POO

[sabotabby]

 The news in general is pretty awful so I hope you can enjoy this little story from Toronto. Our transit system, the TTC, has been getting progressively more awful in the almost 30 years I've lived here. Whenever you need to travel by TTC, you have to give yourself an extra 30 minutes to an hour just in case it breaks down. Despite this reduction in service, fares continue to increase well beyond what an ordinary working class person can afford. This in turn forces more people to rely on personal vehicles, fuelling far-right politics.

With this background on mind, what did the TTC do with their paltry budget this year? Improve vehicles so that they don't stop working when they get wet? Fix the signal issues they have multiple times a day? Reduce the fare to match the reduced service?

Nah, this is Toronto. They rebranded the fare inspectors, which shall henceforth be known as...

...drumroll...

Provincial Offences Officers!

I swear I saw like 3 people post about this before I clicked the link and realized it wasn't parody. Anyway. People reacted exactly how you'd expect, and the TTC's response, rather than saying "oopsie!" (or "poopsie!") was to chide its own customer base for being so childish.

Personally I think POO is a lateral move from what most people I know call them, which is "fare pig," and probably that money could have been better spent on almost literally anything else.

Comments

[flemmings]

True that, but remember, people scream blue murder when the TTC shuts down early or on weekends for maintenance work. 'Fix the infrastructure but don't inconvenience anyone while you do it!' is kinda not possible.

[sabotabby]

True, but as nearly every trip I've undertaken this spring/summer has been stymied by a shutdown somewhere, I don't think they care if people are inconvenienced.

[gingeriana]

I would like to believe this was an act of genuine guerrilla sabotage.
Someone, genuinely hating TTC, applied for a job, got hired by their Marketing (or whatever other dpt) and did this to them, intentionally

in the unrelated thoughts: never saw poo people in Montreal though. I know they do exist but in my four years here--never met one.

[sabotabby]

According to the TTC, this is a title used by the Ontario government since 1990 so I guess we can blame Bob Rae for not having a 12-year-old boy on staff.

[dissectionist]

And just a decade later, the two Conservative wings merged and ended up dubbing themselves CRAP (Conservative Reform Alliance Party). Heartwarming.

[sabotabby]

They shoulda stuck with that.

[ioplokon]

Bring back the CUM (communauté urbaine de Montréal)

[sabotabby]

HAH

[numb3r_5ev3n]

I wonder if that was intentional on some level?

[sabotabby]

It's very unclear.

[rdi]

I’m sure this will do wonders for morale

[sabotabby]

The scatological memes will continue until morale improves.

[minoanmiss]

hahahahahah

[sabotabby]

Some lucky headline writer got to note that it was causing a stink online.

[minoanmiss]

rols off bed and onto the floor

[blogcutter]

We have them in Ottawa too, although I've never actually heard them called Provincial Offences Officers (or POO) - that would probably be one of the more polite terms I'd ascribe to them. Since the end of April when they opened up a little more of our LRT, we've been plagued with ads for "New ways to bus!" (and to train). New definitely doesn't seem to be better in this case. If they'd just devote half as much time and effort to improving service as they do on hiring fare enforcers, it would make everyone happier.

[sabotabby]

Yeah, exactly. They're putting all this money into saving the odd fare.

[newyorkcitygirlatheart]

Holy fuck. Imma just gonna roll up and die now.. kbbaiii!!! DX

[sabotabby]

I never evade fares but I'm gonna giggle every time I see one of these guys.

[newyorkcitygirlatheart]

OMG. At least the YRT is pretty decent.

[lynnenne]

If we weren't halfway through the summer I'd be convinced this was an April Fool's joke.

[sabotabby]

Same.