Tuesday, January 5, 2010

First day blues

Tom Hurd and I showed up at Fields today to mark the start of the thematic program for us. It was nice to settle in our offices, get personalized mugs and test the coffee machine. Spent the rest of the day dealing with admin tasks before the influx of visitors that are expected to arrive over the weekend and preparing for our respective graduate courses.

On the downside, public transport in Canada still has miles to go before they sleep... I'm looking at you TTC and your TTC Times Two with GO transit scheme that works if one travels out of Toronto and returns by the end of the day but NOT the other way around, which is what most commuters actually do.

And since this is a blog on financial math after all, let me mention the complete lack of economic incentives for buying long-term passes on the TTC: the monthly pass costs exactly one dollar more than one would spend by using two single tickets a day, five days a week. This encourages people to stack up on single tickets and use them occasionally,  rather them committing to a montlhy pass that would give an incentive to leave their cars at home, which is of course the exact opposite of what an environmentally sound policy should be.

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