Have you ever sat at a bus stop and wondered why the next bus hasn’t arrived yet? How about three buses in a row from the same route? I know I certainly have, and it seems to get worse and worse every month.

With construction getting worse, there were 19 transit detours alone this month. What’s the point of having routes if you’re going to have so many detours?

And don’t get me started on how bad the clumping is. I saw three buses from the same route all arrive at a stop within a minute of each other. How does that happen? At that point, why are you not delaying at least a little so you can reach more people?

London Transit must be one of the worst-run transit systems. It’s not even all the delays that make it bad, but the city council as well. They constantly short-fund LTC on the budget. Why did the police get a massive budget increase while transit got barely anything? Maybe Transit should have hired a PR firm like the police.

They also shot down the Light-rail transit (LRT), which would have made a huge impact on the city. All because of some NIMBY folk? That’s “not in my backyard” folks. Beyond the city council, they also are a plight for the LTC. They want more people to access their businesses but are unwilling to let the LTC grow because it might lower customers for the short while construction is going on.

Oh, but our transit system also barely passes the requirements for the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). Imagine living life with a disability and knowing that the best way to move around without a car will cost you hundreds of dollars per month in fees when transit could just do better.

It also disproportionately affects people with low income more than others. We already have a growing problem in this city with homelessness and affordability. Why do we also have to make it hard for people without access to a car to move about the city?

With delays exceeding 30 minutes, how can anyone reliably use transit to get to work on time without leaving ridiculously early?

But that’s still not everything. Poor transit also incentivizes drunk driving. If more people could take transit after going out with friends to a bar, it would improve so much in the city. Drunk driving needs to go, and transit needs to do better to pick up people who might otherwise drive drunk.

Transit has a long way to go in this city before it can be considered good. Hopefully city council can get off their butts and see how badly transit needs help before the whole system falls apart.