Toronto/Ontario Sucks...lately

Yesterday I got up to go to work and the traffic was insane because the police had completely blocked the 400 south to Toronto.  Why did they do this?  Bad accident? Construction? Nope apparently at 4AM a woman's body was found along the road.  Not to seem cold hearted but why the hell does this require the entire 4 lane highway to be closed??  There is no reason that a body they picked up at 4AM requires the road to be closed at 8AM when I was leaving for work.  This made all the side roads absolutely jammed with people trying to get south.  After an hour of trying I said, "fuck it", turned around, and took a vacation day.

In Ontario it is very common for the police and highway patrol to close an entire road for stupid little things.  So instead of directing traffic around the incident like they do in the States the police shut down the entire road and sit on their asses in their car.  How you get around the closure is your problem.

Speaking of shit that is my problem I got to work today and found the road that goes to my assigned parking spot was under construction.  My mood was not good so I moved their pylons out of my way and backed into my spot.  Some construction worker started yelling at me and I said, "This is my assigned parking spot. Sorry" and I locked the chain in front of it.  He said, "Well I sure hope you plan on parking here next week because you won't be able to." What a fucking asshole.

So yeah, I come into work and there is an email saying. "Starting October 3rd (not today) I won't be able to park in my spot for two weeks due to sewer work." So where am I supposed to park in this crap area of town?  I have no goddamn clue.

This could mean no more driving the Shelby to work for the rest of this year.  The weather gets cold here pretty quickly.  I'm certainly not parking the Shelby on the street so that means I'm driving the Hummer.  By the time this construction gets resolved to could easily be too cold to drive it.

Needless to say my frustration level is through the roof today.

Traffic News from that Thursday morning.

Bad Parking

Bad parking makes me almost as crazy lack of parking.  Unfortunately my place of work has both problems. Downtown Toronto like most downtown areas does not value having ample parking but I fail to understand how a company can continue to hire hundreds of people and not have a thought regarding where they are going to put them all.

Certainly many take the subway, bike, or walk to work but with so many people not everyone can live within easy commuter distances.  I for instance live about 40 minutes away by car so walking is not an option.  It used to be that getting to work by 10 got you a spot, then it was you had to be there by 9:30, and now you really need to be at work by 9 if you expect to get a parking spot near the building.

So I understand that the later it gets the more desperate people get to find anywhere to put their car.  But some places just aren't parking spots.  As you see in the pic this area is meant to allow people to drive down the row and do a turn down the next row.   But with people parking in that space it's impossible and people are forced to backup all the way to the row's entrance.  One BMW asshat in particular parks there regardless, even if legitimate spots exist.

I used to have my own parking spot but I lost it when more senior people decided they'd rather drive than take the subway.  On days I drive my Cobra I refuse to park it on the street.  I arrive at 9, if there is parking then great.  If there isn't then I go home and call in sick.  So far I haven't had to do this.