A couple of days ago, I read an article written by the Toronto Sun's Antonella Artuso about how the folks at the City of Toronto intend on shutting down subway parking lots in order to force commuters onto transit (see: City eyes shutting subway parking lots to drive commuters onto transit). It's yet another salvo fired by Toronto City Hall in their seemingly neverending war on the car. I just don't get it. Why can't the stiffs who govern Canada's biggest city and commercial capital get it through their thick skulls that people are going to drive no matter how inconvenient politicians make it for them. How do I know this? Because as long as public transit is slow, inefficient and overcrowded, people who are fortunate enough to have private vehicles will always use them to get where they're going.
The fact of the matter is that people who have the choice would rather get wherever they want to go in a nice, cozy private automobile instead of a smelly, overcrowded bus, streetcar or subway that doesn't take you to your destination without stopping at a bunch of places you don't need to be. So it's very unlikely that these people will switch to public transit no matter how bad the traffic is. And even if some of them do, it'll just make public transit worse by adding more people to an already overcrowded system. I have just about had enough with politicians who worry more about how people get from point A to point B than what they should be worrying about - making it easier to get from place to place in Toronto no matter what means of transportation people use. Besides, if the so-called progressives and social engineers want more people to use public transit, they should concentrate on making that public transit better, not making driving worse.
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