When I looked out of my apartment window at 8am Sunday morning I could see nothing but white. It scared me, so I went back to bed for a few more hours. When I got up later I was amazed to see so little traffic on the roads. I guess we received a lot of warning and most of us bunkered down.
I had to venture to the far reaches of Downtown North York. Usually, it takes about 45 minutes to get to Finch station from my place in Parkdale, but today it took about 90 minutes, and that included a brief cab ride. The infamous Queen 504 501 streetcar was nowhere to be seen between 2:35 pmand 3:20pm today. After waiting for about 25 minutes at Queen and Dufferin, I began to walk and finally stopped at a covered transit stop at Shaw to rest for a few minutes. I got chatting with one guy about NFL football (which I don’t follow) just to distract myself from the simmering TTC rage. After another 10 minutes of waiting we shared a cab to Yonge.
Then my subway entered Bloor station and the doors wouldn’t open for 3 minutes. I ended up in Downtown North York 45 minutes late.
On the first massive storm of the year you’d think the TTC might have a supervisor or two to look out for delays on this notoriously erratic streetcar line. But from Lansdowne (where I first set out on foot) all the way to Yonge, not one maroon-coated person with a notepad and conductor’s hat could be seen.
I ask, dear readers, did the blizzard screw up your Sunday?
photo by Rannie Turingan
33 comments
My best friend was out in this today….and the subway was shut-down east of Woodbine.
He indicated that there no inspectors at Woodbine (or any other TTC personel) giving directions or explaing the shuttle bus situation etc.
Thiw was by 5pm, when the service had been shut down more than 4 hours!
Nope. On my way home at 3am Sunday morning I braved the cold and the wind and did some grocery shopping (just the essentials: milk, toilet paper, and chocolate), so that I wouldn’t haven’t to leave the house for a couple of days. So far my hibernation is going extremely well. I especially like how quiet it is–silent night indeed. I wonder if the construction crews will be back on the job tomorrow, or if I’ll get another day wonderful day of peace and quiet…
I refused to allow myself to hibernate. Ispent the afternoon riding the TTC before going out for dinner with friends. It was loads of fun – the suburban bus routes seemed to run like clockwork (rare!) because there were both relatively few riders, and very few cars. So movement was steady.
The weather seems to bring out really stupid drivers. Like the ones who thought they could pass on the left of a streetcar (happened several times on Gerrard). Or the two drivers on Bathurst that passed a streetcar with open doors at Queen and Adelaide. The streetcar driver caught up to both at King, stood in front of the offending cars, lectured them about the Highway Traffic Act, and got their licence plates. (Good for him!)
And apparently, snow build-up (or a disabled train, or both) shut down the subway around Victoria Park, so there were shuttles between Woodbine and Kennedy (as if anyone was going to get anywhere). The problem was also there was no guidance at all as dozens of people rushed up to join crowds in the hundreds waiting for buses. This is why at the very least there needed to be a supervisor with a megaphone. This was around 5PM or so – at 10PM, there were still announcements about the closure.
The most fun was being a “volunteer” to get on an out-of-service bus at the loop to get it out of being stuck in the snow (it then ran in service on the Woodbine South route). The shuttle bus ride to Kennedy must have been a horrible experience given the such long route from Woodbine and the poor weather.
Fun times! Really neat to ride around Toronto on a day like this.
I also braved the weather and went out to take some pics. The subway ride home was a bit fun when coming into Davisville on the way north to Finch. I don’t know what the reason was (ice/snow buildup?) but the train could not pull into the station. It seemed like there wasn’t enough power being fed and it had to keep restarting. When the automated announcement came on saying “Arriving at Davisville. Davisville station,” one passenger humorously asked, “When?”. A good amount of people laughed as most were in good spirits.
I was on a routine trip to Scarborough when our train stopped at Woodbine and everybody was asked to get off. While on the train, we were given good information about the trains beyond Victoria Park being disabled. Below are some photos of Woodbine Station, taken around 4:20pm. The escalator kept feeding people into the little station — it was the first time I thought/felt there would be a human pile-up on the TTC (later the escalator was turned was off). A moment of panic, and a little pushing, and a sort of hole was opened up to the exit.
The shuttle bus couldn’t move because this bus was stuck and could not get out of the bus bay area.
The waiting area was packed and overflowed onto the street, where another bus was waiting to come in.
