Rocket Talk: When's the TTC Going to Roll Out More Fare Collection Methods?
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Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon. Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com.
One of the more confusing routes on the TTC... the Yonge night bus. If you miss the last train southbound (just after 1 a.m.) on the far north end of the Yonge subway line, say, York Mills, passengers often have to wait 20+ minutes for a bus. Trains come every 6 minutes or so at night, and then after that the bus, with 1/10th the capacity, comes every 20 minutes. The first Yonge night bus south is always packed. I was hoping that the new service improvements would add some extra buses to that route, but still, between 1 and 2 a.m., service is pathetic southbound. Why is this!?
To make matters worse, at York Mills there are THREE places to catch the bus southbound. The 97/320 stops at the northwest corner of Wilson/Yonge. The 320A stops at the southwest corner of Wilson/Yonge. The 97A stops on Wilson Ave just west of Yonge. Can't tell you how many times I've seen people running across the intersection to another stop in confusion.
Thanks Torontoist!
—Shaun
Dear Shaun,
Speaking of confusion, what is your question, exactly? You want to know why you have to wait 20 minutes for bus service in the baby hours of the night? You don't understand why service slows down during these hours, why our massively-in-debt city can't pay drivers enough to show up every five minutes when they'd all rather be sleeping? Most troubling of all, you're sincerely flummoxed by the fact that there are three different bus stops for—don't go losing your mind now—three different bus routes?
If these questions don't answer themselves, and you're still baffled and bothered by public transit service that isn't tailored to your personal schedule, call (416) 751-5555.
Hope this helps.
Why does the TTC have "Sunday stops"? What's so special about Sunday that requires extra bus/streetcar stops? And who ever gets off at them, anyways?
—Ian
There's nothing special about Sunday, unless you're a practicing Christian. Haven't you noticed that the "Sunday stops" are always in front of rather large brick structures with stained glass windows, prohibitively heavy wooden doors, and clusters of women in beige pantyhose and bad shoes? Yep, churchgoers—those are the people you have to blame for the extra stops and delays on your way to hangover breakfast at The Beaver.
Sunday stops are as old as your crotchety, crochet-shrouded Great Aunt Maude, and unfortunately, even less likely to give up the ghost any time soon. We think it's a useless concession to tradition. And if they're going to stop on Sunday mornings, why stop there? Why not on Saturdays, for synagogues? Or every day, five special times a day, for Muslim prayer? Seriously (not seriously), why hasn't there been a small-but-vocal protest on Yonge Street about this insidious religious discrimination on bus and streetcar routes?
Oh great, just great. Now we're even asking ourselves lengthy, pointless questions about the TTC. Will it never end?
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I don't think it's totally unreasonable to ask why there are three different bus stops for three different buses that are all going the same way. Or do they all go different ways?
Perhaps there is another 'snappier' answer to Shaun's question: Sorry, we don't know or care because we don't go north of Bloor.
Here's a snappy answer for Torontoist: The Jews who go to synagogue wouldn't take the bus anyway. (Cue bad joke about Jews saving money.)
And a question: Why does the web page of Muslim prayer times have six times listed?
Way to completely miss the point... They all go south on Yonge, it's not three different routes. The recent service "improvements" on that route have just caused confusion and danger as people jaywalk.
Luke: Toronto doesn't end at Bloor, you know.
I don't think whoever wrote this has actually ever taken the bus at night. Or answered the question. Or gone to the TTC website.
Rachel, some questions are better asked anonymously. Observant Muslims have six prayer times listed because (drum roll please) they pray six times a day.
If you're going to be self-deprecating at least be funny.
glassx: The 320 is the all-night version of the 97, so they are technically different lines that run along (mostly) the same route.
The 97A turns around at Wilson, so northbound 97As turn left onto Wilson, which is why they pick up passengers on Wilson west of Yonge Street before turning back south via Yonge Blvd, a mainly residential street west of Yonge.
Southbound 97s (and southbound 320s during the wee hours) are coming down Yonge Street from points north so they pick up passengers on the northwest corner of Yonge & Wilson, in front of the subway exit.
Like the 97A, the 320A also turns around at York Mills/Wilson, but uses the York Mills Subway bus bay instead of looping a late-night bus through Yonge Blvd. The bus bay is northeast of the intersection, so southbound 320As are turning left from York Mills onto Yonge -- this is why they pick up passengers on the southwest corner of the intersection.
(If you're wondering why southbound 97s and 320s don't just use the southwest stop anyways, it's because in general, the TTC places stops before a stoplight so that buses stopped to let pasengers on and off don't cause a curb-lane blockage on the far side of an intersection. Also, in this case, the subway exit is on the northwest corner too -- the geography of the Hogg's Hollow area made it impossible to locate a subway exit on the southwest.)
I used to use the all-night buses in question quite a lot, albeit going north, not south, and I agree that it isn't always clear which stop to wait at. Your best bet is probably the southwest corner: you can catch 320As turning south from York Mills and southbound 320s coming down Yonge St.
Ouch, Ken C. Cranky, much? And I also thought (and Wikipedia confirms) that observant Muslims pray five times a day.
Yes, according to "A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam", gifted to me in Saudi Arabia by a wildly optimistic Muslim proslytizer, devout Muslims pray 5 times a day.
While there's no specific reference to the use of public transport in regard to mosque attendance, you'd likely not please the rest of the congregation by being consistently late for your devotions.
I understand why the TTC can't afford to run the subway 24 hours and that they also need that downtime for track maintenance. Are there any other major cities in the world that is able to run subways all night?
Svend, New York City has 24 hour service, which is something the locals are quite proud of.
P.S. Don't let them fool you about DC.
New York is only able to run 24 hour service because they have large (4-track) tunnels and can easily reroute trains around worksites. And the frequencies are very low (every 20 minutes) at night.
Chicago also runs 24 hours.
Looking at other subway systems around the world always leaves me inspired and depressed; I think both reactions are self-evident.
My only other major city transit experience has been with San Francisco's MUNI and IMO they fare worse than the TTC by comparison. Even less all-night service, no central dispatch, and their "subways" are actually surface rail vehicles that go underground -- which means that traffic problems on the surface can jam up the underground schedule.
I just moved to Chicago from TO and I must say that the CTA makes the TTC look like a 5 yr old with a wagon. It kicks ass. Perfect? No. But damn good. The subway (the L) stations are fugly and smell, but the number of routes is awesome adn 24 hrs. The buses never arrive on time, but there are so many routes (many 24 hrs) that you can usually find another way if you don't want to wait.
For cities of quite similar size (not counting the greater Chicago or Toronto regions), TO can learn a lot from Chicago. BTW, Toronto = 2,503,281 people, Chicago = 2,833,321 people).
They do things differently in Chicago than in Toronto of course, so the comparison is not warranted.
They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way!
The subway doesn't have to go 24 hours -- just a couple hours after bars' last call. It only makes sense!
re: post 10
how can the TTC "not afford" to run 24 hours? They operate at a loss, in the public service, and that lost gets greater the fewer people that ride -- so in the middle of the night, when there is virtually no one riding, or around for that matter (Toronto is just not New York or Chicago -- but don't you love the sleepy feeling on Sunday mornings?) the cost is just too high to be worth it.