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32 Comments

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The TTC Map of the Future…Today!

By David Topping

ryanfelix_subwaymap.jpg
While we’re on the subject of TTC maps (as we often are), we might as well include the most wildly ambitious one of all. Reader Ryan Felix sent us his subway map, which he describes as a “fantasy map of the TTC” in 2050. Felix says it was “created in hope to influence people to become pro-transit, and to give a vision that Toronto can have a world-class transit system.”
The lines depicted on the map––sixteen total––turn Toronto’s subway coverage into a sprawling set of lines that more closely resembles New York’s system (or our Transit City on steroids), with stops everywhere imaginable––the Ontario Science Centre, Trinity Bellwoods, Sherway Gardens, Pearson International Airport, and Ontario Place, to name a few.
Now all we need is someone to create the same version in anagram form.
Image courtesy of Ryan Felix.

Comments

  • spacejack

    Aw hey, that’s fun! And a great idea – I think once people can visualize something like this, it brings it that much closer to happening.
    I wonder what the cost would be though. The Sheppard line was, what, $1 billion? This map probably represents $50-100 billion or more.*
    * results of my squint-eye cost-estimation technique.

  • Ken Hunt

    I love that the Wheat Sheaf gets a stop named after it on this map. Maybe we can sell off the naming rights to stations as a way to raise funds for this expansion.

  • rek

    Damn you Felix! I started working on something like this a few months ago! *Shakes fist*

  • andrew

    Strip the 501 from Queen where the subway would go; widen the sidewalks; and forgo a King subway. Also, in my fantasy TTC map there is a stop called “Parkdale” along the Queen subway, and a stop called “Trethewey”. York University would have a stop underneath the Student Centre/Commons, and an underground mall would spring up around it for retail and more student organization space [as well as some minimal "hanging around in winter" space 'cos there is a deficit of it at York].
    Pretty map though.

  • barold

    All we need to do is discover gold or some other resource in the bedrock below the city. Then have the mining companies dig the tunnels. Until then the only other way this would ever get built is to bring back slave labour.
    (and just in case you didn’t realize it, I am NOT condoning slavery.)

  • Marc Lostracco

    Wow, staring at that map makes me want to make up Toronto-based drag queen/porn star names.
    Christie Pits
    Leslie Coxwell
    Cherry St. Clair
    Dawn River
    Spadina Dentata
    Miss Issauga
    Jane Dixon
    Victoria Parkes
    Wedgewood Steeles
    Bain Staines
    Brimley Birchmount
    Chester Greenwood
    Pape Smear
    Jane Finch
    Kew Bitch
    Ferry Fairview
    Marilyn Mt. Pleasant
    Yonge Greenwood
    Scarlett Van Horne

  • Svend

    If we organized every man, woman and child in Toronto to dig a two foot length of tunnel every day we could do this quickly.
    The evacuated soil would join Leslie St. Spit with the Toronto Islands and Ontario Place so we could build a long wall of high rise condominiums.

  • paigesix

    “Spadina Dentata”
    Ahh… and just in time for Teeth!

  • Rachel Lissner

    This is a cool map and all, and I love it, I really do, but it’d take forever to make some connections. In Washington, DC, home of the famous metro system, you’ll never need to make more than two connections to get anywhere.
    One day, Toronto, I have faith in you. Time, though, I am not so sure about.

  • The Explosively Talented Christopher Bird

    Quibbles:
    1.) Although this is better than the last fantasy-TTC map (which had three stations running along the West Mall in between Bloor and Burnhamthorpe – or about 750m between stations), you don’t need subway lines along College, Dundas, Queen and King. Maybe Queen only.
    2.) Also commits the cardinal fantasy-TTC sin of way too many stations. Subways are not streetcars, you know?

  • spleen

    agree with above, the Dundas and king lines seem unnecessary.
    great map and a great idea.
    Finch and Eglinton lines for sure. It’s easy to prioritize when some lays out an overkill idea like this though.
    good job.

  • rocketeer

    These kinds of things are always great to dream and think about, but my only hang-up is the duplicate (sometimes octa-plicate) naming going on. Fantasy maps are a chance to be creative, after all!

  • rapi

    ..and don’t forget to send the map to the sun for a nice color copy….