I went for a walk east along the Danforth. Cars, people, madness, wonderment. All fairly beautiful. Because I wasn’t in a hurry there was no frustration, so it was a nice walk. I made it to Main Street Station at about 5:30 after some deviations. It appeared the trains were running so I went down to track level to head back West. A few hundred people on platform waiting. We waited for more than 10 minutes without an announcement telling us what was going on (though that patronizing “keep your bags with you” ttc announcement played). Then at perhaps 15 minutes an announcer came on — rather heavily accented making what is already an awful PA system to begin with just about useless — and said something-something-Victoria Park-something-something. Not knowing what she said I went back up to the street and walked back along the Danforth. Along the way a shuttle bus slowed down a bit and the driver opened the door and yelled to (just) me “shuttle to Woodbine.” I waved him on as it was nice to walk outside but was impressed by the gesture.
Stations need individual wardens like on the Tube in London who can make audible, station-specific announcements. The entire fare system should be automated and the people behind the glass should be outside, managing the station, so there isn’t the chaos of information-deficit.
Isnt 504 King?
Matthew. I’ve had TTC trips like yours in fair weather!
Thanks for taking the pics. My camera’s busted thanks to last Saturday’s adventure with the Queen Car, where I was short-turned twice on my way to Kingswood Blvd, and slipped and fell on it trying to run to the car that was going into service in front of the one turning.
We must have just missed each other, Shawn, #6698 was the same bus in which I was pressed into service!
I find the TTC is terrible on the best of days so yesterday’s snowfall did not hamper my abilities as I walk mostly everywhere.
The ride from Bathurst and Sheppard to Yorku was fine, the 196 rocket doesn’t run on weekends so I had to take the 106 Yorku bus. The side walks we all covered and people were walking along the snow banks on the street. One guy was walking directly in the path of the bus. He must have been listening to his iPod becuase my bus finally caught up to him and was following him at 2km an hour. The bus driver honked and honked and the guy would not budge. Eventually the driver finally ran into the guy nudging him. He finally moved. Emagine being tapped behind you legs and turning around to find a bus right at your back.
yes, michael:
501 = queen
504 = king
The blizzard not only didn’t ruin my Sunday, it made it better.
I gave up on the TTC almost immediately and spent the day walking around town. Got most of my christmas shopping done in the pleasantly crowd-free Eaton Centre, then wandered up to the ROM and saw the new dino exhibit. The only thing I regret was not getting in to snowball fight.
If you weren’t in a rush and didn’t need to drive, the City was a real joy yesterday. 🙂
Certainly the TTC could use lots of extra Supervisors on a storm day, but with it being Sunday, it’s not like there are lots of them on standby somewhere (just the ones that are at work). They would have to call some in for overtime, meaning that they’d have to get to work in the same mess as everyone else… ie. really slowly. And the PA system, they put in all new speakers years ago all along the platform to replace the original horn speakers, but it just doesn’t seem to get any better except for the standard repeater announcements.
Snow on the third rail can hamper the power pick-up on the subway trains especially if there’s some melting and it turns to ice between trains. Then you get intermittent power, and the electronic controls don’t like that very much, hence a train can become disabled. The H-6 trains on the Bloor-Danforth (dark orange doors) don’t like snow at all.
Better to just take in the atmosphere of a snowstorm day if you’re not in a hurry, and if you’re in a hurry, relax!
My cousin counted 6 streetcars immobilized thanks to cars parking partly on the tracks — this is in the Beaches. So that may be where the 501 was. 😉
While I wouldn’t say the storm ruined my Sunday, I did expect the TTC to be much worse than usual, so I gave myself plenty of extra time. If I make the connections, it takes me about 20 minutes to get to Little Italy from Lansdowne & Dupont.
I gave myself 90 minutes and ended up walking most of the way. No Lansdowne buses. No College streetcars. I’m sure they were out there, but I gave up waiting and nothing passed me on my walk. I was 15 minutes early for my meeting. But I would have been late if I’d relied entirely on the TTC.
The walk was rather pleasant and it was interesting to see how different neighbourhoods behaved during the storm.
This morning the Lansdowne buses weren’t keeping up. One woman complained to a friend that she had waited 45 minutes for the bus – usually it turns up every 10-20 minutes.
It’s not as though this is Miami enjoying a freak snowstorm.
The other night waiting for the College streetcar we got to watch three streetcar drivers have a 30 minute chitchat while we froze and their idle but warm streetcars blocked traffic. One young woman got so frustrated she yelled at them ‘Wait until we privatise you f**ers.’
What does boggle my mind is that whenever there’s a subway breakdown, everyone stands outside the subway quite lost. People try to enter the subway but no one tells them the subways are not running. TTC ticket agents sit in their booths yelling at frustrated commuters. It’s like a visit to the third world. You’d think after fifty-plus years they would have some idea how to run an efficient transit service. But no. Still not a clue.
The Globe has a story reporting a 14 streetcar backup on Spadina because of a car getting stuck in the streetcar lanes.
