July’s TTC meeting brought us much political theatre that I will cover in other posts, but it also brought what should be the last discussion on the interior layout of our new subway cars.  I am sure most readers are tired of this, but some issues and comments are worth mention. Continue reading →

This morning, I finally had a chance to visit the mockup of the new subway car layout where it was on display at Kennedy Station. Continue reading →

A correspondent sent me a link to a brochure from the Montreal transit system announcing their selection of a new car design.  You can see it here.

Big surprise!  The public prefers to have transverse seats and that’s what the STM is giving them.  Apparently the so-called standards (which turn out on close inspection not to be standards at all) cited by the TTC have not affected this design despite the fact that Bombardier is building both the Toronto and Montreal cars.  Hmmm … maybe the designers don’t talk to each other. Continue reading →

[Some historical information here has been corrected with thanks to an anonymous reader.] 

Recently we have seen a lot of media coverage of the political fallout from the proposed subway car purchase.  For those unfamiliar with it, here are the high points: Continue reading →

Those of you who follow other Toronto blogs will already have read much of the update on the new subway cars.  You can read the spacing wire coverage here.

A few additional tidbits: Continue reading →

I’ve been busy with the Grand Plan for a while, but now it’s time to dig through the backlog of reader comments on various subjects.  Here is some feedback on subway car seating. 

Continue reading →

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 →

Tonight I went to a presentation by TTC staff about the new subway car design.  I am pleased to report that the original scheme discussed here with all perimeter seating was given roughly equal billing with a version much like the current subway cars where some of the seats are at right-angles to the walls.

The rationale for the perimeter seating goes like this:  in our post 9/11 world, the new standards call for there to be no space under seats where someone could hide a package.  This is easier to do with transverse seats than with perimeter seating.  This is supposed to be an FRA (US Federal Railroad Administration) standard, and I plan to check out the details.

A very simple question:  Are commuter railroads, Amtrak, the bus and airline industries going to eliminate all transverse seating?  There is more going on here than just an FRA standard. Continue reading →

The TTC has done quite a job of massaging press coverage for its planned order of new subway cars.  The new cars will run as unified trains with the ability to walk through the entire train as one continuous unit.  This is expected to add about eight percent to train capacity.

You can look at two posts on this scheme here:

spacing.ca transit.toronto

Continue reading →