Shanghai Metro Network in 2020 in style of the famous London Tube diagram, by Flickr user Kzaral

Now that Shanghai’s Metro is officially the longest subway network in the world (by track length), I thought it would be interesting to do a comparison between it and the long-time title holder that it displaced, London’s Underground.

The first major difference is that Shanghai’s Metro is still expanding, very fast. By 2020 it intends to have added over 350km in new lines and extensions, almost doubling its network length, and in China, when the government intends to achieve something within a 10 year timeframe, they generally succeed or come close. With currently 420km of network, Shanghai’s Metro earlier this year passed the Underground (which has 402km, although I believe that doesn’t include the Overground line or the Docklands Light Railway) after opening 3 new lines and long extensions to 2 other lines (creating a subway link between the city’s two airports) in time for the opening of the Shanghai Expo. The shocking thing about the 2020 expansion plan is that it will make the above diagram (created by Kzaral aka FML in the style of the famous Tube map) a reality and not a fantasy. All this from a system that only opened its first subway line (appropriately called Line 1) in 1995. Yes, you read that right, 1995.

The second major difference is that there is no suburban commuter rail system in Shanghai that compares with those in cities like London, Paris and Tokyo, where the railway network is essentially operated as a secondary rapid transit system with longer station intervals than the subway, generally with an interchangeable fare system. In Shanghai there is only the regular railway network which is not run anything like a metro rapid transit system, but clearly prioritizes long-distance and high-speed trains, and largely services only 2 stations within the inner city, the main station and the south station. This is a severe deficiency in a city as large as Shanghai since it is those suburban commuter rail systems that ensure quick and efficient travel into the city centre from the suburbs, and in Shanghai make no mistake, those suburbs are often nearly as high density as the inner city. This is the reason that even with what seems on the surface like a fully implemented subway system, Shanghai actually desperately needs to push ahead with the rest of the subway system expansion program, because most of the new lines and track length will be servicing the vast suburban areas in an attempt to make up for this lack of a commuter rail network. Time will tell whether this model actually services the suburbs with better all-round transit than the commuter rail approach, and at least Shanghai has the density to justify subways in the suburbs. However, as of now, the subway model predetermines extremely long subway rides from the suburbs rather than quicker commuter trains that stop less frequently and dump you in the city centre to jump on the subway to your destination. In contrast to the London commuter rail paradox of someone living in a rural village outside the city potentially having a significantly shorter commute than someone living in the inner city itself, in Shanghai the emerging paradox (fueled by extensive high-speed rail expansion) is someone living in a city 300km away from Shanghai (eg Nanjing) having a shorter commute than someone living in Shanghai’s suburbs (the new Shanghai-Nanjing train can do the 300km trip in 73 minutes).

Full current regional network diagram of Shanghai Metro, July 2010, move over with mouse to show 2020 expansion (credit: Shanghai Daily)

Full regional network diagram of London Underground (including Overground and Docklands Light railway) (credit: TfL)

The Shanghai network map is quite a bit less diagrammatic than the iconic Tube map, but a comparison reveals the different biases of each system. In particular, the primary strength of the London Underground has always been in movement around inner London’s central areas for which the coverage is excellent. This bias is highly demonstrated in the famous Beck Tube map in the extremely large size of Zones 1 and 2 compared to the suburban zones, although this was no doubt to allow clear reading of the closely spaced stations and line layouts. In Shanghai’s case the emphasis is clearly on the radial pattern of suburban lines rather than the central area, and this will only increase with the future expansion plans. In particular, notice in the two maps that Shanghai’s circular Line 4 (the purple irregular circle) and London’s Circle Line (yellow) appear about the same size in the two diagrams, but Line 4 encloses an area 3.6 times bigger than the Circle Line (62.9km² vs 17.5km², by my measurements).

Central area diagram of Shanghai Metro, July 2010, move over with mouse to show 2020 expansion (credit: Shanghai Daily)

Central area diagram of London Underground (including Overground and Docklands Light railway) (credit: TfL)

Now perhaps Shanghai’s central area is larger than London’s thus justifying a larger scale for the circular line, or perhaps Line 4 shouldn’t be used to compare either its function or service area with the Circle Line. Unfortunately, this is where the diagram maps start to fail us, because it becomes hard to understand whether there’s a significant difference in service quality or convenience as a result of this difference in scale. For that we need a geographically accurate representation of both systems that we can look at and measure at the same scale. So here we are:

Central area of Shanghai Metro, July 2010 (geographically accurate, showing historic city centre districts)

Central area of London Underground (geographically accurate, not including Overground and railway network), move over with mouse to show major parks of central London

What is most noticeable right away is that London’s Circle Line falls entirely inside the Underground’s Zone 1 which can easily be taken to represent central London, although anyone who knows London will know that quite a few districts considered “central” fall inside Zone 2 instead. Additionally, the London Congestion Zone (which could also easily by used as a boundary for central London) largely mimics Zone 1 with a few variations but enclosing an area of the same size. This means that the Circle Line directly services numerous important destinations right within central London, while it’s tracks are shared with 3 other lines over different parts of the route meaning every station on the Circle Line allows transfers to a different line. There are additionally 18 railway stations and termini within the Underground’s Zone 1, 6 of them directly serviced by the Circle Line, allowing direct connections for commuter rail passengers.

For the Shanghai map I have included historic districts of the city which include the Old Chinese City and its port district along the Huangpu River, the French Concession and the International Concession. Note how Line 4 essentially entirely runs outside the central historic districts. In fact the large Western District area of the International Settlement was the least developed part of all the historic districts, and remains a rather distant feeling part of the city. Strangely, Line 4 also avoids directly servicing Shanghai’s new financial centre at Lujiazui in Pudong on the east bank of the Huangpu River, although it does service Shanghai’s main railway station, although this station itself falls outside of the historic core of the city. The route of Line 4 seems to have largely been decided by the convenience of using old railway right-of-ways and the construction of Shanghai’s Inner Ring Road rather than determining what would best service the city’s future transportation needs.

In general, central Shanghai today is often considered to be anything within the Inner Ring Road, but this definition does not relate to the historic city in any way (particularly on the Pudong/eastern side), while functionally it might relate to the modern reality. I calculated that the old districts of Shanghai I included on the map above cover about 38km² which funnily enough is around the same size as London Underground’s Zone 1, but nevertheless Line 4 is far bigger than these historic districts, and also misses other new centres at the edge of the historic districts such as Xujiahui and Lujiazui. The real implication of this comes when you examine numbers of stations: London’s Circle Line has 27 stations over 21km around the circle (all of them with an available interchange to at least one line, and many of them directly servicing major destinations), while Shanghai’s Line 4 has 26 stations over 33.7km with interchanges at 16 stations and servicing relatively few major destinations. All together there are 64 Underground stations in London’s Zone 1, but only 34 within Shanghai’s Line 4 (not including Line 4 stations themselves, since I consider them to be outside the city centre), even though London’s Zone 1 (at 38km²) is almost half the size of the area inside Line 4 (62.9km²).

Full current regional network of Shanghai Metro, July 2010 (geographically accurate)

Full regional network of London Underground (geographically accurate, not including Overground and commuter railway network)

Now of course in terms of urbanism, Shanghai and London are very difficult cities to compare, so it may not be fair to dismiss the route of Shanghai’s Line 4 as inappropriate and inconvenient compared to London’s Circle Line. It’s certainly true that central Shanghai is not and will not be served as well by its Metro as central London is by the Underground, but in many ways this reflects the evolving functional reality of Shanghai and the decreasing importance of the historic districts in the future development of the city, largely resulting from the budding desire to protect the historic heritage in the inner districts. But given the densities of suburban Shanghai and the far lower car ownership rates and the lack of commuter rail options, Shanghai does desperately need to improve transportation in the suburbs, since in the future Shanghai’s suburbs cannot be allowed to rely on automobile transportation to the same degree as London or other western cities because at these densities, congestion will be unavoidable and nightmarish. If you look at the entire cities’ networks in a geographically accurate representation (see above), the systems are actually highly comparable, and the area covered also comparable, with the caveat that without showing London’s commuter railway network, London’s Underground appears to have less coverage than Shanghai’s current system (particularly south of the Thames which has always been poorly serviced by the Underground itself but is quite well served by railway). Perhaps the most shocking thing is that London has been benefiting from Underground services since 1863, which given the massive population and size of Shanghai, makes you wonder how on earth Shanghai functioned at all before the first subway line opened in 1995!

