It’s like Christmas in February for transit fans in Toronto. The TTC’s subway is so old and decaying they have to shut down an entire station for up to six weekends just to fix it. And they have to divert an entire line onto the first station of another line south of the first line, where you must exit the train and get on another train to continue in your original direction. It’s almost as Byzantine as the New York MTA! Doesn’t that make us world-class?
But the really fun part is that, riding westbound, your train runs through the sepulchral, mythic Bay Lower (“Lower Bay”) station, unused since 1967 except for movie shoots. Last night we parked there for several minutes, enabling extensive digicamatio (better).
I looked at it and I thought – let me be honest here – “Fucking decrepit piece of shit.”
Then we emerged at Museum station (consistenly mispronounced by the foreign-born conductor to sound like Union, which audibly confused many people in my car) and lo and behold, more shitty TTC signage, plus a guy with a megaphone on the other side telling you where the train that just came into the station is going. Tell me: If I’m deaf, how do I get on the right train? I have a one-in-three chance if I guess.
Lower Bay has been the subject of infiltration and may be a destination during Doors Open 2007; if so, I am totally going.