Results tagged “transit”

As anticipated by transit watchers, the TTC is proposing an across-the-board fare hike, effective January 3, 2010. That hike, to be decided on at the commission's November 17 meeting, would see adult cash fares rise from $2.75 to $3.00, tokens rise from $2.25 to $2.50, and adult Metropasses jump from $109 to $126. A full list of the proposed changes are here; the immediate reasons for them are—as they always are—myriad. (The Star and Globe both take a look at some of them.)

On Monday, Torontoist spent the day at the Toronto Innovation Showcase at City Hall, learning about data sets, queues, and civic engagement. At the top of the agenda was the unveiling of toronto.ca/open, Toronto’s new open catalogue of city data, ranging from—as Mayor Miller explained in a press release on Monday morning—"apartment inspection data to child care availability to dozens of GIS mapping data that will enable a broad range of location-based applications. And yes," he added, "our initial data offering also includes the TTC’s scheduling data."

What is this? Is it: a. an underground moon base; b. a strange Japanese children's TV programme; c. two vacuum-cleaner attachments in a pistol duel, or; d. the new design for Steeles West Station on the Spadina subway extension?

Here's my question—since the rush-hour crowding at St. George is verging on the very dangerous, why not put the moving sidewalks back in at Spadina and promote the use of Spadina as a transfer station?

                                   

Despite extensive coverage by both online and print media, Monday's splitting of the 24-kilometre Queen streetcar route came as a bit of a surprise to many, necessitating lengthy explanations at the new turnpoints (Parliament, Shaw), as well as the odd enraged passenger (a particularly vocal, slightly off-kilter, middle-aged man waiting at Shaw screamed, "Where is the Long Branch and all those f**king c**ksuckers at?!"). In the name of research, Torontoist travelled the entire length of the route, beginning at Yonge and Queen, continuing all the way east to Neville Park, and then traversing the entire 24 kilometres to Long Branch, getting off and on as required. To see how we fared, see the photo gallery above.

Why doesn't the City use electric trolley buses instead of streetcars? These at least have the advantage of being able to change lanes (so as to not block two lanes when dropping off passengers).

Yesterday, Ontario's minister of the environment gave his approval to Metrolinx's Georgetown South Service Expansion/Union-Pearson Rail Link (GSSE/UPRL) project. The minister's decision is the final step in the project's provincial environmental assessment process. The project will be a boon to transit in the GTA, but not everyone is pleased.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice, but there's a very (often painfully) loud squealing noise while subways come to a halt and streetcars turn, but it doesn't appear to happen to all streetcars/subways. What's the cause of the noise and is there any plan to fix it?

This Thursday, the Toronto Transit Commission will sit down to approve conceptual layouts for York University and Sheppard West, two of the new stations on the future Spadina subway extension. The details are outlined in the meeting's agenda, and some of the more significant points in the plans are after the jump.

The Toothbrush moustache went out of favour not long after World War II—and the life of its most infamous bearer—ended. But reader Becca Grey noticed that it's back in a (literally) big way, on the rear-end of the new double-decker Megabus buses run by Coach Canada. "What looks to be a handle of some sort on the back of the bus," pointed out Grey, adds an unintended little something extra to the upper lip of the company's blue-eyed, plump, white-skinned, deep-orange-shirted, peaked cap–wearing mascot. We're not sayin'; we're just sayin'.

Derek Jensen, a longtime Torontoist reader and commenter, started slowly plotting out his fantasy TTC map in the summer of 2007, while living in Seoul. In the two years since, we've featured one fantasy map from U of T architecture professor Dieter Janssen, set in 2030, and another from reader Ryan Felix, set in 2050. Jensen staked out 2040 for his, taking inspiration from not only Felix and Janssen's maps, but also other fantasy TTC maps, Transit City's real plans, and other transit systems from around the world, all to create an extraordinarily well-thought out look at the possible geography and logic of Toronto's future transit system.

Aha! we thought, when news of the TTC's long-anticipated project to put art on our beloved Metropasses landed in our inbox: they get it! By issuing a public call for submissions of interest, the TTC was demonstrating not only a sensitivity to the small aesthetic details that can brighten our day, but giving Torontonians the opportunity to actively engage with the transit system on which they are most often merely passive riders. Maybe, we even dared think, Valentine Makhouleen's nifty designs might actually be put to use.

       

What might become of our current streetcars when they're replaced by shiny new ones over the next few years? No one knows yet, but they might well dream of seeing out the rest of their days at the Halton County Radial Railway.

We've been following Metrolinx's Georgetown South Service Expansion and Union Pearson Rail Link project (GSSE/UPRL) since the beginning of the summer. For those unfamiliar, GSSE/UPRL is a major transit initiative that will result in the addition of several new sets of tracks to the rail corridor between Union Station and Malton for freight and commuter use. That's the GSSE part. The other part of the project, the UPRL, is exactly what it sounds like: a new rail link between Union Station and Pearson Airport (to be operated for profit by a private carrier). The reason we've been paying so much attention to this project is that it has been fraught with controversy for months—controversy that is now poised to come to a head.

Two years ago, we asked TTC Chair Adam Giambrone about whether increasing the amount of advertising on the TTC would be a way to make the organization a bit more money. He told us then: "I think we have 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 advertising. Many people would say too much, and even if we went all-out, the money is just not the solution to our city's budget woes." In November of 2007, we polled our readers on whether there was too much, just enough, or not enough advertising on the TTC, and 51% of you said that, then, there was too much.

