TTC: Other Items (catch all)

[T3G]

If these are going to be anything like the abysmal next train arrival boards, they should be disposed of quickly, with great prejudice, with a baseball bat.

 

[yrt+viva=1system]

Attention TTC passengers: The delay you’re experiencing on the subway is longer than ever. Here’s why​

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...the-subway-is-longer-than-ever-heres-why.html

Another delay that has become more prominent since the pandemic is the unauthorized person on the tracks. While Dundas station used to have a few people a year wandering onto the tracks, last year there were 32. In the past, many were ill-advised urban explorers, including someone making a spoof video about Pokemon Go. But it’s happening so often now that transit expert Steve Munro wonders if there are more people seeking shelter in the nooks and crannies of the system. The TTC confirms that’s the case. Nobody is living there, but “there are conflict intersections with housing, mental health and addiction, all of which are sort of playing into people’s behaviour,” says the TTC’s Stuart Green.

An unauthorized person on the track holds up the system for around 10 minutes on average, but it can last much longer. Rick Leary, the chief executive officer of the TTC, was caught in one such delay at College station on a recent afternoon. Someone was spotted on the tracks at Summerhill. “It just killed us, right? You have to stop, you have to cut the power, you have to put staff in the field to go find someone. It’s very discouraging.” It took an hour and a half to clear the delay. By then, Leary had already made the 4.5-kilometre walk back to TTC headquarters at Davisville station.

But the more complicated human delays persist, and the TTC can’t explain why delays are taking longer to resolve — only that data is collected differently over time, and there are nuances to each incident.

Rick Leary says they’re trying to be transparent. When new categories of delay show up in the logs, it’s usually because he wants to track something. The TTC created a department for research and analytics in 2020 and recruited Wendy Reuter to lead it. (Reuter had been a vice-president at the Canadian Urban Transit Association and has a long history in passenger transportation and analytics.) Leary talks excitedly about all the new ways they’re using data, like an asset management system that tracks the life cycles of vehicle parts.
The raw delay data is available online, but it is overwhelming in scope. In its monthly CEO’s Report, the TTC lists on-time performance stats and summaries of the latest delays, along with action plans. Not everyone finds them illuminating.

 

[cplchanb]

If these are going to be anything like the abysmal next train arrival boards, they should be disposed of quickly, with great prejudice, with a baseball bat.

The displays at the new line 1 stations were installed in good faith however ttc once again couldn't resist the temptations of ad revenue.... terrible shame. Well for them they're shameless

 

[DSCToronto]

The displays at the new line 1 stations were installed in good faith however ttc once again couldn't resist the temptations of ad revenue.... terrible shame. Well for them they're shameless

Or REALLY need every cent of revenue they can get?

 

[ARG1]

The displays at the new line 1 stations were installed in good faith however ttc once again couldn't resist the temptations of ad revenue.... terrible shame. Well for them they're shameless

To be fair (and I say this knowing full well that those designs were preferable to what we have now), those displays had one of the most awful designs I have seen. It genuinely looked like some pre-alpha scrambled together by a high school student.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1633802563001929728

From link.

​

APPLICATION FORM: Community Candidates for TTC Board​

Do you use public transit in Toronto? Do you want to help make Toronto transit better and more accessible?

The Toronto Transit Commission Board is currently accepting applications from members of the public to sit on the board. The TTC Board has 9 members: 5 are elected City Councillors and 4 are members of the public. TTC Board members can ask questions of TTC staff and vote on policies including budgets, fares, service levels, contracts, and other issues.

All TTC Board members should use public transit and be accountable to transit users across Toronto. But the 4 members of the public who sit on the Board have tended to have corporate board experience, not transit riding experience. The TTC Board members who are members of the public all voted to approve TTC service cuts in 2023. That's why TTCriders is inviting interested members of the public who use public transit to apply to be a Community Candidate.

TTCriders is a membership-based organization of transit users. TTCriders is committed to supporting any Community Candidates appointed to the TTC Board with strategic and research guidance and by providing input from our members from across Toronto.

