When the budget dropped last week I began to wonder why the province hadn’t been very specific on which transit projects were going to be funded. Usually they are very specific and it made me wonder if something big was coming down the pipe…

Today the Province introduced The Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area Transit Implementation Act, which makes very important changes to Metrolinx, GO Transit, and potentially transit across the region. This proposed law, which has passed first reading in the legislature, has (according to the press release), a few key elements: (more…)

Toronto has the only existing street railway/"light rail" gauge in Ontario.

Track gauge is a finer detail in the technology of rail-based transportation.  It is defined as the distance between the inside edges of the heads of the running rails.  It’s an important detail since this decides the distance between wheels on the trucks/bogies of rail cars, which can impact what systems on which said rail cars can and cannot run.

What makes this topic interesting in Toronto and the GTA is that the TTC has its own unique gauge: 1495mm.  This applies to both the streetcar and the subway networks of the TTC, but excludes the SRT (which is currently standard gauge. However, if the SRT is converted to LRT, as is widely expected, it would be changed to TTC gauge).  The TTC is expected to apply their unique gauge to Transit City as well, as it keeps the system flexible and has maintenance efficiencies.

Standard gauge, however, is 1435mm, and is used by the freight railways, which would include GO Transit’s rail fleet.  If one goes back in Toronto’s history, one will find two streetcar companies operating on Toronto’s streets, one at standard gauge and the other at the TTC’s, a result of meeting a legal requirement at the time.

There are now many communities in Ontario talking about LRT in their future networks.  These include not only Toronto, but also Hamilton, York Region, Region of Peel, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ottawa, and even London. (more…)

Looking into the future, by KaroliK

Some of our Metronauts contributors came together at the invitation of our friends at TRAC this past Saturday to discuss the future of Metronauts.ca.  Since our site activity dropped off in December, many have been asking the question – “What’s going on with Metronauts?”.  This post is a summary of how we got here and an invitation to our community to guide our future direction.

This site was originally conceived as a community space to discuss issues and plans contained within the Metrolinx Regional Transportation Plan alongside its public consultation process.  With Metrolinx as a major sponsor, my role was to help create the platforms for community engagement, including this site, and to help steward the community. With that project completed (and with my role as a consultant to Metrolinx now done) it is time to reflect on what this place is, who we are as a community and what we might do together in the future.

I will retain my role as steward of the Metronauts brand and the metronauts.ca web domain, but I am looking for proposals and leadership from our community about what the future of the site could be. I intend to step into a supporting role for the best vision and plan for the future.

The role of Editor-in-Chief is now open. We are looking for proposals from the right person with the vision, energy, leadership and ability to help us realize the potential of this site.

There are several key assets and strengths we can build from:

• metronauts.ca domain and the playful and engaging Metronauts brand
• a beautiful visual identity and strong design direction from Alistair Morton of Peapod Studios
• a strong core of content with some talented and passionate contributors
• an informed and active community of commenters who engage in intelligent discourse about the issues they care about
• a strong readership: 16,675 absolute unique visitors, 69,691 pageviews and 1,324 comments since August 1st, 2008 (the Google Analytics graph below charts weekly site visits over this period)

We need your feedback. Please leave a comment and answer some key questions:

• (more…)

I think we can all agree that we need a better transit system in the GTHA – no one is debating the need for a grand vision. But, there has been a lot of passionate debate about specific projects and how they should be constructed. Over the past few weeks, three specific issues have stood out in particular:

1. What should we do with the Sheppard corridor? Should the original subway vision or the new light rail vision be fullfilled?
2. What should we do with the Scarborough RT corridor? Should it be refurbished with Skytrain or conventional cars, or should it be replaced with a subway?
3. What should we do in the Mississauga City Centre? Should the future light rail line run to the terminal, or should the terminal move to meet the future light rail line?

There have been very vocal arguments on both sides, and I don’t see a reason why Metronaunts can’t host some of that spirited debate. Since it’s not in the spirit of the community to descend into a flame-war, I’d like to try to guide the discussion by laying out some relevant facts and asking community members to answer a question (keeping those facts in mind, of course). In a way, it reminds me of an academic examination – hence the “discuss with examples.”

So here we go: (more…)