Many years ago, the TTC launched the smart "Ride The Rocket" ad campaign, of which only the slogan and typewriter-like font still exist. The fast-paced and effective television commercials featured a quirky spokesperson chattering rapidly into a wide-angle lens about the pros of public transit, and the slick spots made the Commission look modern, exciting, and cool. To a tourist or GTA resident, the subway looked like the backbone of any big city experience.......

The TTC says that they plan to improve service on the 501 Queen streetcar route, which has been the object of much complaint over unpredictable service and frequent delays. The good news story here is that National Geographic recently declared the route one of the top ten streetcar trips in the world, so next time you're standing out in the freezing sleet desperately scanning the horizon for a glimpse of that red rocket, make......

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. It smells like a mixture of hot pee and old sweat. It's really loud, sometimes emitting a high-pitched tone......

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. The TTC's operating budget has never been all that huge over the past few decades, so we're used to......

While Newmindspace have organized subway parties in Toronto, SkyTrain parties in Vancouver, and métro parties in Montréal, sometimes nothing beats an old-fashioned streetcar party for a beat-bumping, track-turning, three hour party tour of the city. The TTC will rent a streetcar (PCC, CLRV or ALRV) for a minimum of three hours for a pretty steep fee to just about anybody. The customer can request a custom route, like Newmindspace has, that takes advantage of......

Per a suggestion by chairman Adam Giambrone, The TTC has voted to provide free service after midnight this New Year's, along with extended subway hours until 4 a.m. The free service—an attempt to deter people from drunk driving—hasn't been offered by the TTC since the late 70s, and you'd think it might be a costly venture. But it's not exactly setting them back that much; the free admission offer will only cost the TTC an......

When we interviewed TTC Chair Adam Giambrone in August––at the height of anxiety over potential cuts to his system––he told us that the TTC has "an acceptable level of advertising. Could it be less? Absolutely. At this point any reduction would be a budget reduction, and I'll tell you I'm not really prepared to reduce the budget of the TTC to reduce the advertising. At the same time, I think we certainly have enough......

Police had to quell trouble at the One Bloor condo site yesterday, as queue-jumpers moved in on agents and spotholders who had been standing in line for as long as a week. Although the interlopers were ultimately forced to the back of the line, many of those waiting were still too late to buy a unit in the development. One dissatisfied linestander said, "When do I get my iPhone?" A Caledon couple won $18.5 million......

A massive fire at a townhouse complex on Jarvis Street near Mutual resulted in the death of an unidentified victim on Saturday night. Construction on the townhouses had been abandoned for ten months and the building was being inhabited by squatters, says a resident at the adjacent Radio City condo tower. Novelist Norman Mailer died this weekend. Kim Ruehl at Seattlest has a nice eulogy: "He was, as most great novelists are, a complete......

Above is the TTC's unnamed official font. Though other fonts are similar––like Futura, which we used for elements of our survey, or Gill Sans––there are none exactly like it. No one knows who designed it, or why it's not still being used consistently across the TTC. Enter Joe Clark, who, as we all know, cares entirely too much about the TTC's typography and signage (but goddammit, if he doesn't care, who will?). Earlier today,......

Just over an hour ago, the TTC concluded its meeting to discuss and vote on measures to deal with its budget shortfall. Based in part on the results of its survey––which, in spite of widespread distribution, received only 17,000 responses––the Commission members voted unanimously in favour of raising fares over cutting service. With the exception of the new jump in Metropass prices, the cost increases per fare are relatively modest and around what most were......

Reader Cy Goldsbie (yes, relation) sent us the above photos of a box that popped up in St. Clair station over the weekend. Marked "DEPOSIT PUBLIC CONSULTATION SURVEY HERE," the box is at the "end of the southbound platform tucked into the alcove of the non-working elevator." (In other words, they're about as conspicuous as what Joe Clark calls the TTC's "intentionally hidden online complaints form.") So what's the deal? At the TTC's emergency......

Proving that New Democrats actually are allowed to have a sense of humour, former provincial cabinet minister and federal candidate Marilyn Churley commented on the dearth of women in the Ontario legislature by suggesting that there were not enough Janes and too many Dicks in provincial politics. You go, girl. Speaking of dicks at Queen's Park, Citizenship Minister Mike Colle has resigned after the Auditor-General revealed that his office had awarded more than 32......

Photo of a locked-out Keele Station during last year's strike by David Topping. Yesterday's announcement of budget cuts to the TTC garnered a visceral reaction from just about everyone (and not just angry Globe & Mail readers): a normally cool-headed Adam Giambrone proclaimed that "this is a horrible day...This is going to have a dramatic effect on Torontonians, not just TTC riders." Transit advocate Steve Munro weighed in, too, in a piece detailing what......

Some book about wizards goes on sale tonight at midnight. Sadly, the media is completely ignoring this potential phenomenon in favour of stories about Hairspray, but that is only fair because clearly Hairspray is the great cultural touchstone of our time, much more so than some piddling book about a boy wizard who sucks. In ten years time, we will all remember the day we first saw Hairspray; that's all Torontoist is saying. The TTC......

