Someone visited every TTC subway station in just a few hours
While most of us in Toronto would do anything to avoid being stuck on the TTC for a few hours, one public transportation enthusiast recently embarked on the audacious task of visiting all 75 subway stations in the city in one day.
Miles Taylor, who is originally from Cambridge, Massachusetts, is currently an urban studies student at the University of Pennsylvania and runs the Miles in Transit blog and YouTube channel.
Miles has been riding trains and buses all his life, and first started a blog called "Miles on the MBTA" in 2013, which is the public transport agency in the Greater Boston region. While the blog initially began as a review of every bus route and station on the MBTA, Miles slowly branched out to cover more routes in Massachusetts — and eventually, North America.
With nearly 30k subscribers on YouTube, Miles recently uploaded a video of him visiting all 75 TTC subway stations, in an effort to beat the three-hour and 20-minute record previously achieved by creator Reece Martin, who runs RMTransit.
Miles began his journey on Line 2 at Kipling subway station, and quickly highlighted how the train consistently dipped below and above ground for a change of scenery.
The creator also noted the TTC's deadpan station announcements, the funky wall tiles at Dufferin and Warden subway stations, and the "brutalist walkway" leading to Victoria Park subway station.
After a lot of running to catch a connecting bus from Line 3 to Line 4, Miles had the quintessential TTC experience of sitting next to a passenger who couldn't stop talking about conspiracy theories.
"It was just a truly unique line that was way too loud, but it was just a blast to ride," Miles said of the now-shuttered Line 3.
The TTC Line 3 Scarborough RT is officially dead and will never run againhttps://t.co/Pe0vuNzmnc #TTC #Scarborough #Toronto #Line3
— blogTO (@blogTO) August 24, 2023
However, his mostly positive impression of the TTC took a turn when he transferred to Line 1.
"I quite liked the TTC, at least everything but Line 1. It had a lot of slow zones and ultimately screwed me over getting a good time. Line 2 is a really amazing line, just in terms of the dwells at each station are really short, so you're spending a short amount of time at each stop," Miles told blogTO.
"The layout of the network has always been something that's intrigued me because basically, the only line that really penetrates downtown is Line 1. It does it in a U shape. It's such an odd way to design a system," he explained.
"It seems to more or less work, but also I'm glad to hear that they're doing a lot of expansion given how big Toronto is and how relatively small the TTC is."
Given some lengthy delays at the tail end of Line 1, Miles was unable to beat RMTransit's previous record of three hours and 20 minutes, coming in about 10 minutes later. Despite some roadblocks, the transit enthusiast told blogTO that the journey was a "great ride" overall.
Fareen Karim
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