News   Dec 05, 2025
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News   Dec 05, 2025
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News   Dec 05, 2025
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Toronto Eglinton Line 5 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

Or, wait for it, a really shocking idea :eek:: Use that empty space for information that would actually be useful to the transit riders. Such as the map of the network, with updates for all long-term detours. Or rules for what is or is not allowed on TTC vehicles (bicycles, e-scooters, ...). Or information about schedules on major lines. Or locations of TTC self-service bike repair stands.
10% of the advertising space that the TTC sells is "sold" back to the TTC for their use and at no cost. This is set up in the contract with Pattison.

Dan
 
I really don't know why they can't just replace the LED board with a new design. I'm sure TTC can pay for this. Major cities around the world do update their LEDs at least once in their 30 year lifespan right? They can include all the extensions under constructions like Ontario Line, Eglinton West, Yonge North and Scarborough.

They did spend $800,000 renaming Downsview to Sheppard West, they can spend a few million to do this. Who knows how much they are already spending.
I wont be surprised if they do this once they go in for the midlife rebuild. Its not as easy nor cheap as you suggest it to be, especially at govt contract and labour rates.
 
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so 2025 is officially dead....

at least they are able to transfer to TTC quicker than line 6.....
 
View attachment 700760
so 2025 is officially dead....

at least they are able to transfer to TTC quicker than line 6.....
There’s so much problem with the connecting bus network they’ll need the next schedule change to accommodate. Otherwise if they just ran the current network, it’ll give a bad impression when transfers are so unfriendly.
 
I wont be surprised if they do this once they go in for the midlife rebuild. Its not as easy nor cheap as you suggest it to be, especially at govt contract and labour rates.
With the prevalence of single board computers (Raspberry Pis, etc.), ultrawide displays and other technology since their design in the mid 00s, it's quite a bit cheaper on the backend side. Of course, not including dev.

From a theoretical standpoint—and assuming open standards and off-the-shelf aren't eschewed in favour of more expensive proprietary "solutions":

If the ATC were able to output messaging/location updates through something like MQTT (XMPP, DDS, etc.) a pretty simple system could be set up using a unix variant on a raspberry pi or NUC, HDMI distribution over ethernet hardware and ultrawide, UHD flat screen monitors behind protective plexi and lots of ethernet cable. Displays could be placed over every set of doors (instead of every nth as they are now). Accessibility outages, skipping stations in the event of security problems, delays, etc. could all be displayed actively in realtime on each station, but as the TTC is prone to avoiding notifying riders of anything, it doesn't need to be any more complicated than static slides triggered by track locations (though I'd personally only have that as a backup in the event of active system failure).

I could be totally off here, but build in some redundancy and I could see getting bare hardware costs to ~$60,000 per train (x82 = ~$5m). I personally think removal, development, installation could be done for $10m-$15m for the entire fleet and a couple million for future maintenance and warranty servicing. It's not a lot relative to the TTCs $2.8B annual budget, especially if money is already being put aside for midlife retrofits. I'm sure the TTC will get quoted a nice round $150m to put any kind of retrofit of modern displays on the fleet however.
 

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