News   Nov 04, 2024
Catching Up on Two Years of Construction at Topped-Off Leaside Commons
 502     0 
News   Nov 04, 2024
UrbanToronto Launches New Map Experience – Explore New Features Today!
 746     5 
News   Nov 04, 2024
13 Storeys Proposed on The Queensway East of Kipling
 931     1 

TTC: Other Items (catch all)

smallspy said:
Indeed they do, which is interesting as the design drawings that I've seen for the station show that there is an access passageway there - as there is mirrored on the other side - but that it was not designated for public access in the drawings. I wonder if it was a late addition, or if the drawings were an earlier and not final revision.

Now that I think about it, I recall reading an engineers report from the 1990s on the station which also claimed that the surfaces and fixtures in that corridor were newer and thus not in need of immediate replacement, so now I'm doubly-confused.

Dan
Click to expand...

I wae speaking to my father who was an operator from 1989 to 2019 about this.

Your suspicion was likely correct in that the corridor was created in 73/74. The operator room was there since before he started and the signage on the door uses font from that era.

I can only guess they renovated the hallway when they sealed other parts of the station off.
 
At least Toronto does not have the sorriest bus stop in North America...

And the Sorriest Bus Stop in North America Is…​

From link.

North America has a new l’arrêt d’autobus le plus désolant.

After a hard-fought battle against its final rival in Staten Island, Québec City has claimed the infamous title of Sorriest Bus Stop in North America, besting (worsting?) its 15 fellow competitors and over a hundred nominations from across the continent. And this isn’t the first time a Canadian waiting area has claimed the crown; in 2018, a highway-side stop in Vancouver won the whole shebang, proving that just like in the U.S., bad transit facilities are truly a phenomenon from coast to coast.

But the victory of la Métropole is the first time a non-anglophone city has claimed the top spot, forcing the Streetsblog staff to dig deep to remember the last vestiges of their middle school French. And it’s definitely the first stop to feature an inflatable tube man, in addition to a sidewalk-free road that becomes completely impassable any time it snows. (No word on whether any Canadians have learned any sweet moves while dodging the backdraft from passing semi-trucks.)
Click to expand...
Quebec-City-1.png

But what really makes the Car Dealership Catastrophe special is its origin story.

Self-described “diehard” Streetsblog fan and urban planner in training, Hoffman, actually nominated several stops for the title, after a lunchtime tour of his city’s not-so-great waiting areas with his wife, Jackie, who is a business analyst and party leader for Transition Québec. But though Jackie’s picture would end up being featured on Streetsblog half a dozen times throughout this contest, she admits she was a little skeptical at first.

“I’m running for mayor this year, so I was hesitant to be linked to a contest that could shed Québec City in a negative light on an international scale,” wrote Jackie in an email. “I know that the people at [local transit agency Le Réseau de Transport de la Capitale (RTC)] do the best that they can with the resources that they have. I am running for office precisely because I want to finance all the infrastructure around active and public transportation. The last thing I want to do is make life more difficult for the folks at the RTC.”
Click to expand...
But Jackie ultimately decided — and we couldn’t agree more — that the spirit of the Sorriest Bus Stops contest isn’t really about shaming any particular transit agency or city governments for their failures. It’s about prompting a conversation about why our entire transportation culture collectively accepts bad bus stops as inevitable, rather than treating them as a problem that can and must be fixed through increased transit funding, strong interdepartmental collaboration, and deep engagement with the communities that use these facilities.

Because if we don’t, a sorry stop can quickly become a public monument to how little public transit riders matter.

“Many citizens say that they don’t take the bus, but they definitely notice the poorly thought-out bus stops in the more residential areas of Québec City,” Jackie added. “The fact that so many people are aware of the problem and there are so many sorry stops makes me feel a bit concerned that there is a vicious cycle. Drivers may hate traffic, but when they pass sad bus stop after sad bus stop, they think to themselves, ‘I’m stuck in traffic, but at least I’m warm, safe and not standing on a highway on-ramp in a snowbank.’ It reinforces their choice to take their car. I think that this competition has made people realize that the status quo is not normal and we can do better.”
Click to expand...
Quebec-City-3.png

Both Jackie and Hoffman note that, despite how this particular bad stop might make it seem, Québec City is actually a transit-rich community with a lot of great bus stops, and for years, they found it relatively easy to live there without a car. Founded in 1608, it’s one of the oldest cities in North America, and many of its core neighborhoods were not designed with automobiles in mind. Today, the local bus network serves about 44.3 million annual riders, which is only slightly less than San Diego, which has the 20th-highest ridership in the U.S. And that’s despite the fact that the French Canadian capital has just a third of the California city’s population.

