Author: Steve

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Subway Art: Watercolours by Sigmund Augustus Serafin

Many years ago, the TTC was cleaning house at 1900 Yonge and a lot of old stuff was heading to the garbage can.  The combined efforts of various fans saved some material that would otherwise have been lost thanks to Ted Wickson, now retired from the TTC, who alerted people to what was happening.

I took custody of eight watercolours of proposed station designs for the University and Bloor-Danforth subway lines painted in 1957 and 1958 by Serafin.  Recently, for the Bloor subway’s 40th birthday, I brought them out of storage and was amazed at their excellent condition.

James Bow’s site at Transit Toronto has many galleries, and it seemed a more appropriate location to display the paintings than here.  If you want to see them, follow this link to Transit Toronto.

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TTC Cattle Cars Part 3: Passengers 2, Staff 1

I’m at a loss knowing where to begin on this.  If you’ve been following this thread, you will know that TTC staff really, really want their new subway cars to use “perimeter seating”.  This means that all of the seats face inward and there are no forward or rearward facing seats, no conversation nooks.  As if that isn’t bad enough, they want to use metallic seats with no cushions.  [Let us imagine a short theatrical pause here so you can catch your breath.]

This particular scheme has been before the public twice before that I know of.  The first outing was at February’s TTC meeting where it did not win high praise.  My own posts on the subject started about that time.  More recently, TTC staff showed up at a Rocket Riders meeting to talk about their design.  On that occasion, it appeared that both the new perimeter design and the existing T-1 compartment design were both on the table.  So far, so good. Continue reading →

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Review: TSO Shostakovich 8th

Since this site went live back in January, I have been remiss in posting almost exclusively items on transit even though there is another side to my life:  performing arts.  I will try to put items here, even though they may be short-lived, when I attend a particularly fine performance that others should know about.

On Wednesday evening, I attended the TSO’s concert, part of their Shostakovich centenary celebration this season.  On the program were Piano Concerto No. 1 with Alexander Toradze as the soloist and Symphony No. 8.  Stefan Sanderling conducted. Continue reading →

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TTC Riding Rising! (It’s Not Levitation!)

The year-end 2005 Chief General Manager’s Report is on the agenda for the March 22 Commission meeting.  At this point, I only have the covering report from the TTC’s website, not the full version with detailed appendices.

Riding is going up at a rate the TTC has not seen for decades, especially if this is sustained through 2006 and beyond.

For the year 2005, ridership totalled 431.2-million, up 13.1-million (3.1%) over 2004.  For TTC’s “period 12” reporting data from November 27 to yearend, ridership was up 7.6% over last year.

All of this extra riding, even net of some unexpected expenses, left a surplus of $11.9-million that will go toward the 2006 Operating Budget.  This has already been taken into account in the budget and is one reason why the fare increase is only a dime.

The real issue facing the TTC and City Council is the effect of a sustained increase in ridership.  We know that capacity problems are already an issue, and there is a good chance that the 100 new buses purchased for the Ridership Growth Strategy will actually be eaten up just handling natural growth in peak demand. 

We must remember that over half of the TTC’s riding is outside of the peak when there are no issues with the fleet size, only with the TTC’s willingness to operate more service and the City’s willingness to pay the additional subsidy.

If you’re wondering where the Dundas car or the Dufferin bus is at 9 o’clock in the evening, don’t let the TTC tell you they have no spare vehicles.

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Why Was The Bloor Subway So Successful?

Regular readers will know that my opinion of the Sheppard and York U subways is less than complimentary.  Recently, I received a note comparing the length of the Danforth subway to the Sheppard line and asking whether Sheppard, were it the same length, would be any more successful.

The reply will come in two installments.  The first one, linked below, takes us up to 1966 when the original Bloor-Danforth line opened and the Danforth leg (only to Woodbine) was roughly the same length as the Sheppard subway.  The BD line carried far more people from day one than the Sheppard line does now or the York U line is projected to carry in 2021.  Moreover, the BD line grew very substantially from its extensions to Warden and Islington a few years after the line opened.

In the first installment I also review the level of transit service that operated in the Bloor-Danforth corridor before the subway opened.  There is no surface route in Toronto today that compares with the Bloor-Danforth streetcar service of 42 2-car trains per hour.

Bloor Danforth Success Story

In the second installment, I will look at the riding growth due to the extensions as well as the original projections for the Sheppard line.  That version will come within a week.