Results tagged “publictransit”

Today is Tartan Day. This is the day customarily used for the first time ever to celebrate Scots who have moved to North America. Torontoist recommends that you celebrate by eating a deep-fried Mars bar and staggering out of a soccer game, swearing loudly.

Congratulations. You've just moved into a home or apartment in the rapidly growing city of North York to start your bright future. You either don't own a car or prefer to use one as little as possible. Fixed public transit services haven't quite made it out to your neck of the woods yet you really want to be chauffeured by a bow-tie wearing driver with a creepy smile who will drop you off at your doorstep.

Here's a riddle: What walks throughout Canada, weighs more than a Brit, but less than an American, and can help stop global warming? No, it's not Sasquatch. It's not Kyoto.

TTC "U-pass" close to passing for students, possibly also hotel workers. If the scheme passes, the TTC will suddenly be crowded once again, rendering all those recent fleet upgrades essentially moot. Hooray for public transit!

The Star reports that TTC operators have a rate of post-traumatic stress disorder four times higher than Toronto police officers. The syndrome is often a result of witnessing, or becoming the victim of, physical violence, and is now the second leading cause of missed work days at the TTC. Arming operators a la Mad Max probably isn't the right solution, but hoping that the assholes who assault drivers will magically disappear may not be realistic. Anyone?

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.

Ontario Conservative leader John "The Tory" Tory has promised that if elected a Conservative government would allocate $800 million to public transit in the province. Tory also confessed that it has been a long-time dream of his to one day ride on a streetcar, but that his chauffeur wasn't yet licensed to drive one.

In a recent jaunt to London (England), Torontoist saw colours on the road. No, these weren't hallucinations brought on by too much ale at the local pub. The colours were those of lanes on the street: red for public transit vehicles and green for bikes. (And in case you're wondering, bikes can use the public transit lanes.) The message? If you're in a car, stay out of them.

mention is that the trees are actually sentient and will come to your home to politely discuss with you the merits of public transit, and help you compost and reduce your energy use! And people say government can't do anything.

Photo by Marc Lostracco.

"Good frickin' lord, it's too dang far to walk to the corner store to buy me a frozen yogurt," you might moan. "I'll just have to be a global warmer and gas up the SUV to drive there." Not so, my friend! Not only is it good exercise, but it's just well, great to perambulate. With this Walk Score, a nifty calculator, you can determine exactly how walkable your address is on a scale of zero to one hundred, with zero being you stranded in a car-only desert and one hundred being you having ascended to a pedestrian paradise. Taking into account factors like a main neighborhood centre, accessibility, parks, and public space, the nearness of schools and workplaces, speed controlled streets and pedestrian friendly design, Walk Score uses a whizbang algorithim to figure the feet friendliness of your 'hood.

Torontonian Vanessa Delsooz (not pictured) has organized an impromptu protest of proposed TTC cuts next Saturday July 28th at Nathan Phillips Square at 1 p.m. The rally will reportedly be outside the law, since it takes longer than a week to secure a permit for such things. Also, the office that issues protest permits just got eliminated due to budget cuts. (Just kidding. We think.)

Photo of a locked-out Keele Station during last year's strike by David Topping.

Every weekday, we pick an image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve!

Last night, one of Torontoist’s adolescent fantasies came true … no, not that one…we finally saw synth pop group The Spoons in concert!

The TTC spent today showing off their preferred model for the future of public transit in Toronto in the middle of Dundas Square: a light rail vehicle or, more accurately, half of a full light rail vehicle that Bombardier is showing off around North America—most recently in Milwaukee, where the paint scheme seen here is used for public transit. (Apparently, in Milwaukee, they like their transit to be ugly yellow.)

Once upon a time, governments worked together to create ambitious and expensive projects like, say, public transit. Then came the 1990s when funding was summarily cut off. Since then, we've seen funding restored in dribs and drabs, the half-implementation of several ideas (we're looking at you, Sheppard subway!), and the odd difficult move forward (the St. Clair ROW). We've also seen the creation of the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority, but since no one seems to know exactly what they are doing or when they might be doing it, we won't dwell on them.

From pristine wetland to industrial transportation hub and the confluence of major urban expressways, the Lower Don Lands area has gone through many changes throughout Toronto’s history. The mouth of the Don River is about to change again.

Howard Moscoe proposes a licensing fee or tax on temporary downtown parking lots with the revenue directed towards building more commuter parking lots at public transit hubs. Moscoe argues that this would induce more people to take transit and encourage temporary lots to be redeveloped more quickly.

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to...

You know what's awesome? People on the internet who love the TTC. Torontoist is already firmly on board with the freelance public transit love, so it seemed only appropriate to alert the masses to another project in no way affiliated with the TTC that seeks to improve it.

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost.

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve!

Not to be confused with Nicole Richie's ex-boyfriend, Toronto's A.M. has created an ambient and beatsy fusion of electronic, gospel and folk music with the sounds of our beloved public transit system on his newest release Underground.

Happy Holidays from the Ist-A-Verse!

We just found out about this absolutely incredible transit map of Toronto that incorporates the TTC, Go Transit, VIVA, Brampton Transit, Mississauga Transit, and Vaughan Transit into handy-dandy Google Map form, meaning you can easily input a location and find the nearest transit routes that surround it.