TTC: Other Items (catch all)

[steveintoronto]

I can't believe that the city would allow a street festival to detour TTC shuttle buses during a subway closure.

I wasn't aware of the street closure, but was aware of the subway closure, I live at Dundas and Bloor, and can clearly see the congestion it was causing. In fact, at some main intersections, people were swarming dangerously at stops desperate to get on buses, but I was cycling back from the west end down Jane when I hit the madness at Jane and Bloor, cars turning wildly from the wrong lanes. So I figured I'd walk through the street festival, there really weren't that many people at that time (mid-afternoon), it appeared to not be that successful, but then when I got to Runnymede, massive numbers of buses. My immediate thought was that the subway closure had been moved to end there instead of Jane. Evidently not so. The mind boggles.

 

[steveintoronto]

Lake Shore was closed for Honda Indy for 4 days,

Just re-reading this, didn't realize this is for four days. OMG...

Maybe they can schedule the Indy, TIFF, Street Festivals, Bozo the Clown's Great Adventure, Mind Muddle Walk, and Run for the Rabid all on the same day, and the rest of us can leave town until it's all over?

 

[Johnny Au]

Just re-reading this, didn't realize this is for four days. OMG...

Maybe they can schedule the Indy, TIFF, Street Festivals, Bozo the Clown's Great Adventure, Mind Muddle Walk, and Run for the Rabid all on the same day, and the rest of us can leave town until it's all over?

Don't forget holding the Ultimate Parade of all Holidays! It combines the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Easter Parade, the Caribbean Parade, and the Santa Claus Parade. Oh, and it would also have elements of Halloween parades as well.

 

[steveintoronto]

Don't forget holding the Ultimate Parade of all Holidays! It combines the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Easter Parade, the Caribbean Parade, and the Santa Claus Parade. Oh, and it would also have elements of Halloween parades as well.

LOL! Seinfeld revisited:

Festivus is both a parody and a secular holiday celebrated on December 23 as an alternative to the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas season. Originally a family tradition of scriptwriter Dan O'Keefe,[1][2] who worked on the American sitcom Seinfeld, Festivus entered popular culture after it was made the focus of the 1997 episode "The Strike".[3][4]

The non-commercial holiday's celebration, as depicted on Seinfeld, occurs on December 23 and includes a Festivus dinner, an unadorned aluminum Festivus pole, practices such as the "Airing of Grievances" and "Feats of Strength", and the labeling of easily explainable events as "Festivus miracles".[5]

The episode refers to it as "a Festivus for the rest of us", referencing its open-source nature and non-commercial character. It has been described both as a parody holiday festival and as a form of playful consumer resistance.[6] Journalist Allen Salkin describes it as "the perfect secular theme for an all-inclusive December gathering".[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus

We could have the mid-Summer equivalent:
"Solsticus"...doesn't align, unless we do as the Christians have done and arbitrarily assign already established dates to fit solar alignments. Hmmm..."Post Solstice Dysfunction Day?"

Abbreviated as "PSDD"...'pissed'.

 

[Amare]

To be honest, I dont think the city really cares. If you go and ask them all they'll say is that the detour "will only last a couple days over the weekend to minimize impacts" and "festivals encourage people to get out and provide a boost to their local communities". The last thing on their mind is how buses will have to detour and inconvenience thousands of riders.

 

[crs1026]

That Bloor West festival is a longstanding annual affair and has a lot of support from the community, the BIA, and the Councillors for the area. It is not the only street festival on Bloor West.

It's likely the TTC that didn't do enough checking re what might be on Bloor before scheduling its outage. The permits for the street festival were probably issued quite some time ago. Certainly the festival would have started its logistical arrangements with the City some time ago.

One would think the TTC would maintain a watching brief on these things. Even without its maintenance program, any of the typical subway incidents which force a shuttle bus situation could arise on any weekend. Doesn't the TTC know when the parades and festivals are? Did it take any action to try and mitigate or dovetail schedules?

- Paul

 

[LNahid2000]

This kind of non-communication has happened before, when 1 Bloor West was being demolished. I took the below picture during a Pape to St George closure on May 17 2015

 

[smallspy]

That Bloor West festival is a longstanding annual affair and has a lot of support from the community, the BIA, and the Councillors for the area. It is not the only street festival on Bloor West.

It's likely the TTC that didn't do enough checking re what might be on Bloor before scheduling its outage. The permits for the street festival were probably issued quite some time ago. Certainly the festival would have started its logistical arrangements with the City some time ago.

One would think the TTC would maintain a watching brief on these things. Even without its maintenance program, any of the typical subway incidents which force a shuttle bus situation could arise on any weekend. Doesn't the TTC know when the parades and festivals are? Did it take any action to try and mitigate or dovetail schedules?

