End of the Jog

The project to eliminate the Dufferin Jog is nearing completion. National Post juts ran a map of what the area should look like in a few years:

Looking south on Dufferin from Peel:

There are other improvements ongoing in the area:

• Sudbury Street Extension (PDF)
• Peel-Gladstone Reconstruction (PDF)

Opportunities to add optimal turnarounds to TTC streetcar network

TTC just released a report on what turnarounds can be added to the streetcar network to help route around accidents and other obstacles.

These short pieces of track will be built 2015-2018 as part of regular maintenance:

• Curve from Northbound Bathurst to Westbound College
• Curve from Eastbound College to Southbound Bathurst
• Curve from Westbound Carlton to Southbound Church
• Curve from Eastbound King to Northbound York
• Curve from Northbound Broadview to Westbound Gerard

These are not being pursued at this time

• Full T at Ossington/College and Ossington/Dundas
• New track on Ossington from Dundas to Queen
• New track on Jones from Gerard to Queen
• Loop at Broadview/Queen
• New track on Dufferin from Dundas to Queen

Adding track to Dufferin is an intriguing idea made possible by the ongoing construction of the new Dufferin underpass at Queen. The underpass at long last eliminates the Dufferin jog and is designed to be streetcar-ready. Should it be built, it could be a prelude to an eventual streetcar route on Dufferin south of Bloor. Unfortunately, this is not something being pursued at this time.

Resources

• Optimal Turnaround PDF (July 14, 2010)

Photogenicity of Toronto

Map of Toronto by concentration of geotagged photos. This is pretty clearly correlated with concentration of pedestrians, cafes, and parks.

I like living in the photogenic bits of the city.:-)

Found via Toronto Star Map of the Week. Source has other cities.

Metrolinx strategy for building Transit City and Viva

PDF | On Track: Moving Transit Forward in the GTHA

J. Robert S. Prichard, President and Chief Executive Officer, Metrolinx
Presentation to Toronto Board of Trade
May 17, 2010

I'm excerpting slides 8, 9, 22, 23, and 26 as the most interesting.

Basically, the Province of Ontario announced $9 billion in funding for transit expansion in 2009. This year, they cut/postponed $4 billion from that amount. As a result, Metrolinx, the provincial agency responsible for scheduling and planning the transit expansion has turned the original 8 year plan into a staged 10 year plan with some things deferred for a more distant future. The above slides explain the current staging.

The Aquatic Centre mentioned on slide 22 will be built for the PanAm Games at UofT Scarborough Campus. Being an alumnus of UTSC myself, I'd love to see a branch of Sheppard LRT (or even Scarborough LRT) go there in the near future.

Source: Transit Toronto