Chicago Tribune compliments Toronto's transit system -- thoughts?

[Burnt creek]

Are you sure you've used Washington's system? Based on the below comment, I'm not so sure.

WMATA has zoned fares like GO Transit. There's no such thing as a "single fare" on WMATA.

You are saying i am lying? I said it has single fares. And it does have single fares. You arive at a station, you buy your ticket for the distance you are travelling. You insert your ticket at both the departure station and at the arriving station. You pay more for greater distances.

I dont know what you are talking about the GO like Fares? Here, if you leave TO and go outside the city boundaries, like mississauga or york region, you have to pay again regardless of the distance you are traveling in.. And that includes if you have to transfer on to GO. Thats two fares. And that will make you trip cost more than double. I didnt see that when staying in Arlington and going into DC on numerous occasions.

Arlington is in Virginia by the way. Washington is in District of Columbia. One subway fare. Are you sure that you have been to DC?

 

[doady]

Boardings per weekday, 000s (2012)

TTC - 2,938.8
GO Transit - 253.5
Mississauga Transit - 183.0
Brampton Transit - 114.2
York Region Transit - 96.9
Durham Region Transit - 49.5
Oakville Transit - 11.8
Burlington Transit - ?
Milton Transit - ?

CTA - 1723.8
Metra - 300.4
Pace Suburban Bus - 137.4

http://dmg.utoronto.ca/pdf/tts/2011/validation2011.pdf#30
http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/Ridership/2012-q4-ridership-APTA.pdf#17

If you consider the difference in population, the transit ridership in the Greater Toronto Area is almost 3 times better than in the Chicago metropolitan area.

 

[salsa]

I've ranked the subway lines in both cities by daily ridership. Amazingly, even the Sheppard line manages to outperform some CTA lines despite having fewer stations and no downtown terminus.


Bloor Danforth 519,180 - 31 stations
Yonge University 731,880 - 32 stations
Sheppard 47,680 - 5 stations
Scarborough RT 40,010 - 6 stations

Red Line 251,813 - 33 stations
Blue Line 186,796 - 33 stations
Brown Line 101,881 - 27 stations
Green Line 70,554 - 30 stations
Orange Line 63,037 - 16 stations
Purple Line 45,036 - 25 stations
Pink Line 33,737 - 22 stations
Yellow Line 7,063 - 3 stations

 

[wilson_wu]

LOL Someone referencing WMATA as something to aspire to. Their system has an abhorable safety record. A quick Google search will reveal numerous safety oversights with numerous trains crashing into eachother.

Just a while ago, I read somewhere that an operator noticed smoke in the tunnel. Transit Control advised the operator to drive the train FULL OF PASSENGERS into the smoke filled tunnel and put out the fire with an extinguisher. In the end, passengers had to be taken to hospital for smoke inhalation.

This would NEVER happen on the TTC. The train would immediately offload and evacuate the station and Toronto Fire would be called. No one in their right mind would send a train full of people into a tunnel to deal with a fire whose source is unknown.

-----

Upon more googling:
""[The] investigation found that it was common practice to use trains with passengers to investigate reports of fire or smoke instead of stopping all trains and using a qualified person to follow up on a report," the NTSB said during Tuesday's hearing."

A passenger died!

This defies stupidity and quite frankly its an insult to say Toronto should aspire to be like Washington's Metro. We are miles ahead in terms of safety, which is tops in my book.

-----

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incidents_on_the_Washington_Metro#Collisions

An exhaustive list of collisions and derailments.

 

[Johnny Au]

I just visited New York City a few days ago. During the weekend (and yes, NYC's subway system has been undergoing maintenance), local trains are extremely infrequent, which means that if you go to a station only served by local trains, then one would have to wait an extremely long time for the train to come (and most of the trains would actually be on the express track, skipping the station completely).

