Whether the TTC likes it or not, adultery is legal as is the provision of a “dating service” to hook up would-be partners. This would not be the first such service to advertise on the TTC. LavaLife ran ads in subway cars, and there are dating service posters in some subway stations. Somehow, I doubt that everyone using these services tells their spouse/partner what they are doing.

Subway ads are running right now for the movie “It’s Complicated” whose plot involves a love triangle between a woman, her ex, and her new boyfriend. The posters include a tasteful view of Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin in bed. I don’t know whether their characters are married at the point in the film where this scene occurs, but that’s hardly the point. If the TTC is going to start censoring ads based on behaviour that is legal, they will have to be consistent.

The Harbord streetcar was almost as misnamed a route as Carlton, given what percentage the streetcar tracks on Harbord comprised of the route. Just before it was abandoned, the service began at Lipton Loop on Pape Avenue just north of Danforth and ran south on Pape, west on Riverdale and south on Carlaw Avenues to Gerrard Street. Then the line ran west along Gerrard, south along Broadview and west along Dundas to Spadina Avenue. After running north on Spadina to Harbord Street, the streetcar turned west and ran to Ossington, jogging north and west along Ossington and Bloor to Dovercourt Road. After running up Dovercourt, cars turned west again at Davenport and ran to St. Clarens Loop, just one block east of Lansdowne Avenue. The Harbord streetcar probably had to negotiate more right-angle turns than any other streetcar line on the network.

The Harbord streetcar connected the residential neighbourhoods of Riverdale, Kensington, Little Italy and Dovercourt with the downtown, as well as serving such major high schools as Harbord Collegiate and Central Tech. Service was moderately frequent throughout the day, but no night service was ever offered. Abandoned before the arrival of CLRVs, no route number was ever assigned to this line.

Fifty years ago, streetcars were king in Toronto. While the opening of the subway from Union to Eglinton in 1954 had expelled them from Yonge Street, in 1959 those iconic Presidents' Conference Committee streetcars still clattered along Rogers Road, Dupont, Bloor, and Harbord. While the Rogers Road route's 1970s disappearance represented one of the last gasps of the TTC's streetcar abandonment policy, the other three were made obsolete by the 1966 opening of the Bloor-Danforth subway.

Today, very little evidence remains of them, but they're part of this city's history nevertheless. The Harbord route in particular, meandering this way and that through residential neighborhoods east and west of the Don River and rocketing through downtown, is still fondly remembered by some transit aficionados. On September 13 and September 20, I took my camera and walked the route of the Harbord streetcar as it was in 1959, looking for impressions left in the concrete.

Modern streetcar lines are embedded in concrete, a sight that should be familiar to anyone who's done much walking in Toronto's downtown core or along streets that have retained their streetcar service. In the 1950s these middle lanes were cobblestone rather than concrete, but the principle remains the same. Take a look down the two middle lanes of Dovercourt in the photo - and it's not a trick of the shadows. The two middle lanes of the street are darker than the two outer lanes. This, to me, is prima facie evidence of the streetcar.

What I believe happened is that, after the line's abandonment in 1966, the two inner lanes either were ripped out and put back in without tracks, or just paved over entirely. Dovercourt Road, being a purely residential road only a block away from Ossington, is not particularly high-traffic. It may well be the case that there has not been a need for roadwork along Dovercourt in the forty-three years since the removal of the tracks. The darker, fresher cast of the two inner lanes' asphalt is almost like scar tissue, covering the wound of their removal.

[. . .]

Fifty years ago, it would have been folly to contemplate a streetcar reaching to what was then a country road only beginning to see development boom. Fifty years ago, the streetcar network occupied a different place in relation to the people of the city. One thing I noticed throughout the route was the ubiquity of on-street parking. It's simple why; the houses along this route were built before automobile ownership became an end into itself, when no one really needed a car to get around.

Back in October 1974, the TTC was considering various proposals for new rapid transit lines, one of which was the Queen Street subway. This line would have run from Roncesvalles and Queen east to somewhere beyond Broadview, then turned north past Greenwood yard and continued via Donlands to O’Connor. At that point, the line would cross the Don River to serve Thorncliffe and Flemingdon Parks winding up at the CPR crossing north of Eglinton.

Almost nine years after the City of Toronto took over Union Station, the money has finally been found to carry out a $640 million revamp of the landmark transportation hub.

By early next year, major work will be underway to transform the building into a more commuter-friendly place with larger concourses, a major underground retail mall and new head office for GO Transit in the west wing.

The project is to be completed by 2015.

One of the first jobs is to build a new PATH tunnel under York St. north to Wellington St., which commuters will use while work goes on to refurbish the GO concourse and triple the space to 122,000 square feet, vastly improving pedestrian flow.

