Toronto Transit Maps

I’ve had some time recently to putter around with my various Toronto-related Google maps.  I enjoy Gmaps for a number of reasons, but chiefly because making my own maps allows me to remember cool places to visit that I read about or stumble across.

With my recent move to Toronto, I very quickly learned that the Toronto Transit Commission’s website maps are woefully inadequate.  As a newbie trying to find your way around, your options are either a fast loading map of the subway that gives you little context, or a behemoth PDF of the whole transit system which takes forever to load and re-load each time you move around on it.

But what if I want to know which stop is closest to the bar or restaurant I’m going to?  Outta luck.

Woe was me, until I came across Ian Steven’s hybrid TTC/Google map.  It works great, is search-able and is very comprehensive.  Of course, I wanted my own, so I piggy-backed off of all his hard work and came up with this:

Check out my TTC Subway Lines map here.

I like this for two reasons: a) I made it and b) it can be added and removed to your Gmaps as you please for quick searching of locations and stops.  Note: this is in no way different from Ian Steven’s Gmaps add on.  Not any better, nor any worse.  I just wanted to see if I could do it myself.

With that done, I next decided to see if there were any Gmaps laying out the TTC streetcar routes.  Outside of Steven’s full map, there wasn’t (at least that I could find, if there is, let me know).

So, I went ahead and pulled this together:

Check out my TTC Streetcar Lines map here.

This one is wholly my making, but again using Steven’s full TTC map for guidance.  It’s really rough right now, but each line does link to the a TTC pdf of the route which gives a little more information.  There is a good deal of cleanup that I’ll need to do where multiple lines occupy the same route, but for clarity’s sake some appear to be running through buildings.  I also hope to add more detailed information to each line, including stops and the alternate night time routes for applicable lines.

I’m finding it super useful for my needs, especially when I layer the two.  I would love any input, suggestions, or comments you might have as to how I can improve these, though.

Down the road I’m hoping to mess around with some of the Gmaps api stuff, but for now this’ll have to suffice.

Enjoy!

Tags: Ben, maps, Toronto, Transit, TTC