TTC: Streetcar Network

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Who is this Martin guy - I encountered him on Twitter the other day ... he seemed to think very highly of himself, and that I was supposed to know his name or something ...

He has a youtube channel where he puts out somewhat informative videos on transit mainly in Toronto and Canada. He does come across as being full of himself though and when prested with other ideas or someone who disagrees with him he gets argumenitive , I also think he may be a schill for metrolinx as he had some guy who was rersosable for the wayfinding sytem do an interview with him amd metrolinx retweeted the video

 

[nfitz]

Ah oops I meant Upper Beaches. He proposed replacing Bingham loop with an extension up Victoria Park to Danforth. T

Didn't I suggest that here a decade ago? Though based on the community consultation for the BRT from Victoria Park to Eglinton/Kingston Road, there was huge community opposition to running BRT down Victoria Park south of Gerrard. I doubt this would be popular to many - all the more reason to go for it!

This is the section of Victoria Park it would be going through, a two-lane residential road, so I'm a bit skeptical that the bus merits being replaced with a streetcar extension.

Lots of space - everyone's front yards here is in the road-right-of-way. Hence the community uproar on the BRT.

A better solution is just extending the 502/503 to the Danforth/Kingston Road interchange to intersect the proposed BRT.

There's no "list", just him describing his fantasy streetcar map in the video linked a page back.

Oh, a combination of my two least favourite transit fan things. Fantasy maps (if you can't describe it in a few words, you don't need to draw it!) and fan videos. Shoot. Me. Now.

... I also think he may be a schill for metrolinx ...

LOL. Really?

That would explain the reaction I got when I dared question Metrolinx's comments on the Ontario line vehicle choice. You'd have thought I'd shot their dog or something. And quite clearly had to get the last word, no matter what. Metrolinx really doesn't have a clue do they?

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

That would explain the reaction I got when I dared question Metrolinx's comments on the Ontario line vehicle choice. You'd have thought I'd shot their dog or something. And quite clearly had to get the last word, no matter what. Metrolinx really doesn't have a clue do they?

I think Metrolinx is good at running go transit however everything else they seem lost on and end up going to the Ontario government to fix like a Kindergarten student going to the teacher because another student won't share.

 

[nfitz]

I think Metrolinx is good at running go transit however everything else they seem lost on and end up going to the Ontario government to fix like a Kindergarten student going to the teacher because another student won't share.

They seem to have changed. They used to make TTC look bad at communications. But somehow while TTC has improved immensely since the 2000s, Metrolinx has seemed to have gone the other direction.

I've had some bizarre exchanges with them The most confounding was when I complained they'd not opened the new north entrance to Exhibition GO, and even worse had left the two north doors out of the existing locked creating unnecessary bottlenecks ... and they spent weeks denying that there'd even been any construction at Exhibition GO.

Bizarrely they've still not opened that new exit years later. I wonder if they'll now knock it down for the new Ontario Line platform.

 

[CapitalSeven]

Having worked in government for years, I understand your frustration from the other side. Canadian public employees are simply not allowed to tell the truth, and any dealings with "comms" makes a sane head explode.

 

[superelevation]

He has a youtube channel where he puts out somewhat informative videos on transit mainly in Toronto and Canada. He does come across as being full of himself though and when prested with other ideas or someone who disagrees with him he gets argumenitive , I also think he may be a schill for metrolinx as he had some guy who was rersosable for the wayfinding sytem do an interview with him amd metrolinx retweeted the video

I think you're making some pretty big accusations based on someone doing a video, I remember him complaining a lot about various Metrolinx lines being tunnelled and also about Presto

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

I think you're making some pretty big accusations based on someone doing a video, I remember him complaining a lot about various Metrolinx lines being tunnelled and also about Presto

True but lately he seems to be defending them a lot more.

 

[afransen]

True but lately he seems to be defending them a lot more.

Maybe he's just... sharing his honest opinions! Sometimes he might like what Metrolinx is doing and other times criticize it, rather than mindlessly hating or fawning over everything they do.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Maybe he's just... sharing his honest opinions! Sometimes he might like what Metrolinx is doing and other times criticize it, rather than mindlessly hating or fawning over everything they do.

Maybe but he seems to have gone the opposite way since he was in Vancouver for a little bit. Whatever it's only speculation. I think that Metrolinx has done some good things too but I also think that they have done some things that aren't necessary and only did them because they created a problem so that they could create a solution to it.

 

[nfitz]

Having worked in government for years, I understand your frustration from the other side. Canadian public employees are simply not allowed to tell the truth, and any dealings with "comms" makes a sane head explode.

Perhaps that's why they don't let the engineers speak directly to the public. We have professional ethical requirements, that would not allow actually lying. Maybe there should be professional public relations licensing.

(though, note that the government has exempted government-employed engineers to be professionally licenced ... though many are voluntarily).

 

[lenaitch]

(though, note that the government has exempted government-employed engineers to be professionally licenced ... though many are voluntarily).

Is that because they don't actually 'sign off' on designs, don't want to have to pay the licencing fees, or both. Having said that, I don't know if they pay dues, etc. for other professions, like lawyers.

 

[nfitz]

Is that because they don't actually 'sign off' on designs, don't want to have to pay the licencing fees, or both. Having said that, I don't know if they pay dues, etc. for other professions, like lawyers.

I always assumed it was the former, because I've certainly hard of them paying for the latter.

But now I wonder if it's because they'd prefer them to not have a legal duty to put human safety before loyalty to one's employer. Though that does start to send me to whacknut conspiracy world ...

 

[Rainforest]

Maybe there should be professional public relations licensing.

What minimal percentage of lies would they be professionally obligated to include in every communication? 20%?

Maybe, can go down to just 10% if the piece is short and 20% of lies don't fit?

 

[JSF-1]

New video up. This week about the short lived Mount Pleasant Streetcar. It only existed for 15 months before being abandoned for no reason in my opinion.

 

[W. K. Lis]

New video up. This week about the short lived Mount Pleasant Streetcar. It only existed for 15 months before being abandoned for no reason in my opinion.

Ridership with streetcars on Mt. Pleasant was almost FOUR times that of the diesel buses that now operate on it. Used to be four PCC streetcars on Mt. Pleasant versus the one or two diesel buses they now use in the non-rush hours.