JackTatt 🇨🇦
MASc. Candidate
@CivMin
researching public transport fare and service integration
@TAL_UofT
. Like trains and buses and trams and people. Urban Transit Planning.
- My @thestar.com column: Many of the TTC’s 23 parking lots are money sucks, collectively losing about $5 million last year. And only 2% of subway riders use the lots. The TTC Board is considering changes to the parking program today, but they don’t go far enough. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
- Not all the lots can be used for much else because of overhead Hydro One high voltage power lines (and their crazy fear of anything in their Hydro corridors).
- Taking the whole ROAD ✔️ Distracted (singing) ✔️ No helmets ✔️ No lights ✔️ No reflective vests ✔️ Riding in a pack ✔️ Textbook radical anti-car cyclists.
- So you are hating on the Von Trapps!?
- Also spoken about publicly for the first time yesterday: MX has been cornered into a “better” solution. EMUs running fully electric on the lakeshores using the new south platforms at Union (where there is no trainshed). Then hybrid BEMUs for discontinuous electrification on Kitchener-Stouffville.
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View full threadNOW is the time for advocacy to make this a POLITICAL ISSUE! Tell the federal government to get out of the way of GO Expansion! Metrolinx needs our help to make the most out of the government’s $33B+ investment. cc: @moretransitso.bsky.social @ttcriders.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/jack...
- @mark-carney.bsky.social @chrystia-freeland.bsky.social We need to invest in our nation’s infrastructure which means we can’t be kneecapping and shooting ourselves in the foot with ongoing projects. Wave Canadian heritage rules on Union Station so Metrolinx can easily raise it for electrification.
- Amazingly the absolutely horrific "heritage" trainshed at Toronto Union is apparently causing loads of problems for electrification. I assume instead of fixing this or removing this Metrolinx is going to tell the public we need a tunnel.
- If it’s clearance, this seems like a really straightforward problem to fix? Manufacture a few hundred 1-2’ steel girders, attach them to the existing track level column bases, detach the existing steel columns from the bases, lift the whole shed 1-2’ and bolt the old columns to the extensions?
- I think that solution is being considered but the heritage mafia freaks out by it or it has complexity with doing in stages (so that trains can use other parts of the station while work is ongoing)
- [Not loaded yet]
- I wonder if the federal commitment to HSR and it also being electric will get the feds involved to strongarm wires in (it’s easier to ignore a provincial project and be like you want to do this, figure it out MX).
- Clearly the correct solution here is to rip out the useless, ugly, 1900s ass, bad for ops, “heritage” trainshed; replace it and electrify with OCS. The fact that “municipal heritage” overrides the most important infrastructure project in the country is a MASSIVE indictment of our planning process.
- It’s a federal heritage site. The federal government is the problem I believe. Maybe with Alto and the threats to our economy south of the border, Carney and Freeland will order the heritage minister to take a massive chill pill and accept the removal of the trainshed or at least raising it.
- Hey people who are EU citizens, please sign this petition to ban conversion therapy EU wide. It's a practice that's very harmful towards LGBTQ+ people. It's already banned in some countries but we need a EU wide ban! eci.ec.europa.eu/043/public/#... #europe #lgbtq #germany
- Canada has. Hope to it EU!
- Now ViaRail goes through the line of boarding people with a scale to weigh people's luggage. When you think it can't get any dumber.
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View full threadNot sure if this was meant as a joke but one time I've had Via staff perform pretty much exactly this safety demonstration at Niagare Falls, ON
- It was meant as a joke but I’m not surprised.
- “In the case of a water derailment your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device”
- “On all train trips over 4 hours, federal regulations require we remind you of the location of the emergency exits. There are doors at both ends of each coach and two windows equally spaced the length of the train can be opened in an emergency by following the instructions on the door.”
- There is a future timeline out there where Canada finally gets high-speed rail, but people are still forced to queue up for boarding, have to follow airplane-like luggage rules and are asked to show up 50 minutes before departure at the station. And this is the optimistic scenario.
- There a good reason why Via Rail will NOT operate Alto but SNCF Keolis and CDPQ.
