Recent content by Still Waters

Agree, most of what Byford has put in place was already in the works under Webster. And Webster was the one who hired both Upfold and Byford to bring that outside perspective to the organization. The plan was for Byford to get a year's experience under his belt, getting some of these new...

Leave it to the religious groups to manufacture a disagreement that inevitably escalates, helped along by those who relish a fight. Through history, wars have been started over less, but heaven forbid (no offence) we should learn anything. This whole issue is ridiculous and a waste of time and...

The problem with these politically-motivated witch hunts is that it is the people who are most competent and principled that are usually let go, while the ones who keep their heads down and do as little as possible, in order to hide their incompetence, more often than not keep their jobs. If I...

High density residential will never give you the kind of ridership levels that you would get with office/commercial density. That is what happened in the Sheppard Corridor -- the ridership forecasts for the Sheppard Subway were based on primarily office development around the new stations...

The TTC's current fare system is actually quite simple, with the exception of some of the transfer policies, which are not clear and consistently applied across the system. People who are advocating for changes to the fares are usually doing so to save themselves money, not because it would be...

The last I heard was that the inter-regional GO Bus Terminal project was being held up by Hydro One due to their (new management's) reluctance about building anything of any significance under the power lines. They are not necessarily honouring their previous approvals-in-principle. I haven't...

Yeah, complete with shopping malls and the world's biggest ferris wheel. But no NFL stadium -- after all, we want to keep this waterfront stuff classy.

Yes, it will be. And I believe that the expectation is that Presto will be the primary method of fare collection on this line by the time it opens. It was never intended to have ticket collectors in any of the stations on the Crosstown and I think that still remains the intention now that the...

nfitz is right. It may not be rocket science, but it is also not as simple as just retrofitting a turnstile at each station. The back-of-house system is currently not set up to deal with any kind of volume from TTC use. Besides happy political announcements about everyone now being in...

I think the flavour of the article is a bit misleading. They talk about the fact that transit's share of the commuter market has not increased, which gives the impression that transit is suffering from a lack of success. However, the TTC has set record ridership levels for the last 3 years and...

No, KPMG does not know the first thing about transit. How much did we pay them to tell us that: a) You can contract out some functions, e.g. maintenance (already in the works) b) You can contract out some routes (has been looked at before) c) You can merge some admin functions with the City...

I generally try to be fair and objective, even to the brothers Ford, but this is beyond the pale. These two tin-pot dictators should be told, by the people, that this city is not their personal fiefdom to play with as they please. They are elected representataives of a city that belongs to its...

Not sure this is a good idea for the long-term. It might work out ok in the short-term when the line is new and maintenance costs are low, but what about longer-term, system-wide issues? The worst thing you can do is start to fracture a transit system that is one of the most-integrated systems...

My understanding is that the funding is secured for the portion of Queens Quay west of Bay. But there is no funding yet for East Bayfront (Queens Quay East) or for Cherry St. streetcar lines, although development appears to be proceeding regardless.

I will agree with you, drum118, that the TTC needs to rework its line management culture. While there are some good supervisors, there are too many that let the drivers get away with playing games with the schedule because it is easier than holding their feet to the fire. There is no excuse...