[ARG1]

And the solution to that is to amalgamate the entire region's transit network under one operating umbrella, rather than the cheaper and simpler option of reworking a few cross border routes and reworking the agreement which prohibits MiWay and YRT from doing inter-stop transit inside Toronto's borders...?

1) Why not, long term it might actually be simpler this way. Even then if you really want, you can separate the divisions to have local operational control. What matters is to have a more unified form of branding.
2) I don't understand why we would need to amalgamate the networks, instead of just enforcing a unified route numbering scheme. You don't need the TTC and MiWay to merge in order to create a system where you don't have competing route numbers.

 

[T3G]

I don't know if we need to amalgamate all the transit systems, but surely they should have a unified way finding standard and fare scheme at the very least.

I'm not against either of these things. I'm against renumbering all the routes.

1) Why not, long term it might actually be simpler this way.

It wouldn't be, because you'd still need to split many routes at the city borders anyway. Having very long through services would just be harmful. So what you would do is waste an insane amount of money on rebranding and restructuring the organization, but with very little benefits.

Let's take, for instance, Steeles Avenue. According to Google Maps it takes about an hour to travel from Finch station to Signal Hill Avenue on the TTC 60 bus; it takes a similar amount of time to travel from end to end on Brampton Transit's 11 Steeles. Under the theory of integrating the transit systems, you could say that these two routes should be one - but who exactly would that benefit? Who wants to ride 2 hours just to get to the subway, when far more value would be achieved by extending the TTC 60 west to Steeles and Finch (transfer to the Brampton 11/511) and extending the Brampton 11 south to that theoretical Woodbine GO station, for a much quicker connection downtown?

Rinse and repeat for many other border routes. You wouldn't run the TTC 32 all the way to the west end of Mississauga, or the TTC 29 to Major Mackenzie, or the TTC 41 all the way to Newmarket, replacing the YRT 107 and 96. What would make sense is to extend the MiWay 4 to Kipling via West Mall instead of the 123 branch that goes that way; nix the TTC 49 and 50 and use MiWay 3 and 26 instead. That sort of thing, a route that runs a bit deeper into the city to hit a more major transfer point. And it won't matter whether the bus is painted in TTC colours or MiWay colours.

And before you respond - yes, I am aware this would be a change. However, my change would affect a very small number of routes, 2 of which are amongst the lower ridership routes in the TTC (49 and 50), and would be done to provide better interconnectivity between regions. You, on the other hand, are proposing to renumber 79 bus routes in the entirety of Mississauga, for no other reason than "Toronto already has bus routes with these numbers." So you tell me, which change would affect more people and bring more tangible (not feel good, looks-good-on-a-chart-or-map) benefits.

2) I don't understand why we would need to amalgamate the networks, instead of just enforcing a unified route numbering scheme. You don't need the TTC and MiWay to merge in order to create a system where you don't have competing route numbers.

There are no competing route numbers, except for the TTC and YRT 105 which inexplicably both run out of Downsview station on the exact same street. It would make sense to axe one of these and run full service on the other.

Toronto is one city. Mississauga is another. No matter how "integrated" the region allegedly is, they are still two separate cities. If a person who is a legal adult finds themselves on Hurontario Street, boarding the 17 Hurontario, it is reasonable to assume they are boarding it because they require the 17 Hurontario, and they are not going to lose their head when they get to the end of the line and find out that they are not at Warden station. Similarly, a person isn't going to get on the 21 Brimley bus at Kennedy station, assuming that they are going to end up in Milton, or on the 35 Jane bus at Jane station thinking this is actually MiWay's 35 Eglinton. This is straight up not how any rational adult makes decisions. Anyone who does this requires a guardian.

It would be nice if we stopped trying to solve imaginary problems like route numbering issues and instead focused on actual problems plaguing transit in the region.

 

[Wm Perkins Bull]

If that is the case, there is no need for MiWay to exist at all, right? Just give all the routes to the TTC. And then renumber them, causing confusion to tens of thousands of people in the process, because they all share numbers with pre-existing TTC services.

If there is to be a merger of transit agencies involving MiWay, it makes the most sense to have Mississauga annexed by Brampton Transit. This makes sense based on the enormous population flows between Brampton and Mississauga on a daily basis, and how their transit systems run. 30% of Brampton's residents work in Mississauga for example. With BT growing vastly faster than MiWay, it makes sense for BT to acquire MiWay and not the other way around. Brampton also has technical expertise acquired from building the Zum network, that would be incredibly useful in Mississauga. A joint Dixie Zum stretching from Countryside to Lakeshore for example would be about as long as the 511 Steeles. It would likely have incredibly high ridership that would justify immediately beginning plans for full BRT conversion.

 

[micheal_can]

"All of the TTC routes that go into Mississauga"? There's literally one, the 52 (if you count routes which demand extra fare - if not, you also have the 900 and 952, but since there is no extra fare requirement, this is irrelevant).

