Results tagged “stevemunro”

Photo by Jonathan Goldsbie.

Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon. Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com.

"The Better Way Gets Better," yesterday's TTC press release proclaimed, teasing the media for today's big announcement of service changes. And, really, it'd be hard to disagree.

Our friends over at Spacing Magazine have officially launched their foray into a whole new blogging environment, Spacing Montréal. Covering the urban environment five hours down the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway, Spacing's new blog looks at many of the same public space issues in Montreal (in a refreshing mix of both official languages) that the newly-rebranded Spacing Toronto examines here.

On Monday, the TTC unveiled a survey that, in lieu of other public consultation, would be used to help the organization determine what cuts it may need to make this year. (For more on the TTC's potential budget shortfall, see our interview with Adam Giambrone, the TTC's documentation included with the survey, and Steve Munro's excellent summary of the situation.) The problem is, the survey really isn't that great: it's too vague, too incomplete, and a little bit biased. In short, it's not enough.

A lot happens in and around Toronto, but we can only write about so much in a week. Here's the best of the rest, in a new weekly feature we're calling Superfluist. Superfluist will now appear every Saturday.

A lot happens in and around Toronto, but we can only write about so much in a week. Here's the best of the rest, in a new weekly feature we're calling Superfluist. Superfluist will appear every Friday night.

A lot happens in and around Toronto, but we can only write about so much in a week. Here's the best of the rest, in a new weekly feature we're calling Superfluist. Superfluist will appear every Friday night.

One of the pillars of the TTC's plan to trim its budget is to cut some twenty-one "poor performing" bus routes. But what, exactly, is a "poor performing" route? As it turns out, transit whiz Steve Munro claims, it sure isn't what the TTC says it is: "in a flat fare system," he writes, "it is impossible to allocate fare revenue in any way that makes sense and produces meaningful comparisons between routes."

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

Can a transit system foster love for a city? Torontonians may scoff, but Londoners will nod. The underground—better known as the Tube—is often cited as a reason why so many Londoners take pride in their city.

Ever since the creation of the Greater Toronto Transit Authority (GTTA) last year we have been eagerly awaiting some information about what it is they actually do and/or when/where they will actually do that thing. So, last week when Dalton McGuinty announced that (if re-elected) he would invest $17.5 billion in transit programs to be administered by the GTTA we decided it was time to do some serious research (i.e. Google them). Alas, we found naught but for the homepage of GO Transit.

The Star's website is reporting that at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow morning, the TTC will announce details of a plan to blanket the city in a network of sixty to eighty kilometres of Light Rapid Transit (or LRT, as it's affectionately called).

It looks like the St. Clair right-of-way streetcar lane -- that controversial beast years in the making -- is almost ready to go. Steve Munro just posted these great shots, taken by Harold R. McMann, of the first streetcars making their test runs on the newly-completed eastern section of the path.

For six weekends in early 2007, subway service will take an unusual detour through the fabled Lower Bay station(!) In a recent blog post, Steve Munro notes:

Bay Station will be closed, as will Lower St. George. You will be able to see Lower Bay, but not use it. Museum will become the grand transfer station for the two Bloor services and the regular University-Spadina trains which will operate over their normal route.

We wonder if this mysterious relic of the TTC's history will look like New York for any of the weekends from February 18th - March 31st, as it often does for movie shoots. We hope you enjoy this glimpse into the past, and look forward to Lower Bay-related tours and festivities!

Of the city’s 196 streetcars, only one is air conditioned; streetcar No. 4041 is the new option for keepin’ your cool. You can catch this Rocket on the Spadina 510 route and since there’s a large white box perched upon its roof, you’ll be able to spot it from afar. The cooling system for Canadian Light Rail Vehicle No. 4041 is a $50,000 trial that began in early July on the Queen 501 route.

Spacing is launching their Transit issue tommorow tomorrow night at the Gladstone Hotel doors at 8 ($10, includes a mag).

Bluffer's Park dumpers, you're on notice. The Star reports that there's evidence on who has been dumping huge amounts of garbage at Scarborough's Bluffer's Park and the city is keeping an eye on it.

Torontoist nearly spat out his coffee this morning after reading this story on the Spacing Wire. It turns out that the Ontario Government somehow might find the money to help fund the extension of the subway from Downsview all the way up to York University. That's right, the York Subway, that long-held Toronto dream might just become a reality.