Steve: Go to the Transit Planning page and scroll down to “Service Improvements” and “Service Summary”.

I don’t believe so. A far more significant cause of people start looking for alternatives is when they cannot rely on a consistent wait-time for service. Having to wait an additional six minutes for a train in the evening is not as big an issue if that six minutes is consistent. That is a major advantage that the subway will have, as long as it is still reasonably frequent given the time of day. I simply don’t believe that 15-minute service in the evenings falls out of being ‘reasonably frequent’.

If the wait is three minutes one night, twelve the next, nine after that, there is a greater tendency to start to look for an alternative.

The point, once again, is that it is better to make some judicious cuts with an eye to the overall effect on the system than to shrug and say these won’t make a difference and have someone who couldn’t care less about transit come in with a hatchet and make severely damaging cuts. It is also important to realize that in politics, it is often the sizzle that is more important than the steak. Some cutbacks that make a tiny financial difference can make a huge difference image wise.

The fact of the matter is that except for that City Hall ride, Stintz never uses transit, despite living in the inner city.

She has come out to meetings about transit in places like Scarborough by car. At least Adam came no the buses and subways including out to Malvern by TTC.

Stintz would never do that.

Steve: The TTC has a project in the capital budget, not yet funded, to pre-build part of the Richmond Hill subway up to Cummer as a three-track structure and use this for storage of at least ten trains. As you can easily figure out, this would have to be built as cut-and-cover, and I don’t want to imagine the chaos north of Finch Station while that proceeded.

Just a quick follow up to your comment in the post about the pension fund solvency. This has been the primary topic of discussion in the current (and glacial moving) contract negotiations. The TTC, the Unions, and the Pension Fund Society have had discussions with the Provincial regulators and have determined that a re-structuring of how the PFS is set up and administered will allow it to solve the solvency issue and move forward to reduce its impact on the TTC financials.

The TTC has approved these changes at the April 6, 2011 Commission meeting. The three Unions have approved the changes. The final step is for the PFS members to approve the changes at its Annual General Meeting on June 19. The PFS covers ALL TTC employees (unionized, non-unionized). Once the PFS approves the changes to the structure, the solvency issue should remove itself from the TTC’s financial problems.

So because people take longer to get there its somehow OK to cut the service standard? If we want people to take a subway, then, like it or not, expectations are that a train will arrive earlier then every 12-15 minutes. Otherwise, people will find an alternative and in the inner suburbs, that means cars.

As for my hyperbole, the Sheppard line is almost yearly suggested for mothballing – usually by a downtown councillor trying to make the news during a TTC budget crisis. It’s an easy target but if the TTC went down that route, there would be a political demand for some sacrifices in the downtown – cut the eastern part of the 506, for example.

I apologize to Ms Stintz for making such a broad accusation without checking the facts first.

However, it can also be a question of when and where the Commissioners ride. Riding the subway between Queen and Eglinton, outside of peak periods, shows the system close to its best.

Steve: She was on during the peak period in the middle of the massive service screwup caused by the lightning strike on the signal equipment at Wilson Yard the night before (the trains did not all get into service on time for the peak period), and was present when a passenger fainted on the overcrowded train. This was reported at the Commission meeting (along with a discussion of the signal problem) and by the Star.

Enduring a standing-crush-load ride from Finch to Dundas in the morning rush, or transferring at Bloor and Yonge in afternoon peak when trains are delayed, would give a different picture. As would standing on the corner of Kipling and Dixon at 11 PM in winter waiting for a bus, or being stuck the sketchier stations such as Kennedy at night. Or riding an ALRV that has a day’s junk of newspapers and food wrappers strewn about, and juice bottles rolling back and forth. Oh yes, and the unwashed person that got on via the back doors and is now muttering to the voices in their head….

Steve: Subsidy. This translates to about $43m, or about 3%. The problem we have is that there is also an extraordinary increase in diesel fuel pricing that will cost $30-40m in 2012.

I know it is a large agency. But come on. Mississauga Transit, Brampton Transit, YRT, GO Transit, etc. All these systems don’t see their costs rise by mega amounts year after year, putting them in major budget issues like the TTC.

There is something wrong here with the TTC budget. I understand there are wage increases. But we should not be facing a budget each and every year which is $50 to $100 million in the hole all the time.

Maybe we should find out what YRT, MT, and all the others are doing to maintain balanced budgets.