Riding Queen streetcar Eastbound we actually had a police car escorting us. I could not figure out why until reading Electric Landlady’s comment. It must be the same reason why I saw 7 streetcars lumped together all heading eastbound when walking from Spadina to Portland on Queen.
I had a great day walking around town all day though.
I passed a westbound 501 that was more than immobilized west of Kingston Road after the operator misjudged how much room it had to pass one of those parked cars and ended up getting stuck scraped up against it.
Then, five minutes later, I watched as a 506 that was heading south on Coxwell to short turn at Queen ended up instead getting stuck behind a parked car.
Thanks for the pics of Woodbine station. I didn’t get that far north and didn’t know there had been that much trouble up there.
While the storm did put a crimp in meeting up with a friend for a gift exchange during the afternoon, it did provide a good excuse to catch up on a few duties around the house.
Yet I still came down with a case of cabin fever, so I went for a short walk along Bayview during a break in the snow last night. The air was filled with squealing tires from vehicles attempting to escape the deep snow on side streets. A few people were out walking and one or two restaurants were packed.
Screwed up my Sunday? It screwed up my Monday! My street is still almost impassable, and since I am out in suburbia public transit is really not an option. In a perverse switch, the sidewalk has been cleared of snow – plowed onto the road that is. They forgot the last 10m of it though so the sidewalk is unusable anyway.
Oddly enough, just across the border in Durham things seem hunky-dory. Oh that’s right – they pay twice the taxes as compared to Toronto.
The longer I live here, the more I get the sense that nothing works well in Toronto.
Nah, not at all. We stocked up on Saturday so we could spend Sunday indoors. We slept late, cleaned the apartment, took pictures of people down on the street (Church Street was all but deserted, even after the snow stopped), sipped hot chocolate, attacked the PVR and slipped into hyper-relaxed mode.
Normally I’m with Sean — days like yesterday are the best ones to be out and about in Toronto — but yesterday I needed the downtime.
The streetcar routes are ill affected by ignorant autoholics unwilling to remove their private motorised barcaloungers from the ttc rail bed for fear they might get stuck in the curbside snow accumulation. IMHO these vehicles should be being towed at earliest opportunity even if that requires relaxing the tow and impound laws as the actions of a very few are making life less habitable for many others who are doing the right thing by prefer public transit over private automocar use. Snow accumulation appeared to be having an affect on switches as well. This may have been the issue with the subway as west of Main the rails are no longer covered.
Sunday morning was a lovely day for a stroll through the falling snow along Martin Goodman Trail and High Park! It was warmer than Saturday and the wind was not too high though it looked dramatic by the path of the snowflakes. Those out and about seemed to enjoy the light trudge of wading through dry ankle deep white stuff. The normal gregariousness of park goers was emphasized by those that convened were of a family of special stock not afraid to embrace the beauty of those magic moments.
Car? That would spoil the stillness and temper the thunder. Warmly cocooned in our scarves, coats and mittens these were tactile messages to revel in. To those who enjoyed carlessness in the Sunday weather!
first step to autoholic recovery: realising the 3000 lb gorilla on your back
does not become you.
http://www.autoholics.org/programme.php
It was a pretty good and busy Sunday, so I’d say the Blizzard had no effect.
I went to the grocery store in the morning as usual, came back home to find the street had actually been plowed and did my sidewalk. In the evening I went out with a friend for some drinks at a bar and then a restaurant on Yonge street for dinner. There seemed to be fewer people out driving, but just as many walking around.
Nope. I was inside studying.
Well, the obvious comment being: My Sunday was already screwed up.
It was a glorious day! But, I didn’t have to take the TTC. And I have good boots. Lotsa fun moms with their kids playing in the snow. I threw a snowball at a car.
I did have a very long wait for the King streetcar at Brandt, going to dinner at a relative’s – ended up chatting with people who had walked all the way from Yonge hoping it would come and asked me if I’d been waiting long. Turned out they were a good omen – it arrived shortly after, packed to the gills. And it had to slow down at each parked car because the snow pushed them almost to the tracks. But people were mostly good-humoured – I think people become more patient in a storm.
Being driven back (maybe about 9 pm?), at Queen and Gladstone we passed at least 7 Queen cars lined up one after the other going west. There must have been some blockage, though they were moving now. It was actually quite an impressive sight, they were all glowing in the snow. But I was certainly glad I hadn’t been waiting for the Queen car going west.
The problem with the streetcar is the not knowing. Are you going to wait there forever? That’s why we really need next-car-arrival information at each streetcar stop (which could also announce when there is a blockage or detour).
What was wonderful about Sunday, though, was that there were almost no cars on the road, and those that were drove really slowly. Along with the muffling effects of the snow, it made the whole city really peaceful.
I had a great time on transit that day.
Walking out of my office in Liberty Village, I passed a TTC bus well-planted in snowbank at the corner of King and Dufferin.
