The Great Race: Ghost Station

Literally passed through the abandoned Yorkville subway station last weekend. Due to tunnel construction work, trains are temporarily being shunted through tunnels and platforms not normally open to the public. Like in the former East Berlin, the train trundles slowly through the station, but does not stop.

My first couple of hours in Berlin last year were spent navigating their subway system, in search of Landsberger Allée. This involved first obtaining Euros at the airport, dealing with a surly clerk at the transit desk, a bus ride to Zoo Station, dealing with a non-English speaking clerk at the tourist bureau, and then figuring out that there was also a weekend reroute, and having to plot a convoluted course across multiple lines to get through it all.

This is pressure-cooker German: standing in each place for a couple minutes at a time, mit Wörterbuch, closely studying the route maps, listening intently to every syllable of an announcement, or waiting under the digital signs for the scrolling message to repeat, and translating a couple more words on each pass.

Speaking with an acquaintance who works for the TTC, the re-routing here took almost a year to plan out. Unlike many other systems, the layout is simple and normally easy-to-use, with only one line serving any given platform, and always in the same direction, to the same terminus. Passengers are not accustomed to checking the destination of the train pulling in to the station. However, with good pre-publicity, constant announcements, numerous staff on hand guiding passengers, and the clear special signage, there didn't seem to be too much confusion after all.

Nevertheless, while it was once a world leader and pioneer, the Toronto Transit system now lags badly. Only recently has the next desperately needed expansion project been approved. Hopefully, continued attention to the "good state of repair" policy will keep the system aging well. In London and New York, they have experienced major failures of some track equipment which is now over 100 years old.

Speaking of old, the Budapest Metro has a Millennium Line, just like the Vancouver SkyTrain. Except that the Hungarian version commemorates the 1000th anniversary of the migration of the Magyars, in 1896. Back in the days of the Empire (Austro-Hungarian), Budapest actually had the second subway system in the world, after London.