My favorite TTC station is probably Museum and it's because of the columns. The columns were designed by Diamond and Schmitt Architects and constructed by Jeviso Construction Corporation as part of renovations to the station's platform level in April 2008. You have Forbidden City columns, Parthenon columns, Osiris columns, Toltec columns, and even Pacific Northwest-style columns, and they're just so chef's kiss! The name of that viaduct after Castle Frank on Line 2 is the Prince Edward Viaduct and it opened in October 1918. It's a three hinged concrete-steel arch bridge with a total span of 494 m/1,620 feet, at 40 m/131 feet above the Don River (named after the River Don in Yorkshire). Its lower deck was futureproofed to include rail. Its upper deck once had streetcars! It was controversial at the time to have a lower deck for rail because of the high cost, but the designer Edmund W. Burke (who also designed many churches in Toronto) and the commissioner of public works at the time RC Harris were able to have their way and the lower deck eventually proved to save millions of dollars when the Bloor-Danforth subway opened in 1966. It was named after the then Prince Edward, Prince of Wales who would become King Edward VIII in January 1936. His reign ended up being one of the shortest in British history as it only lasted until December of that year.
@@MilesinTransitit’s a cool design at the station but surprisingly it’s one of the least used stations, only about 10,000 people use it everyday (2019)
@@MilesinTransit The former least used station on the entire TTC was Ellesmere on Line 3, now its Downsview Park on Line 1, 2000 people used Ellesmere everyday but now that line 3s gone, its downsview park, 3000 people use D. Park everyday. The least used station in the entirety of toronto is the York University GO Station, 225 people use it everyday, it was basically replaced by the York University station on Line 1.
More Toronto content! I hope you come back to Toronto when the Finch and Eglinton LRTs open. Another fun fact: Most of the stations on line 2 have a twin on the other side of the line with the same tile pattern. That tile pattern you like at Warden is also present at Islington.
Castle Frank was a concession of land in the colonial town of York, purchased by John Graves Simcoe in the name of his son, Francis, in 1793. Funny you questioned if it was a real person's voice doing the announcements, because while it is a real person's voice on the T series, on the newer trains, it's NOT! All of the "Next stop" and "The next station is…" announcements were once recorded by Cheryl Bomé (for bus and streetcar) and Sue Bigioni (for subway), but that changed as the Rocket trains have a built-in computer-generated voice. It also makes sense as it's easier to do a robot voice whenever a new station opened. When it comes to the door chimes, I'm Team Neither, because the New Mexico Rail Runner has the best chime BY FAR as the door closing sound is the Road Runner from the Wile E Coyote cartoons! The handwriting you saw at Leslie is called Ampersand. It was created by Micah Lexier and consists of 17,000 ceramic tiles each with a printed ampersand and above and below it the words "Sheppard" and "Leslie", based on 3,400 different pieces of handwriting from the community collected in 1997. According to the artist's statement posted in the station, this piece of artwork "acknowledges the duality of being both an individual and part of a larger community".
Dufferin station is named for the third Canadian Governor General, Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood or Lord Dufferin. The tiles at Dufferin station are like that because it's part of a piece called Something Happens Here by Eduardo Aquino and Karen Shanksi. What they did was they engaged the entire wall surface of the existing architecture by programming the ceramic glazed brick system with images from neighborhood celebrations and culture. It's a cool concept, though my favorite subway tile job remains 81st Street-Museum of Natural History because of how much it embraces the museum with replicating the ocean or Earth's strata! Though I like that Don Mills station does the strata and fossils too. My all-time favorite subway chime will always be the iconic NYC Subway one, but I love how Montreal matched the door closing sound to the starting motor traction sounds. So I'm Team Montreal! Also, Toronto has the same chime as the Detroit People Mover. The seating arrangement is similar to the R46! Used to take the R46 a lot on the R as growing up, my mom would take me on the R to Forest Hills and Queens Center mall in Elmhurst a lot because she briefly lived in the area before I was born. Crossing Queens Blvd from Woodhaven Blvd station to Queens Center can be quite dangerous though...right up there with Philly's Roosevelt Boulevard.
I was planning to do this myself, but then the derailment of Line 3 happened. Really wanted them to restore service to the SRT before the planned shutdown in November, but sadly that wasn't to be. Unfortunately, when Line 5 (the Eglinton Crosstown) opens that'll make riding the whole thing quickly far more difficult. Pretty sure it would involve going out from Sheppard/Yonge to Don Mills and then right back.
Considering that the yard for Line 2 is between Donlands and Greenwood, I'm surprised that the crew relief point is at Coxwell. Side note.... Warden Station is about to undergo a total rebuilding in order to make it accessible (subway platforms and bus bays). Union station... where both directions are northbound....
Honey wake up! another fastest rider alive video just dropped! But seriously I love this serious, possibly even more than the least used amtrak series, and Toronto is a great city to do for this one. I’ve also found the Toronto subway so strange, with the layout, short distances between stations, short station names, and the different rolling stock on every line (except the 4 which is the same as the 1). Not to start a fight, but I personally like the Montreal Metro’s door chime better, I just love how it comes from the acceleration sound. Speaking of that, the line 2 deceleration and acceleration noise is really weird, and I would love to know why it’s like that.