But following the birth of their first child, the couple learned that even a city with a mostly-great bus network can be challenging to navigate.

“After we had the baby, the city completely changed for me,” Jackie said. “I was suddenly somebody who had a lot more difficulty standing and getting across the street in the time that was allowed by the pedestrian sign. And getting around the city wiht the stroller was a huge problem — especially when it snowed. It really opened up my eyes to different experiences; the brave souls who use wheelchairs or walkers and public transit to get around certainly don’t have it easy.”

Of course, not everyone in the French Canadian capital rides the bus. Thanks to the post-World War II economic boom, Québec City is also home to the second highest number of highways in Canada, which Jackie jokes makes the metropolis “a bit of an urbanistic paradox.” Suffice it to say, transit isn’t exactly treasured by everyone — and the bad stop that won this year’s title certainly isn’t the only one around.

“Once we made the contest, a lot of people reached out and said, ‘no way, there’s a worse bus stop over here,'” Hoffman laughs.

So the couple launched their very own Sorriest Bus Stops: Québec City Edition — and one of the entries was the westbound stop that was featured in this contest.

And it lost.
Click to expand...
Efforts to improve QC’s bad stops aren’t always welcome. In one particularly memorable controversy, the leader of the region’s opposition party, Jean-François Gosselin, slammed the construction of the region’s largest bus shelter, which included a heated indoor area and a small snack bar, declaring that “a $750,000 bus shelter is far too expensive. Everyone knows that.”

That attitude has characterized many of the efforts to expand transit service in Québec City. Mayor Régis Labeaume has spent much of his career fighting to bring a $3.3-billion light rail network to the city; Hoffman also notes that even less expensive transit projects, like expanding bus service to underserved areas, tends to be met with resistance in the community’s wealthier and more heavily residential areas — just like in his home country, the United States. (He immigrated from North Carolina several years ago.)
Click to expand...
It’s hard to say what the future holds for the stop on Rue Frank-Carrel. When approached for comment, RTC sent back this chilly and non-commital reply:

“The RTC is aware that the location of some bus stops is less attractive because of the area in which they are located, including this bus stop on Frank-Carrel Street, which is located in an industrial sector. Improvements have been made in the past, but the proximity of the stop to the highway, the municipal road and the traffic lights make the layout more complex. However, the RTC will take advantage of the review of its network to assess the layout of this sector with all the involved stakeholders. Service quality, security and customer experience are priorities for us.”
Click to expand...

Still, Jackie and Hoffman say the contest has sparked a conversation in their community — and she hopes to build on that momentum as she embarks on her campaign for mayor.

“After a lot of hesitation about publicly shaming the city I love so much, I am happy that we have made it to the contenders of the sorriest bus stop in North America,” Jackie wrote. “It has provided some much-needed comic relief to a very polemic and heated debate over public transit that has been raging for about 10 years. It has gotten many people talking and thinking about accessibility to transit… Most importantly, Hoffman and I have received many requests to hold a best bus stop in Québec City competition to show the world just how lovely public transit can be.”

That should inspire folks on both sides of the border.

For those of you who were playing at home, he’s the final bracket:
Click to expand...
SBS2021-5.png
 
TTC to host an "Ask Me Anything" on Instagram Live for Earth Day

April 21, 2021

Media and the public are invited to join @takethettc tomorrow for a live TTC Green: Ask Me Anything session on the TTC's Instagram page. The special event is being hosted in celebration of Earth Day to give media and TTC customers the opportunity to learn more about the agency's many environmentally conscious initiatives.

The following subject matter experts will be available to answer the most pressing sustainability questions:

- Bem Case, Head, Vehicle Programs
- Mike Macas, Chief Engineer, Vehicles
- Jason MacDonald, Project Manager, most recently, for McNicoll Garage

Anyone interested in having their questions answered is encouraged to submit them ahead of time via TTC's Instagram stories and tune in tomorrow evening. The moderator will also be accepting questions about the TTC's Green Program live in the chat.

Event details are as follows:

Date: Earth Day - Thurs., April 22, 2021

Time: 6-7 p.m.

