The other night I ran in the rain to the unattended, automated Spadina Station subway entrance on the Bloor Line (on Walmer). I'm a ticket user. I don't ride the rocket often enough to justify a Metropass, and every time I buy tokens I seem to lose them or occasionally (and inadvertently, and rather stupidly) spend them as dimes. Go ahead and laugh.

I had $2.35 in coins in my pocket - not enough to buy a token, which is a requirement for me to enter the subway via the revolving metal-finger-gated door apparatus. But I did have a $5 and $50 bill in my wallet.

While it came as no surprise that my $50 bill wouldn't do me much good, I would have never figured that my $5 wouldn't either. What the...? Why?! What does the TTC have against $5 bills?

I ventured back out into the rain to the convenience store across the street, where I broke my fiver. I then was able to use my toonie and loonie to procure a token and $0.25 change.

Wet, and slightly bothered, this got me thinking. Why can't/won't the machines accept $5 bills and return a token and $2.25 in coins? Surely the machines aren't incapable. They take all coins, and the new ten and twenty dollar bills are no problem. No, I don't expect 2 tokens for $5, but I would like to be able to buy a token with perfectly good money! I can talk to the TTC in over 70 languages, but I can't use a $5 bill to buy a token?