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Somebody just created a timeline to show all of the TTC construction since 1950

The TTC has been seeing changes since construction began on the Yonge-University line back in 1950.

19-year-old Rodney Chan, a member of public transit advocacy group TTCriders who has been travelling by way of TTC since middle school, just made the evolution of Toronto's transit lines a lot more visual.

What started as a rough sketch on lined paper now serves as a comprehensive timeline of every TTC project ever started, cancelled and finished over the past 70 years.

"I think we've all seen those 'Evolution of the TTC map' videos, but I always wondered how long each project took, from construction starting to opening, instead of just a timeline of opening dates," he told blogTO.

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The TTC timeline created by Rodney Chan shows all of the transit projects in Toronto over the course of 70 years. 

"I thought it would be interesting to see when we were working on tons of projects and when we didn't work on anything at all."

The timeline reveals a long dry spell between the mid-1990s to 2015 with no projects started during the 20-year period after Ontario Premier Mike Harris' cancellation of the Eglinton West line in 1995.

"We were definitely hitting it out of the park 1960s to 1980s but since then it's been embarrassing," Chan says.

After a near decade of no action, the end of the timeline is at last filled with three of the city's latest transit projects.

Those that are underway and slotted to be completed within the next 10 years include Ontario Line which will run from the Science Centre to Exhibition, Eglinton Crosstown West Extension and Yonge North Extension.

"It really goes to show how rapid our expansion used to be but then starting in around the 1990s the province and the multiple boroughs started infighting a lot which shows up as cancelled projects and lots of empty space," Chan says.

"However, it is very hopeful to see our timeline stacked up in the near future. Maybe we can stop playing catch up on transit building and start building world-class transit."

Photos by

Rodney Chan


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