CBC: Toronto's First Subway 1954 TTC

[jackiechan511]

@300582228 Not unless you're willing to advocate a price ceiling or a ban on inflation. At the rate we're going, in 50 years, each token will cost $10 each. What's the point in inflation if every other wages and prices will go up simultaneously.

[OofusTwillip]

@300582228 - Back then, there was plenty of funding, from all three levels of government, because NO transit system is totally self-sustaining. This subsidization continued into the 1980s. I remember paying just $35 for a Metropass back then.

As successive governments (especially that of Mike Harris) promised & delivered huge tax cuts, they paid for those cuts by cutting ALL funding to the TTC. The result is the crumbling, overcrowded, unreliable, filthy, overpriced TTC we have today.

[fartamplifer]

$59 million dollars? The Sheppard line, which has 5 stations and was abuilt almost 50 years later, cost just over $1 billion to build. : (

[camperjohn6464]

Later, the TTC was offering $1,000 to anyone that had a transfer from the opening day.

[staypuft42]

That is the Bloor station. The video shows the surface streetcar platforms which, until the Bloor subway line opened, were located just east of Yonge street

[Evanforevertill2012]

at 6:42 where was this type of station ?

[cookiemaster1234]

@Evanforevertill2012 above ground streetcar station before the opening of the bloor-danforth line in 1966. it was emoved that same year

[breakonthrough72]

Only Union to Eglinton? That's as useless as the new Sheppard line...

[pplk23]

@breakonthrough72 lol, Yonge streetcars were only 10-30 seconds apart and were still always full before the subway, unlike sheppard which only has full buses during rush hour

[HurricaneNWG]

@breakonthrough72 of course, YUS started with 12 stops and grew as time passed, and of course sheppard is only new, but will likely expand as time goes on, so simply calling it something like a "waste of money" or being "useless" is completely nonsense when you look at what it may be in the future.

[Will87]

@breakonthrough72 not in 1954

[OofusTwillip]

@breakonthrough72 - It wasn't useless. It was where there was the highest concentration of businesses & stores, and it connected to the most important rail hub in Canada. It also replaced the very inadequate streetcars on Yonge.

You're supposed to build subways where there's the density to support them. Otherwise, you end up with a white elephant like the Sheppard line, which is deserted except at rush hour. There won't be sufficient density on Sheppard for another 15 years, at least.

[TrainmasterCurt]

The old Peter Witt's are in this!!

[MsTruNorth]

One observation that can be made from this video--apart from the fact that platform signage on the TTC hasn't changed in 56 years--is how overwhelmingly the ridership was male in 1954.

[rama771]

TTC still uses tokens! haha 

[factguy23]

@300582228 Only if Giambrone calls it quits.

[retrotronikal]

Wow.. you could smoke on the trains too..

[BlackJays]

Token black guy at 6:30 (no pun intended)

[jsl321]

Funny how the stations still look the same now from 50 years ago.

[jjbrien]

king got some new seats about 10 years ago

[argopunk]

The only station with the original glass tile is Eglinton. Some, like Dundas, College, and Union, are horrifyingly ugly since their '70s and 80s era renos. I miss the old red cars and their open windows.

[pushur]

Great Footage I love the way he keeps saying Really! Like No one watching the news footage would ever believe it was real.

[trolleywire]

Very cool.. thanks for the great footage!! I miss the old red trains. As a kid I would make my mom wait for a red train (Gloucester cars) oh the screech they would make as they came in (music to my ears,lol) they were very heavy trains so I knew when they were coming as the rumble was much louder then the The Montreal Series or the H cars. I lived on lola rd, right next to the open section of that part of the line, ka-click ka-click....ka-click ka-click!! all day long, I loved it!!

[mistahimaskwa]

Aw...tokens. 3 for 25c

Great video!

[TTC9444]

Great Video! What station was that at the very end of the video?

[kurtkomit]

It's Bloor Station, it used to have a streetcar-subway transfer in the middle of Bloor street just east of yonge, it was removed in 1966

[streetcarjay]

It was removed in 1966 for the opening of the Bloor/Danforth Subway between Keele and Woodbine.

[torontosubway]

Thanks for posting that. First time I saw inside a G-1 subway car.

[parkdale420]

Really cool!Mayor Lamport has a stadium just over on King St. LOL

[mwkmn]

Thanks for sharing this great video. It is amazing how many of what you see in this video is still intact today, very well in use.

[UglySean]

Perhaps. But with today's prices, I don't know many reasons to ride from Bloor to Wellesley unless you have a pass. So that was how the infamous transfer machine worked that I heard about. I have never actually seen it in use. And of course, it was before my time.

[fridalasvegas]

Thanks for posting that. I would ofeten take the subway in the seventies, when I lived in Toronto, and would think about how it was in 1954, the first year.