I have my health...

...and it was a beautiful, warm fall day, and I needed the exercise...

BUT BLASPHEME IT, walking 6.5 km from Lawrence Station to Bloor Street in just over an hour because the subways weren't running nearly killed me.

Thank the gods of footwear I was wearing my really comfy German shoes and fancy insoles, or else I would have been limping bloodily home. One girl at Eglinton and Yonge asked the hot dog vendor I was buying a drink from how long it would take to walk to Bloor. "In those shoes?" I asked incredulously, looking at her shiny kitten-heeled gold sandals that looked like they would last to about St. Clair before they turned her feet into shredded jerky. "Good luck. It'll be at least an hour, if you had comfy footwear. You might wanna get some now."

There were others in worse straits I saw on my long trek south: Elderly couples, pregnant women, a lady with a cast and crutches, all stranded because they had no way to get home. And it wasn't just the TTC and their inadequate shuttle buses that barred them from traveling--the sheer volume of traffic and the number of people on the streets made calling for a taxi a ridiculous notion.

And then, as I often do during commuter crises like this when we all realized we're screwed together, I had this crazy idea.

What if every single driver on the road opened their vehicles to two or three pedestrians headed their way? What would it cost them? Sure, you can say whatever you want about that being unsafe, being an invitation to a mugging, etc. But all I could think was, how many people would stop if I put up a sign on a curb that said: Earn Karma Points! Be a Good Samaritan and take a passenger! or Bloor Street or Bust: Will Make Conversation.