[Northern Light]

From the report @Northern Light posted in the Bloor Yonge Capacity Improvements thread here, interesting to see the progress on the new siding at Rosedale and the TTC's search for a new Line 1 yard. If folks here had to locate a new yard for Line 1, where would you put it?

A new Line 1 yard will be at the north end of YNSE, there's nowhere else for it to go.

It has to be on the east (Yonge side) of Line 1, to offset the time that it takes to fill and empty that side of the line to/from Wilson.

There's nowhere along the existing Line 1, east side, where you could build a yard.

 

[T3G]

On an odyssey out to Scarborough this afternoon, a few questions occurred to me:

1. Is there any particular reason why some stations (notably, STC, for its west side, Eglinton, for Duplex Avenue, and Victoria Park, for Denton Avenue) were not built with secondary entrances? Eglinton is the very worst offender of all, if you're coming from the Duplex side of the station and want to enter it through faregates, that can easily add an extra 4-5 minutes to your journey. Was this an "economy" measure, or were the engineers of yesteryear actually naive enough to think that people wouldn't take short cuts? There's a lot of fare evasion that goes on at these locations, and the TTC has no one to blame but themselves.

2. This may have been buried somewhere in the mountain of fantasy speculation about how the Eglinton Crosstown could've been super speedy, but is there a plan to renovate Kennedy station once all the Crosstown works are complete? Typing in "Kennedy station renovation" into the search bar doesn't produce any useful results. If you were looking for a textbook illustration photo for infrustructure decay, this station would be the most obvious contender in Toronto. Everything is covered in bird goo, exposed piping drips dubious fluids onto unexpecting passers-by's heads, and most of the doors onto the bus platforms are not automatically opening, which is a problem for the reasons listed previously... it is a truly revolting station. The subway platform also looks like a dungeon, but at least that is not a bio hazard.

3. Why do all the expresses running between STC and Kennedy dive into the eastern underpass for what used to be Ellesmere station when they are turning from Ellesmere onto Midland? I certainly didn't notice the amount of demand for left turns here being particularly high, and instituting a bus only lane for left turns as they did at Brimley and Triton would surely save a lot more time than this roundabout solution.

 

[Richard White]

1. Is there any particular reason why some stations (notably, STC, for its west side, Eglinton, for Duplex Avenue, and Victoria Park, for Denton Avenue) were not built with secondary entrances? Eglinton is the very worst offender of all, if you're coming from the Duplex side of the station and want to enter it through faregates, that can easily add an extra 4-5 minutes to your journey. Was this an "economy" measure, or were the engineers of yesteryear actually naive enough to think that people wouldn't take short cuts? There's a lot of fare evasion that goes on at these locations, and the TTC has no one to blame but themselves.

Victoria Park does have a secondary entrance at Teesdale. It has another at Albion Avenue.

3. Why do all the expresses running between STC and Kennedy dive into the eastern underpass for what used to be Ellesmere station when they are turning from Ellesmere onto Midland? I certainly didn't notice the amount of demand for left turns here being particularly high, and instituting a bus only lane for left turns as they did at Brimley and Triton would surely save a lot more time than this roundabout solution.

That entire area is a nightmare for traffic at the moment.

The reason for diving under the bridge at Ellesmere Station is likely to save on travel time.

It is easier to just use existing infrastructure than to modify the flow of traffic.

 

[T3G]

Victoria Park does have a secondary entrance at Teesdale. It has another at Albion Avenue.

Thanks for the correction. It's been six years since I was last there, memory failed me.

Though the presence of these entrances makes the lack of another by Denton even more baffling.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

3. Why do all the expresses running between STC and Kennedy dive into the eastern underpass for what used to be Ellesmere station when they are turning from Ellesmere onto Midland? I certainly didn't notice the amount of demand for left turns here being particularly high, and instituting a bus only lane for left turns as they did at Brimley and Triton would surely save a lot more time than this roundabout solution.

That entire area is a nightmare for traffic at the moment.

The reason for diving under the bridge at Ellesmere Station is likely to save on travel time.

It is easier to just use existing infrastructure than to modify the flow of traffic.

The turn around the former Elsmere station tends to be at the discretion of the drivers but basically makes sense as instead of cutting across lanes of traffic to male a left hand turn and wait for a light then cut into the express bus lane they can uses the underpass area to lop around and the use the express lane to make a right turn into the express lane, it also differently helps with the longer articulated buses.

 

[Richard White]

Thanks for the correction. It's been six years since I was last there, memory failed me.

Though the presence of these entrances makes the lack of another by Denton even more baffling.

