Ed T.

7045 in presumably earlier days before the numbers by the blue lights, is the feature photograph for a 2020 Spacing blog story.

http://spacing.ca/toronto/2020/10/21/lorinc-the-crowded-bus-problem-during-the-second-wave/

TTC 1000 on 41 KEELE showing that the OG hybrids aren't dead yet

On 9/12/2020 at 11:41 AM, Wayside Observer said:

You betcha.  It’s not just any grease though, it’s the most expensive designer boutique exclusive grease there is.

I rolled through the moneyed paradise on my way to some essential services work I had to do during the peak of the panic in the spring and I saw a construction crew working on a traffic island in the intersection of Speers and Trafalgar right by the Go Train Palace.  On closer inspection, they were planting flowers in the planters at the height of the lockdown.  I was so glad to see that the important things needed to keep society running were being attended to because life in an upscale enclave such as this would cease to exist if the flower beds don’t get attended to.  The light changed and I took off before anybody could see my vulgar, rude Chevrolet and call in a report of someone with inadequate net worth driving through because I’m sure vagrancy is taken as seriously as the decorative planters.

I know it's fun to be grumpy cat and all (like, how many followers does Reasonably Satisfied Cat get?). But I did drive past a pile of these planters along Lakeshore in Oakville, and they all display sponsor signs. So even though the crew may have been city workers, it's not some expense that's being taken away from your Hamilton GO service or anything.

The observation that wealthy and privileged neighbourhoods are nicer is, of course, no news. Even if the municipality is not necessarily paying for more services to them (ha!), residents there have the time and means to beautify areas that otherwise are left as garbage filled weed fields. I'm sitting in front of a privilege garden by Eatonville library right now, in fact.

TTC 8004 seen on....wait for it....900 Airport Express! So it's actually going where it should be going.

Artics in the Branch.

9146 seen westbound at Brown's Line on 501 (L?).

3729 westbound on Lawrence at Culford, signed up as a training bus.

Followed by 8131 so it's not an electic bus convoy.

7909 seen on a branch of 66 Prince Edward yesterday evening.

The bus looked pretty shiny and chipper for a bus retired in 2019 to be retired in 2020 real old and I know someone in the garage who says that it's a real old bus.

13 minutes ago, nfitz said:

Their thinking would be "How would that headline look in the Toronto Star". TTC can short-circuit that entire debate by stating how much extra it would cost to implement micro-transit on a handful of routes. 

That's how you do things politically.

Gary Webster tried that.

15 hours ago, nfitz said:

They want to do this to save money. But TTC already cancels routes when they have so little ridership that this might save money. There's literally nothing to be saved, and implementing microtransit for any of these routes would cost money - not save it.

You are thinking like an intelligent, reasonable transit user. I'm not sure how many politicians, if any, think like that.

Once you convince the public, i.e. voters, that microtransit will save money and is a positive step, whether it actually saves money or not is irrelevant, certainly in the short term. You have "done something" about all those lazy overpaid unionized workers and the buses that are running around empty in city streets. And your voters will vote for you.

That's why TTCriders has to be political. These are all political decisions, not decisions made on rational transit planning grounds.

5 minutes ago, nfitz said:

The only regular routes that comes close are the 99 Arrow and the Downsview Park. I honestly don't see the point for the latter, now they've built the subway station.

One possible response would be "oh well, two small routes, won't change anything, why bother?" Another possible response would be "well, we need to make the criteria wider, so we're sure to replace a bunch of routes. Otherwise we will have constituents phoning our offices saying 'Hey, I saw another empty bus passing by my house, I thought you were getting rid of this waste of money!'."

The government does not necessarily have to be fools to do this kind of thing. There can be other machinations involved that, from their point of view, are very much not foolish. Steve Munro also appears to be quite skeptical as to how this might go.

7 minutes ago, nfitz said:

Complete and utter BS. The criteria was saving money. None of those routes have low enough ridership to save money using microtransit. What would that have to be ... about 5 rides an hour? Those are all in the 15-20 range at a minimum, and some much higher.

TTCriders are far too political for their own good.

