[Jonny5]

Small improvement to St. George station. Last week the sandblasted signs on the platform wall (not the wall you face when you wait) got a fresh coat of green paint. And the signs on the strapline got a fresh coat of white paint. I noticed this when they had put "wet Paint" signs around each sign.

A minor but nice improvement!

The long missing station name signs at St. Patrick have been replaced.
However, instead of the original metal signs mounted on the wall, the new "signs" are just stuck directly on the wall, like they do with some advertisements. All the imperfections and gaps in the wall panels show right through. It looks worse and cheaper than the advertising ones they stick up.

 

[Eug]

There are two open houses about the Scarborough Rapid Transit conversion and the Kennedy Station improvements.

-March 8/2010
6:30-9:00 pm
Jean Vanier Catholic Secondary School (Cafeteria)
959 Midland Ave. (North of Eglinton)

-March 11/2010
6:30-9:00 pm
Chinese Cultural Centre
5183 Sheppard Ave. East (at Progress Ave.)

I am going to try and make it to one of these open houses, Kennedy Station is finally going get a major overhaul with all the LRT routes planned for the Station and the Subway, I imagine with the LRT routes there that the station will still have many TTC buses serving it as well. I look forward to the infomation packages I always pick up at these open houses. I wonder if the GO station is going to get a treatment there as well, that is under Metrolinx's umbrella, hopefully that group is at this Open House.

Please post an update after the meeting. Hopefully they'll post plans online sooner rather than later.

Here is Transit Toronto's post about it.

http://transit.toronto.on.ca/archives/weblog/2010/03/01-converting.shtml

 

[APTA-2048]

The long missing station name signs at St. Patrick have been replaced.
However, instead of the original metal signs mounted on the wall, the new "signs" are just stuck directly on the wall, like they do with some advertisements. All the imperfections and gaps in the wall panels show right through. It looks worse and cheaper than the advertising ones they stick up.

Snapped a photo of the stickers at St. Patrick (see photo). I think it looks alright- better than the peeling paint. Though I wonder just how long the stickers last before they start peeling.

 

[Jay11]

I'm currently writing an article comparing our beloved TTC with other public transportation system around the world. I truly believe TTC is among the worst in the list. When I first came to Toronto, I couldn't see much difference with others in terms of qualilty and service. But as I travelled a lot for the past few years, most of them evolved and now it looks pretty nice. (link) but TTC remained the same. well maybe some change in quality but definitely not service.

I went to a washroom at Sheppard station and almost puked even before going in. Whereas a washroom in Tokyo, you could even smell roses.

 

[Cranky Old Fart]

Finch needs a major overhaul of its mezzanine level plus it badly needs to have some entrances added to the south side of Finch.

Finch Station could also do with a more direct connection from the TTC Bus Platforms to the YRT/Viva/Go Transit Bus Terminal directly across the street.

Any day of the week you can witness people getting-off TTC buses and exiting the Bus Platform (@their own peril) & crossing the street to the Regional Bus Terminal (a mere 100-200 m away) foregoing the patron unfriendly jaunt down a two flights of stairs, through the turnstiles, through a corridor underneath Yonge Street, then backup another flight of stairs finally reaching the Regional Bus Terminal !

 

[Cranky Old Fart]

Wow 12 pages & no mention of the Horrorshow that is Eglinton Station. This station is an out & out mess everything from the lack of maintenance, the lighting, the dingy gray tiling (what's left of it), & the lack of any development whatsoever for what over a decade since they mothballed the former bus bays in favour of converting the old bus garage to bus platforms.

What is it with the TTC's complete & utter inability to make any headway in the area of the commercial development of any of it's properties & air rights above those properties (oh so close with Islington then failed) ???????

The Bus Platforms @ Finch Station, the Bus Platforms @ Sheppard, the parking lot on the North/West Corner & the South/East Entrance of York Mills Station, the entrance of Lawrence Station, the Bus Platforms @ Eglinton, the vast maintenance yards @ Davisville, & the air above the tracks & Station of Rosedale Station all seem prime development targets in my mind !

 

[Jay11]

Exactly. TTC should focus on quality, not quantity

 

[GTS]

I went to one of the Open Houses about Scarborough Rapid Transit and Kennedy Station Improvements and they didn't have a lot of literature but their is the website with the link:

www.toronto.ca/transitcity and follow the link Extension of the Scarborough Rapid Transit & Kennedy Station Imporvements

At the open house they had a lot of boards up for us to view and the Kennedy Station improvements are pretty major. Their were a quite a few boards up about Kennedy Stations improvements and this station will be getting quite the treatment. There was one board that showed a cutaway view of what is planned for Kennedy Station and it showed the SRT which would be converted to LRT hook up to Kennedy Station at the concourse level which is one level below the buses and one above the subway. It also showed the future Scarborugh East LRT hook up to Kennedy Station at the Subway level and they showed the Eglinton Crosstown LRT hooking up to Kennedy Station at the subway level as well. This would leave only buses at the surface, the SRT replacement one level below then the Subway and two LRT at the present subway platform level.

