Miscellaneous TTC Discussion & Questions

[raptorjays]

16 hours ago, NewFlyerFan said:

That seems like a more than reasonable response, they don’t have the funds to upgrade that particular garage so they use what buses they can, as for “hand me downs” a bus is a bus and any time I’ve ridden a Queensway allocated bus I’ve seen no issue with them.. they get the job done and the provide service to the residences of Toronto/Etobicoke 

now if people are complaining that aren’t bus fans, it’s possible the older 7s may have been breaking down over a time or they aren’t happy with the service they’re getting but I can hardly see an issue with getting an old Orion 7 vs a new nova.. 

However, TTC and the city has been very hostile in transit infrastructure development in the west side of the city including Etobicoke. Focus is all on Scarborough, but I think Etobicoke area needs more attention.

Since they were too focused on the other areas.. the redevelopment of Islington Station as well as transit hub at Kipling was keep being delayed.

I know Humber Bay area needs transit infrastructure desperately, but it seems like the infrastructure isn’t catching up.  

I know many people’s been taking 66 Prince Edward bus, and I see the bus has been filling very quickly during rush hours. With Queensway buses which is no different from horse carriages. 

I blame everything to fuckin Ford families, who’s anti public transit fan, and ruined this city and continue to doing so even Doug is a premier of this province. 

If Rob Ford did not cancel transit city which included a waterfront LRT, it wouldn’t have caused transit infrastructure nightmare in that area. The bus to Mimico GO station is just a band aid solution, and the city has to come up with something permanent. 

[nfitz]

35 minutes ago, raptorjays said:

However, TTC and the city has been very hostile in transit infrastructure development in the west side of the city including Etobicoke. Focus is all on Scarborough, but I think Etobicoke area needs more attention.

Don't think that's coming from TTC. That's the direction from council. The people of Scarborough have elected councillors that have been pusing TTC to improve.

Perhaps the people of Etobicoke need to make better choices 

[PCC Guy]

36 minutes ago, raptorjays said:

With Queensway buses which is no different from horse carriages. 

[meltingtomato]

31 minutes ago, nfitz said:

Don't think that's coming from TTC. That's the direction from council. The people of Scarborough have elected councillors that have been pusing TTC to improve.

Perhaps the people of Etobicoke need to make better choices 

Personally, I'd love to, but when you're stuck in Fordlandia with the voters' entrenched loyalty to the Fords, it's kind of hard. Hell, I've even volunteered for one of the candidates running against Rob in 2014 - and sadly, I was one of only 1620 votes for that candidate.

[Benton Harper]

10 minutes ago, meltingtomato said:

Personally, I'd love to, but when you're stuck in Fordlandia with the voters' entrenched loyalty to the Fords, it's kind of hard. Hell, I've even volunteered for one of the candidates running against Rob in 2014 - and sadly, I was one of only 1620 votes for that candidate.

And how many votes were cast for Ford?

Seems like the majority has spoken no?

UNLESS you don't believe in people having the right to an opinion, even if its not in agreement with yours.

Thousands died for that right...

[Bus_Medic]

8 minutes ago, Benton Harper said:

And how many votes were cast for Ford?

Seems like the majority has spoken no?

UNLESS you don't believe in people having the right to an opinion, even if its not in agreement with yours.

Thousands died for that right...

We’ll see if he makes it as leader to the end of their mandate. If they want to see a second term, they may want to consider replacing him with say, Christine Elliot....

https://globalnews.ca/news/5310826/ontario-politics-doug-ford-ipsos-poll/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ford-one-year-polls-1.5165925

[dowlingm]

54 minutes ago, meltingtomato said:

Personally, I'd love to, but when you're stuck in Fordlandia with the voters' entrenched loyalty to the Fords, it's kind of hard. Hell, I've even volunteered for one of the candidates running against Rob in 2014 - and sadly, I was one of only 1620 votes for that candidate.

Not just the Fords - they don't get what they want without other Etobicoke pols like Grimes and Di Ciano and the Holydays enabling them (and their ilk elsewhere like Mammo and Minnan-Wong)

[nfitz]

57 minutes ago, meltingtomato said:

Personally, I'd love to, but when you're stuck in Fordlandia with the voters' entrenched loyalty to the Fords, it's kind of hard. Hell, I've even volunteered for one of the candidates running against Rob in 2014 - and sadly, I was one of only 1620 votes for that candidate.

Ah ... I remember that ... Andray Domise ... and he finished in third with Rob Ford getting 59%.

I guess Etobicoke gets what they deserve with such consistently poor choices. His replacement Michael Ford got 70% of the vote in 2016.

 

39 minutes ago, Bus_Medic said:

We’ll see if he makes it as leader to the end of their mandate. If they want to see a second term, they may want to consider replacing him with say, Christine Elliot....