Ah a full run of riding the rocket! I always wanted to do this when I lived in TO but all my friends thought it was silly. I may have found all of my saved TTC passes over the years with my income taxes since you had to keep them in case being audited by Revenue Canada a few years ago and saved a few of the coolest ones. Thanks for the nostalgia of my old home station of Jane heading to Spadina. Five years of making sure I was on the eastbound platform by 7:40am to make sure I could get a door well for my commute since seats were already not an option by that point. The beauty of it was by getting off at Spadina, I didn't face the standing in the door paradox when it would switch to the left side at St. George. I absolutely love the TTC font and realized there was an actual pattern to the main tile and contrasting tiles on the Bloor-Danforth line, with a few oddities mixed in and the mismatched accent tile in Christie. I was happy when Dufferin was renovated but sad that it meant it lost the original tile. I'm not 100% sure, but Main Street likely is referring to East York's Main Street, and before the amalgamation of Toronto (Toronto, Etobicoke, York, North York, East York and Scarborough). Back when I first moved to TO, the Bloor-Danforth line was still running older subway cars with wood paneling and orange vinyl seats - they were my personal favorites but were retired from service after having a long and successful run. The lower level Bay subway station is neat having seen it for an art instillation during Nuit Blanche. Lastly, the GO trains also have the same doors closing chime making it not only a TTC subway thing but GO train thing as well.
The TR trains are still very new, considering the T1s have been around for 20-25+ years at this point, and the trains the TRs replaced are from the 70s and 80s
As a life long New Yorker, getting off the airport rocket in 2007 and onto the TTC at Kipling and seeing padded seats was weird. (Then again my first time on the London Underground seeing armrests between the seats was even weirder, “Personal space, WHAT!”) Edit: line 3 loud, BART in the tunnel sections LOUDER.
Not anymore. BART switched to a new wheel profile and new trains with good soundproofing. They've also started using some super weird new track lubricant that frankly smells like what I imagine a reasonably radioactive dead skunk on fire smells like. But it's made the noise basically completely go away. It's kind of magical to see BART be so quiet. Truly uncanny.
Great job dude! New subscriber here. We have nice stations but not as aesthetic as the STM but overall as a local I love them. A few things to note, Bay is the one that has the abandoned station platform once used for interlining (just to confirm). North York Centre may look different as it was added as an infill station between Sheppard and Finch in 1987. Line 4 is indeed the "newest" subway line in the system, even though it was completed nearly 21 years ago. This video was very well done, hope you can come back for the respective openings of Lines 5 and 6!
The secret to a better time is to do it in the reverse order! For whatever reason, the trains pulling into the north west corner of line 1 sit for longer than at any of the other terminals, however, pulling out is very direct and with no stalls.
@@MilesinTransit they do wait around a bit getting into Kipling, but not nearly as much. Thank you for paying attention to Canada as much as you do! Americans frequently know about as much about Canada as they know about Botswana.
Very fun video! I went to Toronto a few years ago and rode the line that goes into downtown (1 I believe). I watch a lot of videos about the TTC, but I wish I got to ride it more when I visited, or try the streetcar as my city doesn't have one. Still waiting for you to come to Vancouver and challenge Reece (or another person's) speedrun on our Skytrain! Never have experienced a backlog like you did in this video as Vancouver's system is automated. Trains are always on time and very frequent due to that as well!
At 12:21, that weird stretch on Yonge Street was decked over. That's why it looks strange, since it's still the original landscape (it's said that if you look hard enough, you can still see the trunks of the trees and bases of lampposts from where they were cut to make way for the decked roof). The decked over parts were redeveloped into housing and commercial places. So what you saw is the old surface route that was built in a trench, like the rest of Yonge Street between Rosedale and Eglinton :)
When I last commuted by subway (2019) there was a tree growing in the "tunnel" on the east side of the tracks just north of Summerhill station, surviving just on the lamps.
Not only that, but Montreal's chime comes from the MR-73 stock's current choppers hum. Which itself is allegedly from the first 3 notes of "Fanfare for the common man", which was the theme of the Montreal Universal Expo, which is why the metro got built.
For the billions they spent on the Line 1 extension, they should have created a 3rd track at the last stop, a side or pocket track to avoid these delays at the end of the line.
Sorry you lost Miles. 😦 I'm quite astounded that Canada's most populous city has such a small subway system that it can be completed in 3.5 hours or less. Contrast that to Washington Metro, which took me 8:20 to complete when I set the speed record in July.
@@MilesinTransit Amazing! Guessing that's because Toronto is a much denser city, with lots of residential skyscrapers -- something that by law doesn't exist in Washington. Also the Toronto subway covers a smaller core area, whereas WMATA has really long lines into the suburbs that basically function like commuter rail. So many Washington Metro track miles and stations are in transit unfriendly burbs.
@@MilesinTransit That's because the DC Metro and BART are not real subways. They're more similar to S-bahns with much sparser station spacings and 2x subway speeds. WMATA tried to make their system more like a traditional subway/metro in recent decades, but it's still an S-bahn-like thing under the hood.
Something about the line 3 service alert makes me chuckle. It says "No service between Kennedy and McCowan due to being permanently closed. Shuttle buses are running between Kennedy and McCowan."
I guess for trains not bunching up at the end of the line you would need a turning loop or some other way to not have trains crossing the tracks the next train will use, so a flyover of sorts. But I don't know what the track layout currently is, and putting extra infrastructure at the terminal doesn't make a lot of sense if you may want to extend it later.