If you want regular updates on the construction progress you can contact the Community Liaison Officer via e-mail at lito.romano@ttc.ca.

 

[leopetr]

I went to one of the Open Houses about Scarborough Rapid Transit and Kennedy Station Improvements and they didn't have a lot of literature but their is the website with the link:

www.toronto.ca/transitcity and follow the link Extension of the Scarborough Rapid Transit & Kennedy Station Imporvements

At the open house they had a lot of boards up for us to view and the Kennedy Station improvements are pretty major. Their were a quite a few boards up about Kennedy Stations improvements and this station will be getting quite the treatment. There was one board that showed a cutaway view of what is planned for Kennedy Station and it showed the SRT which would be converted to LRT hook up to Kennedy Station at the concourse level which is one level below the buses and one above the subway. It also showed the future Scarborugh East LRT hook up to Kennedy Station at the Subway level and they showed the Eglinton Crosstown LRT hooking up to Kennedy Station at the subway level as well. This would leave only buses at the surface, the SRT replacement one level below then the Subway and two LRT at the present subway platform level.

If you want regular updates on the construction progress you can contact the Community Liaison Officer via e-mail at lito.romano@ttc.ca.

It's a pretty good redesign. For convenience, here are the relevant panels:

 

[The Mad Navigator]

It's a pretty good redesign. For convenience, here are the relevant panels:

I think this redesign makes a lot of sense. Seems pretty compact too fitting the additional 2 lines.

 

[whatever]

It seems inefficient. So everyone coming off of the SM line needs to go up a set of stairs and then back down. Not only is it a lot of stairs, but it's going to have all of those people dumping onto the east end of the subway platform. It makes more sense to me to have the EC line on the concourse level (along with the SRT platform), and then have the SM platform pull onto subway-level tracks flanking the existing subway tracks, with new platforms in between:

| XXXXX| | XXXXX| | XXXXX| | XXXXX|
SM Track Platform BD Track Platform BD Track Platform SM Track
| XXXXX| | XXXXX| | XXXXX| | XXXXX|

This strikes me as a better solution because I'd anticipate SM/BD transfers to be the most common transfer at the station, and with this setup you could have same platform connections (of course you could also put in stairwells so that people on the far south platform could get to the middle platform if that's where the train is. Tho with halfway decent switching I'm sure the TTC manage to have the LRT and subway serving the same platforms at the same time.

 

[leopetr]

Scarborough-Malvern (misnomer, as it's not going to Malvern) is unfortunately not funded yet.

Why do you think SM will have higher ridership than the existing SRT?

I went to UTSC myself and I'd love for them to finally build a rapid transit line to it, but I honestly don't see Scarborough-Malvern outpacing the SRT in ridership in the near term. After all, SRT has been in place for years and so has a long head start in terms of development.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

It seems inefficient. So everyone coming off of the SM line needs to go up a set of stairs and then back down. Not only is it a lot of stairs, but it's going to have all of those people dumping onto the east end of the subway platform. It makes more sense to me to have the EC line on the concourse level (along with the SRT platform), and then have the SM platform pull onto subway-level tracks flanking the existing subway tracks, with new platforms in between:

| XXXXX| | XXXXX| | XXXXX| | XXXXX|
SM Track Platform BD Track Platform BD Track Platform SM Track
| XXXXX| | XXXXX| | XXXXX| | XXXXX|

This strikes me as a better solution because I'd anticipate SM/BD transfers to be the most common transfer at the station, and with this setup you could have same platform connections (of course you could also put in stairwells so that people on the far south platform could get to the middle platform if that's where the train is. Tho with halfway decent switching I'm sure the TTC manage to have the LRT and subway serving the same platforms at the same time.

+1 Why is the SM station so far away from the SRT and EC stations? If all three lines are going to use the same vehicles (SRT will be LRV not subway right?) then they should all arrive at a common multi platform station.

 

[junctionist]

I wonder what kind of investment in aesthetics we'll see at Kennedy Station, the third busiest station in the system.

 

[GTS]

I see from the track layout that the future SRT(LRT) is going to have a loop. I prefer the upgrade they had planned for the SRT where the future SRT would enter into Kennedy Station at the concourse level and their was going to be a center platform where two SRT (now LRT) cars could be waiting to load up. The plans included a tunnel at the end of the center platforms which would lead to the concourse level of the existing Kennedy Station where passengers could go down one level to the subway or up one level to the buses. This design seemed the most efficient and able to move the most people compared to an expensive loop being constructed below grade. I think the washrooms at Kennedy Station would have had to be moved under these old plans.

I am sure if the future Scarborough Malvern LRT ever gets funding that it could hook up to Station at the subway platform level so it wouldn' conflict with the SRT(LRT) tracks. The Eglinton Crosstown could hook up to Kennedy Station at the other end of the concourse level so their would be no conflict with the SRT track and passenger flow.

I am glad they are making this station easier to transfer. I email my suggestions to Lito.Romano@ttc.ca. Lito Romano is the Community Liaison Officer for the TTC and has already replied to one of my email about Ellesmere Station.