Kristina Gutauskas

Special to The Ryersonian

It’s getting pretty tiresome complaining about the TTC.

Every day it seems, there is another disgrace involving “the Better Way” and its employees.

The most recent news involved pretty boy TTC chair Adam Giambrone’s spending of almost $60,000 on trips around the world over the past five years.

 As well, the TTC spent more than $46,000 last year to send nine city councillors to the International Union of Public Transport World Congress in Vienna.

This only confirms one thing — having a world-class subway system isn’t going to be achieved in our lifetime.  

How much money is going to be spent on all these trips travelling around the world to tell us that our system isn’t as good as it should be or could be?

The only thing left to do is to stop talking and start building.

Toronto is under the impression that each subway line has to be sacred. There has to be a significant population near the line, the neighbourhoods have to agree to it and the money has to be right.

Yet, amazingly, immigrants and new residents continue to flock to the outer edges of Toronto and the suburbs, despite knowing that there is no efficient way to get to the core of the city.  

Imagine how much more business and culture this city would get if it did start building more subway lines to the edges of the city.

The citizens of Toronto, like Mayor David Miller, can keep on blaming the government. But it’s the city that will decide its own future.

Sarah Thomson, a mayoralty candidate for the upcoming fall election, gave away her idea about imposing highway tolls, which would eventually fund the subway construction and expansion.

There is so much potential for the city. There has been for the past 50 years. The TTC just needs to get a new leader and a new vision, and push the reset button. But, stop talking about doing it and just do it already.