The TTC Story: The First Seventy-five Years

by Mike Filey, Ted Wickson (Photo Editor)

Looking back over the past 75 years, there is no doubt that public transportation has played a major role in the development and maturing of Toronto and its metropolitan area. Indeed , despite the fiscal challenges facing it, the TTC today remains a transit agency with an enviable reputation.

The TTC Story:The First Seventy-five Years, by Mike Filey, features over one hundred magnificent black and white images selected to illustrate the principal "transit" event in each year of the TTC's existence. The photographs have been selected from the Commission's vast archival collection by its knowledgeable archivist, Ted Wickson. Each event is fully described and put into its local, national, and worldwide historical context through the use of entertaining and informative text.

Genres: Nonfiction

168 pages, Paperback

First published July 26, 1997

About the author

Mike Filey was born in Toronto in 1941. He has written more than two dozen books on various facets of Toronto’s past and for more than thirty-five years has contributed a popular column, “The Way We Were,” to the Toronto Sunday Sun.

Reviews

[Nico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone around me know how much I love the TTC. Most people who know me probably want me to shut the hell up about the TTC already Nico, I get it, you spotted a new electric bus and yes that's a very nice streetcar, and yes I understand the T1 is better than the TR and it's not really objective it's just gut instinct. So the discovery of this book made my eyes light up like a train switching to run WB at Kennedy Station (I apologize now for the embarrassing cringey things I will say in this review).

Watching the city develop through the eyes of transit was really rewarding and made me quite proud of all those before me who had that vision and fought tooth and nail for the development we have now. The designers who built the Prince Edward Viaduct to accommodate a train over half a century before it was used for anything but cars - insane. It's incredibly hard for me to picture some parts of the city without the TTC so the photos and descriptions and maps were great. Understanding quite how many passengers the TTC has seen over the decades is absolutely mind boggling.

The year-by-year approach made me appreciate the Toronto my grandparents and Mom grew up in. The fact that my Mom was born before Line 2 opened still boggles my mind. I love thinking what the next generation will grow up thinking "well duh, there was always an LRT along Finch West. The tunnel to Humber College has always been there!"

Seeing how many strides we've made in accessibility in such a short time is astounding. We finished the book with a tiny fraction of the fleet being wheelchair accessible/low floor and now the entire surface fleet is accessible and the subway, already mostly accessible, is set to be the same by 2025 (with the exception of Islington/Warden Stn which are being demolished and rebuilt).

I have such a ridiculous affection for all the different vehicles in the TTC's history so I loved seeing their origins. I will forever be salty the trolley buses were retired before I was born. One day I will ride one. I don't really want them back in Toronto now, I just want the experience. The Orion VIIs (which I adore despite their flaws and are still in service, though being retired) were being purchased at the end of the book and I was grinning picturing what was to come both in bus and rail.

I got so many little anecdotes from this book that I started a note on my phone and am tormenting those around me by telling stories at irrelevant times. I do not apologize for this because everyone should know a TTC streetcar once collided with a RCAF plane on Kingston Rd and that the TTC once owned the Hanlan's Point amusement park rides and hot dogs stands.

It was so interesting as we got near the end to hear the projects that were planned and Filey expected to happen and see where we are instead. That Eglinton line is finally getting done... or so they tell me. Line 6 will open at virtually the same time as Line 5 despite construction beginning years later, mark my words.

I desperately wanted an updated version of this, and did pick up at great expense (it was of course a fundraiser for United Way, so-) a TTC 100th anniversary book, which will be my next TTC deep dive. That said, I definitely see myself coming back here to find another interesting story or a different way of seeing Toronto and the TTC. If you're at all interested in transit or Toronto's history, pick this up.

[Aras · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent survey of the history of Toronto's public transit system. The writing is a little too folksy at times.