About 100 protestors, some of them dressed as sardines, rode the subway from Queen’s Park to Transportation Minister Glen Murray’s Parliament Street constituency office Friday to present him with TTCriders’ first annual Sardine Award.
As the city begins to emerge from winter’s fierce grasp, the merits of making buses and streetcars free on the TTC’s overnight Blue Line service during Cold Alerts seem especially clear.
City services provided during Cold Alerts to those who are homeless reflect a vision of Toronto as a caring community: Warming Centres, street outreach to bring more people into city shelters, and health care for those who get frostbite and hypothermia. It only makes sense for the city to also provide free transit at night to make it much easier for those on the street to get to a warm place to sleep.
The new more accessible longer more reliable street cars are great, but did you know there will be less street cars overall on downtown lines once these new street cars are up and running? That means we'll be waiting even longer for our ride.
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Jane-Finch residents have a lot to say about the transit needs in their communities[/caption]
Last month TTCriders, the United Way Jane-Finch Action for Neighbourhood Change committee and the Toronto Environmental Alliance met at the North York Civic Centre to discuss how residents of Jane and Finch and surrounding neighbourhoods feel about public transit. We decided that the best way to engage Jane and Finch residents was to host an information session to explain a little bit about the history around public transit in Toronto and how it relates to present and future transit service. Our goal was to use this information session as a starting point to have a dialogue with the community about what we as citizens can do to shape the future of public transit in Toronto.
TTCriders will be hosting an information session next Friday March 14th from 10:00am-noon at Brookview Middleschool 4505 Jane St. north of Jane and Finch.
There will be a presentation and discussion period followed by more fun activities. You guessed it: bring your whole family as there will be colouring books for the kids!
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Join TTCriders and friends at 12.00pm on Friday March 28 as we deliver the TTC Sardines Award to a yet-t0-be-announced elected official who has failed to fix public transit.
Guest host Piya Chattopadhyay spoke with TTC Riders' co-chair Jessica Bell about the group's new TTC Sardines photo contest on Monday February 27. Listen to the interview.
This was published on Feb. 26 in Inside Toronto. Thanks Rahul Gupta.
With TTC congestion worsening, transit riders might be forgiven if they’re feeling like a bunch of sardines these days as they attempt to squeeze onto already-packed subway trains, streetcars and buses.
Brenda Thompson is a member of TTCriders and Scarborough Transit Action.
Privatizing TTC is not the answer, Letter Feb. 24
There has been a lot of discussion in the Star about the pros and cons of privatizing the TTC as if it is something we might decide to do in the future. In reality, the selling off of our public transit system has already begun.
The letter to the editor is outlined below. Read the letter to the editor on the Toronto Star's website.
Re: Privatization is looking like the Better Way, Feb. 14
Privatization is looking like the Better Way, Feb. 14