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In September, Toronto will get a new free daily evening newspaper called t.o.night. According to the newer of the two media kits provided to us (one, from this month, by the paper itself; the other, from June, by another source), t.o.night will be "distributed in the downtown core," and will "deliver stories the direct competition [Metro and 24 Hours] does not cover until the next morning, while helping readers plan their evenings," modelled after other evening newspapers worldwide, like the Australian mX. The paper will be filled with content "from newswires combined with unique content from the web." From who on the web? No, no, not us. BlogTO, for one; Tim Shore, BlogTO's publisher, announced the new paper on Monday afternoon, saying that "Not since the rise and fall of Dose has a publication surfaced in the city threatening to shake up the print media landscape."

Overheard by reader Allison Prole at the bus stop at Rockcliffe Boulevard and Alliance Avenue last Friday at 2:45 p.m.

The ongoing city workers' strike? Abuse of process? A mayor drunk on power? Socialism run amok? Cleaning up the Humber River? The haunting terrors of the MFP scandal? Pick your pet political cause of choice and someone, somewhere—or more accurately, one of the city councillors present at today's debate—will find a way to turn a discussion about streetcar funding into a discussion thereof. Mercifully, the umpteen hours of debate will eventually come to a close, a vote will be held on the actual matter at hand (we'll skip the introduction of motions that are promptly ruled out of order for being, inconveniently, on one of these other subjects), and a verdict will be rendered.

City Council is holding a special meeting today to debate funding for what has turned out to be a rather controversial fleet of new streetcars. Relocated from City Hall due to the strike, councillors convened at 10 a.m. at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to work through an agenda that consists of precisely one item: whether to rejig the TTC budget by delaying other planned capital expenditures and reallocate that money to 204 new Bombardier-built streetcars.

Dreaming up ways to improve the TTC is a popular pastime in Toronto. And while most of us just daydream about additional stations and routes, Dieter Janssen, a professor of architecture at the University of Toronto, is turning ideas into possible blueprints for the future. Janssen hopes that his fantasy map (above), which he developed while doing research for the urban infrastructure and design class that he teaches, will invite debate over the future of Toronto's transit system. "It’s painfully obvious that infrastructure, at least in the GTA, has to be much more developed than anything that they’re proposing," Janssen told Torontoist. "The TTC needs to properly address its future…people actually rely on the system and that needs to be properly respected."

Last month we reported on the activities of an alliance of individuals and community groups called The Clean Train Coalition, who at that time were just beginning their effort to promote public awareness of some of the environmental hazards, including increased air pollution from diesel exhaust, posed by a rail expansion plan by Metrolinx, the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area's new regional transit authority. The plan, currently in its third round of public "open house" commentary periods, will receive community input until the close of its provincially mandated public assessment period on July 30. If the plan were to go ahead unchanged, the result would be the addition of enough tracks to the rail corridor between Union Station and Malton to enable carriers to increase VIA, GO, and freight train traffic to several times current levels. The plan would also would establish a convenient rail link between Union Station and Pearson Airport, to be operated by a private carrier.

4:30 p.m. last Wednesday. Two teenage girls are exiting the northbound Dufferin bus in front of Dufferin Mall.

The subway has significant delays or issues from time to time, whether technical, human, or weather related. I can see the screens or hear the PA while I wait on the platform. But riders already on the trains rarely get announcements about problems on the other line, which makes it frustrating to arrive at Yonge/Bloor or St. George to discover that platforms are packed, trains are turning back a few stations away, or running fifteen minutes apart. Why can't the TTC make effective system-wide announcements so commuters know whether to switch to a bus or streetcar to en route, or continue to another crossover station?

Earlier this morning at their head offices, the TTC announced changes to its Metropass fleet, with the aim of making counterfeiting, as Chief General Manager Gary Webster put it, a "tougher issue for the bad guys"—and with the not altogether unintended consequence of making the passes a little nicer to look at now, and a lot nicer to look at as of April next year.

Louise Garfield is taking her love of art to the streets. As executive director of Arts Etobicoke, she is collaborating with Lakeshore Arts, her sister organization, to display new works across Toronto. But these pieces won’t be seen on billboards or in other traditional outlets; instead, they will be featured on the side of travelling motorized vehicles for a new project titled ART ON THE MOVE.

Why is the configuration of seats on the streetcar and subway the way it is? Couldn't more people be accommodated with bench seating running all along the sides?

City Council is wrapping up its monthly meeting (extended to a third day to accommodate a full agenda and some election-laced rhetoric), one which has been particularly action packed. In addition to banning new bars and restaurants on Ossington for a one year "cooling off" period, and passing a precedent-setting green roof requirement (the first in North America), Council has considered several proposals for addressing the balance—or redressing the imbalance—between the different modes of transit on our city streets. The Jarvis lane reallocation grabbed Monday's headlines, and today Council has voted to install sidewalk, transit, and cycling improvements on Roncesvalles, and also passed a comprehensive Walking Strategy which will (among many other excellent measures that have garnered almost no press) introduce pilot no-right-turn-on-red restrictions on ten especially pedestrian-heavy intersections. Given that the city has approximately 2,100 signalized intersections, this represents the smallest foray, an experiment really, in redistributing roadway space.