Haydain Neale, 1970–2009
The Making of a Medley
Newsstand: November 23, 2009
Transit City and Transit Cities
The Daily Photoist: November 23, 2009
If your bus or streetcar shelter has gotten a visit from the sugar map faeries in the last few months, you're in for a treat. Those streetcar routes that are lined with gumdrop rights-of-way have been marked by candy cane stripes on the system map!
Many months ago, blogger Graeme Stewart proposed that the TTC start marking streetcar ROWs differently on the black background subway and RT route map (admittedly for the purpose of making our fair network look less paltry). This map update meets that idea halfway: by showing where one can ride a streetcar uninhibited by mixed traffic, this map allows the rider to make choices that may or may not get them to their destination more quickly.
This map update includes marking the Spadina streetcar, the Lakeshore West streetcar, the Queensway and presumably the St. Clair streetcar in the not-so-distant future. One can only speculate if this is how the TTC will mark Toronto's LRT and BRT routes of tomorrow as we build a transit city.
You can download the new-ish system map and downtown route map on the TTC's map page.
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Sugar map faeries is right!
I can't wait to ride the candy cane streetcar!
Now if the TTC would only show alternate entrances to the subway (for example, on Delaware Avenue, just north of Bloor, for Ossington Station) and the actual locations of bus stops on its own route map, we'd be au courant with other cities' transit systems that did this 20 years ago! Or if I dare suggest it, how about having Perly or Rand-McNalley add TTC bus routes to their versions of maps that they publish for Toronto (isn't that their primary mission, to provide useful transportion information for everyone - not just hegemonistically for car drivers?). Finally, why does Google Maps have subway stations marked on their New York map, but not on their Toronto map? Grrrr....
The ROW routes are still too slow. Especially on Spadina it takes 5 minutes a stop for everyone to get on and off. There are several ways this can be improved:
- Insist that everyone get off the rear doors
- At busy times, collect fares before people get on the platform
- Low streetcars so there isn't stairclimbing
They seem to have forgotten St. Clair!
They didn't forget St Clair, per se. The map has had these maps for some months now. As Kevin pointed out in the original post, they will presumably include St Clair (the portions already complete) in the "not-so-distant future".