A nominating committee of TTCriders members will select a slate of Community Candidates based on submissions via this application form. We will prioritize working class people from equity-seeking groups including disabled people, Black, Indigenous, and people of colour, low-income earners and people who receive social assistance, women, and trans, non-binary, and 2SLGBTQ+ people.

Read more about the TTC Board position here: https://secure.toronto.ca/pa/decisionBody/24.do

Qualifications​

​

Public members of the board shall have directorship and executive-level experience and collectively represent a range of skills, knowledge, and experience with one or more large organizations in the following areas:​

​

​

• strategic business management, including transformative change management
• financial management, accounting, law, and engineering
• customer service or marketing management
• management or planning with a rail or public transit organization
• formulation and/or management of public-private partnerships
• capital project/construction management or capital procurement/supply chain management
• operations and information technology
• labour relations/industrial safety management
• professional knowledge and working experience of urban sustainability, intersectionality, and inclusive governance
• understanding and/or experience with TTC operations

DEADLINE to apply to TTCriders' slate of Community Candidates: March 16, 2023​

DEADLINE to apply to TTC Board: March 23, 2023

(Nothing about using public transit regularly or all the time, being a prerequisite.)

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Meanwhile...

 

[Admiral Beez]

Sigh, took the TTC tonight to dinner out at Yonge and Eglinton. Boarded the 5:30 pm streetcar at Gerrard and Sumach. We both tap as we should and take our seats. Next stop, two rough looking gents get on, neither taps. Then we get to College Stn, being approached by beggars on both the platform and twice on the short subway ride. On the ride home, more beggars approaching at Elginton station, with one getting on the train and approaching each seated passenger with his cup, from end to end of the train. Alighting at College around 9:30 pm the real circus begins, a couple and their big dog have encamped on the platform with their ebike and garbage bags of whatever. In order to get from the platform to the eastbound streetcar you have to walk a gauntlet of at least a half dozen beggars and muttering tramps. When we get onto the streetcar, tapping on, the rear of the vehicle smells like piss. The TTC has bylaws against fare evasion, solicitation and loitering but seemingly does nothing to address it. And how about cleaning your streetcars? Next time I’ll take my car.

 

[KevinT]

Contrast: The wife and I were in town Friday night for the symphony at Roy Thomson Hall. We parked there around 6:00 and had reservations at Kelly's Landing for 6:15. I don't have a proper coat to go over the sport jacket I was wearing and had planned to just tough it out for the 500m walk, but the snow was so wet we decided to take Path, then discovered there's no west side connection to Union. So what did we do? Rode the subway one stop from St Andrew to Union, and the reverse after dinner. Neither of us had our Presto card (we had our GRT cards; oh why, oh why weren't they forced to use Presto?) so bought two 2-ride tickets from the kiosk. It was easy, the trains seemed clean enough to us (we actually sat), and we barely had to wait on the platform in either direction. It's not all doom and gloom on the TTC...

 

[Admiral Beez]

It was easy, the trains seemed clean enough to us (we actually sat), and we barely had to wait on the platform in either direction. It's not all doom and gloom on the TTC...

I was pleased that both streetcars arrived within a minute of our arrival at the stops, and both subways were clean.

I’m just tired of the TTC surrendering to thieving, beggary and vagrancy and wish that they’d just enforce their own bylaws.

 

[Towered]

I was pleased that both streetcars arrived within a minute of our arrival at the stops, and both subways were clean.

I’m just tired of the TTC surrendering to thieving, beggary and vagrancy and wish that they’d just enforce their own bylaws.

I think "enforcement" has come to be seen as harassment of the marginalized...

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I think "enforcement" has come to be seen as harassment of the marginalized...

I am not sure how stopping someone from pissing on the streetcar is harassment - I'd love to see someone try.

AoD

 

[Richard White]

I think "enforcement" has come to be seen as harassment of the marginalized...

I tend to agree.

I have seen first hand how TTC staff refused to deal with homeless onboard trains. They can smell like they sh** their pants and pack the seats with their belongings but making them leave is a "human rights issue".

