On a sweltering summer Saturday afternoon, while most Torontonians were finding shade from the sun or scrolling through their phones on the TTC, Mac Bauer was lacing up his shoes, ready to prove a point.
The 32-year-old runner has made waves in Toronto by racing the city’s streetcars — and winning.
His “streetcar series,” on social media is a subtle critique of the TTC, and has turned heads both on the roads and online.
“I was around in the glory days of the old streetcars,” Bauer recalls.
“My memory of them was never negative. But when I moved back to Toronto after university, it was all the new streetcars. One day, my wife and I took the streetcar from High Park to Leslieville—about 12 kilometres—and it took way over an hour. We both thought, ‘We could run this faster,’””
The idea stuck with him. Months later, a friend who does content creation encouraged Bauer to bring the series to life.
Soon, he was lining up beside TTC routes, while friends tracked the streetcar’s progress from inside. His first attempt on the 509 route ended in a decisive victory: 13 minutes on foot versus 21 minutes by streetcar.
Since then, Bauer has taken on streetcars running on Toronto streets, including King, Bathurst, and Spadina. Even obeying every traffic light, he’s undefeated.
“I don’t want to be one of those people that terrorizes the street and the drivers,” he says. “It’s not a fair test if I’m jumping lights, because streetcars can’t do that. I try to keep it as fair as possible.”
Still, the stops, congestion, and shared lanes stack the odds in his favour.
“What I’ve realized is that you don’t have to be a trained runner to beat most streetcar lines,” Bauer explains. “If you can run a 60-minute 10K, you can beat most of the streetcar lines. They’re really not moving fast, especially at the downtown core.”
For Bauer, the project is as much about commentary as it is about competition.
“When you get on the streetcar, the hopes are that you’re going to get where you’re going in a timely manner, and that too, you’re going to get there safely, and with these new streetcars, and especially after COVID, I don’t think either of those are necessarily true,” he says, pointing to personal experiences of unsafe behaviour on board and the streetcars’ lack of efficiency compared to European trams.
“If I had a car and knew driving was just as fast as taking the TTC, I’d much rather sit in my car than on a bedbug-filled streetcar.”
Now Toronto reached out to the TTC for comment and is waiting to hear back.
BAUER CALLS FOR BETTER TRANSIT INFRASTRUCTURE
He doesn’t say this lightly. Bauer is no anti-transit crusader, as he grew up admiring streetcars and still believes they could work if Toronto invested in better infrastructure.
“In Europe, trams have signal priority, have their own designated lanes. They move quickly and feel safe. It is a very valid form of transportation. Until the TTC addresses those issues, it’s never really going to work out, and it’s just going to add congestion in the city.”
That’s why Bauer is looking forward to his toughest challenge yet: the St. Clair 512, which runs on its own track.
“I actually want that one to beat me,” he says. “I know St. Clair does have signal priority, and it has its own lane. So at least if I’m preaching that and I can say this is what they need, and it beats me, it kind of proves my point.”
Behind the TikToks, Bauer’s life is less about chasing transit and more about community.
He’s been running for over a decade, ever since his “beer and pizza” university days left him searching for a healthier lifestyle routine.
What began as a way to lose weight became a way of life. Today, he runs weekly with Culture Athletics and credits the Toronto running community with shaping his social circle.
“Running gave me consistency through the pandemic,” he says. “Especially in Toronto, there’s such a good community of people moving back to Toronto, my wife and I have met so many of our friends in the area that we live. We think we have such a good community of people because of just running and seeing everybody and talking to people.”
Outside of running, Bauer is a devoted dog dad—he and his wife recently celebrated a one-year adoption anniversary with their small rescue pup Marlo.
He’s also a traveller, escaping Canadian winters for South America, and a student of Korean, his wife’s native language. “I was on Duolingo for 1,500 days before switching to a better app,” he laughs. “It’s been a fun journey learning.”
But through it all, the streetcar races remain his summer project—a lighthearted but revealing experiment in Toronto’s movement.
“This has reminded me there’s more to running than personal bests and finish times,” Bauer says.
“I’ve had a really tough year of running, just because I’ve been dealing with a lot of sickness and injury, which has really set back my fitness. So although I’m not racing or having the results that I’ve seen in the past years, I’m still able to have fun with it. You know, this exercise [streetcar series] has been something where it’s been super fun and the community has been incredible.”
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