I've never tried to visit all stations on the extensive Sydney suburban network (Australia). However about 60 years ago when I was a teenager at school, you could buy a cheap ticket in two parts - (1) from your home station to any station within a large defined area and (2) return to your home station. The trick was to travel as far as possible without having to surrender part (1) of the ticket and remembering to show any ticket inspector part (1) or part (2) according to which direction you were travelling. By definition of course, you were always travelling away from or towards your home station.
You should do a video of visiting every station, as someone who's been not just passed but on every station in Calgary and Edmonton, station layouts and designs have always interested me
The first time I visited Toronto (1982) I recall that a real, live subway train conductor blew a whistle to notify passengers that the doors were about to close. I’m not sure if the trains also used chimes then for the same purpose.
Glad you found the TTC to be a serviceable system! Most Torontonians will say with a straight face that this city has the worst public transit on the face of the Earth. I'm not one of those people -- I think they're out to lunch for believing that. haha Y'all come back now, ya hear!
I actually did this a few months before this came out. Took me about a day minus a few minutes since I arrived at Union station from Montreal at 6:30pm. Great trip overall.
I am a lifelong Toronto resident, so it’s interesting to hear an outsiders impressions. Line 2 doesn’t go anywhere near downtown? Yonge and Bloor might not pass through the financial district, but it sure is downtown!
Miles of the RUclips channel Miles in Transit, now I’m not gonna stop thinking about the fabulous Toronto transit song Spadina Bus by the Shuffle Demons! You’re welcome
I have it in the sense that I can recall the pitches of things! But if you give me a note (e.g. "sing a D sharp!"), I have to start from B flat (my frame of reference as a brass player) and work my way there.
I always love the "fastest ___ rider" videos! you should come to pittsburgh and do a "fastest prt light rail rider alive" vid (maybe even throw the inclines in there!)
Montreal Metro wins the door chime game any day. Montreal's door chime is a beautiful and unique historic nod to the Jeumont propulsion systems that used to echo through the stations when the MR-63s would depart.
I would say a solution to the too many trains problem would be to short turn some of the trains so that not all of them would end up turning around at the end of the line. That way you can keep frequency high on the core section of the line where it's really needed while also not overwhelming the terminal. Also Toronto's Main Street station is far from central but New York's Main Street is literally a terminal at the end of the 7 train!
The MTA’s Main Street 7 Line terminal is that way because it’s Flushing’s Main Street, for when it was its own suburb. Chicago also has some quirks like that, for instance Chicago Ave. (800 N) does not lead into the Loop nor does Central Ave. (5600 W) [denotes the North-South center line of Cook County.] Some may assume Chicago Ave. once indicated a northern boundary of the City, but no, that was the logically named North Avenue (1600 N). And yes, a historic western city boundary was once Western Avenue! (2400 W) Also, the Blue Line in Chicago does just that, with the brand new but heavier 5000 series being short run from Jefferson Pk to UIC-Halstead. Both the Kennedy and Congress Branch within medians of Expressways get a ton of wear and tear due to snow and salt.
I know that years ago they used to sometimes turn back at Glencairn, but I think that was only when extra trains heading into the city were needed during the morning rush.
12:28 Oh man, you got really unlucky. I'm not sure when you recorded this, but I do remember a slow-zone being in place between Bloor-Yonge and Rosedale for track maintenance with the crossover junctions.
neither toronto or montreal, chicagos beeping is iconic, as well as the absolute JAMS Japan has. Someday you need to get to japan and do a challenge of riding the whole tokyo metro system in a day lol
@Miles in transit do oe here in Buenos Aires the trains spend no more than 20 seconds at a station and usually no more than 10 there is a bunch of different trains, EPIC stations, and its super cool!
I assume what the TTC needs to address the backing up of trains at the end of the line is more station tracks, and platforms at Vaughan Metropolitan Centre. My experience for high frequency end terminal, at least 3 tracks for a 8min headway. I'm really surprised it only two tracks, must been cheaper. (Must be the money!)
3:46 The bridge really is the interesting part! It is the oldest piece of infrastructure on the subway network, built in 1918. They expected that Bloor-Danforth would get a subway eventually so they included a subway deck when they built the bridge, which saved a ton of money when the subway was eventually built.
The latest ridership numbers put New York City with the busiest subway / metro system, followed by Montréal, then Toronto and in fourth, Vancouver! *North America, excluding Mexico!
Will you be doing the Vancouver Skytrain network? that door chime is like a higher pitched Montreal metro door chime and actually just like the Scarborough rt minus being dead (R.I.P Scarborough RT 1985 - 2023 Forever a part of Toronto's transit History. You will be deeply missed)
@@MilesinTransit I'm patiently waiting for the record to be reset by the new infill station opening sometime in "early 2024", making runs feasable again (mostly because the trains slow down going through that station while it's under construction)
So I put all of the stops and time it takes to go between stops, including the express buses and the streetcars (you never know), into a python library (networkx) and ran a few tests. It came out with this crazy line for the current system. Looks like The express bus from Kennedy to Don Mills is just way too slow now, more effecient to back track literally half the subway system. 985 Sheppard East Express: 50 minutes compared to Backtracking: 46 minutes, lol I never would have found that. Thankfully we have technology Line 1 Line 1 Vaughan Metropolitan Centre ------> Union ------> Finch (11:00 - 11:43/11:43 - 12:13, 1h 13) Line 1 Line 4 Finch ------> Sheppard-Yonge ------> Don Mills (12:17 - 12:20/12:24 - 12:32, 15 min) Line 4 Line 1 Don Mills ------> Sheppard-Yonge ------> Bloor-Yonge (12:36 - 12:44/12:45 - 13:01, 25 min) Line 2 Line 2 Bloor-Yonge ------> Kennedy ------> Kipling (13:02 - 13:25/13:29 - 14:20, 1h 18) Waiting time: 16 min Total time: 3:20
Having lived in Toronto for many years, as a Montreal born, I prefer TTC by far. Oh yes, Ottawa has a different door chime. TTC has the best service of all three transit services.
