That, believe it or not, used to be the TTC’s slogan years ago when transit service was a far more important part of the life of Toronto than it is today.  Three love affairs have brought us to where we are now:

• The automobile
• The subway which moves huge numbers of people provided they’re going where one was built
• Tax cuts and changes in public spending priorities

From time to time, people ask me both about how service has declined and about the practical limits on streetcar service.  I am not going to pretend that the answer to our problems is to build streetcar lines running in mixed traffic everywhere.  For one thing, there’s a lot more of that “mixed traffic” than there used to be.  But it’s interesting to see what streetcars were doing even well into the “modern” automotive era. Continue reading →