Toronto TTC may finally be with the rest of the world

I just read this post from BlogTO today about how the Toronto Transit Commission will be ordering new TTC subways and transforming their stations with a system that actually lights up and announces the current station and next station is in the subway cars. Some photos of this here courtesy of BlogTO:

LED lights in the subway car of the route you are taking:



Outside of the subway car:



Inside the new subway car:



Finally, the TTC is getting along with the times. After riding subways in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou, I'm so fascinated at the efficiency and promptness of these subway systems and wonder why Toronto can't do the same. A transit system is behind the life of a city, it is what makes the city thrive. As I am in Beijing now, I am impressed at how Beijing was able to get so many new subway lines installed and operating this year for the Olympics. The subway system in Beijing here is just great, it runs smoothly and it is a pleasure to use. When I always come back to Toronto, I really envy the subway system abroad and wish Toronto would have a system like that. Well, it looks like Toronto may finally have, and about time too!

On Technorati: Toronto Transit System

Finally the transit smart card comes to GTA!

It was about time! Hong Kong has a very successful system called the Octopus card where you can use it to swipe at any transportation system (subway, bus, tram, train, ferry). Toronto and GTA needs something like that. I've been wanting something like this for a long time, so I don't have to carry a monthly GO student pass and tokens for the subway. Well, it looks like they are trialling the "Presto" smart card fare system.

Unfortunately, they are first trying this out in Mississauga for those riders that originate their trip from Cooksville or Meadowville stations and take Mississauga Transit shuttle routes, or transfer to Toronto Transit Commission vehicles outbound at Union Station. Apparently, it will come to Oakville in late 2008. I would love to try it now, I've been an avid supporter of having a smart card fare system for a long while. Toronto and the GTA needs to be more modernized and technologically competent. Otherwise, we risk losing our competitiveness to other cities.

Another thing that Toronto and the GTA needs is a good transit web site that tells you if you're starting from your origin and you want to go to your destination, what transit routes you need to take. San Francisco and the Bay area has the 511 system, and when I was there last summer, I loved it! It told me which route to take and what time the bus or train would come so I could plan my trip. Extremely useful and something really needed in the GTA.

On Technorati: GTA, Toronto transit

Toronto Transit Camp

When bloggers, geeks, technologists come together for a good cause to use their technical knowhow and social networking technologies to spread the word, important issues get noticed. Enter Toronto Transit Camp, which is an unconference similar to BarCamp organized by some of the TorCamp people. These people had their first meeting on how to improve Toronto public transit at the Gladstone Hotel yesterday. They're going to take all that was discussed from the meeting yesterday, along with comments on the website and Google group newsgroup, and provide a report of recommendations to give to the TTC. Apparently, TTC chair, Adam Giambrone (the youngest ever TTC chair, he's like only 29!) was there yesterday along with some other politicians.

It's great to hear that the tech community is really helping out on this, and shows how social networking technologies like wikis and blogs are really making the issues become noticed to everyone. In fact, news of the Toronto Transit Camp have made international waves too at BoingBoing, where famous Cory Doctorow is a part of (he's Canadian eh, and also a regular speaker on TWIT, This Week in Tech hosted by Leo Laporte).

It'll be interesting to see what happens from Toronto Transit Camp, and if we can get make Toronto a world class city with first class transportation (similar to other transit systems like Hong Kong and Japan). I would really like to see a single smart card for the TTC and for GO Transit, similar to the Octopus card that can be used for the tram, MTR subway, bus, ferry in Hong Kong.

On Technorati: TTC, Toronto Transit Camp, TorCamp