Further south on Dufferin, another bus seemed to have gotten stuck going up the hill. Sounds of spinning tires, and not much forward progress.
The best part was riding the Queen car out of downtown later in the evening. The car was running 30 minutes behind schedule (looking over the driver’s shoulder). We came up on a car parked badly.
The conductor disembarked, eyeballed the situation, and pronounced us unable to proceed. He came back to his chair, announced “there is a car in the way and we can’t proceed until the tow truck comes to get it”, which was the cue for a horde of angry young men (myself included) who disembarked and pushed those buggers out of the way. He didn’t even have to pick up the phone to call in the tow truck.
If you parked your Honda CR-V on Queen in front of One Of Kind Pasta, and it’s now dented: I’m not sorry.
Then we did it two more times. Fewer dents, as we got the hang of how to move a car on an icy road.
It’s ludicrous to point fingers at the TTC at a time like this. The cops have authority to tow every car in sight along “snow routes” at a time like this. They sure didn’t.
All the cops are from the ‘burbs. About transit riders, cyclists and the poor, they don’t give a &%$^.
How do you move a car on an icy road? I’d love the tip!
They should almost make up some pamphlets and have them on each streetcar for everyone to know just in case.
I made the trek from Grimsby to Toronto mid afternoon. The QEW was mostly snow covered except from two little tire tracks which ran most of the way. Not a problem when following those but it was quite amusing watching people flying by me doing over 100km/hr over snow. The funny thing is that the majority of them were Kia’s. Not sure if that means anything but it was a pretty funny observation.
Driving along King St W towards Spadina and I felt bad for seeing so many people jammed in the shelters. Looked like most of them had set up a party in Starbucks while waiting for the next one.
Turning left on Spadina was quite an exercise and had to floor it to get enough speed to blast through a snowbank to get into my parking garage.
The doorman was later telling me that a couple streetcars had come off the tracks making the turn from King to Spadina.
The storm brought out extra kindness and community spirit in my otherwise fairly kind and community-minded neighbours. Everyone was taking turns shovelling each other’s walks. Our neighbour on the left even went around to the homes of elderly and disabled people on our street to shovel their walks as well.
I was perfectly happy to stay in all day and hibernate but my partner was getting cabin fever so we took the subway to Yorkville to do some Xmas shopping.
Overall is was a nice, cozy, wintery day in Toronto.
I drove up to Ottawa on Sunday, it was a nice roadtrip took about 4 hours longer than it should of but it was kind of nice to drive through. There were a lot of accidents on the highway and Ottawa was completely buried in snow.
The snowstorm for many was scary day to go out, but for us it was the best day of the year. Every year my community go out and collect food for those in need. My friends and I got a target of collecting 10,000 lbs of food by Christmas. Eager to help the community, we gathered on snow day and start thinking of ways how could we achieve the target in such a short period. All of a sudden, it struck me that we should go out, clean people’s driveway and in return ask for canned food in return.
We picked up shovels from our homes and choose a random street to start with. Initially, we thought we’d just do a home or two and return home as we weren’t sure if it our idea was going to be a big hit. We knocked one door and volunteered to clean the driveway and in return requested for canned food. The person was shocked to hear this but allowed us to clean his driveway. We cleaned the driveway in just 15 minutes and got a bag of food. His neighbours saw 5 of us cleaning the same driveway and inquired about our rates. He was also surprised to hear about our rates (canned foods). We became celebrities on the street. We did one house after the other … People were so kind that they were offering us tea/coffee to warm up our bodies. We refused few as we had our goal in mind. However one neighbour couldn’t resist seeing the cold on our face, the sniffing and he brought us tea. When one saw him bringing tea for us outside, the other ran home and got us box of cookies to eat with it. Another went and grabbed a 24 pack of water bottles for us (not for food bank). Everyone wanted to help us as we were doing all this work for the good cause.
We worked till 8:00 p.m. At the end we were so tired to clean up our own driveways but we did as a group. Our productivity was very slow near the end of the day as we were very tired of shovelling. We finished cleaning our houses at 10. When I got home, my wife was upset as I spend the whole day out. She has a reason to be upset as I work pretty much 7 days a week: regular job (9 – 5) and then real estate salesperson on weeknights/weekends. However upon tellingg her about the whole day activity, she was very proud of me.
We raised lot of food that day. In total we have achieved over 3500lbs of food and closed to $1500 in cash. The cash amount implies we have met our target!
The next morning when I got up, I had little back pain but I couldn’t feel it much as I was so satisfied what I did the day before. The morning one hour ride to work (Mississauga to Downtown) seemed very short as I kept thinking about the treatment we got from people. I wish we had Monday off so we could have done much more for the people in need of food.