Things are mostly good here in Toronto; another week has gone by, and the Jays are still in first place. They lost a couple of games they should have won, and won a couple of games they should have lost, and are still doing OK. Tonight they make their first trip to the west coast, and then... the Yankees. And then the Red Sox (rumours are that they will someday play the Rays, but I haven't looked far enough ahead in the schedule to see when that will be).

On the other hand, attendance has been kinda sucking this year, despite the good start. Various factors, from the economy to the schedule to the economy to fan skepticism to the economy and other things are being blamed for the low attendance. I continue to hold the opinion that the Rogers Centre is a $600 million monster truck arena - after seven innings of enduring the audio/visual onslaught that accompanies each game, I always start to worry that robosaurus is going to emerge from centre field and eat Vernon Wells.

But late last year, I got a pair of free tickets behind home plate, and decided to invite my father, who hadn't been to a game in years. At the time he was laid up by a back injury, and I think was thrilled to get out of the house. He wasn't able to drive - but that seemed to be no problem, as my parents live near Brampton and there's lots of transit between the two cities. Or so we thought.

After staring and staring the schedule, we figured out that it was physically impossible for somebody in Brampton to use public transit to get to a weeknight game (or any other event that starts at 7pm). One afternoon bus left at 3:30pm and arrived in Toronto at 4:30 - no good for anybody who works. The next left at 6:30pm, and arrived at 7:30 - which blows chunks when the game starts at 7:00. My mother, who's a teacher, ended up driving my father to downtown Toronto after school.

For those who don't know - Brampton is a pretty big place. Closing in fast on half a million people. It takes 40 minutes or so to drive from one downtown to the other. There are also some trains that take people from Brampton to Toronto in the morning and back home again in the evening; other than that, transit is a little dicey.

(awhile back - roughly two years ago - I took the bus from Toronto to Brampton. There wasn't room for everyone to sit, so about 20 people stood for the entire trip, which lasted about an hour. They added a second bus shortly after that... which is good, except that both buses left at the same time, and there was still a three-hour wait until the next one)

I don't own a car, so I tend to think about transit a lot... it's always a catch-22, of course, as governments are reluctant to spend money on transit when so many people choose to drive, but then many people drive because it's impossible to take the bus to the goddamned baseball game. I think that sports teams are a good litmus test for a city's infrastructure, as there is a need to get thousands of fans to one spot at one time from a bunch of different places using multiple modes transportation - and then you need to get them back home again. It's a big task.

Anyways, this isn't a rant - this is a happy story. Last week, a new bus schedule was released. And there is now, incredibly a weekday bus that leaves Brampton at 5:30 and arrives in Toronto an hour later - plenty of time to get to the game before it starts. I'm a little amazed - I always assume that politicians use a Two-and-a-Half Rule for Brampton, meaning that to get a transit system that can effectively service 200,000 people, Brampton's population needs to grow to 500,000. I guess they're almost there.

(on the other hand, the men's bathroom at the Brampton transit terminal might still be the single most disgusting place in the western hemisphere. If you're looking for the virus that will one day wipe out the human race, you might want to start there)

I doubt that the new buses will have an immediate impact on attendance - the schedule is brand new, and most people in Brampton drive anyways since the bus system won't get you anywhere fast. But Toronto is surrounded by smaller cities whose populations have been doubling every generation - getting an extra bus is a small victory in a much larger battle to connect Ontarians together, but I'll take it. At least I can invite my dad to a game without worrying about if he can actually get there.