It seems 3 of my last 4 posts never made it past the draft stage.  They’re currently sitting in blog oblivion and will likely never see the light of day.  Sometimes I get an idea for a post and can’t seem to polish it to the point where I’m happy with it.  More often I’ll write an angry response to a current event (lately, often something the Mayor has done) and not see the post written to completion before my anger or the topic’s relevancy passes.  Sometimes I’ll just drop the ball and give up half way through, distracted by work, other creative outlets, or something shiny.  Quite frankly, Twitter has become the easiest way to get things off my chest and has all but supplanted this blog as my outlet of choice.  Nevertheless it’s still here, and I should still be feeding and watering it on a more regular basis.

It’s not for lack of inspiration that I haven’t been posting.  This wonderful city and its denizens have been the source of much interest.  Tonight was no different.   I attended an event called Steel City Stories, held on James St. North at Christ’s Church Cathedral.  It was hosted by my brother, Matt Jelly, and organized by Shirley Molinaro and Grace Evans.

Six speakers gathered to regale an audience of over 100 people with their stories, each inspiring in their own way.  It reminded me of what a rich and interesting City we have, and that everyone of us probably has some interesting stories to tell.   What struck me most was the recurring theme that our community is made richer by all those who come from other places in the country, or other places in the world, and bring their stories with them. 

I’m looking forward to the next event and I would encourage everyone to attend.  For my part, I’m going to spend a little time thinking about my own Steel City Story.

In a startling announcement on Thursday during a local radio call-in show (that won’t be named for petty, spiteful reasons) the Mayor provided details on his latest change in transit strategy.

While it had been previously indicated that All-Day GO service would become the Mayor’s ‘top priority’ it has been decided that this project will be downscaled much the same way LRT efforts were handled. Instead, the City will officially request that $375 million of funding be directed from Metrolinx to investigate what they call “experimental transportation initiatives”, citing Hamilton’s growing capacity as a centre for innovation.

“Really when you look at the numbers it just makes sense. Why should I have to take my car through all that traffic when I could just be flying around the City from meeting to meeting with a jet pack? My time is very important”, the Mayor said during his one hour interview. When asked about the needs of commuters, his only reply was “Transit-Schmansit”. When pressed further by the host for an explanation, he just said “Answers-schmanswers, I got more votes than the other guys, that’s all the answers you need”.

The Mayor did concede that he had directed staff to begin investigating a number of transit ideas that he himself had proposed.  He went on to share some of his vision for Hamilton now that the LRT, All-Day GO and Jet Pack portfolios had been settled. “I want to bring back the ski lifts”, he explained, “It seems like a great way to move people in a city with an escarpment.  We could run people up the mountain, and even downward in the summer months when skis simply wouldn’t work”.

“And we’ll also have Boats.   We’re a city on the water and yet we’re not using it properly. I want the HSR to switch half its fleet to those amphibious buses. I like those. They could enter the water at Bayfront Park, go under the skyway, and travel up the Red Hill Creek, coming up somewhere half way up the East Mountain, depending on flooding”.

“And Horses! When I was a boy, you used to get milk and ice delivered by horses every day, Why don’t we have those anymore?”. We’re a City with a rich agricultural heritage, we should have horses on our streets. How’s that for environmentally friendly?”

The Mayor went on to outline his plan for what he calls “The Brown Line”.  Something he says he’s never seen anywhere else in the world.  It would be a “Made in Hamilton solution”.  “With all this McMaster Innovation stuff going on you’d think these brainiacs would have come up with this by now”

“By opening up our vast sewer network to pedestrians we can tackle some of our infrastructure deficit and get pedestrians under ground where they belong. We can claim these new pathways as both wastewater systems and new, green transit initiatives. We can get twice the grant money from upper levels of government for one piece of infrastructure.  If they don’t think that’s proper, or it’s against some kind of rule, they could just cut us 2 separate cheques.  Nobody would notice.”

“Just think of it like Toronto’s PATH system, only more dark and moist, and potentially made of 85 year old rotting wood.”

The interview ended with a diatribe from the host, something about people trying to take his car away from him and people making it impossible to drive from Ancaster into downtown with all these pedestrians, buses and cyclists in his way.   After a bunch of unrelated, soft-ball questions from the host about former CFL players nobody remembers, he closed with: “Well Mr. Mayor, on behalf of Hamilton taxpayers, Thank you.  What you’re proposing just makes a lot of sense, but I guess forcing citizens to wade through tunnels of sewage just isn’t good enough for some people”.