Many years ago Victoria Park had an exit out to the parking lot. It was around 50 metres or so south of the current entrance near where the 67 and 12 board now.

If I recall, this was labeled as the Denton Avenue exit.

When the bus bays were torn down, the entrance shifted over to Victoria Park.

 

[nfitz]

Though the presence of these entrances makes the lack of another by Denton even more baffling.

From Denton there's many ways to walk up to Albion to get to the entrance there. Putting an entrance on Denton would only have people use the other two sides of the rectangle.

 

[Richard White]

Thanks for the correction. It's been six years since I was last there, memory failed me.

Though the presence of these entrances makes the lack of another by Denton even more baffling.

Here are some pictures I took in 2011 which do mention the original Denton Avenue exit. When they rebuilt the station in 2009-ish they permanently closed it.

It connected the collector booths to the car park via a long corridor that ran directly under the bus bays. It led out to the corner of the car park just south of where the current exit to the bus platforms is now.

Fun fact: Victoria Park used to house the TTC's soil testing lab!

 

[Northern Light]

On an odyssey out to Scarborough this afternoon, a few questions occurred to me:

1. Is there any particular reason why some stations (notably, STC, for its west side, Eglinton, for Duplex Avenue, and Victoria Park, for Denton Avenue) were not built with secondary entrances? Eglinton is the very worst offender of all, if you're coming from the Duplex side of the station and want to enter it through faregates, that can easily add an extra 4-5 minutes to your journey. Was this an "economy" measure, or were the engineers of yesteryear actually naive enough to think that people wouldn't take short cuts? There's a lot of fare evasion that goes on at these locations, and the TTC has no one to blame but themselves.

There was a Duplex entrance:

That's the layout of the original Eglinton Station bus terminal, pre-demolition.

A picture of same via the Toronto Archives:

The entrance was demolished with the bus terminal, as the bus terminal concourse was the access path to this entrance/exit.

***

The rebuilt version of the station here will not feature an access at Duplex/Eglinton, but the main entrance will now be a smidge further west, at the east end of the former bus terminal:

From:

https://pw.ttc.ca/-/media/Project/TTC/DevProto/Documents/Home/Public-Meetings/Board/2018/March-20/11_Eglinton_Crosstown_LRT_Interchange_Stations_Final_Designs.pdf

2. This may have been buried somewhere in the mountain of fantasy speculation about how the Eglinton Crosstown could've been super speedy, but is there a plan to renovate Kennedy station once all the Crosstown works are complete? Typing in "Kennedy station renovation" into the search bar doesn't produce any useful results. If you were looking for a textbook illustration photo for infrustructure decay, this station would be the most obvious contender in Toronto. Everything is covered in bird goo, exposed piping drips dubious fluids onto unexpecting passers-by's heads, and most of the doors onto the bus platforms are not automatically opening, which is a problem for the reasons listed previously... it is a truly revolting station. The subway platform also looks like a dungeon, but at least that is not a bio hazard.

We have a thread for Kennedy Station here:

Eglinton Line 5 + GO: Kennedy Station | ?m | 1s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

April 20 More up on my site This is the station connection to Kennedy GO Station and not complete.

urbantoronto.ca

As to any renos to the existing station, beyond the new entrances/exits etc.; I'm not aware of any wholesale re-do.

I believe the committment was to give it a good clean and to restore or replace any removed finishes such as ceiling slats.

But @smallspy may recall more detail.

 

[smallspy]

On an odyssey out to Scarborough this afternoon, a few questions occurred to me:

1. Is there any particular reason why some stations (notably, STC, for its west side, Eglinton, for Duplex Avenue, and Victoria Park, for Denton Avenue) were not built with secondary entrances? Eglinton is the very worst offender of all, if you're coming from the Duplex side of the station and want to enter it through faregates, that can easily add an extra 4-5 minutes to your journey. Was this an "economy" measure, or were the engineers of yesteryear actually naive enough to think that people wouldn't take short cuts? There's a lot of fare evasion that goes on at these locations, and the TTC has no one to blame but themselves.

In the case of Eglinton Station specifically, what you are looking at now was not what was built originally. And in fact, what is there now is temporary.

The original bus terminal was located along Eglinton, stretching from Duplex to Yonge. There was an entrance at Duplex, but it was closed when that terminal was.

When the current terminal was built, there was thought to adding faregates at both Duplex and Berwick, but it was felt that passenger volumes would be too low to justify it. Plus, the terminal was only temporary, anyways.

