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Toronto Transit HistoryHistory Before the TTC: Omnibus and Toronto Street Railway Toronto's first public transportation company was the Williams Omnibus Bus Line and owned by furniture maker and undertaker Burt Williams in 1849. William's franchise carried passengers in horse-drawn stagecoaches along Yonge Street between the St. Lawrence Market and the Village of Yorkville for 6p (six pence). Toronto's first transit system was a franchise for a 'street railway' in 1861 to Alexander Easton under the name Toronto Street Railways (TSR). A second franchise was granted to the Metropolitan Street Railway of Toronto (MSR) in 1885. In 1891 the TSR lost the franchise to William Mackenzie's Toronto Railway Company. Outside of the city, transit connection to the suburbs were known as 'radial railways' (because their lines radiated from Toronto), among them the Toronto and York Radial Railway and the Toronto Suburban Railway. Public Transit - Toronto Civic Prior to the establishment of the TTC, the City of Toronto operated the city owned system under the Toronto Civic Railways (TCR) name, which was created to serve areas to which the Toronto Railway Company refused to extend its service. TTC - the Early Years In 1920, a Provincial Act created the Toronto Transportation Commission (TTC) and, with the expiration of the TRC's franchise in 1921, the Commission took over and amalgamated nine existing fare systems within the city limits. Between 1921 and 1953, the TTC added 35 new routes in the city and extended 20 more. It also operated 23 suburban routes on a service-for-cost basis. It abandoned money-losing radial railway line (known as 'interurbans' elsewhere in the continent), North Yonge Railways. The Great Depression and the Second World War both placed heavy burdens on the ability of municipalities to finance themselves. During most of the 1930s, municipal governments had to cope with general welfare costs and assistance to the unemployed. The TTC realized that improvements had to be made despite the depression and in 1936 purchased the first of the newly-developed PCC streetcars. The war put an end to the depression and increased migration from rural to urban areas. After the war, municipalities faced the problem of extending services to accommodate the increased population. Ironically, the one municipal service that prospered during the war years was public transit; employers had to stagger work hours in order to avoid overcrowding the streetcars. Toronto continued their program of purchasing PCC cars, running the world's largest fleet, including many obtained second-hand from U.S. cities that abandoned streetcar service. TTC: Post War Years Public transit was one of the essential services identified by Metro Toronto's founders in 1953. On January 1, 1954, the Toronto Transportation Commission was renamed the Toronto Transit Commission and public transit was placed under the jurisdiction of the new Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. The assets and liabilities of the TTC and four independent bus lines operating in the suburbs were acquired by the Commission. In 1954, the TTC became the sole provider of public transportation services in Metro Toronto. Subway Boom The original Union Station-to-Eglinton section of the Yonge Street subway, Canada's first, was conceived and built with revenues gained during the war, when gas rationing limited the use of automobiles. The subway line opened to the public on March 30, 1954, after five years of work. Its underground portions were built entirely using cut-and-cover construction, with reinforced boards and even temporary streetcar tracks laid over the trenches to allow Yonge Street to remain open as the tunnels were built. The original Yonge Street subway line went from the railways' Union Station on Front Street north to a suburban terminus at Eglinton Avenue. Premier Leslie Frost and Toronto mayor Allan Lamport, among other important persons, rode the first train that morning, going north from the yards at Davisville Station, and then south from Eglinton along the entire line. At 2:30pm that day, the last streetcar to travel Yonge Street south of Eglinton made its final ride. The subway reduced the trip from Union to Eglinton from about half an hour by streetcar (in good traffic) to less than fifteen minutes. It was the first subway line to replace surface routes completely. It was also later the site of as experiment with aluminum subway cars which led to their adoption throughout the system and by other transit systems. Several expansions since 1954 have more than quadrupled the area served, adding two new connected lines and a shorter intermediate capacity transit system. The University line opened nine years later, continuing from Union back north under University Avenue to St. George station; it was intentionally designed to serve much the same area as the Yonge line, in order to increase capacity in anticipation of the planned east-west line. Another three years past that, the original Bloor-Danforth Line was built, going under Bloor Street and Danforth Ave. from Keele in the west to Woodbine in the east. Within two years, the Bloor-Danforth line had been extended in both directions, to Islington in the west and Warden in the east. The 1970s saw Toronto adopting a streetcar abandonment policy; the plan was to have low-volume services be served by buses, and more heavily-used routes to get subway lines. Later in that decade, the rising cost of subway construction and the awareness of the limitations of buses reversed that decision; Toronto is now one of the few North American cities to retain its streetcars through the 20th century, and is now slowly expanding the service. Changes to the composition of the Metro Toronto council moved the balance of power towards the suburban areas, and soon afterwards in 1973 the Yonge subway line was extended north to York Mills Road, and the next year it was as far north as Finch Avenue. Five years later, the Spadina line opened, going from the north terminus of the University line to Wilson Station. In 1980, the Bloor-Danforth Line was extended once again, to the current termini of Kipling Station on the west end and Kennedy Station on the east. The Lean Years But after that, subway building came to a standstill. For the next 16 years, there would be no more subway extensions, and for eight years past that, any new subways. Instead, a proposed extension on the Danforth end of the Bloor-Danforth line was built in 1985 as the L-shaped Scarborough RT line (originally envisioned as a light rail line using streetcars in a dedicated right of way, but ultimately built as a mini-subway), which went from Kennedy to McCowan Station. Two years later, a new station was added south of Finch on the Yonge line, at the North York Centre. Even so, plans were developed to build new subway lines along Eglinton and Sheppard Avenues, as well as an extension to the Spadina line. However, Conservative provincial government of Mike Harris halted work on the Eglinton line in 1995 and the partially dug tunnels were filled in. The only subway expansion was on the Spadina line, adding one new station at Downsview in 1996. The Future In 1998, Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto ceased to exist and was replaced by a new City of Toronto (formed from the amalgamation of its six former municipalities). Four years later, the Sheppard Line was opened, the first new subway line in decades. But it was much shorter than originally planned, going from Yonge St. east only as far as Don Mills Road, instead of connecting with the Scarborough RT at Scarborough Centre (which remains one of the TTC's priorities for further extensions, should the funding become available). The TTC is running four-car trains on the abbreviated Sheppard Line, 2/3 the size of those on the other Toronto subways, but the stations were built to accommodate full-length trains should sufficient traffic develop. In January 2005, the cash-strapped TTC introduced a plan to curtail costly subway expansion and look at expanding the rapid transit network less expensively. This could involve busways, or expanding the streetcar system with more modern vehicles and less running in mixed traffic. The TTC continues to be the sole provider of public transit within the City of Toronto, as well as operating contracted services into the neighbouring York Region. Regional commuter service (both bus and rail) is operated by GO Transit, the vast majority of which goes to downtown Toronto's Union Station. Connection buses of the Mississauga, Brampton, York Region, and Pickering and Ajax transit systems enter Toronto at various points. References - The TTC Story by Mike Filey
- Not A One Horse Town by Mike Filey
- Reflections & Recollections Transfer Points January 2005
- Independants Take Over - TTC Goes Metro Wide Transfer Points August-September 2004
- Toronto Transit Commission Goes Metro Wide Transfer Point December 2004
- TTC Archives
- Official TTC site
- TTC Ride Guide (transit map, 1MB PDF)
- TTC News, history and discussion
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