Unfortunately "We're saving money and providing the services that taxpayers want and need" is a fine phrase even if the implementation is BS.

Politicians have assured us that contracting out City services is "efficient and cost effective", even when the inside view is that it's a mess with unaccountable contractors doing whatever they want (and residents then complain about "city workers").

This kind of nonsense can happen with the smaller bus routes. Calling out this possibility is not BS on the part of TTCriders.

That's interesting, because when I saw 3729, it was definitely on its own, showing TRAINING BUS as in the pictures above.

3729 was out on Lawrence somewhere west of Keele this afternoon.

7 hours ago, wil9402 said:

It's listed as a McNicoll unit, but 2252 is still being store at Malvern for now it seems. I spotted it this morning parked in its usual spot inside Malvern.

It should be sent to Queensway then!

17 hours ago, FlyerD901 said:

So I saw for myself buses at each garage, Micnicoll is now an Active bus garage, with 2252 being the first and currently only bus listed at Micnicoll. 

Clearly McNicoll is looking to take the "OMG old hand me down buses argh argh argh" title from Queensway. With 2252, they have a pretty good chance for that.

On 8/19/2020 at 5:57 PM, raptorjays said:

So based on your answer.. That means 2006-2007 ORION Vll (7900-7979, 8000-8099) will last well into 2022, right?

Why would it mean that?

At the moment, there are plenty of spare buses that don't see service. Who knows what the situation will be in a few years, but it's possible that the TTC will simply retire unreliable buses and substitute the underused buses.

10 hours ago, nfitz said:

Ah - interesting to see the Covid changes.

And surprising they are running the 306 buses every 20 minutes overnight. I guess there must be overnight bus storage constraints as well!

Or is it just TTC's policy to replace one streetcar with 1.X buses? That's why some people out on Lake Shore wish for permanent bustitution: instead of a streetcar every ten minutes (or so--very much or so) it's a bus every five or six minutes or so.

15 minutes ago, GO Transit Fan said:

This is my thoughts not facts!

Well, I prefer facts....

1 minute ago, GO Transit Fan said:

Okay, the why don't I speak about the GO ALRT first? The GO ALRT would've ceased operations for the "Hamilton-Oshawa" in 2019 since the capacity in the Lakeshore line trains have increased. Line 2 would stay and the western extension of Line 5 wouldn't be needed, so would not the Etobicoke LRT. Unfortunately, politicians worry about the TTC more than GO Transit without wondering that GO Transit can develop rapid transit in the GTHA, TTC can only help Toronto, Missisauga and South York Region.

This is just random words. GO ALRT was deemed infeasible and that was that. The bastard child of GO ALRT, the ICTS, made the Scarborough RT an orphan line that no one (other than Bombardier lobbyists) want to extend.

Since the vast majority of ridership in the GTHA is on the TTC, it makes sense if rapid transit is focused on where the ridership is.

You are also conflating regional transit with urban rapid transit. They are not the same thing.

Did the rebuilt 8100 buses retain their red-over-red taillights, or were they switched to the amber-over-red that were originally used on the later 8200s on up?

19 hours ago, Shemar said:

What's the status of TTC 8058?

18 hours ago, Downsview34. said:

When I went to go see it didnt look to good. All the seat inserts were pulled out along with the gear box. 

So 8058 won't last as long as 8058?

7910 on 111

4567 heading into Long Branch loop on 501

I got to keep my eyes open for 1234 and 3456!

7935 seen on 123C earlier today

7932 on 111

7369 7969 on 110 (no, we did not get extra NFLFs!)

And a few more 7900s noticed.

Good to see these ghost hand-me-down old-livery sure-to-be-retired-by-2018 buses out and doing their job.

There are a lot of newer buses in storage right now, aren't there?

If you checked the link to sammi that you posted, you'd see that they last logged in December 8, 2016. So I would not hold my breath.

This motivated me to look up exactly where La Pocatière is. It's on the south shore of the St Lawrence (river or gulf), maybe 50 or 60 km east (north-east) of Québec. It's a nice sunny 22º there right now.