Want to go from lower Manhattan to the American Museum of Natural History by public transit during the weekend? Be prepared to take the bus or walk along the western edge of Central Park for a score of blocks or so. 81st-American Museum of Natural History station is a local station served by the B and C trains; during the weekends, the B train does not run and even the C train runs along the express track, skipping the station completely! We learned that the hard way.

 

[wilson_wu]

And I disagree that CTA stations are uglier than TTC's.

I am very impressed with the modernization of their underground stations.

Pre-modernization, they were dark, gritty and looked like bomb shelters complete with these incandescent industrial looking lights. Much scarier than any New York subway station. You'll see what I mean:

Post-modernization, vibrate mosaics, improved lighting, new wayfinding:

 

[ADRM]

I just visited New York City a few days ago. During the weekend (and yes, NYC's subway system has been undergoing maintenance), local trains are extremely infrequent, which means that if you go to a station only served by local trains, then one would have to wait an extremely long time for the train to come (and most of the trains would actually be on the express track, skipping the station completely).

Want to go from lower Manhattan to the American Museum of Natural History by public transit during the weekend? Be prepared to take the bus or walk along the western edge of Central Park for a score of blocks or so. 81st-American Museum of Natural History station is a local station served by the B and C trains; during the weekends, the B train does not run and even the C train runs along the express track, skipping the station completely! We learned that the hard way.

I just moved back from NYC after living around the corner from the AMNH and this is a pretty substantial exaggeration. Yes, trains (both local and express) run less frequently on the weekend, but it in no way significantly inhibits freedom of movement via subway across the city. I relied on subways to get around every weekend and it takes practically very little extra planning to get where you want to go, regardless of your destination.

With the exception of complete closures for maintenance or accident (which, thanks to the very existence of separate express and local tracks, is quite rare), not once did I ever have to take a non-subway form of transit to account for weekend reductions in frequency.

The separation of local and express tracks is a true blessing of the NYC system, and one that would ameliorate some of the worst rush hour stoppages that cause so many to (understandably) complain about the TTC's reliability.

 

[christiesplits]

Post-modernization, vibrate mosaics, improved lighting, new wayfinding:

So weird seeing a subway station ceiling with no pipes or HVAC

 

[ADRM]

except they closed it down for a couple of days because they weren't maintaining it properly

And the older cars are CARPETED.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Re: DC - great overview of what happened to the system:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...4db91c-0736-11e6-a12f-ea5aed7958dc_story.html

It’s also a story about the agency’s early faith in automation — that computers would negate human error — which seemed to stunt the development of a safety culture, resulting in disasters. And it’s about years of deferring unglamorous but vital infrastructure maintenance as the subway matured, while officials instead pushed for more expansion: more rail lines and stations, more ribbon-cuttings and opportunities for economic development.

It’s about a legacy of poor communication between unionized workers and their bosses regarding deficiencies in the system — a persistent “disconnect” that spans the agency’s existence, said the new general manager, Paul J. Wiedefeld. Many employees fear being disciplined or branded as malcontents if they point out flaws. The problem, which Wiedefeld hopes to rectify, has a corrosive impact on subway safety and service.

And it’s a story about money, about elected leaders unwilling to seek a special tax to pay for Metro, afraid of a voter backlash. It’s about a $3 billion-a-year agency without dedicated funding (unique among big U.S. transit systems) going hat in hand to the governments of Maryland, Virginia and the District, seeking annual operating subsidies from three jurisdictions with differing priorities and budget constraints.

Jurisdictional issues leading to paralysis - and basically having a reckoning like TTC is in the mid 90s. And the TTC would do well to learn from them when they look for explanations behind ridership drops - theirs is a system that is increasingly unreliable - and so is ours (in a less dramatic fashion).

AoD

 

[APTA-2048]

No i am not joking. Washington's system, like Chicago, has coverage. It covers major attractions, has multiple lines, and gets you to your destination quickly through rapid transit (without having to rely on busses or other transfers). It has surface rail and underground but it runs on separate lines not on streets. Washington's line crosses multiple juridisdictons (even STATES) on a single fare.

