Author: Steve

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St. Clair Update

Construction is finally underway west from Avenue Road and St. Clair to Tweedsmuir.  At this point, the work is on sidewalks and utilities, but you can see the extent of the road widening from the cuts into lawns between Avenue Road and Russell Hill.  Traffic in the construction area is now confined, more or less, to the streetcar lanes in the middle of the road. Continue reading →

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Flights to Nowhere Revisited (Updated)

A staff response to the Commission’s queries about escalator reliability appears as item 35b in the agenda for the July 19th meeting.  You can read the report here.

The report proposes a system that will alert Collectors and the central escalator maintenance office at Ossington Station when a problem occurs.  The basic problem is that most units are not wired back to the Collector’s booth and the way station staff find out about stoppages is that someone complains.

I might be understanding about this situation at, say, King Station where the Melinda escalator, often stopped, is old and miles from the booth.  However, the guinea-pig station for this project is Bayview on the Sheppard line.  It’s so nice to learn that our $1-billion bought us some tolerably interesting architecture, but no system to alert staff when an escalator is stopped.

Assuming the trial at Bayview is successful, all escalators and elevators on the Sheppard line will be hooked up by the end of 2010, and the rest of the network will follow by 2012.  Then, finally, mechanics can be dispatched to the scene.

Maybe while they’re putting in all of the new communications gear for this project and station security upgrades, they can snap a photo of all those teenagers who are alleged to be stopping the escalators.  Run mug shots on the platform video screens.  Catch those villains!

Meanwhile, the report is silent on the simple question of why route supervisors at major stations like Kennedy or Finch don’t report escalator problems and, where possible, deal with them as a basic part of their job.

My original post on this subject follows below. Continue reading →

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Earth Matters

My good friend and fellow activist, Gord Perks, premiered his new hour-long show on CP24 tonight called Earth Matters.  The format is a familiar one for CP24 — talk about an issue with guests suitable for the topic, take calls from interested viewers, and add some comments by the host.

Gord’s first show was all about smog, and I was fascinated by the number of callers from the 905 and beyond asking about smog issues.  Callers from Toronto, especially downtown, were a minority.

This was Gord’s maiden outing on the host side of television, and I tip my hat to him.  An hour of TV, even with commercials, is a lot to fill.  I’ve done a few long interviews on live radio and TV, and there’s no luxury to pause and ponder — the microphone and camera are right there, waiting.

Who knows, we may see Gord prowling the corridors of City Hall, pursuing activists like me for sound bites one day.  Maybe he’ll even interview himself!

Earth Matters airs on CP24 at 9:00 pm every Thursday.  It’s not on the online program grid yet, and so I don’t know if there will be a repeat broadcast at some other time in the cycle.

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Waterfront West and the Front Street Extension

The Environmental Assessment for the western extension of the waterfront line will get underway soon with the usual preparatory phase of creating the Terms of Reference.  This brings to mind a note I received a while ago from Hamish Wilson, long time opponent of the Front Street Extension, and begs the question of whether the transit EA can be used to revisit options for the corridor as a whole much as the EA now in progress for the Airport Link has widened out to a general review of the northwest corridor.  Continue reading →

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Reader Comments: Transit Service Quality

This post is in the best journalistic tradition.  On those slow days and holiday weekends, all the material you’ve been saving up for months finally sees the light of day.  To readers who submitted comments and wondered where they went, take heart.  Today is for you!  This post collects comments loosely related to service quality and operations.

Back in March, I was writing about how transit services are analyzed.  We’re still waiting for the 2007 Service Plan to give us updated stats, but it’s time to rekindle the discussion here. Continue reading →

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Farewell to the Royal, the Paradise, the Kingsway and the Revue (Updated)

NOW magazine reports that the Royal will be taken over by the company now operating the Regent theatre up on Mt. Pleasant Road.  Read about it here.

Although the Kingsway will close, there are no plans to sell the building, and this leaves the theatre intact.  We will have to wait and see.

My original post from last Sunday, the 25th, follows below. Continue reading →

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Where Did The Rush Hour Go? (Updated)

Looking at the June schedules for the TTC, I was struck by something quite odd:  on some streetcar routes there is either no additional rush hour service, or only a marginal change in service levels.  Have riders abandoned the TTC?  Are “downtown” riders travelling at times other than the conventional peak period?  Or is the TTC just pinching pennies by cutting service?  Here are some examples: Continue reading →