Steve: First you should check which of those 905 transit systems CUT service this year in response to funding reductions by their local councils. The TTC’s operating budget is roughly $1.4b of which $1b or so is labour and benefits costs, and the rest utilities, materials, supplies and services purchased from others. Labour can be expected to go up something like 2.5%, and that’s $25m. We already know that diesel fuel is going up by one third, and that adds $30-40m. Other cost increases which are not under the TTC’s control will add to the non-labour component. There will be 3% more riders next year, and this requires more service. Even if some of the added riding can be accommodated within the existing operation, we’re probably looking at about 1.5%, and on that base of $1.4b, that’s about $20m. The 905 systems have the same cost pressures, only at a lower scale, and they operate in a political environment where cutting transit affects so few voters that councils can get away with this approach.

I’m not sure what the equivalent in transit service is, but someone will come up with them.

Paper schedules are not a bad idea, except that so many times, the engineers that make up the schedule, don’t know what traffic and conditions that bus puts up with, sometimes though it’s the driver, there should be incentives for drivers to stay on time, or penalties for those that don’t and if it’s not possible to stay on schedule, fix the schedule.

Steve: There are parts of the TTC that overlap the City, but you are assuming that there is surplus workers, or work hours, on both sides that would lead to a lower combined staffing level than in two separate organizations. Policing of the subway has already been transferred to TPS, and the TTC’s own Transit Enforcement Officers deal with simpler types of activity that do not require arrest powers or the use of force. There is certainly a functional overlap in areas such as HR, payroll and financial management, but it’s a big jump to assume that the City staff performing this work have free time on their hands to absorb the TTC’s business too.

The biggest cost of the transit system is the provision of service, and this has no functional equivalent at the City. Any savings from amalgamating or transferring functions would be a comparatively small part of the overall budget, and this would be a one-time saving. I’m not say don’t look at possible savings, but remember that we will be back at this exercise with the 2013, 2014, … budgets and you can only make that type of saving once.

Steve: As I noted in my article, there is no explicit provision for any new spending on customer service. How many bus routes will be cut so that the TTC can put a smiling face on the result?

Really?!? Why spill 10W30 on that slope when hyperbole makes it slipperier?

We in Toronto have this belief that rapid transit must not ever operaate less frequent than about 10 minutes. In so many other cities, many metro and LRT routes operate with frequencies as low as 15 minutes or worse (“worse” is usually restricted to branches or interlining that may have 30 minute headways on the separate parts, but provide 15 minute headways on the combined part of the routes).

Is it reasonable to think that someone who takes a suburban feeder bus that runs on 20 or even 30 minute headways to a subway that only has a 15 minute headway will suddenly find the subway useless? I don’t think so.

Sure, one can always find a few situations where 15-minute suburban subway frequency would be a problem, but the bigger picture has to be taken into account. Certainly removing half the service on Sheppard in off-peak times will not be a huge savings, but we really have to set aside certain “sacred cows” and carefully look at small ways to save what limited funding there is. To do otherwise is to risk a willy-nilly hatchet job.

Steve: The folks driving the trains are small change in the overall manpower required to operate the subway. If you cut two trains, you save four people, but you still have the Station Collectors, Supervisors, and all of the standby maintenance staff. The reduced service would probably have no effect equipment maintenance cycles (ie: you wouldn’t be able to change the number of days between various scheduled maintenance tasks for the trains), and you wouldn’t save anything in the shops.

Personally I believe that if they raise fares now the city (notably Rob Ford) are going to get a major backlash from it.. after all they cut service to save money and now they want to raise fares and provide less service when they could have just kept service the same and raised fares to begin with.

All I can say is expect a fare hike and restored service levels.. it would be political suicide to raise fares now given that they just cut service.

Certainly it’s the job of the Commission, and its Chair, to deal with difficult circumstances. But first of all they should be working to keep the TTC out of the difficult circumstances to begin with. And they should be transit commissioners first. Something that Ms Stinz is not: what’s the last time she stepped on a transit vehicle to go somewhere, rather than as a PR exercise?

Steve: Actually, Karen Stintz does use the TTC regularly including yesterday morning. I may not agree with her politics, but she can’t be criticized as a motorist who doesn’t ride transit.

Karen Stinz is less the chair of a transit commission than Rob Ford’s metaphorical trained seal and mouthpiece. On command, she claps her metaphorical flippers and makes the appropriate barking sounds. Her obligations to Mayor Ford appear to infinitely outweigh her responsibilities to the people who took close to 500 million rides on the TTC in the last year.

Steve: More to the point, if we are going to have fare increases and service cuts, we need to have an open discussion about the options, rather than being presented with a fait accompli by staff who cobble together a bunch of cuts and claim that their thorough analysis “justifies” what will happen. We also need to recognize that Rob Ford’s pledge not to cut services is in tatters. I happen to live in an area of the city that will still be tolerably well served by transit, but many do not. I hope that all those who are muttering “I never voted for this” start shouting, and that Councillors who owe their political existence to the Ford machine will see how unhappy their constituents are.