Location: The event will be streamed via Instagram Live. To participate, visit @takethettc https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Ftakethettc%2F%3Fhl%3Den&data=04%7C01%7C%7C4aaa991df69f4fa3e06f08d904f75140%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637546282525264954%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=SASMU%2FfKyJ5YV3Fte0Mk0YVQuCZMvs%2Bu84Cpx4WTwNc%3D&reserved=0
 
Lawsuits over Spadina extension.

"The Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension provides a critical extension for the existing Toronto Transit Commission subway system across the municipal boundary between the City of Toronto and the Regional Municipality of York.​
​
One of these claims includes a claim for damages of $150 million against TTC by Bondfield Construction Company, a claim for damages against TTC by Walsh Construction Company Canada in the amount of $218 million, as well as numerous claims by subcontractors and suppliers on the project."​

Toronto Transit Commission v. Bondfield Construction Company et al.

Osler is representing the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) in multiple litigation claims involving construction and design of the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension Project. The Toronto-York Spadina …
www.globallegalchronicle.com www.globallegalchronicle.com
 
rbt said:
Lawsuits over Spadina extension.

"The Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension provides a critical extension for the existing Toronto Transit Commission subway system across the municipal boundary between the City of Toronto and the Regional Municipality of York.​
​
One of these claims includes a claim for damages of $150 million against TTC by Bondfield Construction Company, a claim for damages against TTC by Walsh Construction Company Canada in the amount of $218 million, as well as numerous claims by subcontractors and suppliers on the project."​

Toronto Transit Commission v. Bondfield Construction Company et al.

Osler is representing the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) in multiple litigation claims involving construction and design of the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension Project. The Toronto-York Spadina …
www.globallegalchronicle.com www.globallegalchronicle.com
Click to expand...
That company that corruptly got the St Mikes contract? That company that sabotaged the new St Mikes addition? The TTC probably could find reason to counter-sue a corrupt company.
 
Wow Bondfield strikes again even after folding up shop. A company that could not construct anything on time, and would have constant overun on costs.

How ironic.
 
Just an FYI that there's a pre qualification process open for artists to design artworks for Bay, Castle Frank, Christie, Donlands, Keele, Lansdowne and Spadina (Line 1) stations, as part of Easier Access and Second Exit work.

Good news for these projects - won't be long before every station on the network has an artwork!
 
TTC to close portion of Line 1 for 10 days to accelerate system improvements

April 23, 2021

Beginning Mon., April 26, the TTC will close the portion of Line 1 between Sheppard West and Wilson stations to carry out switch installation and track work that will enhance the TTC's ability to deliver prompt and reliable service from the yard. The closure will last 10 days, with regular service resuming at approximately 6 a.m. on Thurs., May 6.

With this closure, the TTC is once again taking advantage of reduced ridership to advance essential system improvements and upgrades that will minimize customer inconvenience in the longer term.

"We continue to take every opportunity to accelerate infrastructure improvements," said TTC CEO Rick Leary. "With another Stay-at-Home Order in place, we know fewer people are riding the subway. This provides us with an opportunity to complete critical upgrades with minimal inconvenience to customers and deliver a more effective subway system when they return."

During the most recent 10-day Line 1 closure in April, TTC crews made significant advancements on electrical work and upgrades to traction power, asbestos removal, and station floor and platform improvements.

Customers can expect shuttle bus service every 60 seconds or better during peak periods and very consistent service to continue throughout the day. Customers are also encouraged to use the Yonge side of Line 1 where possible. Service levels have been designed based on current customer volumes.

Customers who require Wheel-Trans service can speak with any TTC customer service staff member for assistance.

Customers should remember that face coverings are mandatory while travelling on the TTC. More information on how to wear a mask properly is available online. Some exceptions apply.

The TTC will also be distributing masks free of charge to customers who do not have one at Sheppard West and Wilson stations throughout the closure.

The TTC is using a variety of tactics to ensure customers are aware of this extended closure and to minimize the inconvenience as much as possible. Customers looking for more information or assistance planning their trips are advised to visit ttc.ca or call Customer Service at 416-393-4636.

The TTC thanks its Board, local City Councillors, and any essential workers who are being inconvenienced, for their assistance and patience with this closure.

The TTC is committed to keeping customers informed about work and events that impact service and about alternate routes. For the most up-to-date information, follow @TTCNotices on Twitter or sign up for eAlerts.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top