Lost On The Toronto Subway

Before Line 3 shut down, we had three “Lawrence” stations – Lawrence West, Lawrence (plain) and Lawrence East. I had the brilliant idea to rename them as Larry, Laurent and Lorenzo respectively, just to help clear up the confusion. Should have been more vocal about it, I guess.

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I remember a non-local asking me how to get to Dundas. And I said "which Dundas? Dundas west station? Dundas station? Dundas at University?" She panicked. My train came and I left her because I hadda go. Welcome to Toronto, sister.

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3rd day in Toronto, going for the first time to Union station I needed to take line 1. I knew Line 1 has 2 "legs", so I said: "Ok, one is the Finch Leg, and the other is the Vaughan Leg". I arrived at the entrance and I was surprised because I could not find the Words "Finch" or "vaughan" easily. I only read "University" (I said: Ok, so there is an university somewhere up there, but than doesnt help me at all) and "Spadina" (What the hell is an Spadina?, I asked myself) and the other one saying Yonge which is a name that is everywhere. Then I kept walking and saw a really small sign saying "Towards Finch".

There are lots of things I like about the TTC. Having grown up with BC transit in smaller cities and rural service it surpasses what I had to use, but even that experience is a decade old. I really wish the TTC was a) better funded and b) better managed. You are right, there is no leadership.

You had me rolling at "Vagina South" 😂. Great video! As someone who's been using the TTC for 10+ years and has been to Montreal a handful of times, I immediately felt the difference in navigation and ease of use as someone newly using the STM system. Explaining the "U bend" to newcomers is always the first thing I do cause both going northbound is naturally confusing.

If looking at TTC signage makes you want to take the car, that is by the intentional choice of the Mike Harris government in the mid 1990s to slash the city and TTC’s funding. Since then any new builds have been funded with a lot more federal money than necessary and with more provincial control than Toronto is comfortable with. Oh and the multiple Tim Hortons at Finch Station were basically the result of the one location having too much demand. Effectively they are part of the same unit, built around the lotto stand and other shops inside the station.

I visited Toronto for the first time in early November and while I found figuring out which transit I needed to take was relatively easy thanks to Google Maps. But figuring out where to go to get on the correct direction or figuring out where a transit stop was, was an absolute nightmare. The signage was nearly useless to me and I had to rely on asking other transit riders to figure out that info.

As a graphic designer and a public transport user I have to agree with your conclusion. Toronto is crap for wayfinding.

As someone who has lived here for my entire life, I naively believed that the Union renovations would make it easier to navigate, but that entire station is a giant clusterfuck of confusing staircases and signage. Do I have to go upstairs from this side to reach the streetcars? Once I get stuck in the tunnel to the streetcars with hordes of people, which numbered line can I take to get to my destination? Who tf knows. I think one simple thing they could do is to split the YUS Subway (aka Line 1) into two separate lines with two separate numbers and two separate, distinct colours / patterns. Line 1, if you have to keep the name, becomes the Yonge line, and Line X (whatever number we're at... 4? 5?) becomes something else. The loop definition throws a wrench into people's directional sense because arms of the "U" go north-south. Another thing, as he touched on the video, is to give a very obvious direction and visual indication on the signs, on the floors, and everywhere else. It should be super obvious which direction I'm headed everywhere I look.

75 yr old male here, born and raised in T.O. When you started in on pointing out the shitty signage, lousy wayfinding and confusing stations I laughed so hard, my coffee shot out of my nose! It's all true! Every word of it. From my own experience, I've found that if you call to lodge a complaint or email a suggestion, you're really just talking to Al Gorithm, so you're just talking to yourself, They don't ask for your input; they know best. I gave up even looking at any of their posters. Wonderful abstract art but simply hopeless at passing on important info you need NOW. I know the system and the routes and I just head to the correct train or streetcar, no posters needed. I could relate horror stories about people in a panic asking me how you get from here to there,. I could have opened my own info kiosk. But that's a story for another day.

The only thing pointed out here that I will kind of defend is the station naming for Dundas and Dundas West. It's not the subway's fault that the street meanders through the city. That's the name of the major street the station is at. So they kind of need to name the station after it. It would be 10x more confusing to name it after some other random thing, or a much less well known sidestreet a block over or something.

So, I agree that the wayfinding in union is trash. As someone who has lived in the city for nine years, when I first arrived I was lost. Same goes for cross connection up beyond Eglington. Where I object is the issue with the timmies and the streetcars. The three tim hortons actually makes a bit of weird sense. 1: They are franchises. This means there was a demand and owners bought a lease. 2: their locations are for travelers coming from different directions. One is in the station, one is by the Go station and the other is just above the platforms. 3: they are busy and there's demand. For the streetcars, they are very useful and they are the most used streetcars in North America. Your mocking of them sort of seems to be in poor taste. The reason the stops are not there is to make it simple. The stops (and the extensive bus network) are on the main map you can see in stations. Overall, yeah we need to improve our wayfinding. As for duplicate station names, the plan moving forward is to use more unique names. They will rename Eglinton East to Cedarvalle (that's the huge park you didn't know the name of). As a former resident of Glasgow, Toronto is streets ahead.

Wouldn't it be easier to just split Line 1 (Yellow) into two, down at Union? Doesn't matter if the trains of the two lines run through services into each other - many cities do this anyway.

I think you’re being too harsh.

This design rebrand is actually pretty recent. Before 2013, there was no unified design language on the TTC, which made riding MUCH more difficult, especially with added LRT/Streetcar/SRT naming debate.

The Path Network honestly makes things a lot worse. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten lost in Union Station or Eaton Center, as the entire downtown subway network connects to a giant underground shopping mall.

Kia ora Paige! You're totally brilliant! Just discovered your channel via the YouTube algorithm. Perfect video. I love design and transit, live in Toronto and am a NZ/Canadian dual citizen. Lived in Wellington in primary school. Just subscribed, Try navigating the subway system needing elevators - even when you've lived here for over a decade. I'm an ambulatory wheelchair user without my own wheelchair yet because the process of getting mine is taking bloody forever. I use two canes when I'm on the TTC. While I can do stairs, I don't do stairs or escalators with strangers because I'm always dizzy, and being bumped and/or having someone kick my cane (yes, that happens) means I could fall and hurt myself and others. It's not always evident which way the elevators are, if there are elevators, if they're actually working, or in the case of Dundas station if it's the route that goes through the pee ridden underground parking.  The kicker is that the longer I'm standing the more dizzy I get, my blood pressure drops, and medical drama ensues. In February 2022 I got to stop the entire Bloor line and leave Spadina station in an ambulance - partly because the subway service was off and I had to spend way too much time standing. There's a sign by the elevator in the building on Yonge and Queen that says "press intercom for elevator". There's no intercom. The only button is the elevator button - which is what you're supposed to use.

I'll never forget the period of time that line 1's official name was the Yonge-University-Spadina Line adding further confusion by naming a section of the line after a 1960s expressway that was never fully opened and the section that did open was named Allen Road. Somehow this confusing mess is still an improvement on the old system.