For anyone who’s followed the travails of the King Street Transit Corridor (aka ‘The Little Pilot Project That Could!’), last week’s report from the Toronto Star’s Lex Harvey about the lawless and negligent disregard and disrepair that’s now rampant along the run of it, the news comes as little surprise.
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Way back in 2013, I wrote this about the long, sad, futile attempts to tame car traffic along King Street West to open up room for regular and reliable streetcar service.
It’s an easy trope, the old person bumbling with some electronic device. The unwieldy TV remote, a black brick with buttons, useless in finding The National with Knowlton Nash. Long snaking grocery store line-ups as an elderly customer taps futilely away.
“Here?” “No, here, ma’am,” “Here?” “Why don’t we try and insert your card, ma’am, and then enter the security code.” “The what?!” (As a matter of fact, since you’re asking, I can’t use the self-checkout because I’m buying beer here.) Text messages and their endless series of identical screen shot attachments. “Give me your phone for sec, grandpa.”
Ageist? Almost certainly. But in my ripely mature defense, being old allows me great latitude to indulge in a little mockery of the aged. Continue reading