Author: Steve

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Where Are My Comments?

From time to time, I get emails or comments that go roughly like this:

I left a comment a few days/weeks ago, and it never showed up.  What did you do with it?

Well, at this point, I have a backlog of about 50 comments on various threads, some going back into the summer.  Not every comment deserves a reply (or even to be posted), and some deserve a new thread of their own.  Alas, I have only so many hours a day to devote to this blog, and if a topic sits in the “in basket”, well that’s the way things are.

I’m hoping to catch up with some topics over the holidays and early in 2007 before a barage of major issues, especially the budget, hits the TTC and City Council in late January.

Meanwhile, the best of whatever holiday season you may be celebrating to everyone!

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TTC Meeting Wrapup: December 13, 2006

The first full meeting of the new Moscoe-less TTC took place on Wednesday.  Nothing was particularly astonishing.  Like all first meetings, we watched as the newcomers found their way around the agenda and the complexity of what’s going on.  One can only hope that new Commissioners will learn to address issues rather than making speeches.

To his credit, the new Chair Adam Giambrone stayed on top of the agenda and moved business along as briskly as possible without visibly throttling debate.  A few delicate interventions framing the sense of the meeting in a motion rescued us all from interminable rambling.

Meanwhile on the agenda: Continue reading →

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The Changing of the Guard

With the new Toronto City Council comes change at the TTC.

Long-serving and controversial Chair Howard Moscoe did not stand for reappointment, but has taken over as Chair of the Licensing and Standards Committee.  Former TTC Vice-chair Adam Giambrone is now Chair, and Joe Mihevc is the new Vice-chair. 

Other new commissioners Peter Milczyn, Michael Thompson and Anthony Peruzza.  This rebalances the regional representation on the TTC based on the “old” regions to Toronto (3), Etobicoke (2), York (1), North York (1), Scarborough (2).  Whether it will change the rampant desire for subways everywhere remains to be seen. Continue reading →

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Howard Levine Writes About St. Clair

Howard Levine, a former member of City Council and one of the founding members of Streetcars for Toronto back in 1972, writes in today’s National Post about the St. Clair project.  Howard and I sit on opposite sides of the St. Clair fence these days — I still believe in the scheme and wish it were done better, while he sees it as irredeemably flawed.  I share his despair that what we fought for in 1972 took so long to achieve and was such a botched piece of design and community relations. Continue reading →

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St. Clair Update

Christopher Hume has a column in today’s Star about the St. Clair line (Click here) where he discusses the gap between theory and practice in major urban design/construction projects.

This morning, CBC’s Metro Morning had a discussion about the impact on businesses with the owner of the Retro Cafe (at Vaughan and St. Clair) and David Crichton, the city’s manager for design and construction.  With luck this may show up later today as a podcast on the CBC site here.  It may have been early in the day, but Crichton continued the city’s unhappy stance of saying “it’s too bad, but we have to rebuild the street” while ignoring that the design and the construction phasing have considerable impacts. Continue reading →

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Eighteen Lost Years

My friend Bob Brent put together a spreadsheet listing many TTC operating and financial statistics for 1988, and 1996 through 2005.  Our ridership high came in 1988 just before the early 90s recession.  Service was mercilessly slashed in the nadir of 1996 thanks to funding cuts.

By 2006, we may just barely get back to the 1988 ridership level, but funding is another matter.

Those of you who love mulling over numbers will have fun here, but I will talk a bit about the highlights. Continue reading →

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Automatic Train Operation, Capacity, Night Service and Clean Stations

In a truly breathtaking display mixing unrelated subjects in one press conference, Howard Moscoe has embraced Automatic Train Operation (ATO) as the salvation of much that is wrong with the TTC.  A chicken in every pot (provided that you have a Metropass) will follow soon after.

You can read about Moscoe’s scheme on the Star website: TTC Eyes Driverless Subway. Continue reading →

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Fare Boundary Woes

I received the following comment from a student at Ryerson, and thought it would be a good jumping off point for a new thread.

Hello,
This is more of a question rather than a comment.

I am an Engineering student at Ryerson University working on a report for my Technical Communications class.  I chose to write my report on: the inconvenience it is for students commuting from Brampton/Mississauga area, cost wise.

It is financially hard for students to pay for:

  • The local transit to get to the GO station.
  • The monthly GO pass and
  • The TTC fare from Union Station to Dundas.

And not to mention the time that is consumed commuting.  I was wondering if these issues have been discussed before with TTC and GO authorities.  Would anyone of you know the status of the situation?  Are there any documents or online resources that discuss this in detail?

If they have not been discussed before, what are your views on this topic?  Any help on your behalf is much appreciated.

Sincerely,
Mon.

There are a number of intertwined issues here. Continue reading →