Sixth in the Time’s Up, TTC series
In February and March, the interminable installation of streetcar tracks on St. Clair blocked the centre lane. Buses leaving St. Clair West station had to use the curb lane. To do that they had to leave the station via a tiny pocket exit that’s hard to aim for (and has a little jog to the left halfway up). The usual 512 streetcar had long since been replaced by an occasional 512 bus, usually packed to the walls. More than one driver agreed that 512 was a lousy route to drive.
OK. But where do you get the bus? It wasn’t the usual place, because the bus couldn’t leave the station from that spot without doing nearly a full 360° around the bus bay (functionally impossible with more buses than the place was ever designed for). The real stop was behind you and to your left (right behind the streetcar), more or less completely blocked by walls and columns.
What method did this billion-dollar corporation use to inform you of this change? Scrawling with a Sharpie on the back of some other sign, or scrawling on four or five multilingual signs, or putting up one handwritten and one typeset sign (with a handwritten arrow) that contradict each other.
This thing went on for a month and it never got fixed. In fact, the sign I have shown above sat there on its pylon, sometimes falling over a bit, for nearly the whole time. I took pictures of it every day for a while, often right under the nose of supervisors, until it became obvious it was there for the duration.