Basically, the TTC staff did not want to do anything and offend bleeding heart activists in the process. They claimed it was not his fault he was in that situation and let him stay onboard.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

504|304 Bus service resuming on Roncesvalles Avenue​

Effective March 14, 2023

From link.

5 a.m. March 14, 2023 until May 2023​

​

504 King bus service is resuming on Roncesvalles Avenue.​

​

504A King streetcars will divert both ways via Distillery Loop, Cherry Street, Sumach Street, King Street, Bathurst Street and Fleet Street, to Exhibition Loop.​

​

504B King streetcars will divert both ways via Broadview Station, Broadview Avenue, Queen Street East and King Street, to Bathurst Street.​

​

304 King buses will operate from Dundas West Station to Broadview Station, via Dundas Street West, Roncesvalles Avenue, King Street, Queen Street East and Broadview Avenue.​

​

504 King Replacement buses will operate as follows:​

• Westbound: from York Street, west on King Street, north on Roncesvalles Avenue and north on Dundas Street West, to Dundas West Station.
  
  
• Eastbound: from Dundas West Station, south on Dundas Street West, south on Roncesvalles Avenue, east on King Street, south on Church Street, west on Wellington Street and north on York Street.

Customers should transfer between streetcars and replacement buses on King Street West, east of Bathurst Street.​

​

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Bunny with 'pink dye on her back' rescued from TTC subway tracks​

See link.

A pet bunny, with parts of its fur dyed pink, was rescued from the tracks at a subway station in downtown Toronto last week.

The rabbit was spotted at the Rosedale subway station on March 8, but Lousi Mokhtarians, one of Rabbit Rescue Inc.’s volunteers, told CTV News Toronto the rabbit had been living in the station for a while.

“Apparently the bunny was there around two weeks, from someone who saw the bunny while walking there. The same bunny with the pink dye on her back, so I think that she was originally dumped around the area and made her way into the tracks,” she said.

Mokhtarians, who has rescued several rabbits in Toronto, said this rabbit survived for as long as it did because she is smart and knew when to hide.

“She was dodging the trains every second. She knew where to hide, but she was very scared,” she said. “She knew exactly when the trains were coming. She would just go under [to] an area where she couldn’t be hit by the trains.”

Haviva Porter, the executive director of Rabbit Rescue Inc., said the bunny is “really lucky” she wasn’t killed. “Miracle, actually,” she added.

While the rescue team couldn’t find her at the station on March 8, another video that was sent to Mokhtarians the next day revealed her hiding spot.

“So, me and two other volunteers went down and saw the bunny on the tracks. It was just running around there,” she said.

Since they couldn’t go on the tracks themselves, track workers were called down to help, and they came about an hour later.

“We had eyes on the bunny, so we knew where it was hiding,” Mokhtarians said. “So, we just told them, ‘Okay, the bunny’s in here.’”

The rabbit was hiding in a hole under the subway tracks, Mokhtarians said, and after bits of banana were laid out, she immediately came out.

“They love bananas,” she said, adding she gave a net to one of the track workers who caught the bunny. “He just took my net, then caught the bunny. He was very fast and very successful. We put her in a carrier and now I have her with me now, so she’s going to be here until she’s adopted by someone hopefully.”

Stuart Green, a spokesperson for the TTC, confirmed to CTV News Toronto that the track maintenance crew had rescued the rabbit from the tracks at around 8:30 p.m. last Thursday, and that service was not impacted.

Rosedale, the bunny’s nickname, has been “very friendly” since she was brought into her care, Mokhtarians said.

“We’re getting her spayed, vaccinated, she’s fortunately in really good health,” Porter said. After Rosedale gets her vaccinations, she will be up for adoption, though applications to adopt her can already be made.

How Rosedale ended up on the subway tracks is unknown to both Porter and Mokhtarians, though they speculate the rabbit was either a kid’s pet or was used for an elaborate gender reveal party.

“I don’t think we’ll ever know, but it’s a possibility [..] I don’t know why else anyone would spray paint the bunny,” Porter said.

Not a rodent.

Rabbits and hares were formerly classified in the order Rodentia (rodent) until 1912, when they were moved into a new order, Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas).