First Daylight Ride on the New Bendy-Foldy Red Rocket

The Toronto Star was one of several media outlets who rode on the first daylight run of the TTC’s new streetcars yesterday, which are set to go into full public service in 2014.

The Star’s video features a mix of stills and footage inside / outside of the longer bendy-foldy streetcar, plus moments featuring plenty of intrigued citizens watching and taking snapshots of the swanky red Bombardier-designed vehicle that monkey-smart Mayor Rob Ford would like to see eradicated from city streets. (Maybe their introduction before the next election will convince more voters that streetcars are not evil antiquated monstrosities, and neuter his chance at a winning another term.)

Early cons: the illuminated displays of car numbers and routes should be bigger and much brighter for daylight riders, especially those with vision issues, who won’t see what’s coming until it glides to a stop. At least that’s all I can see from the snapshots in Torontoist’s lengthy photo-spread (although you know some riders will be irked that a bike will mandate the folding up of a seat in order for the cycle to properly lock into the interior rack.  Details, details, details.)

Main hope: the longer and larger capacity vehicles will not run in cluster-packs on Spadina, and wait times will not become longer (because that kind of defeats the purpose of the new machines, and standing in open loading platforms isn’t fun in winter).

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
Big Head Amusements