Clueless woman blocks street, disrupts 504 streetcars, infuriates me
Toronto is besieged by waves of idiots.
People are driving their cars into the city and parking them on the snowy streets, blissfully unaware that their car is up to a METRE away from the curb, and therefore jutting out into the path of passing streetcars.
Every single trip I took this week was delayed as TTC operators carefully edged their streetcars past parked cars.
And tonight their luck ran out on Roncesvalles: 504 streetcar service was disrupted for an hour due to, as you can see above, the careless Jaguar driver's horrible parking job.
Sometimes a car is carelessly parked by someone running inside a store to retrieve their wallet or other lost item. Fine. It happens to everyone - emergencies happen.
This was not one of those situations. The car's owner disappeared, and was nowhere to be found. The delay stretched on interminably - three streetcars ended up getting backed up. Most people living nearby disembarked and walked home. Others had longer trips home and couldn't afford the luxury of a cab ride on a cold February night, so they waited.
The streetcar operators would have loved to have simply rammed the car. In fact, one operator told me that on Ossington Avenue, short-turned streetcars were confronted with a similar problem last year - the entire street was full of cars whose side mirrors were jutting out into the path of mass transit's finest vehicles. A towing operation would take an interminably long time.
And so the police gave the operators the order.
Drive through.
"But that would rip off all the side mirrors."
And it did.
The police have the authority to use force in our polite, civil Canadian society - and they ordered those streetcars to rip off the offending cars' side mirrors.
As you can see from these photos, though, ramming the Jaguar would be counterproductive, as it would not just rip off the side mirror, it would wreck half the car, as the body of the automobile itself was in the path of the streetcar.
Unfortunately tow trucks are unable to remove a vehicle until the police arrived.
And a police car was called, the dispatcher told me, about 20 minutes into the incident. 40 minutes had passed by the time I was on my cell, making inquiries as to what the heck was taking so long. I ended my call when a police car showed up.
Unfortunately patrol car 1205 zipped past the scene without so much as slowing down. This isn't "12" division, so it wasn't his problem.
To say that I was disappointed with the Toronto Police Service tonight would be an understatement.
And so the wait continued. I called one of my friends to come watch the spectacle. The neighbourhood's local 'superman' character even showed up. The streetcar operators continued to control traffic which was restricted to one lane for both northbound and southbound traffic.
The situation grew so dire that the TTC even started a shuttle bus service. The lack of northbound streetcars implied that the rest of the 504 line was being diverted at Queen Street to avoid compounding the problem.
Unfortunately the single shuttle bus was filled to "crush" capacity at the subway station. A few streetcar passengers squeezed on during the bus' first soutbound run; the rest had to return to the warmth of the streetcar to await the bus' return trip.
As much as people wished to have the situation resolved, the desire to see a tow truck show up and nail the driver with $200 of tow fees and fines grew stronger by the minute.
Which was why there was an aura of disbelief when the car's owner suddenly appeared.
My state of shock was total. I felt like I had suddenly learned what it feels like to come face to face with a manifestation of the antichrist. How would you react when confronted with the presence of an unknown entity suddenly manifested in front of you?
In my case, it was a case of gentle and diplomatic guidance, followed by a bout of righteous fury.
The Desperate Housewife, as I shall refer to the Jag driver, came off the sidewalk in a naive & bewildered state. It would be fair to say that I was even willing to take pity on her, to shelter her from the community's collective desire to flip her car upside down and set it on fire.
And so I told the Desperate Housewife that it would be best if she were to quickly get in her car and drive it away. Enough damage had been done. She was lucky that she had saved herself hundreds of dollars in penalties, not to mention an unpleasant trip to the impound lot to retrieve her car. Had this been rush hour rather than a late hour, there would've been a very real possibility of more hotheads on the street willing to 'redecorate' her car in addition to forcibly relocating it.
I didn't mention any of those "alternate scenarios". My point was simple. Move your car. With haste. We're waiting.
As is often the case when someone's confronted with their stupidity, it couldn't be that simple.
The Desperate Housewife started to sputter about how she thought her parking spot was 'legal'. It wasn't a "no parking" zone. This was, of course, a textbook case of someone thinking "horizontally" rather than "vertically". The ironic parallels to failures in the business world should be obvious.
Yes, parallel to horizontal sidewalk, your parking spot is perfectly legal. Vertical to the curb, though, you are blocking the streetcar tracks.
The bold text is a hint of what was to come.
This was not the time to carry on a polite parliamentary style debate in the tradition of Hart House or Oxford. If I were back in the halls of one of those august institutions I might listen to the other person's well-reasoned thoughts, and then wait for my turn to list my elegant rebuttal.
But I was not in the mood to indulge in a Desperate Housewife's psychodrama.
Honestly - if you see three streetcars lined up behind your car, what bizarre sense of self-importance is going to compel you to explain yourself.
You screwed up, you're wrong, and you're lucky you showed up when you did. Now get out.
This logic was not immediately clear to the Desperate Housewife, and if we Torontonians have a fault, it's that we're polite to the point of lacking a certain bluntness which I've come to admire in others, particularly the French, both in Montreal and in Paris.
Well let no one say that I'm not able to match the temper of a hot-blooded francophone.
"We don't care about your rationale for blocking the street. We've waited long enough.
"JUST GET IN YOUR CAR AND LEAVE.
"NOW!!!"
When taught the background behind the story of Jesus tossing the money changers out of the Temple, the concept of Righteous Anger is raised. This link does a great job of summarizing it.
I must say, that's exactly what I felt when those words came out. Technically speaking, an exorcism is the act of casting out a demon. My last words felt appropriate.
"Go, and DON'T COME BACK!"
Seriously, we don't need people driving down to our streets and causing chaos, upheaval and suffering. Next time, take a cab if you're going to fail at driving - and more importantly - parking.
Public transit is suffering enough in Toronto without fits of disaster making matters worse.