Glad to see you in Toronto again! As a Vancouverite in Toronto the Skytrain has a better chime ;)... anyways if you're interested in the subway tiles BlogTO posted an interesting article on it a few weeks ago, it used to be a common scheme when the subways first built, but then years of renos changed it all up... interesting history there
The Yonge Line likes to take its time on the at grade sections. The weird covered section between St. Clair and Summerhill is actually the road above. The section was open like between Eglinton and Davisville and they covered it. So I guess it’s technically cut-and-cover? Edit: You should check out the various neighbouring systems and their wildly varying degrees of awefulness. Especially VIVA. Try VIVA, it’s weird and the service sucks.
Does the title of this video imply that there are faster TTC riders who are dead
yes and the deaths are unrelated to the activities of transit youtubers
Jackson is always asking the real questions
Uh oh, someone better check up on Reese…
That's an astute observation. Now I'm a little concerned.
Miles is ALWAYS the fastest rider alive.
My favorite TTC station is probably Museum and it's because of the columns. The columns were designed by Diamond and Schmitt Architects and constructed by Jeviso Construction Corporation as part of renovations to the station's platform level in April 2008. You have Forbidden City columns, Parthenon columns, Osiris columns, Toltec columns, and even Pacific Northwest-style columns, and they're just so chef's kiss! The name of that viaduct after Castle Frank on Line 2 is the Prince Edward Viaduct and it opened in October 1918. It's a three hinged concrete-steel arch bridge with a total span of 494 m/1,620 feet, at 40 m/131 feet above the Don River (named after the River Don in Yorkshire).
Its lower deck was futureproofed to include rail. Its upper deck once had streetcars! It was controversial at the time to have a lower deck for rail because of the high cost, but the designer Edmund W. Burke (who also designed many churches in Toronto) and the commissioner of public works at the time RC Harris were able to have their way and the lower deck eventually proved to save millions of dollars when the Bloor-Danforth subway opened in 1966. It was named after the then Prince Edward, Prince of Wales who would become King Edward VIII in January 1936. His reign ended up being one of the shortest in British history as it only lasted until December of that year.
I do enjoy the gaudiness of Museum!
@@MilesinTransitit’s a cool design at the station but surprisingly it’s one of the least used stations, only about 10,000 people use it everyday (2019)
@@E-sterOfficial I love how 10,000 riders a day makes a station among the least used in Toronto...in Boston, that'd make it one of the most used!
@@MilesinTransit The former least used station on the entire TTC was Ellesmere on Line 3, now its Downsview Park on Line 1, 2000 people used Ellesmere everyday but now that line 3s gone, its downsview park, 3000 people use D. Park everyday. The least used station in the entirety of toronto is the York University GO Station, 225 people use it everyday, it was basically replaced by the York University station on Line 1.
More Toronto content! I hope you come back to Toronto when the Finch and Eglinton LRTs open.
Another fun fact: Most of the stations on line 2 have a twin on the other side of the line with the same tile pattern. That tile pattern you like at Warden is also present at Islington.
Whoa, that's really cool! Line 2 is just the best
@@MilesinTransit I actually think Line 2 is very boring, lol. I'm definitely a Line 1 kind of guy.
Castle Frank was a concession of land in the colonial town of York, purchased by John Graves Simcoe in the name of his son, Francis, in 1793. Funny you questioned if it was a real person's voice doing the announcements, because while it is a real person's voice on the T series, on the newer trains, it's NOT! All of the "Next stop" and "The next station is…" announcements were once recorded by Cheryl Bomé (for bus and streetcar) and Sue Bigioni (for subway), but that changed as the Rocket trains have a built-in computer-generated voice. It also makes sense as it's easier to do a robot voice whenever a new station opened. When it comes to the door chimes, I'm Team Neither, because the New Mexico Rail Runner has the best chime BY FAR as the door closing sound is the Road Runner from the Wile E Coyote cartoons!
The handwriting you saw at Leslie is called Ampersand. It was created by Micah Lexier and consists of 17,000 ceramic tiles each with a printed ampersand and above and below it the words "Sheppard" and "Leslie", based on 3,400 different pieces of handwriting from the community collected in 1997. According to the artist's statement posted in the station, this piece of artwork "acknowledges the duality of being both an individual and part of a larger community".
Praise the supreme leader, you really do know a lot about your enemy countries
The words were on the screen longer. I appreciate it.
Oh, I'm glad to hear that! I never know how long is long enough!