  • dowlingm

    Terminating Bathurst and a Union line at the Island Airport – cheeky! I like it :)

  • Kristin Foster

    Marc, you forgot Old Cummer. I know gereatric porn isn’t everyone’s bag but Granny Does Trannies Vol. 7 has done pretty well.

  • Ben

    Queen subway line? Not In My Back Yard!
    I would be very happy with a light rail ROW in certain areas of Queen though.

  • mvanner

    Another quibble, two Dundas West stations might be a tad confusing. But since I like some of the other posters think a Dundas and King subway would be overkill, that would solve that problem. I’d add College/Carlton to that also. (I’d bring back the Harbord streetcar too!)
    If a subway was built on Queen, King would have to be turned into a LRT transit way like the TTC has already proposed to the city.
    Personally I’m with Ben on this, no subway on Queen, just give us truly frequent service on an exclusive right-of-way on both King and Queen!

  • Ryanvonzuben

    No love for Victoria Park, eh? The 24 bus haunts me even in fantasy land.

  • raches

    LOVES IT!
    maybe you should add a line going out to Pickering though, I know enough people who have to walk 20 minutes in between the most west Pickering stop and the eastern TTC stop.

  • dcooper

    What happened to Downsview? Are we supposed to just pick it up and move it?

  • Jenelle DaSilva-Rupchand

    *moans* Yes please.

  • uskyscraper

    Can you imagine what would happen if a map like this showed up in an election campaign? Some fun reactions, no doubt, but at least it would put transit on the table in a way people would not soon forget. Pure awesomeness. Well done.

  • andrewpmk

    This map (with a few minor modifications) would make a great LRT map, but not a subway map. None of the depicted lines (with the possible exceptions of Eglinton and one of Queen, King or Front) will ever be built as a subway before 2050. Most of the lines on this map are either existing subway lines, existing streetcar lines or LRT lines planned for Transit City. The few that aren’t planned are good ideas, with the exception of the Island Airport line (which should never, ever, ever be built).

  • Moonmoth

    Yes! THIS is the TTC map of the future! THIS is what Toronto denizens want and need, we should be working on this NOW. (emails map to David Miller & TTC Commissioners)

  • nevilleross

    @Moonmoth: NO, THIS IS NOT what Toronto needs in the future, period. What it needs is LRT (with some underground sections) AND NOTHING ELSE. It's way past time to give this relic of transit building and planning (great as this fantasy map is) a long-deserved rest.

  • http://piorkowski.ca qviri

    Dude, looks like you're running out of text effects to apply to your posts. Anyone know if you can make the text bigger using Disqus?

    (That being said, this map *is* pretty unimaginative, but hey, 2008.)

  • tyrannosaurus_rek

    “LRT… AND NOTHING ELSE.”

    No. Just, no.

  • nevilleross

    Hey, if you've got the billions in cash to build, go right on ahead. Just make sure that you've got all of the bases covered; pissed-off people complaining about noise, environmental destruction, displacement of houses/stores/streets just to build the lines in question, and a whole lot more. Because that's whats's going to likely happen if any future subway lines are built.

  • tyrannosaurus_rek

    You're kidding yourself if you think an LRT could be built anywhere in the city, let alone south of St Clair, without the same host of problems.

    LRTs Or Nothing is just as delusional as Ford's Subways Or Nothing; they are two very different modes of transportation, each suited to certain needs and locations, with their own benefits and, yes, costs.

    I'm not saying we need 5 lines south of Bloor, but the city does need more subway lines and has for at least 20 years.

  • nevilleross

    Hey, if you've got the billions in cash to build, go right on ahead. Just make sure that you've got all of the bases covered; pissed-off people complaining about noise, environmental destruction, displacement of houses/stores/streets just to build the lines in question, and a whole lot more. Because that's whats's going to likely happen if any future subway lines are built.

  • tyrannosaurus_rek

    You're kidding yourself if you think an LRT could be built anywhere in the city, let alone south of St Clair, without the same host of problems.

    LRTs Or Nothing is just as delusional as Ford's Subways Or Nothing; they are two very different modes of transportation, each suited to certain needs and locations, with their own benefits and, yes, costs.

    I'm not saying we need 5 lines south of Bloor, but the city does need more subway lines and has for at least 20 years.

  • Shamenlook

    ya right!