Scarborough resident thanks TTC drivers

To the editor:

I used the Toronto Transit Commission extensively before my retirement in 1990 and infrequently since until recently.

I remember one driver who used to entertain us all the way up Birchmount Road each evening and got us home in a great frame of mind.

In the last year or so, however, I could not believe the lack of communication between riders and drivers. I thought everyone had taken ugly pills.

Then I thought maybe it was a language problem. Then I thought maybe it was a race problem. Then I thought it might be an order to the drivers not to talk.

It was none of the above as I learned in the past two weeks.

On a trip to the Scarborough Civic Centre on a recent Saturday, I waiting for the Sheppard Rocket when a regular bus came along and I asked if the Rocket was running. He told me to get on and he would get me there as fast. He did just that by advising me which bus to transfer to. The second bus I boarded was driven by a young man who also could not have been more helpful, waiting for me to cross Sheppard and telling me where he was going and how I would be accommodated.

Today, I went downtown and the driver thanked us over his PA system for travelling on the TTC and gave us the outside temperature and our arrival time at Warden station. He added his bit of humour by saying breakfast would be served in 15 minutes. There was a lineup of five passengers exiting at Warden wanting to thank him for his comments. I shook his hand.

On the way home I got another driver who stopped and told a man how to push the crosswalk button to get the walk sign, stopped a car from passing us at Lawrence with a hand out the window who otherwise might have collided with an emergency vehicle traveling east through the red light, stopped and picked up a lady running for the stop and gave directions to another one smiling all the time. He got a lot of appreciation from the riders.

If we are not careful here, we will once again be the polite city we were once known as.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could hear words like please, thank you and excuse me more often as I did today.

My congratulations to these three gentlemen and their employer for very enjoyable trips.

Murray Hedges