Transit Toronto

On the last Saturday of every month since February, 2006, historian Derek Boles, working with Toronto Terminal Railways staff and volunteers from the Toronto Railway Historical Association, including Transit Toronto’s Richard White, guides visitors on tours of Union Station. The “Union Station Experience” tours are about 2 hours and 15 minutes long.

This month’s tour takes place on Saturday, March 27 at 11 a.m. The cost is $10 for each person attending the tour. You don’t need a reservation. Meet by the Traveler’s Aid counter in the centre of the Great Hall at 10:50 a.m.

Next Saturday, March 27 at 10 a.m., TTC staff are offering visitors a rare opportunity to look inside the Greenwood Shop, one of the TTC’s two heavy-repair and overhaul facilities for subway cars. The shop covers about 190,000 square feet (17,600 square metres) and almost 200 employees work on overhauling vehicles and rebuilding components to support the fleet of subway vehicles and workcars.

We originally intended this post to encourage people to join the tour. Unfortunately, the tour is already sold out, so this post is simply to remind those of you who have booked the tour that it’s just one week away.

The TTC has also scheduled more tours of the Greenwood Shop and of other TTC facilities this year, including lower Bay Station, Mount Dennis Bus Garage, Harvey Shops and the TTC Operations Training Centre. The next tours of Greenwood Shop takes place at 10 a.m. on Saturday, July 24.

You can find out more about the tours here.

TTC staff are repairing the streetcar tracks on Queen Street East at Carlaw Avenue and in the Neville Loop this weekend. Work will start at 6 a.m. on Saturday, March 20, and finish by the beginning of service at 5 a.m., Monday, March 22.

As a result, 501/301 Queen streetcars do not operate between Neville Loop and the Queen Street East at River Street. Shuttle buses will operate in both directions.

For three weekends, from Saturday, March 20 until Saturday, April 10, GO Transit is continuing its project to improve the platform and tunnel at Port Credit GO Station.

GO is closing the platform serving track 3 at the station from 7 a.m. Saturday until 5 p.m. Sunday. Trains only use tracks 1 and 2 during this time.

Please listen for information about which platform you should use and be careful around the station during the construction.

Officials at GO and York Region Transit have announced a plan that will keep GO’s Newmarket B bus service operating between Newmarket and York Mills subway station — for a couple more months, at least. The service which was to be cancelled on April 3rd will operate until June 25th instead.

The following Monday, VIVA will add five express buses to its Blue route, skipping key stops, including Richmond Hill Centre, to make the run between Newmarket and Finch subway station in an hour — a time comparable to the GO service.

The Toronto Star has further details on this development, including quotes by GO and YRT officials. It is also reported that York Region Transit is considering ways of handling the Newmarket-York University service, which is still due to be cancelled at the end of April.

For two weeks, starting next week, the City of Guelph is closing

• Suffolk Street East between Norfolk and Woolwich Street

for a construction project. (The City has not specified why it is closing Suffolk East, although the closure likely relates to the upcoming project to rebuild Norfolk Street between Quebec and Woolwich / Norwich Streets.)

Guelph Transit is detouring buses during the project.

Starting Wednesday, March 17, the Region of Niagara and the City of Thorold are closing

• Collier Road between Rose Avenue and Richmond Street

for a project to rebuild the roadway.

The St. Catharines Transit Commission is detouring buses during the project.

On Thursday, March 17, 1960, five immigrant Italian construction workers lost their lives underground while helping to build a new watermain in suburban north Toronto.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, March 17, 2010, Laurie Swim, “one of Canada’s most esteemed artists”, City of Toronto and TTC officials, members of the Laborers International Union of North America (LiUNA)’s Local 183, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU)’s Local 113 and the Central Ontario Building Trades will unveil a permanent art installation in York Mills Station to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the tragedy.

Although the men did not die while helping to build the subway, York Mills Station is the perfect permanent home for piece. The subway station sits in Hogg’s Hollow, a few meters from the site of the accident, which trapped the men 35 feet underground in a cramped, dimly lit tunnel, beneath the west branch of the Don River. Their deaths sparked a public outcry over the lack of safety standards in construction. Ultimately, that led to better conditions for men and women working in hazardous construction sites.

A new express route between Square One and the airport area is the highlight when Mississauga Transit revises its routes and services, starting Monday, March 22.

MT is also renaming and renumbering several routes so that route names and numbers are consistent throughout the network of routes.

Almost everyone who rides GO Transit buses or trains should carefully check their schedules, before setting out to the station or bus stop, starting Saturday, April 3.

The Toronto Star reports that, for the first time in 40 years, GO is revising all of its schedules to better reflect real trip times and to respond to an increasing number or riders. GO is adjusting the times of about 40 train trips by one to eight minutes — three minutes on average.

GO’s ridership has grown from about 36 million passengers in 1998 to about 55 million each year. More riders means trains have to stop longer as passengers board and exit. GO is also operating longer, 12-car trains on the Milton route and expects to operate 12-car trains on half of the Lakeshore trains later this fall, after it finishes its project to build a third set of tracks along the lines. Longer trains mean more people getting on and off the trains and that means trains need more time at each station.