to move up and down
A better way to dress
Andy Byford, the TTC’s Chief Executive Officer, said the familiar maroon jackets should go. Always willing to help, Steve Murray offers some design suggestions.
This will likely only be of interest to people in and around Toronto (or transit nerds and those in cities with proper subway systems) — here is Toronto’s proposed Downtown Relief Line.
Building Toronto’s $2.6-billion subway extension
Who says Toronto isn’t building subways? In 2008, the TTC began design and construction for six new subway stations, linking the subway to growing York University and beyond. Snaking northwest, this line brings the subway for the first time outside Toronto’s boundary into the 905. The $2.6-billion project involves hundreds of workers. The TTC vows to open the extension at the end of 2015
Riding the 501: The longest streetcar route in North America
With nearly 25 kilometres of track, the 501 Queen is the longest streetcar route operating in North America. Many of the 40,000 passengers who ride it between Neville Park in the east and Long Branch in the west like to criticize the never-ending delays during rush hour and unexpected short turns up Roncesvalles. But most have a soft spot for the 501, too, perhaps because it’s such a perfect representation of Toronto’s diversity, picking up stroller-moms in the Beach, new immigrants in Parkdale, students at Humber College and tourists at the Eaton Centre.
Editorial: Transit feuding not the better way for Toronto
Mayor Ford, who campaigned explicitly on the subway issue, is correct when he says that subways, or at least underground mass transit, is preferable in that it lasts longer and does not disrupt surface transport. He also is right to fear another fiasco like the St. Clair streetcar line, which was overbudget, four years late, runs infrequently outside of rush hour and has seriously disrupted automobile traffic along a central Toronto east-west artery.
But Mayor Ford’s opponents also are right to point out that the advantages of underground transit come with much higher costs — more than the city can afford.
TTC retires its oldest operating subway train — the last with bench seating and without air-conditioning
After 35 years in service and “a lot” of stops across Toronto, the oldest subway train in the TTC’s fleet, the last with bench seating and without air conditioning, was retired Friday morning.
At 7:27 a.m., the H4 train left eastbound for Greenwood Station. From there it crossed the city twice on the Bloor-Danforth line. The train’s arrival at Kennedy Station after 9:00 a.m. was its last stop.
“I don’t think anybody will miss the lack of air conditioning, but they were a good stable hard-working subway train, very reliable in its day,” said TTC spokesperson Brad Ross. “It’s progress, but it’s also some nostalgia on a day like today.” (Photos: TTC)
Graphic: The TTC fare hike, and fares over the years
The cost of a TTC token goes up by 10 cents on New Year’s Day (cash fares are sticking at $3 for adults), with tokens increasing from $2.50 to $2.60, and Metropasses up by $5 per month.
What the #!%*? Was the TTC sex video a YouTube stunt?
An inebriated couple gets intimately acquainted on the subway — at 2:30 on a Sunday afternoon, no less — and all of a sudden it’s all Toronto can talk about. But questions remain. Jane Gerster provides the answers in this occasional feature, in which the National Post tells you everything you need to know about a complicated issue and suggest some more romantic subway stations.
Drunk Toronto couple arrested for having sex on subway platform at 2:30 in the afternoon
An extremely intoxicated couple were arrested Sunday afternoon after having sex on a southbound subway train.
“At about 2:30 p.m., a couple was seen by other passengers engaged in intercourse on the train,” said TTC spokesman Brad Ross.
Making no attempts to be discreet, the amorous couple soon prompted a fellow passenger to press the subway’s yellow emergency strip, which brought the train to a stop at Spadina Station. It took 14 minutes for police to arrive. In the meantime, as trains all along the north end of the University line snarled to halt, the couple staggered onto the platform to continue.
Delight at the end of the tunnel in Métro: Design in Motion
By the end of his long run as mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau had become secretive, autocratic, didactic, brittle and somewhat bitter; as a young journalist covering Montreal City Hall in the early 1980s, I felt no love for Drapeau.
Now, a hefty new bilingual picture book seeks to rehabilitate Drapeau by focusing on his masterpiece, conceived 50 years ago: the Métro de Montréal. The tome Métro: Design in Motion posits that Montreal’s rubber-wheeled subway, with its unique, slender blue train sets and network of bucolic, colour-saturated stations, stands as a poem in fibreglass and poured concrete: our most important legacy of Canadian-made industrial design.
Six serious questions about Toronto’s new streetcars
Next spring Toronto takes delivery of its first three mega-streetcars, which workers are building at Bombardier in Thunder Bay. These beasts, built of stainless steel wrapped in aluminum, will require a massive rethink of how we use and interact with streetcars. On the weekend, 1,200 people visited a tent at the TTC’s Hillcrest Yard on Bathurst Street, where the TTC is displaying a 3/5 length mockup of the new 30-metre streetcar. (You can still see it Tuesday, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.) On Monday, aboard the prototype, Kevin Seto, TTC superintendent of rail vehicle engineering, discussed some concerns with Peter Kuitenbrouwer.
One person is dead after a TTC bus crashed into a crane on Lawrence Avenue just east of the Don Valley Parkway. At least 11 people have been injured. Read more
‘Dig Down’ looks to expand Union Station below ground
Deep below Canada’s finest beaux-arts style railway station, under a chaotic concourse level bursting with GO transit commuters, tourists and the accidental shopper, construction crews have been busy moving tonnes of dirt.
Toronto’s “Dig Down” is billed as the first project of its kind in Canada, an impressive effort to dramatically boost Union Station’s carrying capacity by digging a lower retail floor four metres underground, and adding two new GO Transit concourses — all while operations continue at the 80-year-old transit hub.
“It’s an amazing feat of engineering that they’re doing, it’s really something to see,” said Bruce Bowes, chief corporate officer of the City of Toronto. “Meanwhile, the trains are running, a quarter of a million people a day are going through the station, and it’s just unbelievable it’s all happening underneath.” (Aaron Lynett/National Post)
The Week That Wasn’t by Sarah Lazarovic:
Queen’s Park voted to make the TTC essential
Posted Toronto Political Panel: Assessing Toronto’s new transit plan
Q&A: Digging into transit plan
A pedestrian passes a TTC street car on Queen Street West as the sun sets in Toronto, Feb 22, 2011. (Tyler Anderson/National Post)
Peter Kuitenbrouwer: Beware Dalton McGuinty’s TTC Trojan horse
“Toronto taxpayers can’t afford the transit system now, and ‘it just got a whole lot more expensive,” Councillor Shelley Carroll said. “We have an operating budget that we can scarcely afford today paid for by fare box and property taxes, and the province is refusing to help us with operating. We can’t afford to operate the existing system on day-to-day basis. We’re just playing short-term political games.”
Editor’s note: Meant to post this photo yesterday and it’s too lovely not to give it some attention.
