In the wake of city council's decision to continue to build-out Toronto's LRT plans — and since Mayor Rob Ford continues to mistakenly call any LRT project a streetcar line — Spacing will profile a handful of LRT projects from around the world that will give readers a little better understanding of this transit option. The State of New Jersey is a busy place.  While it lacks a top-tier city of its own (that role being taken by New York in the north and Philadelphia in the South), the state is filled with smaller cities and towns and dense suburbs — in fact, the average density of the entire state is 20% higher than that of Peel or York, two large regions to the west and north Toronto, and far greater than densities in Halton or Durham in the eastern GTA. While the state boasts an impressive commuter rail network that is more than double the size of GO Transit, this system, along with two bi-state subway lines, is geared almost entirely to getting commuters into New York and Philly.  This had left a gap in more localized rail transit to serve north-south traffic along the cities on the Jersey side of the river opposite both the Big Apple and the City of Brotherly Love.  Newark, the Hamilton to New York’s Toronto, had a small streetcar line of its own that, having been lost in a PCC time-warp, was long in the tooth and in need of upgrading. To improve rail transit across the state in these areas where it was neither physically or fiscally appropriate to build new commuter trains or subways, New Jersey turned to LRT.  Three modern systems were opened in 2000 and 2006 that covered a variety of configurations, demonstrating the flexibility and adaptability of this mode of transit across urban, suburban, and even intercity districts. Hudson Bergen Light Rail Historically, the rail lines in the northern part of the state ran east-west, ending in piers for transfers to ferries over to New York, or after 1910, in the tunnel to Penn Station.  The rail lines and their yards dominated the landscape, leaving few road connections between towns in Hudson County.  In 2000, the Hudson Bergen Light Rail  system began service to better tie together this waterfront region, and today it runs from North Bergen through Hoboken and Jersey City into Bayonne, carrying 41,000 riders per day (about the same as Toronto's St. Clair route). The vehicles are modern Light Rail Vehicles, 90 ft long and can hold up to 190 passengers [PDF]. Fare payment is off-vehicle.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Ford, It has come to our attention that Rob and Doug are having some challenges with their course work, and specifically two classes: math and political science. Their teachers have observed that both boys seem blocked on basic questions, such as:  • “If you divide 45 by two, and round up to the nearest integer, is the answer greater or less than 25? Show your work.” • “Please describe the two fundamental features of a minority government. Use examples to illustrate your answer.” We strongly recommend that you seek out remedial help for both students as their term may be in jeopardy.  Yours,  City Hall Guidance Department Certain numbers have been thrown around since the TTC revealed late Friday afternoon that it will convene today for a (not so) in-camera session to set the terms and conditions of chief general manager Gary Webster’s be-heading. For example, we know that five of the nine commissioners signed the petition requesting the meeting (and did so while chair Karen Stintz was on vacation), signaling that they can deploy the majority required to get their way. We further (sort of) know the cost to the TTC – somewhere in the neighbourhood of $600,000 to $1 million – to make Webster go away, a figure that is roughly equivalent to the so-called savings the Ford administration found by cutting the mayor’s office budget and those of the 44 apparently irrelevant councillors who labour away on the second floor of City Hall. Lastly, we know that eight of 11 Etobicoke/York community council members boldly sent a letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty, urging a free vote in the legislature on the $8.4 billion Metrolinx-TTC transit investment plan (Peter Milczyn, an ostensible Ford supporter, signed neither the petition nor the McGuinty letter). But the only number that really matters from this moment on is 23 – the minimum number of votes required to achieve a council majority.

This regular online series will feature interviews with fascinating and influential urban thinkers, with a focus on discussing how Toronto can become a more engaged, accessible, and sustainable city. Sharon Switzer is director at Art for Commuters. She is also programming curator at Pattison Onestop, which owns and operates TTC subway station monitors. For more than five years, digital screens in subway stations have been displaying artistic and cultural projects. Onestop and Art for Commuters’ latest exhibition is the NFB documentary — One Millionth Tower. Spacing sat down with Sharon to discuss the role art and culture plays in Toronto’s subway network. Spacing: Where did this idea of using subway platform screens to display artistic work originate? Switzer: I was introduced to Michael Girgis, the CEO of Onestop, back in 2006. They had just started managing TTC screens and they were looking for content that wasn't just advertisements. I had recently completed a program at the Canadian Film Centre and decided to market a project to them. We had some conversations and quickly realized that one little project was just a drop in the bucket. In my view, what they needed was someone who could work with them on an ongoing basis to do artistic projects. It took some time but I convinced Michael that displaying art was a good idea. We then began with just a general call for submissions. Spacing: What is the relationship between Pattison Onestop and Art for Commuters?

