Greenwood Subway Yard - Only at yards can TTC trains turn 180 degrees.

Rollsigns!  Those useful little things that tell us where the train is going so that we know where we’re going when we get on.  A small but very important detail in every transit system. 

I remember when I was travelling by transit to get to college (Sheridan’s Davis campus), I would take the Spadina line to Yorkdale to connect with a GO bus.  In the mornings, many trains short-turn at St.Clair West.  And sure enough, both the desitnation signs and the Solari signs (those signs on the platform that tell you where the next train is terminating) would switch between Downsview and St.Clair West as appropriate.

I’ve been noticing something that I typically never saw, or at least saw so rarely that I don’t remember it happening.  For reasons that I do not know, subway rollsigns are losing their accuracy now.  I’ve noticed this now 5 times in about as many weeks.  From “almost never” to “about weekly” is a big jump. (more…)

Barrie and Richmond Hill GO Lines

This is the final entry in the “Where do we GO?” series, as all directions from Union Station will now be covered (West and East sides were covered previously).  This post focuses on the remaining corridors of Richmond Hill and Barrie.  As promised, there’s a lot of comment on these two corridors.

BARRIE LINE

Recently extended from Bradford to restore service to Barrie (and the corridor renamed as a result), this corridor has a lot of unserviced pockets compared to other corridors, despite having more stations already added to it than other corridors in the network except Stouffville (with which it is a tie).  Long a poor performer in the network, GO Transit has been very keen on making this corridor prove its worth.  (more…)

Jason Paris unleashed a firestorm in raising the now-decades old DRL theme for discussion here, and among other comments was the issue of subway alignment, as there are now several to evaluate for the DRL. So what influences alignment for new subways to be constructed?

Historically, while alignments would generally follow streets, as often as possible they tried to avoid going directly under the street, as service relocations and temporary decking for existing streetcar services, not to mention road replacement when the decking was removed, were huge hassles that came at great cost.  Expropriating properties was far cheaper, easier, and timely.  This was why the Yonge subway was not built beneath Yonge between Alexander (just north of College) and, I believe, Orchard View (just north of Eglinton), except for the part where it crosses to the other side of Yonge around Glen Elm (just north of St. Clair).  Apart from the portion between Church and Sherbourne bored directly beneath Bloor St., the Prince Edward Viaduct, and Sherbourne station, the Bloor-Danforth subway was kept entirely north of Bloor and Danforth proper (excluding the extension to Kipling).

However, attitudes of both property owners and those of and towards labourers changed, which in turn impacted what subway construction methods became acceptable.

(more…)

Yesterday morning, the city of Toronto officially unveiled a Pedestrian Priority Phase at the intersection of Yonge and Dundas. This adds an extra opportunity for a pedestrian only crossing phase which will allow the public to cross diagonally across the intersection, as well as east-west or north-south.

Councillor Kyle Rae, councillor Glenn De Baermaeker, head of the city’s works department and Gary Welsh, general manager of the city’s transportation services were all on hand to address the public and field questions from the media.

Check out in-depth coverage from BlogTO and Spacing as well as my own gallery of images.

This was the scene crossing Dundas Street at Yonge last week. It was a Wednesday, early afternoon, quite a bit of pedestrian traffic. According to our friends at Spacing, Toronto will see its first Scramble intersection by the end of the month. So instead of crossing north to south, as pictured above, or east to west, you’ll be able to cross the intersection in any direction.