Bike Walk Bus Toronto

A few weeks ago, I went to Uxbridge. I made my way there by catching GO Transit's 70D bus from Mount Joy Station. This 33-kilometre route is a midday train-meet service to Stouffville, Goodwood, and Uxbridge. I assumed most of the ridership was to Stouffville, with a few stragglers like me going the whole way to Uxbridge. While this was mostly true, there were a few passengers that took me by surprise. One passenger asked me for assistance, as she was destined for Ballantrae, a relatively rural community. Since the bus turned off Highway 48, she had to Uber the rest of the way. In Stouffville, we picked up a man from a plaza. He travelled quite a bit, and then went up to speak to the driver. The driver let him alight on Highway 47 at Concession Road 2, just before Goodwood. I thought this was peculiar: there's no scheduled stop here, and, as you can see below, not very much in the vicinity. We pressed on, and passed Goodwood. At Concession Road 4, we pulled to the side of the h...

 Hey everyone! Early this week, TTC began their consultation period for some of their proposed changes for 2023. While this doesn't include every potential change, these tend to be bigger items. In this piece, I will provide some initial thoughts about them. Spoiler: they are... peculiar! Changes related Line 3 Scarborough RT Shutdown Towards the end of 2023, the TTC will have to shut down the RT. I won't bring my thoughts into this here, because they are extensive, but overall the TTC has had its hand tied in this issue. The initial plan approved by the board will extend a number of routes from Scarborough Centre to Kennedy, via Kennedy and Midland in opposite directions. Once the RT tracks are ripped out, it will be replaced by a busway. These changes proposed have the goal of bringing more isolated parts of Scarborough, like Malvern, Armadale, and Morningside Heights closer to either the subway or GO train by extending some routes. I will first show the changes I strongly ap...

 The TTC has long struggled with how to manage construction and other events along routes. There are pronounced issues of lack of proper communication between management and the public, as well as with operators, but there are also issues with how they are planned. In this short piece, I will speak to how TTC has failed to properly adjust service to meet temporary challenges, and how it can be improved. Example 1: 36 Finch West during the culvert washout, 2005 In 2005, Finch over the Black Creek, was washed out during a rain storm. As repairs would take months, the TTC devised a plan for temporary service in the area. The 36 Finch West route detoured off of Finch via Driftwood, Grandravine and Sentinel, shown in the map below with the red line. They also began a short local service, shown in purple, that connected customers closer to the washout to local shopping centers and other services. What this plan showed was that TTC was willing to find a way to service isolated areas when ...