A Grand Plan

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So You Want Us To Build You A Subway!

From time to time, people suggest to me that the world would be a better place if only we had more subway lines.  Many politicians love subway lines, but paying for them is quite another matter [see the following post on Sheppard].  The one thing people tend to forget is that not all subway lines have stations close together the way they are on much of the Yonge-University and Bloor-Danforth lines.  The new scheme shows itself in the Yonge line north of Eglinton, the Sheppard line, and the proposed line to York University.

If you want me to design a subway under your street, I will use modern 21st Century design criteria.

Let’s look at what might have happened 60 years ago if we had done this on the original Yonge and Bloor lines. Continue reading →

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Mel’s Folly, or the Sheppard Sinkhole

Warning:  If you are a devotee of our former Mayor Mel Lastman and his cronies, you will probably be offended by this post.  If you think that the former City of North York was anything more than a bombastic, self-agrandizing Potemkin Village, you will also probably be offended by this post.  You have been warned.

To learn more about Potemkin Villages, click here.

People like me despair at the energy various Councillors expend in trying to make cuts to the transit system that save pennies.  Meanwhile, they gladly support the continued pursuit of subway construction at enormous capital cost and operating losses that would bring their wrath on lowly bus and streetcar routes.

Let’s have a hard look at the Sheppard Subway. Continue reading →

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A Rose By Any Other Name: Subway Station Beautification

Recently, the TTC received a proposal to retrofit three of its stations on the University subway line (Museum, St. Patrick and Osgoode) with major redesigns linked to the nearby palaces of culture:

  • Museum (self evident)
  • St. Patrick (Art Gallery of Ontario)
  • Osgoode (new opera house)

Word of this seeped into the press as one of those grand public-spirited gestures.  A foundation would raise money (tax deductible of course) and with this pool of loot would go forth and do good works.  You can read about it at http://spacing.ca/wire/?p=355.

There is a catch.  There is always a catch. Continue reading →