concern is given to the experience of riding the streetcar. Public transit vehicles have long had ads on them — think of those old adverts on the rear of buses — but the entirely wrapped vehicles, including the windows, have been more common in the past decade or two.
It’s bad enough in daylight, but at night it practically makes the world outside disappear, obscuring all but the brightest signs. We might as well be in a tunnel.
It’s a strange way to treat people who are commuting heroes. Don’t like traffic? Congestion? Gridlock? Thank every person who decides not to get in a car and takes transit. If each one of those people drove a car — go ahead, visualize it — it would be the worst traffic day in Toronto’s history.
Despite being heroes, doing their bit to reduce the number of cars on the street, public transit passengers in Toronto and other cities, including on GO Transit, are treated like rolling commodities rather than people deserving respect.
As transit researcher Sean Marshall wrote in a blog post last year called, “The case against transit advertisement wraps,” these kinds of ads actually bring in a small amount of revenue relative to big operating budgets, but also degrade the agency’s brand and annoy customers.
Marshall points out the TTC only allows up to 70 per cent of passenger windows to be covered, but that’s enough to routinely be where I, a relatively average-sized person, is trying to look out.
One of the reasons transit experts and enthusiasts advocate for surface transit versus putting it underground is because of the strong connection with the city we are travelling through. This is not just because it makes for a nicer ride with scenic city scenes to stare out at, but better for communities and especially small businesses.
Potential customers can see the shops along the street, the busy restaurants or a band playing in a bar window, and be enticed to get off, visit, maybe even get back on using the two-hour transfers. No stairs to climb, no stations to exit, like on the subway. Those absolutely have their place and role in the transportation system, but being above ground on a streetcar or even bus is a connection to the city missed out in a subway tunnel.
So why put us back in a tunnel by covering the windows?
Transit riders treated like second class commuters compared to motorists is reflected in how each is fined. Even with Toronto city staff’s recent recommendation to increase fines for 123 parking offences, many are below the $425 fine fare evaders on the TTC can face. Failing to pay for parking, whatever the amount, could go up to $75. Potentially life-threatening acts like blocking a bike lane might go up $50 to $200 or stopping in a crosswalk may go from $60 to $200. Transit riders get the sledgehammer, drivers, a much lighter hit despite worse infractions.
Mayor Olivia Chow has an opportunity to get new people into civil service leadership positions. There are ongoing conversations right now about who the new heads of city planning as well as parks, forestry and recreation will be. Reformers are needed in both those divisions, people who will push for institutional and cultural change.
The TTC needs this, too.
In the fall, it seemed like a change might be coming with an investigation of the current CEO, Rick Leary, occurring behind closed doors.
The most recent glory days of the TTC were under Andy Byford, the British transportation executive who went on to run the New York City transit authority, where he was affectionately known as “Train Daddy,” and later headed Transport for London. Toronto was just a precursor to running two of the biggest transportation systems in the world.
By glory days I don’t mean all was perfect, but Byford regularly spoke to Torontonians directly about difficulties, why there were delays or inconveniences. He talked to us with respect and there was a level of trust. That hasn’t really been the case since he left, but it made something like sitting in an ad-wrapped vehicle perhaps a little less disrespectful-feeling.
Are the ad wraps worth it? That’s for you as a TTC rider to decide. For those in charge, they need to think about whether they want transit to be a welcoming place for Toronto’s commuting heroes, or not.