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Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s

Agree with the above - art brings identity, community ownership and a touch of joy to a station/stop. It wouldn't have been hard to produce reasonable, yet low cost artworks for the surface stops/Finch West. As the TTC did on St Clair!
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Sadly the Metrolinx Integrated Art program was binned post Ford.

Anyway, all the artworks on the Crosstown are being made of hard wearing, low maintenance materials - "They’re actually built right in and replace some of the material finishes that would be there any way,” so no complaints from penny pinchers there. As lovely as Arc en Ciel was, the upkeep costs were high! I cannot imagine how much the conservation costs in the Montreal Metro are...
 
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$10M for the entire line, or 0.2% of the cost.
Indeed. I found the cost, and, as you point out, it’s a vanishingly small percentage of the total spend.

I’m a supporter of more art on our public transit projects. It’s not where money gets wasted. For that, all we have to look at are decisions like burying a line for 100s of millions extra while a giant ROW exists.
 
I think Toronto and the TTC are doing much better than other cities by embracing technology rather than staying stuck in the past with paper maps and printed schedules that can change and need to be reprinted and updated. Most of the time if I want to plan where I'm going now if it's somewhere new or I'm unfamiliar with it I'll use either City Mapper or Google Maps to find my destination, I can't even remember the last time I looked at a bus or streetcar route map on a pole.
Having access to tools like Google Maps etc. isn't really a good reason to have bad wayfinding. Plenty of cities have better app coverage AND better wayfinding than Toronto.
Yes enclosures with Presto gates to get in.
I forget, are they using the same bad TTC faregates?
I think they are working on rolling them out unfortunately like anything with the TTC it's a funding issue and something that can only be done when funds exit or the redo a bus stop. There is also the need to power them which requires Toronto Hydro to provide a power supply to them.
It's not a funding issue - changing signs etc. is obviously critical. The TTC would have been planning to do it for like a decade . . .
 
Having access to tools like Google Maps etc. isn't really a good reason to have bad wayfinding. Plenty of cities have better app coverage AND better wayfinding than Toronto.

I forget, are they using the same bad TTC faregates?

It's not a funding issue - changing signs etc. is obviously critical. The TTC would have been planning to do it for like a decade . . .

The TTC Presto gates were ordered by them from a German company. So the Crosstown subway stations might be a new model/company ordered by Metrolinx. The outdoor 'station stops' will not have fair gates. passengers will have to tap on a fare reader before boarding like on a GO train.
 
The TTC Presto gates were ordered by them from a German company. So the Crosstown subway stations might be a new model/company ordered by Metrolinx. The outdoor 'station stops' will not have fair gates. passengers will have to tap on a fare reader before boarding like on a GO train.
Whatever fare gates Metrolinx orders must have the capability to handle open payment in the future.

Another noose was found. This time at Leaside Station.

 
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Another picture of these orange polls, bit better quality.

Another update not in the photo is that overhead lights have been installed at most of the above ground stations between science center and Warden.
 
More likely kept and altered, just in case of broken water pipes in the future.
Aren't those large "pipes" really support structures to keep the side walls stable during construction? I see them all over the place in all the digs - don't think they are drains.
 
The Chaplin concrete pour photo is interesting... I wonder what all that space will be used for considering there are no obvious holes for escalators, stairs, and elevators at the back.
 
Still don't have any pictures to show as I only see the progress from on a bus or the RT, but work at Kennedy seems to have been going pretty quick over the past couple of weeks. It looks like most of the concrete pours required for the station box and mezzanine are done, and it looks like they might be ready for finishes and landscaping to start within the next few months. I'm no expert on construction though so I may be very wrong, but it's nice to see it finally taking shape after having nothing to show despite all the inconveniences for years.
 
After seeing firsthand the effort K-W put into their (Alberta-style) LRT, it really breaks my heart to see the future streetcar operation on Eglinton east of Don Mills (not to mention the crucial Leslie intersection any further).
Might as well just renumber Line 5 east of Laird the ”534” streetcar. It doesn’t help that TTC will be operating the service.
Just another travesty in Toronto transit planning...
 
After seeing firsthand the effort K-W put into their (Alberta-style) LRT, it really breaks my heart to see the future streetcar operation on Eglinton east of Don Mills (not to mention the crucial Leslie intersection any further).
Might as well just renumber Line 5 east of Laird the ”534” streetcar. It doesn’t help that TTC will be operating the service.
Just another travesty in Toronto transit planning...
Doesn't help there will be little to zero signal priority on opening day. 🙄 What a joke.
 
Especially if the overground sections end up being too much of a drag factor for the underground section, unless they cheap out and separate the line at Science Centre. Couldn’t exactly continue to call it Crosstown though.
 

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