Reese's expression looks like you ambushed him for a surprise interview
I did take him by surprise with that shot, but we had been hanging out the whole time!
where did the official milesintransit stopwatch go
Out of commission :(
Dufferin station is named for the third Canadian Governor General, Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood or Lord Dufferin. The tiles at Dufferin station are like that because it's part of a piece called Something Happens Here by Eduardo Aquino and Karen Shanksi. What they did was they engaged the entire wall surface of the existing architecture by programming the ceramic glazed brick system with images from neighborhood celebrations and culture. It's a cool concept, though my favorite subway tile job remains 81st Street-Museum of Natural History because of how much it embraces the museum with replicating the ocean or Earth's strata! Though I like that Don Mills station does the strata and fossils too.
My all-time favorite subway chime will always be the iconic NYC Subway one, but I love how Montreal matched the door closing sound to the starting motor traction sounds. So I'm Team Montreal! Also, Toronto has the same chime as the Detroit People Mover. The seating arrangement is similar to the R46! Used to take the R46 a lot on the R as growing up, my mom would take me on the R to Forest Hills and Queens Center mall in Elmhurst a lot because she briefly lived in the area before I was born. Crossing Queens Blvd from Woodhaven Blvd station to Queens Center can be quite dangerous though...right up there with Philly's Roosevelt Boulevard.
pls start your own channel! This post could be the first episode! ❤
Favorite door closing noice gotta be “STEP BACK, DOORS CLOSIN’” from Washington DC.
That's a classic!
Thanking bus drivers like a Canadian. Well done sir!
Pitting Toronto vs Montréal. That always ends well.
It ends with Leafs fans being disappointed yet again.
The best subway chime is the distorted one the old orange line cars had. I miss that sound
Absolute classic!
I was planning to do this myself, but then the derailment of Line 3 happened. Really wanted them to restore service to the SRT before the planned shutdown in November, but sadly that wasn't to be. Unfortunately, when Line 5 (the Eglinton Crosstown) opens that'll make riding the whole thing quickly far more difficult. Pretty sure it would involve going out from Sheppard/Yonge to Don Mills and then right back.
Weird farfetched dream, but would love to see you ride the São Paulo transit system!
Maybe someday!
Considering that the yard for Line 2 is between Donlands and Greenwood, I'm surprised that the crew relief point is at Coxwell.
Side note.... Warden Station is about to undergo a total rebuilding in order to make it accessible (subway platforms and bus bays).
Union station... where both directions are northbound....
Awesome video, great cameo from Reece!
Thanks so much!
Honey wake up! another fastest rider alive video just dropped! But seriously I love this serious, possibly even more than the least used amtrak series, and Toronto is a great city to do for this one. I’ve also found the Toronto subway so strange, with the layout, short distances between stations, short station names, and the different rolling stock on every line (except the 4 which is the same as the 1). Not to start a fight, but I personally like the Montreal Metro’s door chime better, I just love how it comes from the acceleration sound. Speaking of that, the line 2 deceleration and acceleration noise is really weird, and I would love to know why it’s like that.
Regarding Chimes. I actually much prefer Vancouver's door close Chimes. The same Chimes are also used on rapid buses too.
SkyTrain chimes are the GOAT.
Having used all 3 I'd have to agree. Vancouver's chime is the best.
I preferred the OG whistle system. The guard would blow his whistle once to indicate doors about to close. Second whistle meant doors are closing NOW.
Ah a full run of riding the rocket! I always wanted to do this when I lived in TO but all my friends thought it was silly. I may have found all of my saved TTC passes over the years with my income taxes since you had to keep them in case being audited by Revenue Canada a few years ago and saved a few of the coolest ones. Thanks for the nostalgia of my old home station of Jane heading to Spadina. Five years of making sure I was on the eastbound platform by 7:40am to make sure I could get a door well for my commute since seats were already not an option by that point. The beauty of it was by getting off at Spadina, I didn't face the standing in the door paradox when it would switch to the left side at St. George.
I absolutely love the TTC font and realized there was an actual pattern to the main tile and contrasting tiles on the Bloor-Danforth line, with a few oddities mixed in and the mismatched accent tile in Christie. I was happy when Dufferin was renovated but sad that it meant it lost the original tile. I'm not 100% sure, but Main Street likely is referring to East York's Main Street, and before the amalgamation of Toronto (Toronto, Etobicoke, York, North York, East York and Scarborough).
Back when I first moved to TO, the Bloor-Danforth line was still running older subway cars with wood paneling and orange vinyl seats - they were my personal favorites but were retired from service after having a long and successful run.
The lower level Bay subway station is neat having seen it for an art instillation during Nuit Blanche.
Lastly, the GO trains also have the same doors closing chime making it not only a TTC subway thing but GO train thing as well.
Thank you for the nostalgia!!
The TR trains are still very new, considering the T1s have been around for 20-25+ years at this point, and the trains the TRs replaced are from the 70s and 80s
Love it! I've been following adventures since miles-with-mtba days!
That's amazing, thank you so much!
As a life long New Yorker, getting off the airport rocket in 2007 and onto the TTC at Kipling and seeing padded seats was weird. (Then again my first time on the London Underground seeing armrests between the seats was even weirder, “Personal space, WHAT!”)
Edit: line 3 loud, BART in the tunnel sections LOUDER.
Not anymore. BART switched to a new wheel profile and new trains with good soundproofing. They've also started using some super weird new track lubricant that frankly smells like what I imagine a reasonably radioactive dead skunk on fire smells like.