Lastly, there are a few things Shanghai could do to help improve the Metro beyond the constant expansions. It’s very odd that none of the lines (even the most popular, Lines 1 and 2) operate much beyond 11pm, and in fact many of the lines cannot be relied upon after 9pm or 10pm (although for some of them, running has been extended during the Expo). Additionally the station dwell times seem excessively long compared to most systems I’ve used in the world – the slow speed of the train arrival, the delay until the doors are opened, the delay before the train leaves after the doors have closed, all add time at every station, which compounds itself on longer rides. I don’t know if the introduction of automatic train operation will be able to speed up these times or whether they relate to safety concerns with the sliding glass platform barrier doors at most stations. Lastly, crowding on trains even during off-peak times and late in the evening seems to indicate that Shanghai’s Metro should increase operating frequency on many of its lines, and suggests that there is clearly high demand for later, more frequent subway operation.

Credits: The Underground geographically accurate maps are based on the work of London Underground geographic maps group at Wikimedia Commons – station locations are accurate, but line routes between stations have been interpolated.

A train sitting at Shanghai Science & Technology Museum station platforms on Shanghai's Metro Line 2

New half-height metal and glass platform barriers along Shanghai Metro’s Line 2 (green line) station platforms prove that you can improve subway station safety without the expense and complications of the full height sliding glass platform doors. What’s even more impressive (if you think about the TTC’s insistence that any form of platform barrier can’t be done without an automatic train driving system) is that these trains are still being manually driven. Admittedly, the trains tend to enter the station quite a bit more slowly than the TTC’s subway trains, and getting the alignment quite right manually probably slows down operation a little bit, but apart from that the simplicity and elegance of this solution is quite remarkable. Even though gaps to the track still exist, the feeling of security on the platforms is greatly improved by this solution and you can lean against the barriers comfortably and safely even while a train is entering the station.

Century Avenue station platforms on Shanghai's Metro Line 2

However, at People’s Square (see below, by far the busiest station on the Shanghai Metro network), because of the crowds always present on the platforms, they opted for half-height sliding glass platform doors which even more effectively address the safety issues, presumably at considerably less expense than the full height doors, and again alignment of the train does not seem to be a significant problem. The only limitations of this half-height solution is the difficulty of providing heating and/or airconditioning in the platform areas.

Line 2 platforms at People's Square interchange station on Shanghai's Metro during a typical rush hour - the doors have just closed and these are the people who couldn't fit in to the train, waiting for the next one

And of course, even on Shanghai Metro Line 1 (red line, which has full height glass sliding platform doors) they don’t always get the alignment quite right, and will occasionally back up a little, or just open the doors slightly misaligned (see below, where the yellow arrow pointing out from the door is at the centre of the platform doors).

Misaligned train doors with platform doors at Shaanxi Nan Lu station on Shanghai Metro Line 1

A new bike sharing program has been set up in Shanghai’s former French Concession by Xuhui District’s Tourism Bureau just in time for the Expo, with bicycles and infrastructure provided by Shanghai’s own Forever bicycle company. Unlike other such systems already existing around Shanghai (such as in Minhang District, Baoshan, Pudong and Hangzhou)  it’s apparently aimed at tourists rather than residents. The system supposedly has under 200 bicycles and 7 bike rental points which operate 24 hours a day, and the bikes are tagged with RFIDs so they can be tracked. However, there are only 2 locations where you can buy the cards needed to use the bikes, and then only during business hours, and there is no signage or information whatsoever at the rental points about how to use the system or where you need to go to start using the system. At the above rental point on Wukang Lu, even though one of the administration locations is mere steps away, no signage in chinese or english indicated that. It is a truly mysterious system. Anyways, 300rmb (c. CAD$50) deposit is required plus minimum 100rmb loaded onto card, and then it’s 2rmb (CAD 0.30) for the first hour of a rental and 4rmb for each hour after that, and you can get the card at 393 A Wukang Lu (inside Xuhui Tourist Information Center) or 1068 ZhaoJiaBang Lu or check out the official website (chinese only).

Three videos to show the kind of crowd volumes that Shanghai’s People’s Square metro station (interchange for lines 1, 2 and 8 ) experiences during a typical rush hour – the unending sea of people is slightly mind-boggling, but by keeping with the flow an enormous number of people can peacefully get from A to B (the story on the platforms when the train doors open is a lot less peaceful). Click on the HD button to get higher quality video when viewing fullscreen.

Bullet train from Shanghai Railway Station to Suzhou, about 40 minutes - these trains are 16 cars long and are essentially 2 trains coupled together - this is the joint between the two trains

• Taxi trip from Suzhou Railway Station west towards Lake Tai and the “Taihu Garden Court” – trip time circa 1hr (under 100RMB / US$15

• Visit to cherry blossom festival (see photo PaD Shanghai: 23)

Why travel by 4 wheels when you can travel by 3? The one we took was an older model in much worse shape than this one

• We took one of these 3 wheeled cars a few minutes ride into the local town centre to the bus station (cost: 5RMB / US$0.75)

Ohoh... we have to get on this bus to get back to Suzhou (maybe 1.5hr ride!)... to shove or not to shove that is the question!

• This bus will take us back into Suzhou, but there’s a lot of people waiting; the first one is full and we can’t get on; we get on the second, but it’s pretty full and we have to stand – trip time is estimated at 1.5 hours, but after what seems like an hour and only half way there, we get off to have lunch in a district centre in the suburbs of Suzhou

• Taxi back into Suzhou (we ask the driver to take us to Suzhou, and he says, “this is Suzhou!”) (cost: circa 50RMB / US$7.50)

Arriving by tricycle rickshaw at the main entrance of the exquisite Garden of Cultivation (Yipu Yuan) at 5 Wenya Lane in the NW corner of Suzhou's old city

• From outside the canal that circles the old city of Suzhou, we grabbed these tricycle rickshaws through the narrow lanes of the old city to the Garden of Cultivation (cost: 20RMB / US$3)

Motorcycle richshaw/tuktuk back to the train station, four of us hanging on for dear life as we hustle through some of Suzhou's tiny streets taking a shortcut

• To get back to the railway station for the trip home, four of us piled in to this 3 wheeled motorcycle rickshaw/tuktuk (cost: maybe 5RMB / US$0.75?)

Note: the photos are geotagged in Flickr so you can track the trip, however Flickr uses yahoo maps whose China mapping and airphoto coverage is very poor at the moment

We prepared this map of the evolution of the TTC subway system in response to a challenge over at spacingtoronto – while this version didn’t get shortlisted as a finalist, check out the great maps that did.

One thing I prefer in our map is that the subway lines are shown true to scale, so you can compare the real lengths that have been added over time and gauge how much of the city was being covered by each phase.

Check out a larger version of our map, where you can make out station names.

Also see our reimagining of the TTC transit map from October 2006.

A Mississauga transitway, a bus-only road along Highway 403 and Eastgate Parkway from Burnhamthorpe Rd. to Eglinton Ave. E.

Brampton’s $280-million Acceleride project, meant to speed bus service. Ontario has already committed $95 million for the improvements.

An expansion of York Region’s Viva bus system. York Region officials want to get buses on to dedicated lanes.

The widening of Highway 7, in the amount of $55 million.

An environmental assessment to extend Highway 407 eastward to link up with Highway 401. This would go through federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s Whitby-Oshawa riding.

A $5 million study of rapid transit in Durham.

For those unfamiliar with the $2 billion Spadina Extension proposal, it continues the Spadina subway line north to York University, then beyond Toronto’s boundary at Steeles to connect to (the future) Vaughan Corporate Centre at Highway 7 in Vaughan. I include a map below from the TTC’s website on the matter – more information can be had here.

Somewhere someone was asking for someone to come up with a reimagined transit map for Toronto (could it have been Reading Toronto here?), so I thought I’d give it a shot. The one Graeme Stewart posted at Reading Toronto is interesting but I find it too schematic-looking. At the GTA level, scale is grossly distorted, but on the downtown detail map I love how he managed to integrate neighbourhood names into the map. Fantastic.

Part of his point was that more of the system should be shown than just the subway – the GO lines and the streetcars should be shown to represent more of the true nature of the “system” and I think I support his idea. However there are certain caveats and problems:

