Text by James Bow
See Also
Transit Toronto is a fan-run Internet resource dedicated to logging the history of public transportation in the Greater Toronto Area.
What does that mean? Well, this site started in 1997 as the Toronto Subway Page, set up on a lark by Aaron Adel. Although an adjunct to his other personal web pages, he accepted my input on a few new articles, and the site developed from there. Since then, it has been a rush of covering as much of the Toronto Transit Commission as possible. Aaron stepped back from the day-to-day operation of the website in April 2000 (but remains as co-owner), and I took over full operation of the website. I gave it its own URL and have been updating it since. Others joined Aaron and me, contributing articles, photos, their expertise, and more. We now have a good picture of most facets of the TTC and GO Transit, and are expanding our reach to the transit agencies throughout the Greater Toronto Area.
Why Do We Do It?
Because we can. We love what we’re doing. We love Toronto and we love public transit. Personally, I’m motivated by the fact that my parents were both librarians. From them, I have inherited not only a love of books but also a belief that information should be free. And while that can’t wholly explain why someone would spend a quarter of a century building a website about public transit in Toronto, it seems as good a starting point as any. Transit Toronto should be an Internet resource, independent of any organization or club, existing to serve the railfan community and anybody else with an interest in public transit in Toronto.
Site Management
Aaron Adel - Founder
Aaron was born in Toronto and his first love is subways. He started this site up in 1997 when the Internet was still quite under-developed and there were no other Toronto transit resources available. In the beginning, it served as an information guide, strictly for subways. Later on, his interest expanded to include all vehicles that the TTC runs. Aaron is a consultant with a Toronto management consulting firm and is also a speaker on topics such as job seeking and career change. For more information you may view his personal website.
James Bow - Chief Content Editor
James was born in Toronto but moved to Kitchener in 1991. He returns to his home town frequently to explore the city through public transit. He is also a writer, having published seven novels of science fiction and fantasy, and over eighty non-fiction books for children. By day, he works freelance as a communications manager. He continues to live in Kitchener with his wife, fellow author Erin Bow, and their two kids.You can learn more about him and his work over on his website.
Robert Mackenzie - Senior News Correspondent
Rob is a writer and editor who worked in communications and clear language for the City of Toronto for almost 31 years. His childhood interest in public transit peaked when he worked as a student for the Hamilton Street Railway for three months in 1973 and continues unabated.
Damian Baranowski - Video Content Manager
Back in 2017, Damian Baranowski took our dormant YouTube Channel and transformed it into a place filled with Toronto transit-related video content. He continues to film new videos and manages the Transit Toronto video team. He is a graduate of Durham College’s Digital Media Productions program and works as a Master Control Operator at Channel Zero Inc.
Other Contributors
John Calnan is a talented map maker and is sharing his skills with us for a number of our route histories.
Jelo Gutierrez Cantos has donated several photos and articles to Transit Toronto, and has taken the lead in maintaining our route history pages. He was born in the Philippines and raised in Scarborough since 1998. Check out some of the photos in his collection.
David Cavlovic is a prolific contributor of photographs, especially for the subway, bus and streetcar divisions of Transit Toronto.
Pete Coulman, along with Jeffrey Kay, helped compile a comprehensive history of the development of Toronto’s bus routes, which they kindly shared with us on this site. Pete, a noted musician who has produced and arranged music for films, television and the stage, has sadly passed away.
Peter Drost has contributed articles to the GO Transit Division of Transit Toronto and is particularly interested in proposals that never came to be.
Roman Fomin was born in Russia and has lived in Toronto since 2009. From his early years, he has been interested in trolley buses and streetcars which, first and foremost, attracted him as a complex integrated system. Sadly the tram system in Roman’s hometown of Voronezh, one of the biggest in Europe, has been eradicated, which partly explains the enthusiasm with which Roman has undertaken historical research in the field of public transportation in Toronto with its exuberant past and present. He created a series of historical maps, contributed articles, corrected stories, donated numerous photographs, and has diligently worked to provide current images for our route history pages.
Daniel Garcia has contributed several articles and photographs to the Regional Transit Division of Transit Toronto and was largely responsible for that division’s development.
Rob Hutchinson (also known as Rob Hutch) has been kind enough to donate several pictures to Transit Toronto’s streetcar division and he is making his collection of R. Hill photographs available to online rail fans.
Jeffrey Kay grew up in midtown Toronto and from an early age was out exploring the city by transit and on a bicycle. These two modes continue to be his favoured means of travel around this growing, diverse city. Over the years he has accumulated a large library of route and schedule documentation, which proved vital in building our bus route history pages showing the evolution of the TTC surface network, one route at a time. In any weather, you may find Jeffrey taking photos of the city’s transit system in action.
Christopher Livett has provided transit maps and helped organize this site’s archive.
Richard White is a Seneca College alumna in the field of International Business. He has been a longstanding volunteer with the Toronto Railway Historical Association and a Toronto transit enthusiast specializing in Toronto transit history.
Other Contacts
Media Inquiries
We welcome all opportunities to speak with the media about what we do here at Transit Toronto. All inquiries should be directed to James Bow (see his address above), or click the link below…
Corrections
See a mistake or inconsistency anywhere on the site? We’d love to know about it so we can correct it and provide the most accurate information to our readers. To send in a correction, simply click the button below…
Would you like to help us?
If you think that no one person can build a website as extensive as Transit Toronto, you would be right. And it hasn’t been just one or two people who have built up this site over the past two years, either. We are indebted to the contributors listed above, and more besides.
But just because others have stepped forward doesn’t mean that we don’t need your help as well. There are many ways you can help Transit Toronto remain on the web and fresh, and how you can earn our everlasting gratitude. You can…
- Submit an Article!: We are always looking for new articles and article ideas. If you have an idea to cover something that hasn’t been covered in Transit Toronto, please send your idea (and article, if you have it) to us. We accept articles in all formats, but they will be modified so that they conform to Transit Toronto’s HTML formatting standard.
- Submit Pictures: Pictures are also a welcome submission to Transit Toronto. We prefer JPEGs to GIFs and PNGs, but will accept all three. If your picture was not snapped by you, please e-mail us the name of the person who took your photograph, if you know it. A brief description of what the photograph is and where and when it was taken would also be helpful.
- Become a Patreon Member or Buy us a Coffee: Maintaining this site comes with costs, including webhosting fees, software licenses, bandwidth fees and more. If you would like to help defray those costs, you are more than welcome to make a one-time or a monthly contribution. Click here to learn how.
Submissions can be sent to either James or Robert above.
Please note that Transit Toronto has a privacy policy, and you can view it here.
Special thanks to Tom Box, Mark Brader, John Bromley, Ray Corley, Alan Gryfe, Steve Munro, and all others who have contributed to Transit Toronto.