But it's made the noise basically completely go away. It's kind of magical to see BART be so quiet. Truly uncanny.
My first time in the Yamanote line as a TTC rider was wild. I was tripping balls
It’s a great day when Miles posts a new video
Great job dude! New subscriber here. We have nice stations but not as aesthetic as the STM but overall as a local I love them.
A few things to note, Bay is the one that has the abandoned station platform once used for interlining (just to confirm). North York Centre may look different as it was added as an infill station between Sheppard and Finch in 1987. Line 4 is indeed the "newest" subway line in the system, even though it was completed nearly 21 years ago. This video was very well done, hope you can come back for the respective openings of Lines 5 and 6!
STM is really hard to beat when it comes to station design! Thanks so much for watching and for the extra info!
The secret to a better time is to do it in the reverse order! For whatever reason, the trains pulling into the north west corner of line 1 sit for longer than at any of the other terminals, however, pulling out is very direct and with no stalls.
Ahh, yeah, that makes sense!!
@@MilesinTransit they do wait around a bit getting into Kipling, but not nearly as much.
Thank you for paying attention to Canada as much as you do! Americans frequently know about as much about Canada as they know about Botswana.
Very fun video! I went to Toronto a few years ago and rode the line that goes into downtown (1 I believe). I watch a lot of videos about the TTC, but I wish I got to ride it more when I visited, or try the streetcar as my city doesn't have one. Still waiting for you to come to Vancouver and challenge Reece (or another person's) speedrun on our Skytrain! Never have experienced a backlog like you did in this video as Vancouver's system is automated. Trains are always on time and very frequent due to that as well!
Skytrain is amazing!
A few years ago I got 2h39min on the SkyTrain
At 12:21, that weird stretch on Yonge Street was decked over. That's why it looks strange, since it's still the original landscape (it's said that if you look hard enough, you can still see the trunks of the trees and bases of lampposts from where they were cut to make way for the decked roof). The decked over parts were redeveloped into housing and commercial places. So what you saw is the old surface route that was built in a trench, like the rest of Yonge Street between Rosedale and Eglinton :)
When I last commuted by subway (2019) there was a tree growing in the "tunnel" on the east side of the tracks just north of Summerhill station, surviving just on the lamps.
Torontos falling beep is nice but Montreal's rising beep just feels magical for me. Cant beat the "prochaine station" either.
Not only that, but Montreal's chime comes from the MR-73 stock's current choppers hum. Which itself is allegedly from the first 3 notes of "Fanfare for the common man", which was the theme of the Montreal Universal Expo, which is why the metro got built.
Best series on RUclips continues!
Agreed!
Thank you so much!!
For the billions they spent on the Line 1 extension, they should have created a 3rd track at the last stop, a side or pocket track to avoid these delays at the end of the line.
Sorry you lost Miles. 😦
I'm quite astounded that Canada's most populous city has such a small subway system that it can be completed in 3.5 hours or less. Contrast that to Washington Metro, which took me 8:20 to complete when I set the speed record in July.
And yet the Toronto subway gets well over double the ridership!
@@MilesinTransit Amazing! Guessing that's because Toronto is a much denser city, with lots of residential skyscrapers -- something that by law doesn't exist in Washington. Also the Toronto subway covers a smaller core area, whereas WMATA has really long lines into the suburbs that basically function like commuter rail. So many Washington Metro track miles and stations are in transit unfriendly burbs.
@@MilesinTransit That's because the DC Metro and BART are not real subways. They're more similar to S-bahns with much sparser station spacings and 2x subway speeds. WMATA tried to make their system more like a traditional subway/metro in recent decades, but it's still an S-bahn-like thing under the hood.
Miles is miserable in Vaughan. You're now a real Torontonian.
Something about the line 3 service alert makes me chuckle. It says "No service between Kennedy and McCowan due to being permanently closed. Shuttle buses are running between Kennedy and McCowan."
I guess for trains not bunching up at the end of the line you would need a turning loop or some other way to not have trains crossing the tracks the next train will use, so a flyover of sorts. But I don't know what the track layout currently is, and putting extra infrastructure at the terminal doesn't make a lot of sense if you may want to extend it later.
They should have built a 3rd track at the end of the line
Boston red line has the most…. stimulating door chime.
Love hearing the first three notes from the Sesame Street song as the door-closing chime.
Nice cameo by Reece at the end!
Love the video. Glad you’re able to see all of TTC. Enjoy my hometown:
Thank you!
I've never tried to visit all stations on the extensive Sydney suburban network (Australia). However about 60 years ago when I was a teenager at school, you could buy a cheap ticket in two parts - (1) from your home station to any station within a large defined area and (2) return to your home station. The trick was to travel as far as possible without having to surrender part (1) of the ticket and remembering to show any ticket inspector part (1) or part (2) according to which direction you were travelling. By definition of course, you were always travelling away from or towards your home station.
Oh, I love that!
8:30: I'd like to think the "thank you" was not to the bus driver, but rather to the conspiracy theory bus boi
You should do a video of visiting every station, as someone who's been not just passed but on every station in Calgary and Edmonton, station layouts and designs have always interested me
I definitely wouldn't have had time to do that on this trip! I did do it for Line 3 though.
The first time I visited Toronto (1982) I recall that a real, live subway train conductor blew a whistle to notify passengers that the doors were about to close. I’m not sure if the trains also used chimes then for the same purpose.
