Yonge subway line closure explained

The platforms of Bloor-Yonge station are dangerously crowded.
National Post photo

This past weekend, the Yonge line closed between Bloor and Union. The TTC gave sufficient warning and operated frequent shuttle buses. It was inconvenient, but well-executed. Most people knew about it, and were only burdened with a few extra minutes on their commute. The weather was nice, to boot.

The line was closed as part of a tunnel upgrade, explained by The Grid. It's to deal with the tunnels' inevitable decay over time, and will help weather-proof sections of the line. It's the reason for last month's late-night closures of the route's north section.

There's no such thing as a perfect time to close the line, which faces an unsustainable amount of commuters, and is likely the TTC's busiest route.

"Rescue" trains are often dispatched, rolling right into Bloor-Yonge station empty to help soak up some of the platform crowding. It's amazing how quickly the platform clogs up, and it's one of the main reasons for the relief line project.

Vuvox: Not enough streetcars

In today's class, we made Vuvox presentations. A Vuvox is sort of like the ultimate slideshow. You cna throw in pictures, text, audio and even videos. It's really easy to use, and you can add crazy angles to your stuff.

I took my Flickr pictures and some audio I recorded for my previous videos. I tried to embed previous YouTube videos, but it wouldn't work.

Here's what I came up with. You have to click to open it, otherwise you embed it and it auto-plays (weird, right?):

Not enough streetcars

A look at the TTC.

see more of my photos

I wasn't a fan of Vuvox. To be frank, it has a clunky layout, a lack of customization and no ability to save before finishing. The images you upload turn out pixelized. While there's value to a free, easy-to-use video editing program what's web-based, I'd rather spend the time learning much more complicated programs that give you quality results, like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere.

Some TTC infographics

This week we're studying online infographics, and how news sites can convey data through both interactive and static images.

The most recent operating statistics I could find is from 2010. Some of their layoffs last fall included communications jobs, which probably plays into this.

First I keyed in the number of trips made at the busiest subway stations. Since it's about volume, clutsters seemed like a natural choice. Here's what I came up with:



I then took some of my own data from last week's post mapping out a week of TTC delays. I sorted the causes out in a pie chart, and isolated the mechanical issues (the only section the TTC has responsibility over). It was interesting to see that only 20 per cent of the issues fell under TTC jurisdiction, while the rest were situational or a result of Toronto's generally crummy infrastructure:



For a third chart, I did a Wordle. These are fun: you plug in a block of text and it sorts words by size based on prominence. I took the text from the past 24 hours of TTCing, a Twitter account that aggregates commuter's thoughts on the TTC. Processing social media is more work than a report; you have to strip out the data about when/where the posts were made, and you have to check for libel. But I think it's much more interesting to see what the average person has to say. Here's what I came up with:



It was easier than I thought to make these, though these programs does much of the processing work. It's easy to see why data visualization is becoming so popular, as it's no longer statisticians who can observe trends and suggest improvements to our public systems.

Have your cake and transit too

Om-nom-nom. One unfortunate McDonald's patron
is covertly photographed for the whole world to see.
Toronto Standard photo

Earlier this month, the online magazine Toronto Standard interviewed the founder of the Toronto Etiquette Project.

The guerilla group acts as a manner police,  issuing printed chits to classically rude Torontonians for infractions like eating on the subway and being loud on the phone.

My favourite quote:

I can’t think of any bizarre foods that I’ve seen, but I’ve heard of nail clipping, I’ve heard of flossing…

Oh dear.

They're not the only group to issue a list of somewhat obvious tenants for a more polite transit experience.

The Standard post mentioned cities that issue fines or kick people off the system for eating. Some argue that it's part of being clean and avoiding unpleasant odours, while others feel it's a human right. While I'm too self-conscious to eat on the TTC, I think it should be allowed for non-sloppy, non-stinky food. Commuters spend an awful amount of dead time on a subway system that is still has no mobile reception.

Yesterday, the blog posted an update, complete with a video and footage of some unfortunate schmoes eating their lunch.

What are your thoughts on dining on the Rocket?

TTC guessing game: which leaves first?

As someone who lives in Pape Village, I constantly face a guessing game. Two buses head north, and both routes 81 and 25 follow the same route for 1.5 km. When you board at Pape station, which do you take? If both are waiting, it's an act of faith. When you ask the driver, you often get a shrug. With few exceptions, the bus that leaves first is the one I didn't pick.

As a TV producer pointed out last week, commuters face the same "guessing game" at Broadview station. With two loading docks for streetcars heading south, you can never be sure which leaves first.

TTC photo

The TTC's Next Vehicle Arrival System uses GPS data and presents commuters with the next coming vehicle, through text messages for streetcar stops and LCD screens at some stations (some are even solar-powered). The data's available to app developers, who have combined smartphones' GPS capabilities to let commuters make the most efficient choices.

The LCD screen at Broadview is really helpful for knowing when your bus is coming, but it would be helpful if it also said which streetcar leaves first. Same for the buses at Pape station.

That being said, the TTC has achieved much through the NVAS project, which started as a pilot project for streetcars leaving Spadina station. I hope it expands with time.

Map: A week of TTC delays

My main goal of this project was a data visualization project, where I would take a year of TTC delays, code them and create online interactives that would show frequency of delays, common locations, causes, etc. The data's out there; if we assemble it we might learn more about the efficiency of our system.

You have to start somewhere. So I took a week of delays and put them on a map. There were 37 incidents in a seven-day period. I took all the notices issued and coded them onto a map. Sometimes there were 2-3 notices for one incident (multiple routes affected, service gradually returns). I grouped these as one incident.

I sorted them by cause (mechanical, collision, police, passenger alarm).

Here's the first map I did. Click on a few incidents for details:


View A week of TTC delays - pointers in a larger map

Here's a lengend of what each one is:

Turquoise: mechanical/signal issue

Red: collision

Yellow: road closure/construction

Green: passenger alarm/illness

Puple: police/fire investigation

Pink: power issues

icons: St. Patty's parade (green walker) and Union Station's ongoing issues (red warning sign)

Google doesn't yet have a feature to create your own legend. It would have been helpful to have a clickable one that isolates each cause. The Toronto Star's homicide map does this, but the source code shows it's done through clever frames and script usage. 

I made a copy of the map using Google's icons. But they're a big large, tacky and not the most relevant (a customs officer is police/fire, and taxis mean collision — get it?)

View A week of TTC delays - icons in a larger map

Maps are one of the most popular parts of multi-platform journalism, especially since so much of it is hyperlocal. It helps us understand the wider picture when talking about complex issues, like transit funding and planning.

It's unfortunate not a lot of information can be retrieved by the TTC. Though a large media partner could probably partner with them to have pre-coded updates (that the news org simply submits into an ongoing map). Maybe one day.

Globe and Mail feature on Toronto congestion

The Globe and Mail did a brilliant interactive on congestion in Toronto. Take a look at it.

The Globe not only mapped out traffic data, it also had readers submit their traffic grievances and placed it on a map. There may not be too many mapped responses, but it's a really good idea for having a discussion on one of the most relevant concerns of Torontonians.

To boot, they made it searchable by location. More importantly, they've linked to the raw data. This allows for further collaboration by those outside the news organization.

The Star has a number of similar maps too. The crime ones are particularly important, and the area one helps locate the numerous boroughs that make up the city.