My great big transit adventure pt 2
Thursday, February 1st, 2024 08:58 pmMy brother gave me a Shoppers Drug gift certif for a ridiculous amount. There's not much I want from Shoppers, which is hideously overpriced at the best of times, but I read that cinnamon tablets help with blood sugar and their wp says Shoppers sells them. So. First I check at Loblaws, which owns Shoppers, and no cinnamon. Next I hoof it over to the Shoppers at Dupont and Spadina, but no cinnamon there. Shall I walk down to the Bloor outlet? Nah, let's take the subway because Dupont station has elevators. You can tell it's been years since I took the Spadina-University line because first of all I forgot that it goes north-south and second of all they refer to the lines simply as line 1 and line 2, expecting you to know which is which‐- very helpful for tourists-- and thirdly the signs don't tell you the direction they go in, just that one line goes to Vaughn (where's that?) and the other goes somewhere else. The 'via Union' should have tipped me off- Union is very much south of here- but instead I have to ask the attendant which line goes east, and he says Neither, you have to take the bus for that. At which I come to my senses and realize I want a southbound train. Which I board no problem, because the train comes flush with the platform.
The peculiarity of the Spadina line, or the Spadina part of line 1, is that it does not in fact stop at Spadina and Bloor. The station is called Spadina but, like many Japanese stations, is in fact several very long blocks from it that you have to walk underground. Doesn't have an elevator either. So one proceeds over to the next station, which both has elevators and crosses the e-w subway, go down a flight to line 2 or, more properly, the Bloor-Danforth line, and thence to Spadina station proper. But these stations are older than the northern leg of the S-U line and there's a not inconsiderable gap between platform and train. I assume the wheels of motorized or other wheelchairs are too big to get caught in them but they're just wide enough to catch the wheel of the rollator, so kind samaritans had to help hoist the thing on and off the train. Fortunately the city is replete with kind Samaritans.
(I gather the situation is worse at the Danforth stations. Coworker was once running to catch a waiting train, slipped on something, and her *leg* went into the gap. Luckily someone pressed the emergency strip and the train did not close its doors and proceed on its way, taking S's leg with it.)
And after all that, no cinnamon at the Spadina Shoppers either. Looked it up when I got home and saw lying advertisements from various shopping companies saying they could provide it from Loblaws or Shoppers, but I know better. It will be out of stock and they'll substitute glucosamine instead. I ordered it from another company for ten dollars less.
But I did stop by my library on the way home and got one of my missing Flavia Albias, so am content. Also racked up over 4000 steps on my untrustworthy phone app, which would have been 5000 if I'd walked down to Bloor instead of exploring the shortcomings of the TTC.
The peculiarity of the Spadina line, or the Spadina part of line 1, is that it does not in fact stop at Spadina and Bloor. The station is called Spadina but, like many Japanese stations, is in fact several very long blocks from it that you have to walk underground. Doesn't have an elevator either. So one proceeds over to the next station, which both has elevators and crosses the e-w subway, go down a flight to line 2 or, more properly, the Bloor-Danforth line, and thence to Spadina station proper. But these stations are older than the northern leg of the S-U line and there's a not inconsiderable gap between platform and train. I assume the wheels of motorized or other wheelchairs are too big to get caught in them but they're just wide enough to catch the wheel of the rollator, so kind samaritans had to help hoist the thing on and off the train. Fortunately the city is replete with kind Samaritans.
(I gather the situation is worse at the Danforth stations. Coworker was once running to catch a waiting train, slipped on something, and her *leg* went into the gap. Luckily someone pressed the emergency strip and the train did not close its doors and proceed on its way, taking S's leg with it.)
And after all that, no cinnamon at the Spadina Shoppers either. Looked it up when I got home and saw lying advertisements from various shopping companies saying they could provide it from Loblaws or Shoppers, but I know better. It will be out of stock and they'll substitute glucosamine instead. I ordered it from another company for ten dollars less.
But I did stop by my library on the way home and got one of my missing Flavia Albias, so am content. Also racked up over 4000 steps on my untrustworthy phone app, which would have been 5000 if I'd walked down to Bloor instead of exploring the shortcomings of the TTC.