MiWay has a few more routes which do go into the city, but the problems that exist with those would far easier be solved with fare integration and a new agreement to allow buses of either transit agency to pick up riders in the city, and possibly rearranging a very small minority of routes like TTC 49 and 50. There is no need to merge the two transit agencies together. It is the nuclear option. It would be like burning your house down because you found a spider in your basement.

I should have said all routes that cross the border. It is semantics, but it is important. Imagine those routes were streamlined. So,if they all follow the same route, they would have one route number.

Fare integration is a great first step.towards rationalizing the routes that overlap.

A) In the normal world, a few routes may be reorganized at a time. How often does it occur that an entire network is renumbered in one fell swoop?

When YRT and DRT came into being it happened.

B) No one in this thread has provided any tangible benefits that would come from this. Because, of course, there are none. It is a foamer fantasy, nothing more. It would look good on a chart, and to have all buses in southern Ontario operating in the same colours. That is all.

I'd suggest you look at the before and after of YRT and DRT.

I don't know if we need to amalgamate all the transit systems, but surely they should have a unified way finding standard and fare scheme at the very least.

With the announcement of fare integration, it is one step forward with one of those. Using something like Google Maos makes the wayfinding easy.

I'm not against either of these things. I'm against renumbering all the routes.

So,seeing route 1 becoming route 101 or whatever is the problem?

It wouldn't be, because you'd still need to split many routes at the city borders anyway. Having very long through services would just be harmful. So what you would do is waste an insane amount of money on rebranding and restructuring the organization, but with very little benefits.

Let's take, for instance, Steeles Avenue. According to Google Maps it takes about an hour to travel from Finch station to Signal Hill Avenue on the TTC 60 bus; it takes a similar amount of time to travel from end to end on Brampton Transit's 11 Steeles. Under the theory of integrating the transit systems, you could say that these two routes should be one - but who exactly would that benefit? Who wants to ride 2 hours just to get to the subway, when far more value would be achieved by extending the TTC 60 west to Steeles and Finch (transfer to the Brampton 11/511) and extending the Brampton 11 south to that theoretical Woodbine GO station, for a much quicker connection downtown?

Rinse and repeat for many other border routes. You wouldn't run the TTC 32 all the way to the west end of Mississauga, or the TTC 29 to Major Mackenzie, or the TTC 41 all the way to Newmarket, replacing the YRT 107 and 96. What would make sense is to extend the MiWay 4 to Kipling via West Mall instead of the 123 branch that goes that way; nix the TTC 49 and 50 and use MiWay 3 and 26 instead. That sort of thing, a route that runs a bit deeper into the city to hit a more major transfer point. And it won't matter whether the bus is painted in TTC colours or MiWay colours.

And before you respond - yes, I am aware this would be a change. However, my change would affect a very small number of routes, 2 of which are amongst the lower ridership routes in the TTC (49 and 50), and would be done to provide better interconnectivity between regions. You, on the other hand, are proposing to renumber 79 bus routes in the entirety of Mississauga, for no other reason than "Toronto already has bus routes with these numbers." So you tell me, which change would affect more people and bring more tangible (not feel good, looks-good-on-a-chart-or-map) benefits.


There are no competing route numbers, except for the TTC and YRT 105 which inexplicably both run out of Downsview station on the exact same street. It would make sense to axe one of these and run full service on the other.

Toronto is one city. Mississauga is another. No matter how "integrated" the region allegedly is, they are still two separate cities. If a person who is a legal adult finds themselves on Hurontario Street, boarding the 17 Hurontario, it is reasonable to assume they are boarding it because they require the 17 Hurontario, and they are not going to lose their head when they get to the end of the line and find out that they are not at Warden station. Similarly, a person isn't going to get on the 21 Brimley bus at Kennedy station, assuming that they are going to end up in Milton, or on the 35 Jane bus at Jane station thinking this is actually MiWay's 35 Eglinton. This is straight up not how any rational adult makes decisions. Anyone who does this requires a guardian.

It would be nice if we stopped trying to solve imaginary problems like route numbering issues and instead focused on actual problems plaguing transit in the region.

Throughout the GTA there are various terminals. I'd imagine they would use those terminals as transfer points to avoid some extreme routes.

 

[DirectionNorth]

If we're not doing a full agency merger, I don't think a full renumbering passes the cost-benefit analysis. Simply not enough benefit, even if the cost is very low (compared to capital projects). Basically a waste of energy compared to even other wayfinding improvements we could roll out.

A full agency merger would make a renumbering make more sense. The energy spent on the renumbering goes down, and the benefits go up alongside other things (TTC standard of frequencies, including unreliability, in Mississauga, unified fares, combination of the far edges of routes into something that is more useful). Though if we're merging the GTA agencies, we'll probably need to divide the systems into chunks to manage such a large agency, and we would be back to square one (no pun intended) ...

