The TTC's new status page: everything is under control

Some days, pointing out the flaws of the TTC isn't even as easy as shooting fish in a barrel; it's more like shooting ducks in a barrel. Imagine: a whole barrel full of ducks. How could you possibly miss?

The TTC (can I get a city-wide craze going around calling it "The Teet?") has launched a Subway/RT Disruptions page, which they will use to keep their ridership up to date about any service disruptions which may be occurring. The page evidently self-generates every minute or so, with a nice big tag line reading "There are no major disruptions at this time" in any instance in which there is... uh... no major disruption.

The disclaimer on the page already shoots the first hole in the usefulness of this information, with its hedging around the use of the word "major." What's major? A five minute delay during rush hour? A twenty minute delay at 1:00 in the morning? The collapse of the Bloor Viaduct?

The disclaimer also pulls out the puppy-dogs with the phrase "We do our best to keep this information current, but please keep in mind that our ability to maintain this status update may at times be limited." Can I get a chorus of "awww, poor little TTC?"

There's no syndication available on the page, and unless you're PDA-armed, the site's usefulness while on the go might be relatively minor. (That's "minor," the opposite of "major.") Also, nothing says professional like a badly pixellated haze of compression artefacts on the single jpeg image you bothered to toss onto the page to make it look pretty. And if you can find the link to the status page on the haze of 90s-era buttons and scrolling graphics on the front page of the TTC web site, pizza's on me.

OK, I'm whining my way clean through this grey, wet November Monday. I'll stop. The best thing about the page is that it finally cribs to the fact that the Teet's shuttle buses are not capable of carrying regular subway capacity in the event of an actual "major" problem. At long last progress!

Thanks to blogTO reader Laurence for tipping us off, and thereby making my day.