Yesterday, the federal government announced it would chip in $133 million, on top of $172 million from the province, for a total of $305 million from the two governments.

"All of us who use the GO train and who use VIA Rail know how important Union Station is and know how much it is in need of revitalization and renovation, and the ability to handle more people," said federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

[. . .]

The announcement was made on the north side of Front St. with the station forming an impressive backdrop – but one that also showed signs of the building's neglect, with water-stained and mossy masonry clearly visible.

The renovation plans have the potential to turn the building into a transportation showpiece, with improvements to the subway, GO and VIA train as well as bus travel and a possible future rail link to Pearson International Airport.

Now that there's a resurgence of the idea of splitting the route into two, I'm not complaining. Although the trip is visually stimulating, there can be severe delays. If you've ever tried to use a schedule on the 501, you'll quickly realize how unreliable it actually is.

Traffic, detours, and construction are among just a few reasons why the 501 streetcars are almost never on time. In October, the TTC is planning to split the route into two - a trial that will be in effect until the end of the year. One route will depart from Long Branch and come back around at Parliament; while the other will start at Neville Park and find loop back from Shaw St. The goal of the project is to see if overlapping routes will alleviate congestion.

Riding the 501 many times, I've witnessed the traffic horrors first hand, but never fully understood how bad traffic can get backed up. I usually jump on the first streetcar that comes - never truly knowing how far back the next car is. This is why last night I decided to sit at the Humber Loop to see how often each vehicle came. I was looking at streetcars going westbound specifically because they would most likely accumulate the most problems.

So during rush hour I waited, and waited some more. After nearly 25 minutes, the first car finally came. As that vehicle was leaving to continue on route, another one came to let passengers off. This second streetcar pulled into the loop as a third pulled in, then to my surprise a fourth. Within 10 minutes, four vehicles had come and gone and for the next 35 minutes Humber Loop was a streetcar ghost town. This pattern would repeat itself for three hours until I called it quits.

With the death of "the ask," the Conservative world-view emerged triumphant: municipal transit expenditure is appropriately funded by local taxpayers under the patriarchal guidance of the province. If Ottawa wants to get involved, it can and will, but those are strictly political calls. As for the City of Toronto’s special relationship with the federal government (a fantasy encouraged by Paul Martin), well, don’t even go there.

There was also an element of three-card monte in council’s hasty attempt to make the best of John Baird’s proffered olive branch. The TTC shuffled back some of its capital spending projects to make room for the streetcar buy, while city officials scoured the 2009 capital budget for quick-turnover projects that might pass muster with guardians of the Harper government’s fiscal stimulus package. The fairly explicit message from the mayor and city bureaucrats on Friday was that it’s all going to be a wash.

[. . .]

Think about this story from Baird’s perspective: the City of Toronto, invoking its own exceptionalism, decides to flout federal funding guidelines, is then forced to back down, but gets a second chance. Outside Toronto, the Tories will receive no love for that magnanimous gesture. And inside Toronto, well, they still look and act like a party that has no traction with 416 voters.

Does anyone in the Harper inner sanctum think that giving Miller $400 million in infrastructure funding will buy them a riding or two in the next election? Of course not.

It used to be that a Metropass would only get you as far as the front door of Toronto’s hot spots.

But starting this summer, your transit pass also will get you past the door — for a reduced price — at five of the city’s top tourist destinations. The first phase of a new affinity program at the TTC means Metropass holders will get a 20 per cent discount at the Toronto Zoo, Ontario Place, the CN Tower, the Ontario Science Centre and Casa Loma.

The program ties into Tourism Toronto’s Stay-cation theme, in which recession-ridden residents are being encouraged to enjoy local attractions.

“It’s a good thing for our customers. It provides a value-add. Metropass customers are our most loyal by purchasing a monthly pass, so it’s a nice little extra for them,” said TTC chief marketing officer Alice Smith.

The program isn’t expected to cost the TTC anything other than promotions on the system.

“The attractions are offering a discount on admission but hopefully they would make it up in terms of volume,” said Smith.

When the City bought the loop for a dollar, as the TTC no longer had a use for it, the plan was apparently to convert it into a heart-shaped urban park with the oh-so-creative name "Heart Park." Considering that all the details I can find of this initiative date from 2006 and that Otter Loop is still intact, it's fair to say this project hasn't really got off the ground. Otter Loop is, however, going into the ground. No one appears to be maintaining the structure. Some of the brickwork has crumbled and one of the signs identifying itself as "MUNICIPAL PROPERTY OF THE TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION" has been left to weather and its paint allowed to run.