After the interview, we attempted to contact the City Manager for comment, we were redirected to the Mayor’s Chief of Staff. When pressed for further explanation on this sudden, abrupt change of plans, she simply explained “I.. um.. that is to say we, are getting… well I don’t mean ‘getting’ exactly… well… we’re going to have jet packs!” before redirecting our call into an endlessly looping automated call system. We could not reach her for further comment.

I hope you have enjoyed this bit of obvious satire.  As a more serious commentary, I feel that this week’s statements from senior City officials sends an awful message to the Province about how we feel about their transit grants.  While LRT is obviously not a project that will see shovels hit dirt tomorrow, it should still be faithfully and diligently investigated so Council can have enough information to make an informed decision that reflects the will of the people of Hamilton.  All-Day GO is also important, but is a relatively easy project to implement and will likely happen regardless of our commitments to studying LRT.

It has been about a month since the HSR finally turned on the green light of the new fare payment system that is being rolled out across the GTHA.  While other municipalities have had Presto for over a year, and the hardware has been installed on the HSR fleet for months, we are just starting to see the benefits here in Hamilton.

The launch of the new system has seen little fanfare.  Aside from a single, small article in the Spectator, a few posters and a solitary Presto-branded bus, little has been made of what should be a fairly significant addition.  I get the impression that even this lackluster promotion wouldn’t have happened at all were it not for ad materials from Metrolinx, the regional transit body that has overseen the Presto project.

When I first heard that Presto cards were available on Go Transit last year, I quickly ordered one through the website (http://www.prestocard.ca).  To my dismay, the system was only available on the trains rather than the GO buses, so it wasn’t until I happened to spot a Presto reader attached to a turnstyle in TTC’s Union Station that I was able to use it at all.  Implementation on the GO bus system is planned for later this Summer.

Although I have great faith in Presto’s potential, my initial experience with the underlying technology was admittedly not good.  One of the helpful features of the Presto system is the ability to carry a small, negative balance, in case you find yourself needing one last ride home before you can top up your balance online.  The problem is, once your balance goes negative, you can’t do anything about it unless you visit a Presto agent (the flesh and blood, human type).  After carrying a balance of -$2.50, and trying and failing to load the card online, I finally gave up and visited the Go Station downtown.  This wasn’t a chore for me personally, since I pass by or through it at least twice a day, but I could imagine this simple obstacle would be enough for some to abandon Presto altogether.

I can’t fault the customer service I received at the station.  The attendant quickly recognized and explained the problem.  I was able to pay the negative balance plus a 25 cent fee to have my card liberated from cyber limbo.  Once done, I could resume topping up my card online or in person as needed.

For the month of May, I decided to continue to load funds onto my card on an as-needed ‘ad hoc’ basis.  So far it’s working.  For June, I will likely load a monthly pass onto the card, retaining a small ‘e-purse’ for use on other transit systems.  The problem is, in order to purchase said monthly pass I will have to once again visit my flesh and blood human friend at the GO station on Hunter street.  Again, easy for me, yet likely not so much for others.

With all this technology, chips on cards, an online network of stationary and mobile readers and the ability to add balances online, why should I ever need to directly involve another human being in the process?  It would be a great addition to the Presto website to be able to purchase transit passes online, or even to have a recurring purchase set up to automatically charge my credit card each month.  My hope is that someday I won’t even have to think about bus fares as long as I have this card in my wallet.

Overall my experience has been good.  The system has worked well — aside from my negative balance issue and the requirement to talk to actual humans (ha ha).  Transfers have been handled properly (2 hour limit, no real limitations otherwise), and it’s now the end of May and I no longer have to worry about how tattered my paper HSR pass has become from frequent trips in and out of my wallet.

I am rather disappointed to see so few others using Presto.  Most days I get funny looks from other passengers when I use it, and I have even surprised a few drivers (!).  I have had a couple of passengers ask me where I got it, or how much it was.   If the HSR were doing a proper job of promotion and education, this information would be everywhere and they would be dedicating a promo budget, handing out free cards during rush hour, generating buzz on social media, posting more and better signage at bus stops and on buses themselves.

I am hoping that this is just a ‘soft launch’ to make sure the bugs are worked out before they start advertising.  It would be sensible to have a live test going before making a huge splash, only to see the system buckle in a very public, embarassing and expensive fashion.  The problem is, as a paying Presto user I have had to dig more than I should have had to for any bit of information about HSR/Presto procedures.  Even now, as I have used it for a month, there are still questions.  Perhaps when I visit the flesh and blood human Presto salesman tomorrow, he’ll be able to explain things.