Overdue Idea: VIP subway cars (and steerage, too)

THE ISSUE: Friday afternoon and you’re wishing you could just teleport back to the suburbs. You skip out of work early and beeline for the subway, hoping to beat the rush. But the crowd’s also thinking ahead, and the platforms are packed. No seat for you when the train arrives, so you pretzel yourself into the mix and grope for a handhold.

You shift your weight between weary legs as a stroller mommy pushes on, compressing the crowd on each side and apologizing as she tries to clear the door.

Next stop, there’s a guy with a bike, but he’s not going anywhere.

You’re pro-transit and all that, but you’d happily go back in time ten minutes and take a cab instead.

THE VICTIMS: First of all, I love subways. Or at least, I appreciate them. But I don’t pretend they’re one-size-fits-all.

Some people need or really want to sit, and some people don’t mind standing, and some just want the best thing they can get when the door slides open and the mad rush begins. In the end, people endure it and get where they’re going. But is there any reason the system can’t tailor itself to the user a bit here? Regular trains, planes, and even movie theatres have differentiated seating options these days. It’s not about class, it’s about getting what you want.

THE FIX: At the risk of introducing an ugly fold to the social fabric (at least as it exists on public transit) we should seriously look at different seating categories on subways. It’s a big, long train, with six cars. Can’t one or two of them be a bit different?

The premium-seat car would be configured to maximize the number of seats, with no standing room. It would cost a bit more, but you’d get to sit, and maybe there could be crude drink service and an overhead TV with CP24. Pregnant women could avoid the hassle of having to stare down the doofus who won’t offer his seat (and if you’re preggers you get a discount from the higher price, or ride for free if we want to be really progressive).

On the other side of it, we’d have the cattle car. Cheaper ticket, no seats, for those who value elbow room more than a chance to drift into half-sleep during the commute. Here, the sweet spot would be the cushioned railing around the edges, where passengers could lean and maybe even open a newspaper. With no seats to get in the way, old-school hanging straps would keep everyone secure.

Got a bike or walking the dog? This car’s for you. It would also be perfect for those small armies of stroller-pushers that tend to coalesce when the weather turns nice (I’m definitely NOT anti-stroller. In fact, there could be a couple of flip-down seats for tag-along toddlers, but that’s IT).

The rest of the train would remain as is.

The idea here is not to introduce different classes. No brandy-and-cigars in the premium car. This isn’t the Titanic. It’s about getting the service you want. Maybe someone who normally rides coach decides to splurge for a seat on a day when he just can’t face the crowd, or buys the premium three-day pass to pamper himself on his birthday. Or say you need to do one more edit of the big report before you get to the office. That would be a day to splurge.

And yes, in the case of Toronto, that would involve the TTC revamping its payment system, but they’re already doing that. And given how often the transit playbook is rewritten in this city, we might as well give council something new to chew on.