This isn’t an easy decision to make and lines from a Sinead O’Connor song keep running through my head: “This is the last day of our acquaintance / I will meet you later in somebody’s office / I’ll talk but you won’t listen to me / I know what your answer will be / You don’t love me anymore.” Such an intimate part of my life is going to end with a perfunctory email to TTC headquarters, making it all even sadder.

Thinking of Metropass subscription as abusive isn’t meant to mock more serious physically and emotionally violent relationships, but the pattern is similar. The TTC controls a big part of our lives, and when it doesn’t work like it should, our lives are affected. I’ve found I automatically apologized for the TTC’s faults, and defended it, even when the inner rage hadn’t completely vanished. I’m aware and sympathetic of federal and provincial funding issues that have strangled the commission, but, then, there I am on the corner having paid for a ride that hasn’t come, feeling like a sucker. By buying a Metropass, I’m enabling this kind of activity, a passive acquiescence to too-often crummy service. If I walk, I’m leaving money at the corner. If I wait too long and have to take a cab, I’m resentful now of the cab money I’ve paid out. I didn’t notice this when I lived on a subway line, but now that I rely on a streetcar, it happens too much.

[. . .]

It was a fine romance in the beginning, as most relationships are. The Metropass replaced the car I left behind when I moved here. I bought the first few at the booth but soon had it delivered every month. The money is withdrawn automatically and it would arrive in a brown, unmarked envelope, like illicit transit pornography. (I regret that as I quit the Metropass, their design is just starting to get interesting as the TTC is finally incorporating some of its iconic images onto the card.)

The Metropass was liberating because I stopped thinking about how I was going to get someplace. I had this thing that allowed me to get on and off the system at will. Two stops or across the city, it didn’t matter, the city’s electric nervous system could be ridden at will. I’d shame friends into getting one too, suggesting it was a terrible drag if one was without a Metropass as we rolled through the city, because they didn’t have the same freedom as the those of us who did, or worse, they insisted on cabs. Cabs aren’t fun because they can’t compete with the way the TTC functions as Toronto’s living room, and I’ll miss that the most: overhearing and bumping into the rest of the city.

• Centauri Dreams suggest that the latest research into the question argues convincingly that a hidden star--a red or brown dwarf, likely--doesn't exist within two light-years of our planetary system, and wonders if impending space probes might discover remains of Theia, the proto-planet that collided with the Earth billions of years ago and so created the moon.


• Far Outliers' Joel examines how Ethiopians, subjects of the only African state to remain uncolonized, saw a Japan that stood as the chief representative of a modernizing non-white world. In addition, the blog explores the novelty of the nation-state and the exclusion of ethnic Germans from post-Weimar Germany.


• Hunting Monsters blogs about Puntland, an autonomous government in northeastern Somalia most famous as a base for piracy, as well as Moldova's Russophone and Russophile Transnistria.


• The Invisible College's Mel O'Brien comes out in favour of a vigourous prosecution of the remaining Nazi war criminals.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer examines the troubles facing the Greek economy, on the verge of recession thanks to blows to tourism and the shipping industry.


• Gideon Rachman compares the mass protests in Georgia and Thailand.


• Slap Upside the Head examines the outrage of a Polish politician that the Poznan Zoo hosts a possibly gay elephant.


• Towleroad shows how, as if in compensation for the above silliness, the Polish government is inviting a New York gay couples whose wedding photos were once used in a homophobic campaign to Poland, for what may be a stereotype-breaking visit.


• Torontoist reports on the controversial Virgin Radio ads in Toronto's TTC stops--since pulled--that have featured radios as suicidal jumpers.


• Window on Eurasia examines how immigration to Moscow is creating ethnic neighbourhoods in a once-homogeneous city, and writes about the (Eastern Orthodox) Moscow Patriarchate's efforts to create a powerful Orthodox Christian lobby in the European Union.

Service reliability—having buses, streetcars, and subways come as often as they are supposed to, and on a regular and predictable basis—is one of the most important parts of providing good quality transit. This is reasonably easy to achieve when the service is operating in its own private space—like subways in their own tunnel, or LRT in a dedicated right-of-way—and you have almost complete control over what goes on in that space.

However, when buses and streetcars have to operate on public roads, and compete for space with everything from private cars to courier trucks, they have almost no control over what goes on in that space, so it becomes much more difficult to ensure that the service will be regular and reliable. Often, buses or streetcars get delayed, causing a “gap” in service.

Once a bus or streetcar falls behind, the problem “snowballs” because more and more people end up waiting at the stops, and it takes longer for these bigger crowds to get on board, so the streetcar falls even further behind, and so on. The streetcars behind the delayed one catch up, the streetcars become bunched together and, when they finally arrive at the stop, they are in twos or threes.