TORONTO — A year ago, Mac Bauer and his wife, Jungmin Chang, boarded a streetcar in Toronto's Leslieville neighbourhood to visit a friend in High Park.
The journey from east to west took more than an hour and felt sluggish to the two runners.
"We looked at each other and went, 'We can run faster than this,’” Bauer said.
This year, that spark of an idea has turned into a summer fitness experiment. The 32-year-old Toronto native has been racing different Toronto streetcar routes every Saturday and sharing videos of himself on TikTok.
Before the weekend, Bauer had raced the Exhibition-Union loop, the Bathurst Streetcar, a route along Spadina, another along King Street and one on Dundas.
He was undefeated.
The Canadian Press joined Bauer for a run against the 506 streetcar on Saturday — the same route he was riding when he got the idea for his new hobby.
He admitted it would be his biggest challenge yet.
He and Chang took the streetcar from their home to the east-end starting point, the Main Street subway station, and it was moving at a decent clip.
It was also the first day of yet another heat warning in Toronto. The sunshine, smothering humidity and 27 C starting temperature was threatening to be another obstacle in Bauer’s 15-kilometre race.
"It's really toasty today," he said at the starting line.
Chang boarded the streetcar alongside The Canadian Press and Bauer waved good-bye.
He began his sprint away from the station only to have to stop and let the streetcar pass as it pulled out of the station.
Unlike the subway, which has its own dedicated tunnels and doesn't have to share space with other vehicles, Toronto's streetcars travel on some of the city's busiest streets and are bound to the regular flow of traffic.
In the east end, the traffic was light and the streetcar moved seamlessly from stop to stop as Bauer lagged behind. He would later call it a game of "cat and mouse," noting that every time he managed to catch up, the streetcar took another lead.
Four kilometres in, at the intersection of Greenwood Avenue and Dundas Street, Bauer was neck-and-neck with the streetcar as traffic started to slow things down.
Chang popped her head out the door to shout some words of encouragement.
"Let’s go, Mac!"
By the time the streetcar was crossing the Don River and entering the thick of downtown Toronto, Bauer was taking the lead. Chang kept track of his progress on her smartphone. As the minutes ticked by, the gap widened.
An hour and five minutes into the ride, with the streetcar only two-thirds of the way to the end, Chang pointed to the screen again.
"He's basically there," she said, at the finish line of High Park.
It took another 17 minutes for the streetcar to catch up.
Upon arrival, the driver hopped out to ask Bauer about his run.
"I was 12 minutes late," the driver said.
"Next time you gotta drive quicker," Bauer laughed.
As the streetcar pulled away, he added: "He's saying what we already know. He was feeling good up until he hit traffic and there's just nothing they can do as drivers."
Bauer was impressed with this particular streetcar route, he said at the end of the race.
"Everything east of Chinatown was actually really fast and I really struggled to keep up with it," he recounted, noting the streetcar can be "pretty efficient" on its eastern and western flanks.
"But as soon as you hit downtown and hit any traffic, it just speaks to how slow they (the streetcars) can get when they have to share lanes."
The TTC did not respond to a request for comment about Bauer's challenge and his TikTok videos documenting the runs as "man versus machine."
Bauer said one of the messages he’s trying to get across is that Toronto needs better transit infrastructure.
"We have so many people that use the transit to get to work and if it's not faster than taking the car and it's not safer than taking the car, why would they take it?"
Though he's been an avid runner for about five years, Bauer said he has had some injuries and illnesses that have kept him from maintaining peak physical condition.
"I guess it's a bit embarrassing" for the Toronto transit system, he said with a smile.
"You’re still being outrun by … a guy that's pretty out of shape for my usual fitness."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 14, 2025.
Cassidy McMackon, The Canadian Press
