Catch TTC – It doesn’t get any simpler
There’s no longer any real need to resort to fancy smartphone apps or psychic devination, when it comes to catching the TTC here in Toronto, because beleaguered transit riders now have CatchTTC.com as an easy, one-stop location for their web browsers that will put the basic info at their fingertips. So what’s the catch?
There really isn’t one. This site is just a bare-bones scheduling service that let’s you pick favourite stops from all the TTC routes, and then just takes your current time to tell you when the next two arrivals will be. No dowloads, and no more searching through the maze of the TTC’s main website for route schedules.
Ad-Driven Transit Reforms?
If anything the TTC would be smart to spend a tiny fraction of its enormous budget (currently sucked up by management and personal) to just buy into this website now…While it’s still in it’s cheap infancy phase.
ie. Not showing much revenue from any ads that it will sure get clicks on as the layout and features improve themselves.
From there, this service could be easily improved upon by showing service disruptions and perhaps even optimized to offer tweetbacks of next arrivals to Twitter accounts that tweet a desire for info on their favourite #TTCstop…
In fact, if the TTC could figure out how to integrate that sort of service with forms of advertising that actually connected with riders during all of that blank-faced transit time, they could offer free Wi-Fi and have a real winner on their hands…and a much less disgrunteled ridership to boot!
Slowly but surely Metrolinx is becoming a household brand-name as it offers greater visibility for it’s exciting expansions of Ontario’s mass-transit infrastructure. Through new services in it’s operational GO Transit division, which is already very well known to all Commuters here in Southern Ontario, Metrolinx is also making a big push to break away from the commuting pack into much more leisurely and adventurous modes of rail travel as well. Not only can GO Transit enthuse weekend sightseers, but it’s also purposely re-geared itself for the pleasures of cycling as well. Most obviously with the provision of specially equipped trains that can carry our bikes down to spectacular routes and scenery that surround Niagara Falls!
Allright…Our mandate here at Thumbshift might have started with Cycling and the Art of Maintaining Zen, but it soon spread out into all sorts of multi-modal transport ranging from Commuter Transit to piggy-backing on the TTC…and of course some of the messy politics and civics that go along with all that. So since it’s been a long road already, I’d like to pause to reflect and refresh ourselves abit with some healthy outlooks on fast foods and fluids. Ironically enough, before we consider the subtle details of healthy fast-food, let’s start with a quick review of a great little spot for French-Canadian style poutine right here in Toronto…A quick ride across Queen West.
There are lots of varying opinions about why Canadians need to elect another federal government for the 3rd time in 7 years. Amid all the waste, posturing and self-serving party politics there’s one thing that Canadians should keep in mind however…Once the parties start to present, and revise their platforms (depending on which way the breeze blows), this is pretty much the only time that we can convince ourselves into believing that we live in a truly responsive and representative democracy. So why not raise some of the important issues (like public transit!) that could make a real difference down the road, while the politicians are in that rare mode of thinking where they need to actually listen and act upon public opinion, or otherwise face the consequences at the polls.
One of the 
For most downtown Torontonians, our memories of this weeks horrific 
A lot of Torontonian’s would agree to the notion that newly elected Mayor Rob Ford rode a wave of discontent in to office, by stirring up public contempt and dissatisfaction against big easy targets like overspending and waste. Among the many populist positions he took to ride such waves of public opinion was the greatly trumped up “War on Cars”, and the enormous frustrations that most people in Toronto feel about our now infamously long commute times, and notoriously noxious and congested roadways. But aside from the fact that the downtown core was never laid out and designed to carry this much surface, much less subterranean, traffic…Why should we get bogged down in these wars of words and rhetoric, where motorists, and cyclists and perhaps someday even pedestrians get turned against each other…Often to just serve short term political ends.
