Categories
Transit Urban Planning Walking

They call this a “SmartCentre”

The word “smart,” like many buzzwords, is thrown around a lot, to the point that it has lost meaning. SmartTrack, for instance, might have been a catchy name for a transit plan, but in the end, it didn’t turn out to be all that smart. There’s also the case of SmartCentres, the retail arm of […]

Categories
History Toronto Transit

Hallam Street and the Harbord Streetcar

Hallam Street looking east from Dufferin Street, January 2017 Hallam Street, which runs east-west from Shaw to Dufferin, north of Bloor Street, is unusually wide for such a quiet, short road. Hallam Street doesn’t provide a convenient thoroughfare for motorists, and nearly every storefront is either vacant, or converted to other uses. Despite being located in […]

Categories
History Maps Toronto Transit

Mapping Toronto’s streetcar network: The age of electric – 1891 to 1921

In 1891, after obtaining a new 30-year franchise, the Toronto Railway Company went to work electrifying Toronto’s streetcar system.

Categories
Transit

Suburban stations for urban needs: accessing GO Transit’s proposed new stations

GO Transit train from the Pape Avenue footbridge, near the proposed site of Gerrard Station At its last board meeting on December 8, Metrolinx presented an update on the status of twelve new GO Transit rail stations, all located on existing lines. Eight of these proposed new stations are located in the City of Toronto; […]

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Politics Toronto Transit

Leadership, John Tory style (part 2)

No, John Tory, you’re not a leader.

Categories
Toronto Transit Urban Planning

Ridership has tripled on UP Express, but we can do even better

When UP Express — Toronto’s rail link to Toronto Pearson International Airport – -launched on June 6, 2015, the one-way fare between Union Station and Pearson Airport was set at $27.50, or $19.00 with a Presto card. At the time, Metrolinx, the provincial agency charged with planning and integrating transportation services in the Greater Toronto […]

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Politics Toronto Transit

Toronto’s new rapid transit plan

Yesterday, City Council decided, by a vote of 27-16, to go ahead with the $3.1 billion one-stop extension of the Bloor-Danforth Subway to Scarborough Centre, rejecting Councillor Josh Matlow’s last-ditch attempt to resurrect the LRT replacement and extension of the ageing Scarborough LRT line. Council — Mayor Tory included — also voted to spend resources studying three more […]

Categories
Politics Toronto Transit

What do I know? I’m just a downtown elitist

I once described Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong as the city official that “knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing.” In 2014, Minnan-Wong complained about the costs of building new washrooms at the soccer fields at Cherry Beach, holding up a sign that simply said “$600,000.” That photo of Minnan-Wong, scowling for the cameras, trying […]

Categories
Transit Urban Planning

Missed opportunities on the Mississauga Transitway

Route 107 Malton Express bus on the Mississauga Transitway at Tomken Station After riding the UP Express back in March, the inspiration for a post on a proposed transit hub at Toronto Pearson International Airport, I went for a ride on the Mississauga Transitway. I first rode the Mississauga Transitway on a snowy Monday, November 17, 2014, the […]

Categories
Toronto Transit

The many challenges of creating a transit hub at Pearson Airport

Sign in Terminal 1 at Pearson Airport. Whether we realize it or not, Pearson Airport is already a transit hub.  Updated April 7, 2016 Lester B. Pearson International Airport is Canada’s busiest airport, handling 41 million passengers a year. It is not the busiest transportation hub in the Greater Toronto Area, though; Union Station is considerably busier (GO […]