As leader? He died 16 months after the election as a result of a rare stomach cancer - which isn't particularly surprising given he admitted (before the election that he got 58% having consumed every illicit (cancer-causing!) drug under the sun ...

[lip]

5 hours ago, Bus_Medic said:

We’ll see if he makes it as leader to the end of their mandate. If they want to see a second term, they may want to consider replacing him with say, Christine Elliot....

https://globalnews.ca/news/5310826/ontario-politics-doug-ford-ipsos-poll/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ford-one-year-polls-1.5165925

With the PC faithful being dumb enough to vote him in as leader the first time over Elliot, dont expect their intelligence to all of a sudden to shoot up and force Ford out in favor of her. Granic Allen probably has a better chance the way those people think.

[Bus_Medic]

7 hours ago, nfitz said:

Ah ... I remember that ... Andray Domise ... and he finished in third with Rob Ford getting 59%.

I guess Etobicoke gets what they deserve with such consistently poor choices. His replacement Michael Ford got 70% of the vote in 2016.

 

As leader? He died 16 months after the election as a result of a rare stomach cancer - which isn't particularly surprising given he admitted (before the election that he got 58% having consumed every illicit (cancer-causing!) drug under the sun ...

Uh, I’m talking about the living frod. I figured my reference to replacing him with Mrs. Elliott spelled that out clearly enough. Guess I was wrong.

2 hours ago, lip said:

With the PC faithful being dumb enough to vote him in as leader the first time over Elliot, dont expect their intelligence to all of a sudden to shoot up and force Ford out in favor of her. Granic Allen probably has a better chance the way those people think.

I don’t know, the more pragmatic lobbyists may be able to tell them which way the wind is blowing.

[Ed T.]

18 hours ago, dowlingm said:

Not just the Fords - they don't get what they want without other Etobicoke pols like Grimes and Di Ciano and the Holydays enabling them (and their ilk elsewhere like Mammo and Minnan-Wong)

Grimes is a bit more reasonable and responsive about transit than Junior Holyday and Junior Ford. But the WWLRT has not appeared on the Province's Grand Napkin Plan, so who knows if there will be any better streetcar service to Humber Shores.

Also, keep in mind that despite all the talking, nothing new (beyond the Eglinton line to Kennedy) has actually been started in Scarborough. Whereas there are actual shovels in the ground on Finch Ave. W for the LRT.

Perhaps the conclusion is that Scarborough voters are more easily distracted by empty promises.

ETA: Then again, it seems like all the various level politicians from mid-Etobicoke have the hots for burying the Eglinton West LRT, at untold cost. Well, that's Holydayland for you.

[Bus_Medic]

Intelligence quotient by postal code. You guys are effed. The lot of you.

[meltingtomato]

1 hour ago, Ed T. said:

Grimes is a bit more reasonable and responsive about transit than Junior Holyday and Junior Ford. But the WWLRT has not appeared on the Province's Grand Napkin Plan, so who knows if there will be any better streetcar service to Humber Shores.

Also, keep in mind that despite all the talking, nothing new (beyond the Eglinton line to Kennedy) has actually been started in Scarborough. Whereas there are actual shovels in the ground on Finch Ave. W for the LRT.

Perhaps the conclusion is that Scarborough voters are more easily distracted by empty promises.

ETA: Then again, it seems like all the various level politicians from mid-Etobicoke have the hots for burying the Eglinton West LRT, at untold cost. Well, that's Holydayland for you.

For budget hawks, they sure want to burn through money. Even with all the development going up, there still is a ton of room to have the LRT at level. It seemed like bigger concern in the past was the weird left turn arrangement, but now, who knows.

[lip]

It's ironic that DoFo along with his brother were the ones who were responsible for selling off the Richview Expressway lands which couldve been used to save billions by trenching the LRT, and now he wants to pay a premium of billions by tunneling the whole damn thing. So much for "respecting the taxpayers dollars".

It's too bad half these taxpayers are clueless as to how much money the guy goes around wasting unnecessarily. Dont mind these Central/North Etobicoke voters, most of them love to complain about how things are but yet are myopic as to why things are the way the are and arent improving for them.

[Wayside Observer]

There’s also the interesting irony that the west end which was always represented by the Fords & Co. are getting LRT lines, if anything at all, while across the city in Scarborough, it’s SUBWAYS, SUBWAYS, SUBWAYS with cost no object.  Do the west enders even realize how short changed they’re getting by their own representatives?

[lip]

^I wouldnt really describe underground LRT as being short changed, but the short answer to the question is no they dont realize that. As far those constituents are concerned, anything that's tunneled is a "subway" whether its an LRT vehicle, a boat, a bus, or pixie dust.