Awesome video! I was really lucky to ride line 3 when I visited TO in February. I also remember old mill station being pretty cool.
Thank you!
I like better the Montreal doors closing chime because it is based on the engine noise of the MR73 trains as they depart
Having done the same challenge in Chicago twice, I feel your pain there at the end. At least Toronto's terminal ops are bad for the right reason!
Glad you found the TTC to be a serviceable system! Most Torontonians will say with a straight face that this city has the worst public transit on the face of the Earth. I'm not one of those people -- I think they're out to lunch for believing that. haha Y'all come back now, ya hear!
The lettering on the signs/cars is custom-made for all the low budget movies where Toronto is substituted for New York.
I actually did this a few months before this came out. Took me about a day minus a few minutes since I arrived at Union station from Montreal at 6:30pm. Great trip overall.
I am a lifelong Toronto resident, so it’s interesting to hear an outsiders impressions. Line 2 doesn’t go anywhere near downtown? Yonge and Bloor might not pass through the financial district, but it sure is downtown!
By the way, no one who lives here calls them line 1, line 2 etc. It’s the Yonge Subway, the University, Subway, the Bloor subway, etc.
@@jeffwiseman3840 nobody I know calls them that lol
Miles of the RUclips channel Miles in Transit, now I’m not gonna stop thinking about the fabulous Toronto transit song Spadina Bus by the Shuffle Demons! You’re welcome
Ooh! I will have to check that out.
the fact you nailed the pitch on the stm jingle makes me think you have perfect pitch lol
I have it in the sense that I can recall the pitches of things! But if you give me a note (e.g. "sing a D sharp!"), I have to start from B flat (my frame of reference as a brass player) and work my way there.
@@MilesinTransitI've heard it described as "true pitch" and I think it's pretty common for musicians to develop it
The bridge on line 2 over the Don Valley is called the Prince Edward Viaduct or the Bloor Street Viaduct
I always love the "fastest ___ rider" videos! you should come to pittsburgh and do a "fastest prt light rail rider alive" vid (maybe even throw the inclines in there!)
Aleena and I were really close to doing that last time I was in Pittsburgh but we couldn't find the time to do it...
@@MilesinTransit that's too bad! I'm still waiting on just riding the light rail myself but I'm looking forward to it!
rip l3 you will be missed
Montreal Metro wins the door chime game any day. Montreal's door chime is a beautiful and unique historic nod to the Jeumont propulsion systems that used to echo through the stations when the MR-63s would depart.
Best sounding trains in history.
ruclips.net/video/E5WSYBDueVA/видео.htmlsi=0eR7aTa86XrVH2YY
You should do every NYC subway station challenge
The door bell is the same sound as the ones used on supermarket baking oven units to let the employees know that the baked goods are done
Customs guy: What's the nature of your visit?
Miles: Try to ride the TTC as fast as I can.
Customs guy: Welcome to Canada, eh.
Been watching Reece for two years and just realized the RM in RMTransit stands for his initials lol
I would say a solution to the too many trains problem would be to short turn some of the trains so that not all of them would end up turning around at the end of the line. That way you can keep frequency high on the core section of the line where it's really needed while also not overwhelming the terminal.
Also Toronto's Main Street station is far from central but New York's Main Street is literally a terminal at the end of the 7 train!
The MTA’s Main Street 7 Line terminal is that way because it’s Flushing’s Main Street, for when it was its own suburb. Chicago also has some quirks like that, for instance Chicago Ave. (800 N) does not lead into the Loop nor does Central Ave. (5600 W) [denotes the North-South center line of Cook County.] Some may assume Chicago Ave. once indicated a northern boundary of the City, but no, that was the logically named North Avenue (1600 N). And yes, a historic western city boundary was once Western Avenue! (2400 W)
Also, the Blue Line in Chicago does just that, with the brand new but heavier 5000 series being short run from Jefferson Pk to UIC-Halstead. Both the Kennedy and Congress Branch within medians of Expressways get a ton of wear and tear due to snow and salt.
I know that years ago they used to sometimes turn back at Glencairn, but I think that was only when extra trains heading into the city were needed during the morning rush.
Another one you could do is Vienna U Bahn. I've done it myself and it was so much fun. Your time to beat is 5 hours and 4 minutes
On the topic of door chimes. The New Mexico railrunner has the meep meep. The sound the road runner makes
Best door chime in North America
12:28 Oh man, you got really unlucky. I'm not sure when you recorded this, but I do remember a slow-zone being in place between Bloor-Yonge and Rosedale for track maintenance with the crossover junctions.
neither toronto or montreal, chicagos beeping is iconic, as well as the absolute JAMS Japan has. Someday you need to get to japan and do a challenge of riding the whole tokyo metro system in a day lol
Is that even possible??
@@MilesinTransit probably not but no one has ever attempted a PR even if it’s more than one day. The record is still out there!!
@@Leonardo-cs9ij Good point!
What if instead of Tokyo Metro,you can do all rail lines in Tokyo (assuming that's possible)
@@gabri_maybe hmmm I think the most reasonable option is all stops in the metro area then draw out what counts as “Tokyo area”
Line 4 used to run every 5-6 minutes before the service cuts, used to be 4 trains on the line now it's just 3 :(
My friends and I did this when we were 13, we didn’t tell our parents, we all got grounded.
