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Transit in the Toronto region since the 1950s. The City of Toronto was once an international leader in public transit. TTC was one of the first operators to integrate buses, streetcars, and a subway across a metropolitan area.
- 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.Lake Ontario. Fleet St. Exhibition Loop. 510 509. Queens Quay W. Billy Bishop Airport (YTZ) ©2024 Toronto Transit Commission 08/24 – Map not to scale. 509. Kennedy.
Aug 26, 2024 · Believe it or not, a big hurdle in Toronto’s early subway plans was public sentiment. Even as Toronto was the first city in Canada to build a subway system in 1954, plans to do so actually began more than 40 years prior in with a three-line system proposed in 1910.
The history of public transportation in Toronto in Canada dates back to the middle 19th century under many different private companies, organizations and owners, which were all later unified as a single government-run entity during the 1920s.
Apr 18, 2019 · Ontario unveils an 'ambitious' outline for rapid transit within Metro Toronto and beyond in 1982. Eight years later, the Progressive Conservatives were still the government in power and...
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Nov 24, 2022 · This transit system is managed by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) which has been operating since the 1920s. Since then, the TTC has reached several milestones in rapid transit development such as the creation of Toronto’s heavy rail subway system.