1. Apart from supposed “dedicated right-of-way” LRT streetcar lines (such as Spadina’s 510 line and the Queen’s Quay lines and the western portion of the Queen 501 route along the Queensway), streetcar lines in Toronto are having serious problems moving swiftly through the city. One hears complaints of people being able to walk faster than the Queen cars move through traffic. Even the dedicated right-of-way lines have issues – a report I read indicated that the Spadina car on average is slower at getting its passengers down to Queen than the old pre-1997 buses were – I also have friends who live out near Mimico for whom in most cases taking the subway and getting a bus is quicker than the 501 car. This does beg the question of whether they should be included when some frequent service time-efficient bus routes are not.
2. On Stewart’s GTA map (here), GO Transit’s rail network is given heavy prominence next to the subway lines. Indeed on GO’s own system map, their train network is given heavy coloured-line subway-like prominence, with the bus network as more generic thinner green lines. I flirted with this idea, but for now have settled for a more toned-back approach to the GO network for the simple reason that until higher frequencies are achieved and more serious urban centre-type development occurs around GO stations, the system currently bears little resemblance (in reality) to an LRT, BRT (Bus Rapid Transit), or subway system since it is heavily skewed towards commuter traffic alone.
3. VIVA is here – York Region’s BRT transit offering is up-and-running (for a year now), and should be given heavier priority at the regional scale. I dream of a day when an integrated fare-structure allows simple and straightforward use of all these systems together with full transfer privileges and no complications – perhaps trying to envision what the system even looks like as a whole is the first step? For now I have only shown full-service routes of VIVA, not peak-only. I don’t actually even know whether any of the other GTA municipalities have BRT-equivalent frequent-service routes to add – if they have, I haven’t heard of them.

I am also working on a full GTA level map showing all GO lines to their ends. All of these maps are real-scale without distortions in space – the disadvantages are that at smaller sizes, things become harder to read and distinguish. It could be that after I’ve done these, then a simpler diagram version could be done that distorted distance as most existing transit maps do.

Style – I’ve tried to stick to the current TTC diagram style. Why? I kind of like it. I am from Toronto though. Others, such as Miguel Syyap’s quite wonderful TTC maps, have used London Underground’s famous style – which I must say looks good too! For some reason Syyap hasn’t shown an as-is system map using his style though. VIVA has adopted this same style for their diagrammatic system maps.

Here’s links to higher resolution versions of my map:

Toronto Transit Map – downtown detail

Toronto Transit Map – Metro +

Let me know what you think – any suggestions?

Also see our evolution of the TTC subway animated map from September 2007.

I was recently in Vancouver and noticed several fine examples of interesting approaches to bicycle lanes. I think it’s high time Toronto started experimenting a little more with alternate approaches. The only caveat to that being that many of Vancouver’s main streets are quite wide, and downtown are often one-way, so they tend to have more room to play with.

My favourites were the red/umber asphalt surfaced bicycle lane (similar to the colour used on British cycle and bus-only lanes), and the location of a separate “diamond” bicycle lane on the non-curb side of the bus/taxi “diamond” lane – an innovation any cyclist using the Bay Street “diamond” lane would appreciate, after all why should cyclists have to share their lane with some of the largest vehicles on the road (that constantly stop) and the craziest drivers (who also frequently stop)?

OK. I’m a little behind the times. It’s been months since the TTC started installing media video screens on the subway platforms showing CP24 and advertising, but I’m only now getting around to a response.

First of all, I don’t know what the fuss is all about. The Public Space Committee and their ilk are having a fit over all this – and maybe TV is getting all-pervasive with CP24 being broadcast on a giant media screen at Yonge and Bloor and too many to count at Dundas and Yonge – but the fact is, I don’t mind having access to those scrolling news reports, and given the length of a subway platform, the size of the subway screens is easy enough to ignore if you’re not interested. And despite what the TPSC and Spacing seem interested in perpetuating, I don’t find the “design” of Toronto’s subway stations (downtown) to be wonderfully stimulating simply because they bothered to change the colour of the tiles in each station. Frankly the stations look, feel, and sometimes smell like a not-very-well-cared-for public convenience. Bring on the advertising! It’s the only thing to read on the subway when I don’t have a book or newspaper or it’s rush hour and there’s not enough room to get one out.

Some of these people seem convinced that advertising is somehow impacting the sociability of people on the subway. I don’t think these people can possibly ride the subway every day – in a WASPish society, social interaction doesn’t tend to happen on the subway unless you already know the person – that’s just not the way we are. Staring at walls and avoiding eye contact is what we do – advertising or no advertising. And while Toronto is far more diverse than being mono-WASPish, I think many of the other cultures here adopt the dominant social convention when it comes to things like subway culture. Want proof? Just ride the subway.

