Earlier this month, I commented on the poor ridership numbers of UP Express, Metrolinx’s airport rail link between Toronto’s Pearson International Airport and Union Station. I suggested that despite the embarrassing ridership figures, UP Express (UPX) was no white elephant. I argued that instead, the rail service could be a useful transit link for residents of North Etobicoke, Weston, Mount […]
Category: Transit
At February 10th’s Metrolinx board meeting, there was an update on the Union Pearson (UP) Express ridership. The news isn’t good, as ridership dropped in the last few months, instead of growing according to Metrolinx’s rosy projections. UP Express launched on Saturday, June 6, 2015, a month prior to the 2015 PanAm/ParapanAm Games. I was one of thousands […]
Downtown Brampton, the logical terminus of the Hurontario-Main LRT I’ve written several times about the Hurontario-Main light rail transit (LRT) project on this blog. Last summer, I led a walk along Main Street, discussing Downtown Brampton’s wonderful built heritage, the potential for Main Street, and explaining why alternative routes, proposed by councillors and private interests, weren’t feasible. […]
Last week, the Toronto Transit Commission quietly introduced a new system map on its website. The map, a 3.8 MB PDF file, can be directly accessed here. This new system map, which includes all scheduled routes including the limited-service community buses and the Blue Night network, is very different than previous editions of the TTC’s “Ride Guide,” […]
It’s time for a rant on suburban transit, and how unnecessarily difficult it can be to get to the nearest bus stop. Transit has a harder time in the suburbs. Population densities are lower than in neighbourhoods developed before the Second World War. Suburbs are not only built for the car, but they’re laid out […]
The Relief Line is a subway route intended to reduce crowding and congestion in Toronto’s existing subway system. Planned for over a century, we may finally see work started in a few years. If Toronto finally puts shovels in the ground on this vital transit project, we will have a new grassroots advocacy group, armed with facts, to […]
Updated with a link and discussion of the Scarborough Transit Planning Update, released earlier today. It’s been an eventful few days for transit watchers. Late last week, we found out that John Tory’s SmartTrack plan will be clipped to an initial phase between Mount Dennis and Kennedy Station, and the Eglinton-Crosstown extended in the west to the Airport […]
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A vision for King Street
In today’s Toronto Star, city columnist Ed Keenan reports on the “King Street Visioning Study,” a city planning project that will soon be available for public feedback. The study proposes improving streetcar operations along the King Street Corridor between Dufferin and Parliament Streets as well improving the public realm, making it a more pleasant place to walk. The 504 King […]
John Tory’s original SmartTrack plan, shown with the existing TTC Subway and GO Rail networks. In Friday’s Globe and Mail, we were treated to a scoop by Oliver Moore, that newspaper’s excellent transportation reporter, on behind-the-scenes revisions to Mayor John Tory’s SmartTrack rail transit platform, a topic that I discussed several times in this blog. […]
Map of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT showing the original working station names along the corridor It’s too often that we hear from business leaders, planning experts, and pundits that politicians should be kept out of transit planning. To some degree, this makes sense. We saw what happened when politicians, pandering for votes from Scarborough, derailed a […]
Sean Marshall 