TTC: Embeddedness and Membership
1Sunday, November 25, 2012 by Unknown
To continue the conversation about the TTC, I am
particularly interested in Star’s assertion that “one person’s infrastructure
is another’s topic, or difficulty” (p. 380). I have recently witnessed a friend
who just moved here attempt to navigate the TTC’s complex grid of buses,
streetcars, and subway trains. Getting places efficiently and on time can be a
real source of anxiety for them, and a successful trip to the Beaches warrants
many congratulations. At this point, the transit system poses great difficulty
to my friend, and every bit of information offered by the TTC is important to
their use of and knowledge about it.
When one is first learning to navigate the city by
public transit, many aspects of the infrastructure are visible. One will
consult bus schedules by phone and online, will rely on route maps to tell them
which way is north or south, and will ask about fare prices or obtaining
transfers. On the other hand, for those who are well-acquainted with the system,
it has become “embedded”. For Star, “infrastructure
is sunk into and inside of other structures, social arrangements, and
technologies. People do not necessarily distinguish the several coordinated
aspects” (p. 381). Committed Torontonians automatically incorporate travel time
into their daily activities, so that the various elements of the TTC disappear
into work schedules, leisure time (i.e. reading the paper), and other social
structures.
The difficulties that new TTC users face also relate
to Star’s notion that infrastructure is “learned as part of membership” (p.
381). As previously mentioned, while seasoned users may take route information,
signage, and travel times for granted, outsiders require knowledge of each of
these elements in order to understand how the system works. There is a sense
that being well-acquainted with the TTC and feeling like a true citizen of
Toronto are inextricably linked. One may start by paying by the trip or
purchasing tokens, but once one decides that they will save money and travel
easier by purchasing a monthly pass, it's as if they have truly mastered the system. This
is just one example, but it serves to show how infrastructure contributes to
one’s appropriation of a particular information structure.
Finally, as much as the infrastructure becomes
embedded to frequent TTC users, it does also become visible upon breakdown.
When one budgets just enough time to get somewhere and then long delays occur,
for instance, it can be a great source of frustration and even throw off their
entire day. While Torontonians are well-adapted to the TTC, there is no
shortage of people who claim that it is a terrible system, especially since it
breaks down a lot. That being said, I think Jesse wanted to talk more about
this so I’ll leave it at that.
Great analysis, Megan. I was also thinking about this in my comments to Dong Xia's post. I wonder, too, if somehow is there is something to this TTC and Toronto citizen membership that is reflected in the current appearance of political division between those members of Toronto who take TTC and those citizens who do not?
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