Crossposted to Transit Toronto. This coming Monday, the TTC will unveil a new token designed to combat the counterfeits that have flooded the system. According to a TTC press release, the special unveiling ceremony will take place on Monday, November 20 at 2:30 p.m. in Toronto's City Hall, Committee Room 3. According to the press release, “the new token is designed with the latest in technology, making it next to impossible to re-produce.” That, of course, remains to be seen. The release gives few other details, but hopefully these will be provided on Monday. One key question: will the ...

Crossposted to Transit Toronto The Rocket Riders, the Sierra Club of Canada and the Ontario chapter of Transport 2000 have organized a summit on public transportation in the Greater Toronto Area. They have gathered a panel of professionals and activists, and are inviting members of the public to attend. Events start at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, November 3 (tomorrow) and continue until 9:00 p.m. at Metro Hall, 55 John Street near King. Another day of presentations, panel discussions and round tables takes place on Saturday, November 4, at the same location, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. According to the summit organizer's ...

TTC Commissioners directed TTC staff yesterday to investigate the possibility of operating subway service overnight instead of shutting service down between 1:30 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. The experimental service could be operated next year on the Yonge-University-Spadina line. The Toronto Sun has more details. One of the arguments against 24 hour service is that shutting down the subway allows station and track maintenance to take place without disrupting passengers. However, Phillip Webb, who has studied this issue before, suggests that this maintenance period could be exchanged for occassionally shutting down sections of the subway for sixty hours over a weekend. This ...

Speaking with the refreshing candour of a man not interested in sucking up to the boss, former TTC General Manager Rick Ducharme weighed in on the issue of improving public transit in Toronto and spoke out against a mantra whispered by many a city councillor. In effect, he said, “no new subways.” Instead, he wishes the city would get off its backside and support more private rights of way for streetcars and buses. “We can talk about plans, we can talk about co-ordination. You can talk about smart cards. All that to me is irrelevant. ...

Crossposted to Transit Toronto. This past Wednesday, Etobicoke community council voted to ask city staff to investigate the possibility of extending the Bloor-Danforth subway one stop westward from Kipling to the Dundas/East Mall intersection. The details were reported in Inside Toronto. Councillor Peter Milczyn (Ward 5 - Etobicoke-Lakeshore) made the motion, to update an older Environmental Assessment and assess the costs required to acquire property for the extension. The proposal differs from the other westward extension that has been proposed: from Kipling to Sherway Gardens and possibly Dixie GO Station, with provisions made for a future station stop at East Mall, ...

Crossposted with Transit Toronto. A community group based out of Weston, called ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) are holding a public meeting at the Weston Public Library (2 King Street in Weston) at 7:00 p.m. tomorrow to organize a campaign to improve public transit along Weston Road. The group's main complaint seems to be the use of old TTC buses, especially rebuilt fishbowls, along the 89 Weston route. They are demanding that newer buses be used instead, and the route made fully accessible. With the Weston population including a high proportion of young families, disabled and ...

The Toronto Transportation Society will be offering Torontonians one of the few opportunities to travel Toronto's streets in a vintage Peter Witt streetcar. As part of their annual Transportation Weekend festivities, the TTS will be chartering the TTC's two remaining PCCs and Peter Witt car 2766 for a tour of the city's streetcar network on Sunday, September 3, 2006. This four hour excurion will start at the corner of Victoria and Dundas Streets at 10:30 a.m. Passengers will receive colour coded tickets, and will spend an equal amount of time in each of the three vehicles, ...

Royson James, columnist for the Toronto Star, and potentially a decent candidate to be mayor one day, has taken the city, the GTA and the province to task for not doing more to solve the transportation woes of our commuters. In his column (found here), he calls for David Miller, Hazel McCallion, Bill Fisch (Regional Chair of York) and Roger Anderson (Regional Chair of Durham) to sit down and hammer a skeleton GTA transportation plan that they can take to the province with the full weight of the GTA's four million voters behind it. Among James' favoured projects: a cross-GTA ...

Crossposted to Transit Toronto. The Toronto Star is reporting that a freight derailment near Royal York Road has suspended all GO Train service out of Union Station right at the beginning of the afternoon rush hour. “Six cars on a westbound freight train travelling towards Oakville came off the tracks,” explained Ian Thomson, CN director of operations issues. “There were no dangerous goods aboard, and there is no fire.” Nobody was hurt as a result of the derailment, said Thomson. The location of the derailment is particularly problematic, as it effectively isolates Union Station from GO Transit's Willowbrook ...

Crossposted to Transit Toronto. Last week, the Toronto Budget Advisory Committee voted down a proposal to purchase new streetcars rather than rebuild 96 streetcars before they reach the end of their life. The move, while it may save money in the short term, suggests that the Budget Advisory Committee is being penny wise, but pound foolish. Transit activist Steve Munro is even more blunt: I am beginning to wonder whether we should just get rid of the TTC and City Council, including the Mayor, and just appoint the members of the Budget Advisory Committee as ...