Meet Your New Streetcars, Toronto
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Meet Your New Streetcars, Toronto

TTC unveils renderings of the new LRVs, hitting Toronto rails in 2013.

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As regular transit riders know, Toronto needs new streetcars. Our current fleet is more than worn around the edges; at the end of their expected lifespan, many vehicles are spending more time in repair shops and less on the rails. With ever-increasing ridership, the TTC was also eager to increase capacity on each vehicle, and has, moroever, to respond to growing requirements around accessibility in the transit system.

Bombardier won the contract to build the 204 light rail vehicles (LRVs) in 2009, at a cost of a little more than one billion dollars. After some public consultation to see what Torontonians were hoping for in their shiny new streetcars, and with the help of a panel of experts, Bombardier refined their design—and today the TTC released renderings of what these new vehicles will look like.

Each new LRV consists of five sections (one is the operator’s cab), including one that contains an accessibility ramp and a second that has designated space for bikes. For many though, the most noticeable change will be all-door loading, via two regular and two double-width doors. This will hopefully help with better distribution of riders on the cars (no more “please move back!” announcements?) and also speed up the process of loading passengers at each stop. According to the TTC—which has just put up a website dedicated to the LRVs—we’ll start seeing the vehicles in 2013, and eventually they’ll replace the entire existing fleet.

All renderings courtesy of the TTC.

The TTC is hosting a public event next week, to introduce the new LRVs. A “mock-up of the front half of the new light rail vehicle” will be on display at the Hillcrest TTC complex (1138 Bathurst Street) from November 12–15, 10 a.m.–7 p.m. each day.

CORRECTION, November 7, 1:50 p.m. This post originally incorrectly listed the address for the Hillcrest TTC complex as 1128 Bathurst Street. The correct address is 1138 Bathurst Street. We regret the error.

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