As a user of that line on weekends, I agree it is under utilised except one way each during rush times. But, I’m not sure how you could limit it more on weekends without endangering its usefulness in the future. IIRC, on the weekends there are only 4 sets running at one time. Right now, that’s providing service every 7-8 minutes. Make it two and you get a service delivery of every 12-15 minutes. People won’t use it and then it becomes even more tempting to mothball bits and pieces. Who wants to be Mike Harris and just fill in the hole?

I get that people intellectually hate the Sheppard line. However, once we go down the route of cuts to service, it will not stop at Sheppard. Who’s to say that 15 minutes won’t then be used as a yardstick on the Yonge line? “People can stand.” the apologisers will say. Streetcars would be next. “Does the Beach need better service then Mimico?”, some will ask. Awful discussions will ensue. Once we start looking at service cuts on the scale of saving $100 million, every neighbourhood not well connected politically will suffer.

Shoulda done a fare hike.

The link to the Star article goes back to the start of this article- o to the Star.

Thank you

Michael

Steve: Thanks. Fixed a bad URL.

I doubt there is enough fat to cut. Even firing subway collectors (as many Star commenters suggest) would require either new turnstile barriers or lots of fare inspectors. Is the TTC allowed to defer the costs of Presto? How big a fare increase would cover an $85 million shortfall?

Steve: A 25-cent fare increase is 10 percent on the current token fare. Total fare revenue is $1-billion, and a ten percent bump would be $100m. However, that size of an increase would likely drive away some riders and the offsetting loss could be as high as $40m. The last time the TTC had a fare increase, they lost no riders because they were also maintaining and improving service. If they try to jack fares and cut service, they won’t be so lucky.

Well it’s a North York issue too.

You might like referring to it as a ‘high tech toy,’ but once Nextbus rolls out for buses I’ll be willing to take routes where vehicles come every 1/2 hour (since that way I wouldn’t have to wait – I could leave home just a few minutes before I know it’ll be there).

Often the service change notices are put up before the changes. The schedules have to be changed after the changes go into affect. If they are changed before the change, the TTC could be open to major customer service issues if someone reads that schedule and is waiting for a bus time that does not start for another week or two.

Steve: Yes, but when the service change notices go up AFTER the changes are implemented, there is no excuse for not changing the schedule and posting the notice in one visit, let alone visiting the same stop twice four times, twice for each route affected.

Gas prices have gone up 30% in the last year, that cost has to be passed on somehow.

Wouldn’t the impact of the settlement contract be more than $25M in 2012. I assume your $18M for 2011 is 2.5% for 9 months. If this is carried to 12 months in 2012 it would be $25M. However, wouldn’t there be an additional increase of 2.5% in April 2012 making the total 2012 impact $43M.

Steve: Although there is another increase in April 2012, for budgeting purposes it will be relative to April 2011. Over the calendar year, wages, whatever they are, would be 2.5% higher than in 2011. Even without the new contract this year, we have three months of the increase that came into effect on April 1, 2010.

I agree paper schedules at stops can get outdated or fail to match reality, but I’d rather *some* information at stops, so (1) I know I’m at the right stop and (2) I have some idea how long it will take to get to my destination once actually on the bus.

Toronto has about 11,000 stops. In the UK, the West Midlands has about 15,000 stops, with services provided by myriad of operators (although two of provide about 90% of service between them). Nevertheless, they manage to have accurate, up-to-date stop info at every single stop.

Steve: It’s one of those “TTC culture” things where different departments are responsible for different pieces of the process. What amazes me is that the TTC would send crews out with paper signs that have to be attached to every stop, and then send out a crew again to change the stop cards with the schedules. Clearly the message about “customer service” has not percolated through the organization. “Excuses” and “commitments to improvement” are faint substitutes for actual achievements.

The buses in the outer areas like Scarborough run like clockwork most of the time, and the service is frequent.

When it comes down to it, if we have to make a decision on service or these high tech toys. Then I would say to stop the high tech stuff until more funding is available.

“The routes with the problem tend to be the ones with the highest ridership, Queen, Dufferin, Finch West, so it affects a lot of people.”

Finch East can be added to that list too. The schedule says every 4 minutes during rush hour but it usually comes every 10 minutes. Admittedly, this is an improvement over the 20 to 45 minute headway 6 months ago when the 199 was introduced. It’s not as good as the pre-199 service which was every 2 minutes in the PM peak and every 30 to 60 seconds during the AM peak.

