Categories
Roads Toronto Transit Urban Toronto

Bussing the gap: Scarborough transit after the SRT

On July 24, 2023, 38 years of Line 3, the Scarborough RT, came to an ignoble end when a car came off the tracks just south of Ellesmere Station, four months ahead of the scheduled closure of the deteriorating line. Though the City of Toronto and the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) were hesitant to say […]

Categories
Roads Toronto Transit Walking

Make streetcars king once more

On Tuesday, November 28, the University of Toronto’s School of Cities released their report that looked at vehicle movement and traffic violations on the King Street Transit Priority Corridor. They found that there are, on average, 6,800 illegal turns and through movements at intersections on the corridor, and less than 0.3% of offenders are stopped by […]

Categories
Infrastructure Transit Travels

How to run a street railway: riding trams in Central Europe

Back in October, my spouse and I had the opportunity to visit several countries in Central Europe: Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, though we spent the majority of our time in and around Vienna, as that is where my spouse attended business meetings for several days; we also took time to explore the […]

Categories
Infrastructure Ontario Transit Walking

A visit to GO Transit’s New Old Elm Station

GO Transit’s new Stouffville Line terminal overlooked one important detail.

Categories
Design Transit

The case against transit advertisement wraps

Transit wraps that cover passenger windows are unpopular with customers, they diminish the transit agency’s brand, and bring in a very small amount of revenue. Why do transit agencies do this?

Categories
Brampton Transit

An innovation in station naming rights?

The Brampton Innovation District, in the city’s downtown core, is one of the great things going in my hometown. Yet, I still feel uneasy about renaming the station there.

Categories
Maps Ontario Transit

The slow way to Peterborough

Peterborough has useful GO bus service, but it’s a slow ride from Toronto. New coach bus competitors offer speed, but not much else. There’s an opportunity to do better here.

I also updated my Ontario Intercity Transit map for September 2023.

Categories
Maps Toronto Transit

Line 3: struck from the maps

Line 3 – the Scarborough RT – is gone from the TTC’s maps. But what’s left on is even more puzzling.

Categories
Infrastructure Transit Travels

Automatic for the people: Riding Montreal’s new REM

North America’s newest rapid transit service, the Réseau express métropolitain (REM), opened on Monday, July 31, 2023 after a weekend of free public rides. I took my first ride several weeks later, on August 22, 2023. The five stop, 16.6-kilometre line between Central Station and Autoroute 30 in Brossard, is the first of four phases […]

Categories
Development Infrastructure Toronto Transit

Toronto’s saddest subway stop

Islington Station, opened in 1968 as part of a major expansion of the Toronto subway system into Etobicoke and Scarborough, is now literally falling apart. At platform level, Islington looks little different than most stations on the Bloor-Danforth Line with the faded wall tile, coated with a layer of brake dust. Upstairs, on the concourse […]