Tomorrow's wheels, today

The future is not here. It's not on Dundas Street. It's not nestled between Yonge and Dufferin. It's nowhere in this city. Heck - it's not even in this province - or the coutnry, for that matter.

But there is a sign of it - in the form of an ad for Bombardier's streetcars. I came across it while walking along Dundas this week.

The ad promotes the future of transit, the future of mobility, the future of locomotion. But is this the future of our city?

Bombardier would like us to believe this is the case. With the ad, they're not trying to sell their streetcars to us. It's not like we see streetcar dealerships spotting the city. After all, the average person doesn't have a few million in their pocket, plus a private streetcar track, for which to buy a streetcar.

But what they're trying to sell is support. They want us to support the city's efforts to buy THEIR streetcars.

You see, the TTC will need to upgrade its fleet in the next few years, and Bombardier - with these ads - wants to make sure the citizens of Toronto can convince the TTC to purchase Bombardier streetcars. Media reports suggest the city has budgeted $1.4-billion for the project.

What's wrong with the streetcars we have now? With their high floors, they're not all that accessible. Plus, they're not the best-looking streetcars out there.

The streetcar in the ad looked quite futuristic and aerodynamic. To compare it to our current streetcar fleet is like comparing a MacBookPro to a calculator. But the future will definitly not be here, if the TTC does eventually buy the new streetcars.

A quick visit to the Bombardier site reveals where some of the most common models are in use: Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Italy, Holland, U.S.A., Sweeden, the United Kingdom, the list goes on.

So, like I said off the top, the future is not here. It's in those countries. Once these fancy new streetcars roll down Dundas Street, all the above countries might be rolling onto the next generation of models. You can see our future in those ads, but the real future is elsewhere.