I'm definitely very guilty of polluting this thread now, but could we/the mods perhaps expand the TTC Cartography, Signage, and Wayfinding thread to include other/all GTHA agencies?

 

[nfitz]

I mean they do technically share numbers, but I'm more referring to the branding. Nobody calls the 36 Finch West bus "Line 36", with a unique colour and circular logo.

No, though something like the 504 might be different.

It's funny thinking about it. Growing up in Montreal, you talked about bus routes as just the number. 105. 90. 104. But other than the streetcar routes, I don't see that much here. Heck, I'm on the Woodbine buses all the time, and I always seem to get 91 and 92 mixed up. And 924 and 925 too. Maybe it's just old age.

 

[Transportfan]

Remember when the City of Toronto was not as in area as it is today? Back then, there was a transit agency for all of the parts of the thing they called Metropolitan Toronto. This could become the future.

Metro was all under one municipal transit system. and Metro was for all intents and purposes a single city with a single regional downtown and a smooth growth continuum from said downtown.

 

[Transportfan]

It's starting to look like a real transit line. I was going to say streetcar but then people would have a conniption.

The Topflight Dr. non-revenue mixed traffic trackage resembles a streetcar line.

 

[drum118]

The Topflight Dr. non-revenue mixed traffic trackage resembles a streetcar line.

Brunhamthorpe will look the same when it gets built by June. It will be interesting to see how they stage the construction of it since they cannot do it like they did for Topflight.

Then there is the crossing of the southbound lanes at the 403. Sq One Dr and north of Englewood. Then there will be the crossing of the westbound lanes on Rathburn.

If ML gets its way on having full control of all transit systems in the GTA like they have wanted to since 2007, you will see the London UK model take place for routes names and numbers.

 

[Transportfan]

I was referring to the tracks on Topflight itself, not the wye. And are they going to start the loop this year already?

 

[T3G]

If ML gets its way on having full control of all transit systems in the GTA like they have wanted to since 2007, you will see the London UK model take place for routes names and numbers.

What model is that?

 

[drum118]

What model is that?

London UK setup. Various companies operate lines like the York Region and Atlantic City with only one system in place of the current ten systems.

 

[drum118]

March 03 (22)
Most of the 312 photos I shot that day are now are up on my site with the rest to follow shortly. Most of the photos were shot block by block as noted from Britannia Rd to the Hwy 407 terminal that show the state of the guideway.

March 15
The photos for this day will be up shortly and are of the two intersections seeing guideway being built across them.

March 22
Working on the photos have been on my backburner as well shooting the line, let alone other things

Since I will be in Pittsburgh next week, I decided to look at the line to the point I haven't missed much except for a few areas.

The east wall of the Port Credit Station is in various stages been built above the roof of the station and saw nothing else.
Englewood Intersection is in the process of having construction traffic lights installed.
Southbound traffic is using a northbound lane as the southbound lanes get widened as well move to the west south of Mineola to the traffic light.
Traps are on both sides of the new northbound underpass for the QEW to say concrete road and sidewalk being pour.
Work still taking place for the southbound curb lane from King St to south of the Queensway. This keeps pushing the building of the guideway down the road than the plan Jan 8 date.
Matthew Gates guideway completion date has been pushed to April 3 from March 28 considering the weather hasn't play any issues to delay it. Tracks are in place and waiting for forming and concrete to be poured.
Like Mathew Gates, Robert Speck Intersection will be completed on April 5, not March 28.
Looks like concrete has been finally poured for Matheson Station considering it been ready for a year.
The Hwy 401 overpass is seeing the deck repair before any trackwork can take place as well the expansion joints.
All the missing OS poles from Hwy 401 to Derry Rd have been installed to the point they all have brackets for the OS as well several tension systems in several place.
Derry Rd station is still unfinished, and I guess they are waiting until April to not only to finish it, but to start on the next one.
The biggest surprise was seeing trackwork in place from the crossover to Topflight including the guideway.
Support wires being strung from poles to poles for Topflight and Edwards Dr intersection.

Expansion Joint

 

[Allandale25]

Budget reference.

2024 Ontario Budget | Building a Better Ontario

2024 Ontario Budget: Building a Better Ontario

budget.ontario.ca

 

[Mercury]

I don't want to wade into the wider debate of system amalgamation, but on the topic of this being Line 10 and there possibly being a bus route number 10 that is confusable, I think that's basically a non-issue.

A train (be it heavy rail, light rail, streetcar, or subway) is easily distinguished from a bus (BRT, local, or long-distance) in speech and signage. Anyone giving directions is likely to say "take the 10 bus" or "take the line 10 train" as the case may be, and any printed matter or signage should make it clear whether any particular route is a train or a bus.

Personally, I like the historical wink to Highway 10. It doesn't need to be a the standard for all lines or routes, but it's a neat gesture where it works.