The TTC can’t win for losing. Ridership is up but revenues are down as more riders choose weekly or monthly passes, and the TTC is looking for more money from the city to accommodate the surge. Damn those Metropass holders, riding around like they own the place. After nine days of deliberations, the jury in the Conrad Black case has announced that they’ve been unable to reach a verdict. Judge Amy St. Eve told......

Like many Torontonians, we love the TTC but we're often boggled by the way it's run when it comes to human elements, like their hideous website and merchandise offerings. We are not only distressed at the removal of the Walk Left/Stand Right signs, but also noticed the Please Do Not Block Doorway stickers are no longer in the classic TTC typeface (based on Gill Sans), but a boring and generic sans serif instead. Accessibility......

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.)......

Overheard this afternoon on the bus. The TTC driver, while in traffic, is in conversation with a fellow driver. An accident has occurred outside of Downsview station. Driver: Did you see that? The car was almost ripped in half! He must have had a heart attack… Fellow Driver: Maybe he was on his cell phone. Driver: By the way, can you hear my latest entertainment device? They’re getting really strict about this stuff. It’s top......

The TTC proposes an "experiment" to make King Street West (between John and Spadina) a pedestrian-and-streetcar-only zone during the summer of 2008, much to the chagrin of business owners on the restaurant strip. However, the plan would allow a single lane to remain open for taxis and deliveries. 15 British sailors were seized from their ship in the Persian Gulf by an Iranian naval vessel. This is going to be awkward... One of Parti......

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). The cost, according to Giambrone, will be an anything-but-light $30 million per kilometer, which puts the price range for the new lines between $1.8 and $2.4 billion. The TTC hopes to get the......

If you're in the market for an inexpensive plastic Olsonite toilet seat in "Willow Mist," look no further than the Toronto Police Service. Every day, the Toronto Police seize stolen property or get random items turned-in by the public, all of which used to be sold-off at an annual auction. The TTC also sold-off unclaimed property every May and November, which netted bargain hunters steep discounts on things like iPods, digital cameras, jewelry—and especially......

Torontoist reader Pete submitted this image he took last night following the Interior Design Show at the CNE. We don't yet know details on how it happened, but there were apparently no casualties. With all the complaining about the concrete barriers on St. Clair and the tangle of vehicles on Spadina, this is a good reminder how cars and streetcars don't always play well together. Streetcars obviously can't stop on a dime, nor can......

GO Transit recognizes that it is falling behind its standards for on-time performance. Its solution? Change the schedule so the trains aren't technically late any more! (The sad part is that that is actually part of the story and not just a one-liner.) Stephen Harper sends John Baird to Paris while his attempt to make the Tories look like environmental leaders crumbles. Meanwhile, the Fraser Institute and Cato institute - both predominantly run by and......

Overheard by reader Elena H. on the westbound Queen streetcar just before River St., at around 6pm, on January 22nd. Having told his mother that her bangs were too poofy and tried to fix them, a little boy, around six or seven, changes the topic… Little boy: The TTC is faster than a race car, right? Mother: No Little boy: Yes, the TTC is faster than a race car. Mother: No, it’s not. Little boy:......

It seems its website isn't the only thing embarrassingly behind the times at the TTC these days: the above scan is of a current January Metropass. (Councillor Howard Moscoe was TTC Chair from 1998-2000 and 2003-2006; his successor, Councillor Adam Giambrone, was elected by the Commission as its Chair on December 6 of last year.) What makes this a particularly odd error is the fact that it's not simply a case of the TTC......

New allegations of insider trading involving a Toronto asset management firm leveled against Conrad Black. At this rate, in about two years it will turn out that Conrad Black's entire financial career was actually illegal. A Missouri mother is desperately trying to keep her daughter from moving to Toronto to marry a serial bigamist. The real story here is that you should click on the link and look at this guy. He is 70......

Transit Toronto just helpfully reminded us of the TTC's (and pretty every other GTA-based transit systems') updated holiday schedule. The key things to note for TTC riders: extended peak schedule on Friday the 22nd, Sunday schedule on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (Scarborough riders in particular may want to take note of the change to the SRT's availability on Christmas Eve), Saturday schedule on Boxing Day, and back to regular weekday schedule as of......

This is what you won't be mistaking for a dime in your pocket anymore: the TTC's new token. While the old token was incredibly easy to counterfeit and felt of a lesser quality than a Chuck E. Cheese coin, the new one looks a little more official and is virtually impossible to counterfeit, according to the TTC. The Commission won't tell us exact details about the token's constitution, but since the coin is recognized electronically......

Robert Wiszniowski gets 14 years for killing and dismembering his wife, Rose McGroarty, in Parkdale last year. Motive? She caught him smoking crack and threatened to call police. The TTC started installing security cameras on its 1,500 buses and 250 streetcars yesterday. Howard Moscoe says it's all part of a response to a "terrorist threat lingering over all transit systems," but more importantly, they're expected to deter crime and prevent driver injury. A woman was......