Whereas in Toronto, the coverage is the biggest thing lacking. And, you have transfer and pay another fare just to cross municipalities (never mind provinces or states). You cant get by subway to the toronto Zoo, the ex, woodbine racetrack, canadas wonderlands, the aquatic centre, ..etc. In chicago, i was able to get from my hotel at Ohare airport to a TFC game in bridgeview in the same amount of time (maybe even less time) than it takes me to get from north york to BMO field. The distance coverred in chicago was massive compared to what i face here.

These are the things that count in my mind. Can i get there and can i get there in reasonable amount of time by public transit. Thats where Chicago, Washington, and even Montreal has us beat.

Coverage is all well and good, but I'd rather not ride a system whose operation is reminiscent of the TTC pre-1995.

 

[TheKingEast]

I hate when people say one subway system is better than another by looking at lines on maps rather than going to these cities and experiencing these systems. A lot of people do this with Boston and Chicago, while I think the TTC is much better than these cities' systems from experience riding them.

Missed my flight in Boston last time I was there. I stupidly decided to take transit rather than hailing a cab.

 

[LNahid2000]

Missed my flight in Boston last time I was there. I stupidly decided to take transit rather than hailing a cab.

lol when I took the silver line to the airport last year, it took an hour to get from downtown to the airport (a 6km trip). Half that time was spent waiting for a bus. Didn't miss my flight, but that's because we left really early. By the way, the silver line is on the subway map, which makes outsiders think they have way better rapid transit than us.

 

[kotsy]

I'll take dark, dirty and disgusting NYC style stations any day if it means more coverage. Sure, it would be nice to have beautiful, clean stations but at the end of the day people use to transit to get from point a to point b and that means coverage and frequency should be paramount. I cringe when I see how big our new stations are built when our coverage has been embarrassing for decades.

You are saying i am lying? I said it has single fares. And it does have single fares. You arive at a station, you buy your ticket for the distance you are travelling. You insert your ticket at both the departure station and at the arriving station. You pay more for greater distances.

The two of you just have a different idea of what a single fare is. To LNahid2000, single fare means flat fare, like how TTC operates within Toronto limits. As opposed to say London where the system is divided up into zones and you're charged by distance by zone. Like downtown is zone 1, a km or two outside is zone 2 etc.

 

[44 North]

By the way, the silver line is on the subway map, which makes outsiders think they have way better rapid transit than us.

Doubtful. Interestingly the Green Line wouldn't be considered a subway/metro by most standards, yet that single light rail line would blow any of our streetcar lines out of the water. It's brilliant, and I can only dream of the day that TO will finally find the fortitude to build a proper system like that for the 501, 504, or in place of our waterfront "LRT" (i.e streetcars operating on the sidewalk at 5-10km/h). We planned to...and spent many decades proposing something so bold through our downtown. But unfortunately didn't.

I'll take dark, dirty and disgusting NYC style stations any day if it means more coverage. Sure, it would be nice to have beautiful, clean stations but at the end of the day people use to transit to get from point a to point b and that means coverage and frequency should be priority #1. I cringe when I see how big our new stations are built when our coverage has been embarrassing for decades.

This one of the reasons I think subway/metro length+coverage is a fair baseline in the "better" category. With the exception of building new lines, creating new lines out of former branches (e.g Chicago Pink line), or closing lines (e.g the SRT) - a subway/metro system is more or less static. However issues like crime, safety, reliability, SOGR, cleanliness etc are dynamic and always shifting. What is now an abysmal system can be brought back to its former glory with some investment; and what is now a stellar system can be brought down to abysmal status. And vice versa. But at the end of the day the subway/metro system will remain in place.

And although some might find it laudable that our threadbare system carries so many riders on so few lines (and it very much is laudable), it can also be representative of us seriously needing new subway lines. Not mention more network redundancy. If something were to ever happen to Yonge-Bloor or St George stations (which could effect Lines 1 and/or 2 for any length of time), this city would be brought to its knees.