Route change request sparks bus war

Sandra Cassidy stands in front of her custom-built home on Audley Rd. S. in Ajax as a bus passes by.

[Esch]

Interesting how a Carola Vyhnak the Urban Affairs Reporter manages to distort something this badly. And it is equally interesting how ninety-some percentage of readers fall for it without ever bothering to check facts. But of course, this is the intention. One cannot bore the reader!

The fact that out of the few dozen houses making up the Community affected by the proposed route change 75 residents signed the petition should mean something. For the journalist, this has no bearing because that would establish a truer point of reference. That Mrs. Cassidy does not stand alone, and the majority of the households supports her, is completely hidden in the article. The simple fact is that the majority of the households opposes the bus coming into the particular loop being disputed. Why is this not mentioned?

That this Route 222 business is an experiment (gone wrong but never admitted) by the Durham Transit Commission because there is no other municipality in the GTA where regular buses actually enter the residential subdivisions does not seem to get noticed here. The bus was actually NOT supposed to be routed into the narrow loop that it runs on now. It was supposed to avoid this loop exactly because of the narrow streets and the close proximity of the houses to the curb. Also, there is no mention of the fact that in this particular (shallow-lot) subdivision the houses are set back much less from the street than normal bringing, who cares? The proposed new route (which was the originally planned one) would make those few people who actually use the service to walk at most 400 metres. The inconvenience would be that the riders would not be able to sit on their porch or stand behind their front door waiting for the bus to stop in front of their house but they would have to walk to the bus stop and wait a little, just like millions of other commuters do even in the great Canadian winter. I am certain Mrs. Cassidy mentioned these to the reporter who carefully avoided mentioning them in the article. But there is plenty else.

Between 5:30 and 8:00 nobody gets on or off the bus in the morning but the buses keep roaring down the narrow back street of the subdivision generating a noise level way above the allowable noise level set by municipal bylaw (even acknowledged as an issue by Durham Transit). The average 34 riders per hour that Phil Meagher is quoted as saying are not from this subdivision. The bus actually stops on average 6 times a day loading and unloading the impressive amount of 1 passenger per stop (less in the Summer as the 2 students of the loop actually using the bus are not going to school) in the loop that the petition proposes to cut from the bus route. These again were completely missed by the careful journalist. Why bother about such trivial things as accuracy or reflection of truth?

That the bus has barely missed two residents and a number of cars over the past couple of weeks, again, must be ignored according to the standards set by Carola Vyhnak. Newspapers are not supposed to be about informing people any longer according to this standard. They are about advertisements and anything reporters are willing to write and publish to make people buy and read the paper so the corporations keep paying for the ads. Simple as that.

Public transit should serve as much of the community as possible. As there are only a handful using the extension of Route 222, and at most would have to walk 400 metres to the nearest stop, I strongly believe there is better use of taxpayer money. There are areas of Durham region where the buses do not come within a kilometre of houses. I find my tax dollars better spent on bringing public transit to those less fortunate areas. Or perhaps add frequency to service to more populated areas of the region. At least upgrade the buses to make them to run quietly. None of us wants to stop bus service. We would want to promote more sense in the routing of the service.

[Bus Hating B___h]

I live in this neighbourhood. Many of the 70+ signatures were collected under coercion. The 70 signatures were not 70 households, so with an average of 5 per households, the petition represents around 14 households in a subdivision of around 1,000 households. That is just around 1% of all the households. Try walking 400 meters through howling winds and mostly black ice in this particular neighbourhood and you will change your tune before one can say "Defend the elite against the common folk". If this route that is performing better than most routes in Ajax is re-routed then all the routes not performing as well as this route should also be cancelled or rerouted. Most of the people that signed the petition are now, conveniently, washing their hands off their dirty deed. Sandra's willing and able second in command "Barb" told the reporter that she was acting merely as a messenger for Sandra, who is the driving force behind this initiative. And lastly, the piece that I am responding to looks to have been done by a professional journalist/writer hired by Sandy for a handsome fee to write and post this piece in response to the hundreds of outraged readers of the Toronto Star who wrote in to express their disgust at this so called human being called Sandra Cassidy.

[Esch]

Dear Bus Hating B___h,

Before all else, I believe I should thank you for your compliment. That is, for assuming that I am a professional journalist or writer. I am neither. But of course it does not count, since you have already passed judgment on this matter.

Next, I would like to discuss with you how much I should have charged for my services of telling what I think is right. In the world I am from this usually is done without payment. So, please do leave in your response a figure that in your view would have been appropriate to be charged to the Cassidy household for speaking (writing, that is) my mind. I would be most obliged.

As for the part of the response that actually deals with the topic:

1. The number of households in the Lakeside subdivision is nowhere near 1,000. It may be appropriate to consult Tribute for the real figure.

2. The 70+ signatures were collected from adults, with no 'coercion'. The average size of the households in the Pointe Collection (only these were targeted with the petition) is certainly not 5 (StatsCan would be most extatic if this were the case) with generally only 2 adults that could sign the petition.

3. Most of the subdivision is not affected at all by what is being proposed. It impacts only those in the Pointe Collection who actually do use the bus service. At this point we have arrived at a figure closest to 5.

4. Nobody is asking for the service to be canceled. Correction: you actually are talking about canceling some service... This cancelllation business is a myth that was incorrectly stated by the editorial in The Ajax News Advertiser.

5. This is a somewhat still functional democracy, so people are entitled to their opinions, whether those are reflecting disgust or some more noble emotion. They are all entitled to express their opinions in the various forums available to them. Which means they can write whatever they manage to squeeze out. What they are not guaranteed under the Canadian constitution or any part of the law is the right to threaten, defame and persecute other people just because they think differently which some of those 'outraged readers' you refer to did.

Best regards.

P.S.
I did and do walk 400 metres (and much much more actually) in our weather every day. And indeed I do not find this an enormously pleasant experience on those few days out of the 365 when there are "howling winds and mostly black ice". But there are those 300+ days when... but you did not really mean this as a serious argument anyway, I am sure, when there is no 5:30 A.M. "rush-hour" service to the vast majority of the 30+ million people living in Canada.

[working mom]

Unlike the pampered (and oh so elitist) Ms Cassidy, I like so many others, work for a living. The fact that I choose to leave my car at home and take public transit benefits my fellow residents.
I would have to agree with Bus Hating B---h...you definitely have a vested interest in this matter. Perhaps you are one of Wayne and Sandra's sons?!?!?!?!(I would not assume you are a professional...many of your sentences do not make sense and your grammar is atrocious.)(Feel free to look up any words you don't understand)

[djb]

My question is how they figured on 5 people (or any number thereof). Did someone actually sit around with a clipboard in hand doing a lumberman's count all day?(or maybe from behind drwan curtains?)

[csyork]

I have a bus stop on my lawn which was put there 3 months after I bought my home. Do I want it there, of course not!. Will they move it, highly doubt it!.. for they haven't yet and it's been almost 6 years I've been fighting it. She should be extremely lucky she only has to look at it drive by, instead of stopping in front of her "custom built home" devaluing the shit out of it.

Suck it up and find something better to bitch about.