Lonely streetcar shelters seek stops
Abandoned structures should be moved when route is changed
Agood transit shelter deserves a location where it can be used and appreciated, but that’s not always the case.
This relentlessly chilly October is a reminder that winter is bearing down on us, leaving TTC riders who don’t have a glass-walled shelter at their stop to shiver in the wind and rain.
They’d love to take cover in a shelter, but there aren’t enough to go around. For every stop with a shelter, there’s another that doesn’t have one. So when a TTC stop is relocated, but the shelter left in place — where it can fool people into thinking the bus or streetcar will stop for them — it seems like squandering a valuable commodity.
After we reported on Oct. 5 about a shelter left outside the front doors of the Scarborough Grace Hospital after the TTC stop was moved further north on Birchmount Rd., readers pointed out several other abandoned shelters, all on Queen St.
Christina Ray said she made a mistake by waiting for a street- car in a shelter on the north side of Queen, east of Sorauren Ave., which remained after the stop was moved.
“It wasn’t until the streetcar completely passed me by (with the driver shaking her finger at me) that I learned that this is no longer a valid stop,” said Ray in an email.
“After walking a few blocks to another stop, I caught a car and the driver told me that there are numerous shelters like this. And there’s no signage to indicate the streetcar no longer stops here.”
Roger Moore sent us a note about the same thing, on the south side of Queen at Gladstone Ave., where an abandoned shelter is surrounded by weeds and keeps company with a mostly vacant strip mall. The streetcar stop was moved to the west side of Sudbury St., but the shelter was not relocated with it, he said.
Courtenay Stevens says a streetcar stop at Queen St. E. and Kent Rd. was moved, but the shelter remains in place, where it deceives some riders.
“I talked to the TTC about putting up a sign at least, and they haven’t,” she said in a note. “Tried my councillor — nothing.
“All I was asking for is a sign that indicated the move two blocks west. Passengers are puzzled as the streetcar rolls by them while they wait in the shelter.”
In some cases where a stop has been moved, there isn’t enough space to accommodate a shelter in the new location. That’s all the more reason to find a better home for it, and before the snow flies.
We can’t help but wonder why all three examples are on Queen, a high-traffic street with lots of eyes to look at the advertising on the sides of the shelters. Coincidence? STATUS: We’ve asked the city’s street furniture division, which makes the call on shelter locations, if they could be put to better use elsewhere, and if the tardiness in moving them has anything to do with their usefulness as an ad billboard. We’ve also asked the TTC to put up signs telling riders that the stop has been moved.
What’s broken in your neighbourhood? Wherever you are in Greater Toronto, we want to know. Email jlakey@thestar.ca or follow @TOStarFixer on Twitter