In the wake of last week's decision to continue to build-out Toronto's LRT plans — and since Mayor Rob Ford continues to mistakenly call any LRT project a streetcar line — Spacing will profile a handful of LRT projects from around the world that will give readers a  little better understanding of this transit option. Last year Melbourne, Australia was ranked world's most liveable city by the Economist. Not surprisingly, a qualifying feature of this title is the presence of an efficient transit system. Melbourne's longstanding tramway network - the largest urban LRT system in the world - consists of 250 km of track, 487 trams, 30 routes, and 1,763 tram stops. In 2010-2011, 182.7 million passenger trips were made by tram, representing a 4.1% year-on-year patronage growth. But Melbournian trams serve more than the utilitarian purpose of transporting people from A to B. Riding trams are an essential part of the city experience. Toronto take note!

In the wake of last week's decision to continue to build-out Toronto's LRT plans — and since Mayor Rob Ford continues to mistakenly call any LRT project a streetcar line — Spacing will profile a handful of LRT projects from around the world that will give readers a  little better understanding of this transit option Stockholm's subway stations are world renown for their artistic beauty, rivalling those of Moscow, Munich or London. Equally impressive is the Swedish capital's LRT network, a major component of public transport for Scandinavia's most populated urban area. Stockholm's trams go back to 1877 with the establishment of a horse-drawn line, electrified in 1901. The city's subway began as a tram that went underground in 1933. In a bizarre turn of events, virtually every tram line in central Stockholm was abandoned as the result of Sweden's switch to right-hand side traffic in 1967. In 1991, Route 7, the Djurgårdslinjen LRT, was restored as a heritage tramway. Since then, two additional lines have been built and two modernized. Further,  several lines are undergoing expansion. Currently, Stockholm's LRT network is composed of 4 lines with 53 stops stretching over 30 kilometres.

The strangest moment in last week’s epic transit showdown – besides when The Toronto Sun’s Sue-Ann Levy mysteriously began making fun of my wardrobe on Twitter – occurred at the beginning of Mayor Rob Ford’s speech, as he entreated his colleagues to “stop playing politics” with transit. That line, to his evident dismay, brought a chorus of sardonic laughter, as many in the cheap seats were clearly thinking about pots and kettles. But Ford’s sentiment has a certain validity. After all, in a debate in which the stakes are so very high, every politician, expert and advocate feels their own position is, for lack of a better phrase, post-political, and thus should represent the end of the conversation. Sometimes, the politics is dressed up in fancy policy duds (Metro’s Network 2011 or the TTC’s Ridership Growth Strategy); other times it wears only a loin cloth (Mel’s Sheppard stubway; Ford’s “Transportation City”). Yet it’s all politics. Which is fine – the people pay, the people should have their say. But vigorous debate is surely just a means to an end, which is informed government decision-making followed by policy implementation. Our transit debate, by contrast, has been infected for a generation with an infinite loop bug. It’s like an Wagnerian opera that won’t get beyond the overture, or the football game that doesn’t end because the refs didn’t sound the two-minute warning. As Scarborough’s Chin Lee said on Wednesday, “Every time the government changes, we divert from what we did before.” Ain’t that the truth.

Street Scene will appear each week showcasing the illustrations of local artist Jerry Waese.

Street Scene will appear each week showcasing the illustrations of local artist Jerry Waese.

Street Scene will appear each week showcasing the illustrations of local artist Jerry Waese.

Every fiscal conservative in this city should thank TTC chair Karen Stintz for daring last week to speak truth to power about the Eglinton Crosstown fiasco. Yes, fiscal conservatives. Not just Transit City lovers. By asking whether Metrolinx will be using the appropriate vehicles in that 19-km tunnel, Stintz nailed the key technical question hanging over Mayor Rob Ford’s plan to bury the entire LRT at a premium of $2.1 billion. But by proposing ways to stretch those dollars (a Sheppard subway extension to Victoria Park and a BRT corridor on Finch), she has, in effect, posed a hard-headed question that no one, to my knowledge, has adequately answered: Can Metrolinx prove to Ontario taxpayers that it will maximize its massive investment in Eglinton by proceeding with Ford’s faith-based burial scheme? Nope. In fact, the curious reality is that neither the province, nor the city, has a clue. While Metrolinx has conducted so-called “benefits case analyses” on several other of its undertakings, Spacing has learned that the agency didn’t apply this kind of rigour to the Crosstown, even though it officially ranks as Canada’s most expensive infrastructure project.