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Apr 16, 2024 · From its humble beginnings with horse-drawn trams in the late 19th century, to the modern subway and streetcar network we know today, Toronto’s public transportation system has played a crucial role in the city’s development and growth.
Dec 28, 2020 · News, December 21, 2020: Transit agencies reduce Monday-to-Friday services, December 21 to 24. News, December 21, 2020: Agincourt GO Station: Temporary pedestrian access, starting December 23. News, December 20, 2020: TTC revises routes and services, December 20.
The 5-Year Service Plan & 10-Year Outlook identifies service-related improvements to public transit service in the city of Toronto between 2020-2024 and beyond.
- The Earliest Days
- The Rise of The Toronto Street Railway Company
- Steps Towards Electrification
- The First Stab at Public Ownership
- William Mackenzie Takes Over
- The TTC Through Boom, Bust and War
- Metropolitan Toronto and The Car Change The Picture
- Decline, Fall and Rise
- Where Do I Go from Here
- References
When Toronto was incorporated as a city in 1834, it had a long way to go towards becoming the metropolis of today; it’s population at the time was barely 10,000, or less than half the current population of Owen Sound. Though Toronto was already a significant commercial centre, the only transportation the city could boast were stagecoaches to and fr...
The popularity of Williams’ service had already demonstrated to city council and various business interests the viability of public transit in the city. This would prove to be his undoing. In 1861, Alex Easton, a Philadelphia native came to Toronto to help set up a conglomerate of local business owners to build a street railway in the city. Having ...
In the 1870s and 1880s, electricity transformed from an experimental curiosity into something practical that could light cities and moves vehicles about. The 1880s found John Joseph Wright, an English immigrant, experimenting with electricity in a small shop near Yonge and King, and selling light bulbs and the electricity to light them to various s...
As Toronto grew, so too did the ridership of the Toronto Street Railway, from 44000 in 1861 to 55000 in 1891, when the TSR’s 30-year franchise expired. On May 16, 1891, the city sought to take over the system. The attempt did not go as well as planned. The city first ordered the Toronto Street Railway Company to agree to hand over operations withou...
The Toronto Railway Company’s president and owner was William Mackenzie, a railroad mogul who had founded the Canadian Northern. In the TRC’s first years, Mackenzie introduced a number of innovations, and his leadership proved popular with the public. The new company maintained a five cent fare, introduced free transfers and reduced fares for child...
The 1920s was a period of great activity within Toronto. Not only was there considerable work in uniting the operations of the Toronto Railway Company and the Toronto Civic Railways, but the TTC had also inherited from the TRC an aging system which had been left to deteriorate by its disinterested owners on the eve of the end of their franchise. A ...
In the early 1950s, Toronto and its suburbs had to contend with sprawling development held back after two decades of depression and war. In order to answer the problem of sharing infrastructure funding and distribution, the Province of Ontario took the step of collecting Toronto and its twelve suburbs under the auspices of the Municipality of Metro...
In the 1970s and the 1980s, the Toronto Transit Commission was seen worldwide as a ‘transportation showcase’. From 1979 until 1990, it won awards after awards for safety and design. Unfortunately, in the 1990s, it fell upon hard times. Political foot-dragging slowed subway development to a crawl, and budget cuts, the recession, and the inability to...
Click here for our history of Toronto’s bus network, particularly 82 RosedaleBromley, John F., TTC ‘28, The Upper Canada Railway Society, Toronto (Ontario), 1968.Bromley, John F., and Jack May Fifty Years of Progressive Transit, Electric Railroaders’ Association, New York (New York), 1973.Filey, Mike, Not a One-Horse Town: 125 Years of Toronto and its Streetcars, Maps Project handbooks, Toronto (Ontario), 1999.Hood, J. William, Street Railways - Toronto: 1861 to 1930, Maps Project, Toronto (Ontario), 1999.Public transit in Toronto started in 1849 with a privately operated transit service. In later years, the city operated some routes, but in 1921 assumed control over all routes and formed the Toronto Transportation Commission to operate them.
On this page, you will find scanned and other electronic images, including maps, old brochures, reports, schedules, et cetera, produced by the Toronto Transit Commission and other transit agencies in the GTA over the past century.
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Oct 20, 2023 · In the last twenty years, Toronto has seen five mayors, four premiers, four prime ministers, and about as many transit plans for the city and regions as there were heads of all three levels of government.