But I digress. That’s not the point. What I cannot understand is how the TTC has not required that these new video screens display the wait time for the next train the way it is done in innumerable other cities. More to the point – how can a first-class subway system like the TTC’s not afford to have their own information system for the next train? Now it might seem pointless to do so for Toronto’s simple subway system – with only 2 lines, basically all trains going to the end of the lines, and trains supposed to be never more than every 5 minutes, why would you need to know when the next train is? To me it’s simply a question of passenger appreciation – it’s always nice to know how long the wait will be because sometimes something happens and the train won’t be coming in 5 minutes. You reduce passenger anger and frustration by letting us know when the next train will be – if the first train is full and I know the second one is only 2 minutes behind it, I won’t feel so bad waiting for it.

Back in July, Howard Moscoe, City councillor and chair of the Transit Commission, publicised an idea to provide electronic information screens for bus stops in suburban parts of the city. While I support this idea – (but hey let’s start with streetcar lines and frequent service routes since those are the ones without a detailed schedule – most suburban routes stick to a pretty strict, timed schedule that can be posted in print at stops) in almost every other city I can think of that has these bus information systems, they did it first on their subway system. On the Spacing Wire story, the picture they use isn’t even from a bus shelter – it’s from the Jubilee line in London (Stanmore is the northern terminus). In so many other places such as London, Paris, Rotterdam, Singapore – they believe it is worthwhile to tell passengers when the next train will be. There are far fewer subway stations than bus stops, and they already have to know exactly where every subway train is for safety purposes, so for a starter project, why is it so hard – especially when they’re replacing information screens on the subway already?

But, while I’m on this topic – let’s talk about the other side of subway communications – announcing the current station and the next station. The TTC has been beefing up its vigilance in requiring subway operators to call out the next stop and the station when they’re pulling into it. However, I was recently moved to write this article after a week of horrible rides culminating in a terrible operator announcing each station with an Eyore-like death and doom voice that for me made the act of riding the subway a tightrope walk of seasonal depression. Not to mention other times when mumbled station names were inaudible, when stations were incorrectly called, and when the mic seemed to cut out just before the station was called – “the next station is ——-”.

In many other city’s subways, such as some lines in London, all Singapore lines and on the Vancouver Skytrain, station names are called out with an automated system using a pre-recorded soothing but audible voice – almost always a woman’s – clearly announcing the stops. I don’t think this is space-age technology! Please, oh please can they start using a system like this on Toronto’s subway! I do already know all the stops – but sometimes when the car is full you can’t quite see the station name or remember what colour tiles your station happens to be (especially if you’re not on a trip you do every day). If the TTC already cares enough to require their operators to call out the stops all day long, can they please see the reason in installing an automated system?

As an aside – LED displays of the current station and next station are an on-board feature of many of these same systems – giving a visual clue for those who haven’t heard or understood the audible announcement. In many other cities, they even have such displays on buses, let alone subways. A few years ago when the TTC started receiving delivery of their new subway cars, I was shocked to find that apart from being shiny steel and having red seat covers instead of orange and brown, the only real improvement over the old cars (which must have been at least 20 years old) was wider doors. There were no other technology or passenger features that made the subway-riding experience better. How many years will we have to wait now until some more sophisticated rolling stock is delivered? I prefer not to think about it. All I can say is I’m glad the TTC decided to forestall their replacement of the streetcar fleet in favour of refurbishment since I’m sure all they would have done is reorder the exact same streetcars.

No innovation here. Given the TTC’s budgetary restraints I’m not sure I blame them, but I think it’s awful that they’re not even bothering to try to leverage advertising space for improved passenger information systems. Come to think of it – Toronto sucks at that in general – take the garbage can fiasco as an example.

In 2002 we completed the ridiculous Sheppard Subway line at a cost of $934 million and yet the TTC did not implement any of these passenger information system initiatives – let alone some of the other passenger experience improvements of other systems such as glass walled automated platform barrier/doors that make it impossible for someone to be pushed into the tracks, stop the wind from rushing through stations, and look HOT. While I know that transit financing in Canada is so tied to politics that understanding the logic behind any of the decisions is pointless, it still bothers me that $934 million can be spent on a subway to nowhere, but nothing can be found to help improve the experience on the existing system, nor a couple of million dollars extra (on a pricetag of $934 million) to pilot a new information technology on a new line.

All I can say is, it’s sad. But in case you think it’s impossible in Toronto, go and check out York Region’s fancy new Viva rapid tranist bus system. Not only do the bus stops have displays showing how long until the next bus, but there are on-board displays showing next stop and time to next stop. Hello future.