What the other 9/10ths thinks

Toronto still terrific - "Toronto is funky, tolerant, multicultural, young, with an artistic sensibility and an inherent dignity. It's not New York. It's not Chicago. It's more earnest, more harmonious." [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Funny, isn't it, reading what an outsider has to say about the city where you live? This article highlights 10 general categories of stuff-to-do in the city this summer that make the travel, currency, and border hassles worthwhile for US-ian tourists.

Sometimes a travel writer's enthusiasm boggles the mind, though. For example: "Families will have a blast taking the fast, on-time subway through town". What on earth does that mean? An "on-time" subway? Has Toronto such a beast? Our subway are scheduled to run "every x minutes" - with x being a function of time of day and day of week - with the only fixed times being the first and last train of the day. I think even giant TTC transit nerds like myself would have a hard time saying to themselves, "boy, that subway sure was on-time".

Another good one: "Taxis are plentiful and inexpensive". I guess Einstein was right... it's all relative.

John Tory's GO Transit 'solution'

Journeyman pro-transit activist Steve Munro lays the smack down on Ontario PC leader John Tory's recent comments on how he'd get the GO trains running on time:

[His] solution to GO Transit’s on-time performance problems is to fire managers if they cannot meet the targets. Although this is a refreshing change from the usual right-wing habit of blaming everything on the unions, it is no more realistic or responsible a platform...

Tory needs to own up to his own party’s legacy, to changes in funding and downloading of costs to municipalities, and say what he would change. The Liberals may have left some Harris policies in place for their own convenience, but if there are things Tory would change, he should say so. He should acknowledge the damage that was done the last time his party ran Ontario and set himself clearly apart from that regime. [read more]

Not only is Steve's blog a must-read for GTA transit nerds, but his thoughtful posts also tend to draw a lot of fascinating perspectives from others in the form of comments (to which he often replies individually in italics, letter-to-the-editor style!).

Tear out the Sheppard subway!

I've been pondering the implications of the so-called Transit City LRT plan for Toronto (which has been discussed in passionate and speculative detail over at Spacing).

An LRT is to run westward along Sheppard to Don Mills station, which is great; however, travelling this direction past Yonge will then mean a transfer from the LRT to the subway at Don Mills, then to a bus at Yonge.

It is well-known that the Sheppard stubway, while convenient for a limited range of commutes, loses a great deal of money every year. If the LRT is added, it may being seem like an inconvenience.

My outlandish proposal: rip out the subway tracks and run the LRT underground from Don Mills to Yonge. Eventually, the LRT could hit the surface around Wellbeck (doesn't the Sheppard tunnel already run a certain distance past Yonge?), and head all the way out to Weston with connects at Bathurst, Downsview station, Keele, and the proposed Jane LRT.

Swapping subway for LRT along Sheppard shold cost considerably less than digging a new LRT tunnel (as is planned on Eglinton), requiring only new tracks and some station modifications to raise low-floor LRT doors up to meet the platform. The subway cars used on the Sheppard line are interchangable with the rest, and so they won't go to waste.

Will it cost less to operate an underground portion of an LRT line than the current Sheppard subway? Have heavy-to-light underground rail retrofits been sucessfully accomplished elsewhere? I have no idea, but a great deal of transfer hassle would be saved at Don Mills, and a single-trip, transfer-free LRT run from the east through to Weston would make a lot of sense.

Say again, over

New York's $140-million subway radio system is garbled - "The system was completed in October, after years of effort to make it possible for transit officers in the subway to talk with officers aboveground." [Globe and Mail]

GO chief defends service - "Bear with us. It's growing pains. We will come back on stream. I think our reliability is still much better than the road system." [Toronto Star]

Puke, in textile form

Fabric patterns taken from public transit vehicles [via BoingBoing]