The case of STC, when the station was built (and for a long time afterwards) there was nothing located to the west of the station. In fact, there was a plan put forward to build an in-filll station at Brimley - but only once that area got built up. That's only happened in recent history.

There are lots of other cases around the city where the areas surrounding the stations got built up only after the subway started running. In some cases, additional entrances have been built where it was possible to do so.
a bio hazard.

3. Why do all the expresses running between STC and Kennedy dive into the eastern underpass for what used to be Ellesmere station when they are turning from Ellesmere onto Midland? I certainly didn't notice the amount of demand for left turns here being particularly high, and instituting a bus only lane for left turns as they did at Brimley and Triton would surely save a lot more time than this roundabout solution.

It was calculated to be quicker at busy times to run through the underpass than to make the left turn. One added benefit of this is that it simplifies the stopping locations - no need to build a far-side stop on the south side of Midland, some distance south of the intersection.

Dan

 

[Northern Light]

Saw this going around on FB, made me laugh:

 

[jje1000]

Documents shed light on probe into TTC CEO Rick Leary​

Documents obtained by the Star reveal the scope of the five-month-old probe into the TTC CEO.
April 11, 2024

The workplace investigation into TTC CEO Rick Leary that has dragged on for more than five months includes allegations he violated employees’ human rights and tried to land jobs for his friends, among other claims, the Star has learned.

The TTC board has not shared any information about the investigation — which it called for at an October closed-door meeting and which two sources told the Star is expected to cost around $250,000 — leaving the public, board members, TTC employees — and Leary himself — in the dark about its progress.

Documents shed light on probe into TTC CEO Rick Leary

A document obtained by the Star reveals details of the five-month-old probe into the TTC CEO.

www.thestar.com

 

[Northern Light]

Documents shed light on probe into TTC CEO Rick Leary

A document obtained by the Star reveals details of the five-month-old probe into the TTC CEO.

www.thestar.com

Nothing there that we didn't really know.............. just rightly asks, why is this investigation ongoing after 5 full months w/no resolution one way or the other in sight.

As poorly as Leary is known to behave............

So far as I'm concerned, the grounds for firing him for cause are:

1) A near collision of 2 TTC Trains that he didn't bother reporting to the Board in real time.

2) A derailment of the SRT that certainly appears to be the result, in whole or in part of shoddy maintenance under his watch.

The above being reflective of his less than stellar record in Boston as well, which I would argue ought to have disqualified him from the TTC job in the first place.

 

[drum118]

To:You
Thu 2024-04-11 10:09 AM

Statement from TTC CEO Rick Leary on CUPE Local 2 strike notice

Apr. 11, 2024

The TTC and CUPE Local 2 (electrical skilled trades) have been working to reach a fair negotiated collective agreement. Employees in this group include streetcar overhead and subway signal maintainers, among others.

Although negotiations are ongoing, Local 2 has advised that its members will begin strike action on Mon., Apr. 22, should an agreement not be reached. Both Local 2 and TTC representatives remain at the bargaining table with the intention of reaching a negotiated settlement without the need for job action.

Last November, the TTC Board approved a bargaining mandate. We are committed to reaching an agreement that is fair to Local 2 employees while being affordable for the taxpayers of Toronto.

I am committed to keeping our customers and employees apprised of any changes related to these negotiations in a timely manner. We encourage all our employees and our customers to check our website for the most current updates.

In the meantime, we will continue to negotiate in good faith with the ultimate goal being an agreement that avoids job action and service disruptions.

 

[Richard White]

To:You
Thu 2024-04-11 10:09 AM

Statement from TTC CEO Rick Leary on CUPE Local 2 strike notice

Apr. 11, 2024

The TTC and CUPE Local 2 (electrical skilled trades) have been working to reach a fair negotiated collective agreement. Employees in this group include streetcar overhead and subway signal maintainers, among others.

Although negotiations are ongoing, Local 2 has advised that its members will begin strike action on Mon., Apr. 22, should an agreement not be reached. Both Local 2 and TTC representatives remain at the bargaining table with the intention of reaching a negotiated settlement without the need for job action.

Last November, the TTC Board approved a bargaining mandate. We are committed to reaching an agreement that is fair to Local 2 employees while being affordable for the taxpayers of Toronto.

I am committed to keeping our customers and employees apprised of any changes related to these negotiations in a timely manner. We encourage all our employees and our customers to check our website for the most current updates.

In the meantime, we will continue to negotiate in good faith with the ultimate goal being an agreement that avoids job action and service disruptions.

I wonder when ATU 113 will be negotiating their contract.

I fully expect frontline staff to walk off the job at the next opportunity.