It's hard to believe the line 1 trains have been around since 2011, and the oldest of the line 2 trains is almost 30 years old.
never been to toronto but would definitely visit. the sound @6:30 reminded me of where the L goes underground in west philadelphia
It's a great city!
YOO NEW MILES IN TRANSIT VIDEO!!
The answer to that "Which is better" question is Boston's Orange Line "boOOoonG BoOoooNg"
CORRECT
Did you happen to visit Little Canada while in Toronto? That place is amazing if you like model railroads. I went there just after it opened in 2021.
No, I'm not familiar! That sounds awesome though.
Great video! I'm partial to Montreal's door chime...
"Arriving at Ossington. Ossington Station" said the sexy computer voice...
The old door chime similar to those on SRT is more blended.
Got excited when you got to Islington because that's where I live in London UK
@Miles in transit do oe here in Buenos Aires the trains spend no more than 20 seconds at a station and usually no more than 10 there is a bunch of different trains, EPIC stations, and its super cool!
You won't believe where I'm going later this year...
gonna do this with the otrain when line 2 opens
These trains are like ... New York City MTA trains but also Boston MBTA Red Line Silverbird trains with the old seating arrangements. 🤔
This is a great vid!
Thank you!
I assume what the TTC needs to address the backing up of trains at the end of the line is more station tracks, and platforms at Vaughan Metropolitan Centre. My experience for high frequency end terminal, at least 3 tracks for a 8min headway. I'm really surprised it only two tracks, must been cheaper. (Must be the money!)
3:46 The bridge really is the interesting part! It is the oldest piece of infrastructure on the subway network, built in 1918. They expected that Bloor-Danforth would get a subway eventually so they included a subway deck when they built the bridge, which saved a ton of money when the subway was eventually built.
I was hoping someone would leave a comment like this and you delivered! Thank you!!
The bridge is called the Prince Edward viaduct. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Viaduct
Nice collaberation
the presto sound is unbeatable
The latest ridership numbers put New York City with the busiest subway / metro system, followed by Montréal, then Toronto and in fourth, Vancouver! *North America, excluding Mexico!
I love watching your videos. Good job Miles
Thank you!
Will you be doing the Vancouver Skytrain network? that door chime is like a higher pitched Montreal metro door chime and actually just like the Scarborough rt minus being dead (R.I.P Scarborough RT 1985 - 2023 Forever a part of Toronto's transit History. You will be deeply missed)
Not at the moment, but I definitely want to at some point.
@@MilesinTransit I'm patiently waiting for the record to be reset by the new infill station opening sometime in "early 2024", making runs feasable again (mostly because the trains slow down going through that station while it's under construction)
So I put all of the stops and time it takes to go between stops, including the express buses and the streetcars (you never know), into a python library (networkx) and ran a few tests. It came out with this crazy line for the current system. Looks like The express bus from Kennedy to Don Mills is just way too slow now, more effecient to back track literally half the subway system.
985 Sheppard East Express: 50 minutes compared to Backtracking: 46 minutes, lol I never would have found that. Thankfully we have technology
Line 1 Line 1
Vaughan Metropolitan Centre ------> Union ------> Finch (11:00 - 11:43/11:43 - 12:13, 1h 13)
Line 1 Line 4
Finch ------> Sheppard-Yonge ------> Don Mills (12:17 - 12:20/12:24 - 12:32, 15 min)
Line 4 Line 1
Don Mills ------> Sheppard-Yonge ------> Bloor-Yonge (12:36 - 12:44/12:45 - 13:01, 25 min)
Line 2 Line 2
Bloor-Yonge ------> Kennedy ------> Kipling (13:02 - 13:25/13:29 - 14:20, 1h 18)
Waiting time: 16 min
Total time: 3:20
Only 10 minutes faster despite a whole line being gone? That's so sad!
man you hit those notes!
great job miles you are the best
Thank you!
7:53 this is probably the only time that there a durham region transit bus 6117 which was lost in a depot fire
@MilesinTransit Ride the Entire Albuquerque Rapid Transit
Having lived in Toronto for many years, as a Montreal born, I prefer TTC by far. Oh yes, Ottawa has a different door chime. TTC has the best service of all three transit services.
I knew you gotta make a third one, huh!!
Next week hopefully see miles and jet lag! Transit Wednesday!
Haha, I have to spoil that I'm not in the season unfortunately! Maybe one day...
Glad to see you in Toronto again! As a Vancouverite in Toronto the Skytrain has a better chime ;)... anyways if you're interested in the subway tiles BlogTO posted an interesting article on it a few weeks ago, it used to be a common scheme when the subways first built, but then years of renos changed it all up... interesting history there
The Yonge Line likes to take its time on the at grade sections. The weird covered section between St. Clair and Summerhill is actually the road above. The section was open like between Eglinton and Davisville and they covered it. So I guess it’s technically cut-and-cover?
Edit: You should check out the various neighbouring systems and their wildly varying degrees of awefulness. Especially VIVA. Try VIVA, it’s weird and the service sucks.
I really do need to try VIVA next time I'm up there...
Yay Miles video
The record will be soon obliterated thanks to the closure of line 3 XD
Rip TTC line 3 (1985 - 2023)
RIP Line 3 (Scarborough RT) - Deafeningly loud thing :D
I don't know why, but Warden reminds me of Newark Penn