Finding a New Way Home

Commuting is a part of my work life.  Twice a week I travel from my little town north of Barrie to Toronto.  It takes between two and a half and three hours each way.  I have been commuting to the city for over twenty years and have used cars, buses, trains and subways in a variety of combinations.  Currently, I drive a half hour to Barrie, park my car and take the train to Downsview Park where I switch to the subway for the last half hour.  Unfortunately, the first train back to Barrie is at 4pm so if I finish work early, I can’t get back easily.  There is a series of two buses that together take three hours just to get to Barrie if you make the connection.  I live in a part of the world that is still geared to cars, not public transit.

The other day, while waiting for a client, I went on line to check out the train and bus schedules to see if there were any new options for getting home early.  I couldn’t actually read the fine print on the screen so I printed it out and with reading glasses, tried to make sense of it.  There is a northbound train from Downsview Park at 2 pm but it only goes to Aurora.  However, I noticed that just below the entry for King City, the stop before Aurora, another possibility emerged.  It seems that on Fridays only, there is an express bus from the King City train station to the Barrie GO train stations.  I studied the map and it appeared that this 68C bus went up Hwy. 400 to Barrie.  There was a second bus an hour later for the next train that went all the way to Bradford.  And that was it.  Just two buses and only on Fridays.

It seemed too good to be true.  I wrote down precise instructions for myself.  I have never been off the train at the King City stop and had no idea where to catch the bus.  The schedule indicated that the bus left ten minutes after the train arrived and its only purpose was to take people from that train to Barrie.  Sounded good.  But what if there was no bus?  Well, I reasoned, I could stay at the King City train station for an hour and take the next train (which still didn’t go to Barrie) to East Gwillimbury where I could catch a bus that does the milk run to Barrie and still arrive a half hour earlier than if I waited to take my usual train at 4 pm. 

The sun was shining on the snow that had been falling all morning when I left my office just after 1pm.  I took the subway to Downsview Park and was happy to see lots of people waiting for the train.  I tried to read the screen with the schedules but the sun was shining on it and it was impossible to read.  A young woman stopped to ask me where to catch the northbound train.  Was she on the right side of the track?  I explained that there was only one side and only one track.  If the train was going to the right, it was northbound and if to the left then southbound.  That was all the information she needed and she thanked me.  Commuters are known to help each other sort out the ever changing transit systems.

Once the 2pm train came, I decided to sit in the accessibility coach because that is where the customer service person is.  He or she opens the doors, makes the announcements and is the only crew member that passengers can talk to.  I wanted to ask this person where to catch the bus at King City.  After a short twenty minute ride, we came to the King City station and he announced that there was an express bus to Barrie available.  Wonderful!  The plan was working.  I asked him where to catch the bus and he gave me some vague instructions about walking past the station and catching the bus on Keele Street.  He made another announcement and explained to the whole train that the bus was on the east side of the track on Keele Street.  Orienting myself to north I looked out the window to the east and saw a street.  “Is that Keele Street?”  I asked.  “Yes,” he replied.  A man asked him about the bus as well.  Great, I thought, I’ll follow that man.  The customer service rep told me I would be able to see the bus from the platform.

We got off of the train and I asked the man I had noticed on the train, if he was heading for the bus.  “Yes,” he replied.  “I’ll just follow you then,” I said.  “Well, I don’t know where the bus is,” he answered.  Another man chimed in that he was looking for the bus as well.  “The guy on the train said we could see it from here,” I said.  None of us could see it at this point.  I don’t have great long distance vision with the glasses that I was wearing.

Then suddenly, I saw the bright green bus on the other side of the parking lot.  I pointed it out to my new companions and we trudged through the snowy parking lot, through the deep snow on the side of the road, across Keele Street and through more deep snow on the other side of the road.  “This seems like a bad idea,” commented one of the men.  We got to the door of the bus, and there were the happy numbers 68C.  We made it!

Climbing up the steps I noticed that in front of the bus was a crosswalk and a set of traffic lights which was now obviously the correct route to take to the bus.  People who took that route took a little longer to get to the bus but the driver waited for the assigned ten minutes and then took us to Barrie.

So, why am I relating this fairly mundane story?  Well, it actually took some courage to try a new route home in the winter.  What if I was stranded for an hour at King City with no promise of a warm place to wait?  I wore my warmest boots and mitts, hat, scarf, and big coat in case.  Part of me was prepared to kill two hours in Toronto rather than take the chance on a new way, maybe a better way.  I had to force myself to go on this little adventure.  And so did some of my companions.  One man told me that the woman at the ticket booth at Union Station told him about this bus.  “But she didn’t seem too sure,” he added.  Another of my snow trudging companions worried that the bus would leave without us.

It turned out I got to drive home in the light and got there two hours earlier than usual.  What a nice treat on a Friday afternoon after a long week.

It strikes me that we can, especially as we get older, get stuck in ruts.  We get used to things being hard and can’t believe that anything better can exist.  Even when it is front of us, we might just not take the extra effort to try something new.  This felt like an adventure because no one wants to get stranded at a train station far from home.  Just like an actual adventure, I prepared with warm clothing, the printed schedule and map and two back up plans in case it didn’t work.  And then I surrendered myself to the adventure.  I enlisted the aid of three men who I had never met before and together, we found our way.  Our common bond was our ability to take a chance on something new.  We navigated together and then separated into our individual seats and the silence of the commuter bus.

It surprised me how hard it was to try something new.  I made myself do it as a kind of exercise in lateral thinking.  Luckily it worked out well and I will be more inclined to try new things instead of being traumatized!  I thought about the steps to finding a new path.  There was the curiosity to see if anything new was available, imagining myself doing it, preparing for the unexpected and then connecting with helpers along the way.  Oh, yes, and celebrating the outcome!

It occurs to me that this is a skill which is needed at this time; the ability to find new routes, to try new ways of getting from here to there.  So, I will keep my new route mentality exercised as I find new ways to get where I’m going.