[smallspy]

14 hours ago, lip said:

It's ironic that DoFo along with his brother were the ones who were responsible for selling off the Richview Expressway lands which couldve been used to save billions by trenching the LRT, and now he wants to pay a premium of billions by tunneling the whole damn thing. So much for "respecting the taxpayers dollars".

It should also be noted, however, that the identifying of the Richview lands as surplus and the starting of the process of selling them off was done by Miller - not Ford.

 

Dan

[nfitz]

56 minutes ago, smallspy said:

It should also be noted, however, that the identifying of the Richview lands as surplus and the starting of the process of selling them off was done by Miller - not Ford.

It certainly wasn't done in a day -  though the vote to dispose of those particular parcels of land (offer it for sale) went to the Executive Committee  and to City Council under Ford. Both Ford's voted in favour of selling the land.

[smallspy]

9 hours ago, nfitz said:

It certainly wasn't done in a day -  though the vote to dispose of those particular parcels of land (offer it for sale) went to the Executive Committee  and to City Council under Ford. Both Ford's voted in favour of selling the land.

Of course it wasn't.

 

But it was under Miller's watch that staff identified the lands as surplus to the City's needs, and thus to be disposed of by BuildToronto. He didn't seem to have an issue with them being sold - and that was despite the announcement for Transit City already having happened. The staff at the Open Houses for the Eglinton Crosstown EA process certainly didn't seem to be bothered by it when they were asked.

 

So he's at least as culpable of it as Rob Ford was.

 

Dan

[nfitz]

14 hours ago, smallspy said:

So he's at least as culpable of it as Rob Ford was.

Oh certainly - he should Miller should get some (much) of the credit for this. The right-of-way along Eglinton was massive! It was 125 metres at Kipling! It's still huge at 37 metres. We considered St. Clair very wide, and it's only 30 metres.

Even the piece of St. Clair west of St. Clair West station with the portal is only about 30 metres wide. On the east side, it's briefly a bit wider, and at one point fits in the portal, a stop platform, and parking lane, and even a strip of grass between the sidewalk and the property line at only 35 metres wide.

Eglinton remains wide enough for 6 lanes of traffic, LRT, platforms, and structures to grade-separate major (or minor!) intersections. It's only 4 lanes of traffic now.

[CLRV4002]

I have a question about advertisements on the TTC. I saw the twitter post above asking people to spot the streetcar, which is 4023. That streetcar hasn’t been in service in weeks. I also saw 4123 downtown with the same wrap. 

My question is: since I believe ads are paid for by the number of weeks it’s on a vehicle, if that vehicle is out for repairs for a period, do they immediately move the ad to another vehicle or do they suspend the time the advertiser has to pay since their ad is just sitting in the yard ? I know with the poster ads it can be an easy swap to another vehicle, but with full wraps and stuff, what’s done if a vehicle breaks down ? 

[smallspy]

1 hour ago, CLRV4002 said:

I have a question about advertisements on the TTC. I saw the twitter post above asking people to spot the streetcar, which is 4023. That streetcar hasn’t been in service in weeks. I also saw 4123 downtown with the same wrap. 

My question is: since I believe ads are paid for by the number of weeks it’s on a vehicle, if that vehicle is out for repairs for a period, do they immediately move the ad to another vehicle or do they suspend the time the advertiser has to pay since their ad is just sitting in the yard ? I know with the poster ads it can be an easy swap to another vehicle, but with full wraps and stuff, what’s done if a vehicle breaks down ? 

It's been a while since I was in the industry, but it used to be that ad space was sold for 6 week increments, and by the "visibility" of the ad in terms of how many were installed on the vehicles.

 

Exterior wrap ads were a different ball of wax, and to the best of my knowledge until recently were not (to be) installed on vehicles that were retiring.

 

Normally, the fine print in the contract between the advertiser and the rep for the transit agency would cover the situations a vehicle that was out of service on a day-to-day basis (i.e. too bad, so sad). However, this might be a situation where a single vehicle was contracted to be used, and that the vehicle has been removed from service permanently. The contract may then call for a second vehicle to be wrapped to finish the term of the contract.

Dan

[BusDude]

Was on bus 8459  and it seems they are slowly updating the stop announcements on the buses. Aside from the previously mentioned pause after " next stop..." some street names have had there pronunciations corrected.  Cosburn Ave is one street the pronunciation has been corrected

[Orion V]

For these raptor games, where do TTC park their 5 additional subways in anticipation of the exit crowd at Union? Is it at the nearest 5 pocket tracks close to Union?

Where do TTC park the 25 additional buses and what route(s) do they run on when the crowd comes out?

[CLRV4002]

Anyone know what’s going on along Queen right now? Is it just traffic? The 501 wait times are more horrific than normal, next car eastbound to Neville at Roncesvalles is 43 minutes away