- Paul

The TTC does and do try and keep up with these things. Quite evidently they forgot or underestimated this one, however.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

The TTC does and do try and keep up with these things. Quite evidently they forgot or underestimated this one, however.

or they have no say in the mater or are informed of it to late to plan anything properly like what happens with the TIFF closure. The TTC keep pushing to discus it earlier every year so they can arrange with all of the poel involved to find a way to run streetcar along King effectively but still have it closed to traffic. Hopefully next year with the testing still going on for the king Transit priority they will keep it open to streetcars.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

So today I saw one of the worst examples of the SRT cars still in service, it amazes me everytime I see them that cars 3000 and 3001 are still around in the old style. They really look pretty bad if you look at them.

 

[nfitz]

As to the 'non-linear matrix'...here's a mind-boggle: Apparently the TTC can program their Presto algorithms (at least recently, this was yet another glitch in the past) to transfer from diverted streetcars (College, Dundas, Queen, etc) to the shuttle buses to tie the original routing across running the same route number, w/o charging you twice. (I presume, I don't trust them, and when asking for a transfer on the College car a few days back after paying with Presto, was told "no" when asking for a transfer..."that's Presto's problem, not mine"). So if they state it's not possible to reprogram for the 72 bus at Union, and others, then how is it possible to do it for the shuttles?

Apples and oranges.

You don't get two fares on the 506 (for example), with the buses and streetcars, because it recognizes bus on route A and streetcars on route A as being two separate routes.

See https://twitter.com/TTChelps/status/884444164255092736 and https://twitter.com/TTChelps/status/884444392651706369

And as far as I understand it, 72 and the other Union routes, were just an error in the last table they uploaded. I believe the fix gets done next weekend (and we'll see how everything changes again).

 

[W. K. Lis]

If the roads department is so afraid of using grass on streetcar right-of-ways, why don't they consider using artificial grass instead? Can you imagine see this on Queens Quay, Spadina, St. Clair, or The Queensway?

From this link

 

[steveintoronto]

You don't get two fares on the 506 (for example), with the buses and streetcars, because it recognizes bus on route A and streetcars on route A as being two separate routes.

And as far as I understand it, 72 and the other Union routes, were just an error in the last table they uploaded. I believe the fix gets done next weekend (and we'll see how everything changes again).

Here's the reality:

PRESTO card customers require a paper transfer on the following routes. Transfers must be shown to station staff when entering Union or Royal York stations and to operators when boarding these buses. Please make sure you obtain a paper transfer at the start of your trip.

• 15 Evans
• 48 Rathburn
• 121 Fort York [sic]
• 73 Royal York
• 72 Pape
• 76 Royal York South

It’s clear that Presto transfers between 72B Pape and 121 Fort York-Esplanade and the subway are not programmed by the TTC as valid transfers, which is odd, given that this is a valid and marked transfer point. Connections at Royal York Station (routes 15, 48, 73, and 76) are listed as well as the TTC is currently rebuilding that station, with the bus terminal closed off until 2018.
[...]
The problem is that surface routes can and do change; streetcars and buses can be short-turned or diverted around road closures, customers often change to subway and streetcar shuttle buses, and these may not be recognized as valid transfers. (The TTC double-charged me before, when I transferred from a 509 shuttle bus to the subway at Union Station.) It should not be up to customers to remember to keep track of every time the TTC tells them to ask for paper transfers. Riding transit needs to be kept as simple as possible.
[...]

https://seanmarshall.ca/2017/06/06/the-ttc-charged-double-charged-me-again/

So if Pape et al can't be recognized at Union (Line 1) and Royal York (Line 2) as a 'transferable different routes', then why can shuttle buses be elsewhere?

I believe the fix gets done next weekend

That may be your belief, but it's certainly not the case.

 

[Johnny Au]

If the roads department is so afraid of using grass on streetcar right-of-ways, why don't they consider using artificial grass instead? Can you imagine see this on Queens Quay, Spadina, St. Clair, or The Queensway?

From this link

Artificial turf is the best compromise between natural grass and concrete.

 

[smallspy]

or they have no say in the mater or are informed of it to late to plan anything properly like what happens with the TIFF closure. The TTC keep pushing to discus it earlier every year so they can arrange with all of the poel involved to find a way to run streetcar along King effectively but still have it closed to traffic. Hopefully next year with the testing still going on for the king Transit priority they will keep it open to streetcars.

This was not even close to the same as the TIFF closures. The work being done at Keele that caused the closure could have happened on almost any other weekend. There was no reason why they couldn't have swapped the work there this past weekend with another site had they known about the festival.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.