Subj : Re: Kill 'em all; let god sort 'em out
To   : Atreyu
From : jack phlash
Date : Sun Oct 17 2021 16:58:36

on 16 Oct 2021, Atreyu said...
 
 At> In Toronto public transpo is all the rage... so much so that the local
 At> train stations purposely do not build enough public parking. Its mostly
 At> first come first serve...  unless you shell out an extra hundred or so
 At> for a "dedicated" space.  When I was working the proverbial rat race it
 At> made sense at the time, until some idiots would park in said dedicated
 At> space.  Then you had to file a complaint with the attendant, move to a
 At> different space etc etc... now you're late for work.

Totally reasonable. So was the public parking outside of the city, or on the
other side of it or something? Or are you getting into the city, then taking a
bus or train to where you work? If the latter, it almost seems like it would
be more worthwhile to just drive to where you work and rent out a (probably a
bit more expensive) space nearby. Not a criticism in any way, just curious,
as I'm generally in favor of public transit but find myself with limited
excuses to use it, personally.

For me, I live more or less in the middle of the city, so choosing to use
public transit is extremely situational. I also work *way* outside of the city
(well, when I used to go into the office...) which didn't make a lot of sense
either. Taking a bus to where I work would take twice as long (at least) and
that's only if I could take it directly from my neighborhood rather than
taking another one to get to where that route starts. Blech. We have a neat 
city/county subsidized "van pool" system where you can collaborate with other
people going to the same destination for an extremely small amount of money,
but since few of my coworkers live in the city there's only one that would
meet me needs, and by the time I drove to where they meet and leave my car at
the park and ride (public parking near transit centers... usually) it easily
add 10-15 minutes on to the commute... plus I'd have to worry about ditching
my car in a shady parking lot AND be beholden to everyone else's schedules
(which is a wonderful strategy some of my coworkers use to have an excuse to
avoid working over... ha!) It just doesn't make sense in my particular cade.
They are suppose to extend our light rail to the suburb I work in, but that
won't be done for years and I'll likely have moved on to another company
and/or to a differ neighborhood by then.

That said, it does seem like plenty of people use the system here - buses are
seldom empty, and are pretty hopping during typical rush hours. The light
rail can be pretty intensely crowded at times too. It connects to our
airport which is pretty convenient. The park and ride lots are never empty.
It's obviously working for SOME people. The biggest issue we have here is
that are rail system is just super immature - it basically just goes
north/south through the middle of the city, but going east/west requires
hopping on a bus or otherwise finding some other way. There's a few street
car lines to help fill that gap, but they barely help. It's a FAR from
comprehensive system, in other words. They're working on expanding it, like I
mentioned, but those expansions efforts are focusing on connecting suburbs
first (which makes sense for people going to/from the city, I suppose, but
doesn't help with getting around the city itself.)

 At> I don't miss the rat race but I kinda miss having an office... kinda.
 At> The company had two large floors of offices, a huge server room and
 At> enough daily IT between myself, another tech and an IT manager. Most of
 At> it is gone now from all the downsizing. Covid really killed that
 At> business (office rentals, meeting space rental etc). The workplace was
 At> actually pretty good, awesome people and the work was pretty mickey
 At> mouse... all with a very good salary.

Damn. Did you lose that job, or are you just referring to having to work from
home? Personally, I miss going to the office and seeing people in person and
in a dedicated work place with less (non work related) distractions, but I
also love the flexibility of being able to work from home, at least part of
the time. Like a lot of them, my company is still waiting to see what the new
normal looks like, but it seems like the changing environment is pressuring
them to adapt a much more liberal WFH policy than what they'd have likely
ever come to on their own. 

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

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