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On Board PCC 4549
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Turns out the TTC didn’t need Ashley Madison to give streetcar riders a free trip; it just needed to finish the St. Clair right-of-way between St. Clair West Station and Lansdowne.
On Saturday, Torontoist boarded one of two special Presidents’ Conference Committee streetcars (or PCCs) running on the expanse of new track between St. Clair West Station and Lansdowne Avenue. Part of a class of streetcar used by the TTC in various iterations over five decades, the car we got on—number 4549—was one of those ordered by the TTC on March 2, 1950, and has been restored to look the part, with saturated green ceilings, incandescent dome lights, and a surprisingly powerful heating system.
Inside the car, there were nearly as many cameras as passengers, as the Hillcrest Village Choir sang out stop names in the absence of automated announcements; outside, along St. Clair, pedestrians gaped or pointed or smiled huge. It’s been a while since anyone’s seen streetcars along this stretch of St. Clair West: the free rides on Saturday, between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., were to celebrate Sunday’s long-delayed opening of the same streetcar right-of-way that the PCCs ran along on Saturday. (We’ll have more about the St. Clair right-of-way early this week.)
If the inaugural rides along it are any indication, though, the route is ready for mass consumption. Even in the older car, and even when it was packed to capacity, the entire ride felt smooth, including along the area of track near Oakwood Avenue, the subject of much controversy after photos shot with a telephoto lens made it look as though the streetcar ride would be a lot more like an amusement park ride. This proves, once again, that Steve Munro is always right: he said earlier this month that “the situation on St. Clair has been misrepresented by the choice and composition of the photos….the shots that have been published suit the agenda of the anti-St. Clair and, by extension, anti-Transit City factions who seek to discredit what the TTC is doing by any means possible.” On board PCC 4599, there were few complaints.
All photos by Remi Carreiro/Torontoist.