(In a bid to be seen as less partisan and as fair and balanced as the next guy, we here at All Fired Up in the Big Smoke are handing over today’s space to Angry Torontonian #1. He/she is fed up with the way things have been going down at City Hall in recent years and believes we are just enablers and downtown core sissies who think we know better than everyone else. Or something like that. No one is listening to him/her and he/she are demanding to have his/her voice heard. Since we imbibed heavily last night at some birthday celebrations, we say, hey, knock yourself out, Angry Torontonian #1. Have at it.)

… Am I on yet? Is this thing working? Testing, testing… ?

OK, yeah so, anyway. I was out last night, whooping it as I usually do every Saturday night, having some drinks, nachos and stuff. And as usually happens, right, I fall asleep on the streetcar heading home. I’m pretty sure it was a streetcar although I did wake up on the subway or should I say I was rudely woken up by one of those TTC union thugs, telling me to get up and go home as if it was that easy, right? I’m like, where? Finch Station and it’s like in the middle of the night. Yeah, I know. There’s the bus but I’m just saying it’s not as easy as Mr. Lazy Ass Union Guy makes it to be, OK. He’s probably got like a chauffeur or something to get home at this time of night and he can’t even offer me a ride? Typical union guy.

Anyway, I fall asleep again on my way to the bus stop because it’s not all that obvious where exactly the stop is. You’d think I’d know by now too because this isn’t the first time this exact same thing has happened to me. Shit happens, right?

Long story short, I wake up again early but light out. Too early for the Sunday subway, so it’s again with the bus ride down Yonge. Except that I don’t have enough money on me. No tokens, tickets. I’m busted, is what I’m admitting to and do you think a bus driver, Mr. Compassionate Union guy would let me on? Clearly I’m not just some drunken bum trying to scam a ride for free. Like hey Mr. Bus Driver. I read that you make like 100 Gs a year, just driving your bus. And you can’t front me a little cash-ish?

This is why I hate the unions. They don’t understand the regular people that depend on them to get back and forth to work and back and forth to home again. They’ve lost the common touch with their cushy jobs. I am a hard working citizen who just had a little too much fun the night before and spent a little too much money and now just needed a little understanding. Good luck with that, right? From a union guy?! I don’t think so.

So there I am left to my own devices, on foot, walking home. One foot in front of the next and so on and so on.

I don’t know how long this goes on for but it seems like hours. Finch. Sheppard. Man, there’s a lot of terrain to cover up in those parts, let me tell you. It goes on forever. No wonder all those people have two, three cars. You do not want to be trapped up there if one of them breaks down and you have to depend on the TTC. That would be a nightmare.

So I finally get to somewhere near Eglinton when it dawns on me that I could just stop at an ATM and draw out a little money to get home with. How dense is that? Walking for fucking miles thinking I’m penniless and I got my bank card burning a hole in my back pocket! Give me a break, huh. I’m like seriously hungover.

As I start looking around for a bank machine, a crowd of people catches my attention. What’s going on, I wonder. Maybe a car crash or something. A murder even! So I rush over to see what’s up only to find a bunch of idiots, dressed in shorts and tshirts with million dollar running shoes. Runners. Thinking they’re going to escape old man death by running. What a waste of time if you ask me. Not to mention waste of space either. There’s like thousands of them and they’re taking up all of Yonge Street all the way downtown and beyond. So a bus isn’t even going to get me down there without some major detour and nobody here seems all that interested in letting me know where the nearest bus stop is. They’re all too busy stretching and huffing and puffing.

Here’s what drives me nuts. Why are we letting runners and bikers and rollerbladers etc.,etc. always take over streets that were clearly made for cars? Roads are for traffic, OK. And traffic means cars. End o’ story. And trucks. Traffic means cars and trucks. End o’ story. If you want to run or ride, go run or ride somewhere else like a gym or a track.

This is the problem with the city these days. It spends too much time trying to keep people happy. I mean, people like runners and bikers and the like. Not people like business people and everyday Joes like me. People who do real work for a living and contribute to the city. Traffic means business even on a Sunday. Traffic means cars. And trucks. Not bikes and jogistas (ha, ha. I just made that one up.)

If a normally hard working guy like myself can’t easily get home after a Saturday night of partying, then this city just isn’t working. Instead it is going to hell in a handbasket. Something’s got to change.

— angrily submitted by Angry Torontonian #1