Another way out of the conundrum, which nobody seems to have raised recently, is to abolish the TTC monopoly. A few years ago I encountered this as follows: the University of Toronto used to run free shuttle buses between the downtown St. George campus and its campuses in Scarborough and Mississauga. It was decided that the University would have to charge a fare to keep this service running; the result was that while a paid service to Mississauga was instituted, the shuttle to Scarborough was eliminated and students and professors were told to use the TTC (i.e. they use their cars, because the TTC commute between St. George and UTSC is horrendous). This of course is because Scarborough is in Toronto, Mississauga is not. Within Toronto, the TTC has a legal monopoly on paid transit.

With safeguards to prevent unproductive predatory competition and cherry-picking, opening up transit to private operators could fill in the gaps which the TTC cannot service. I was quite impressed by such a mix in the Polish alpine resort town of Zakopane, where at each bus stop there were posted schedules of several operators, especially for night service using small buses.

Steve: Even though I live downtown, my services are often disrupted by short turns and other phenomena. It’s really handy being able to look ahead at a potential transfer point to see what the service there might actually be and whether I am about to land in a huge gap. Of course this is best provided by a non-TTC app like whereismystreetcar on my Blackberry because the TTC’s own interface to the data is so kludgey and difficult to navigate.

The routes with the problem tend to be the ones with the highest ridership, Queen, Dufferin, Finch West, so it affects a lot of people.

I find the 80 Queensway is often late, or worse, early, despite not having to deal with heavy traffic or ridership.

The money for the arrivals predictions has mostly been spend. It is supposed to go live for buses any week now. Once you start using it, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

The last fare hike didn’t seem to impact ridership much. Wouldn’t have been one for 2 (or is it 3) years.

Assuming that there is no increase in funding from the city or province, it seems like a relatively painless no-brainer, that doesn’t need to create any drama.

And yet I’m sure it will.

Steve: In the interest of fairness, I should point out that there were years with fare freezes under David Miller too, but these were implemented with the intend of driving down the cost recovery ratio, and with support from Council for better service and subsidies. With Ford, the only concern is to appear to be cutting costs for voters either by freezing user fees or taxes.

Some routes keep better schedules than others. Scarborough buses seem to be better than Etobicoke buses. In the central part of Etobicoke, less people take transit leading to buses arriving quite early. The 46 Martin Grove bus 99% always arrive 5 minutes early during off peak times. I wonder why they even put up these schedules. The 191 Rocket is a much better organized route.

Lawrence West is a disaster in pm peak. The high floor GM buses on the 52 Lawrence West makes it quite difficult and slow for seniors and strollers. With the 71, 77 and 90 moving to low floor operation, we’ll probably see even more of these GM buses on the route. Note that half the 52 buses would short turn at Royal York in PM peak on a bad day. Will the TTC design a system to replace the old paper schedules?

Steve: Transit systems are supposed to be basket cases, failures that should be ditched from the public purse to the nearest, politically friendly private operator. Sadly, the TTC doesn’t fit this stereotype. As for cuts, Toronto Council created this mess by endorsing Ford’s raiding of the cookie jar to freeze property taxes, eliminate the vehicle fee, and freeze transit fares. Makes them really popular, at least until the real effect of the lost revenue shows up in vanishing services people depend on. The phrase “I didn’t vote for this when I voted for Ford” will become more and more common over the next year as the budget bloodbath proceeds.

I don’t want to start having problems, but I find the paper schedules at the bus stops almost always work well and the buses come when they are supposed to.

I can count the times the buses have not come when they are supposed to.

So for me the paper schedules work fine.

I mostly use bus routes in Scarborough.

I think the issue of buses not coming on time is blown out of proportion, due to the couple routes which experience problems.

To be honest, I find the next bus display like they have on VIVA, etc not reliable. It always says a bus is coming, then it will change the time and say the bus is due, even though no bus comes for another five minutes, etc. Those displays are not as exact as some may think.

If money is tight, then I would rather it go to service than high tech toys which cost a ton to maintain and don’t really offer much benefit over the paper schedules.

In terms of standards, the TTC is one of the most efficient systems around, and the city has be told that the TTC will not be cutting to fit a political agenda. This city has money. It is just playing games.

Steve: There are two issues with paper schedules. First, they are not always correct. The TTC takes a long time to get around to updating them when there is a schedule change, and sometimes this never quite happens. Second, even when one consults the online schedule which is accurate, the buses don’t run anywhere near the advertised times. This is a route-specific problem, and indicates a problem both with the schedule’s design and with route management. Some routes are not managed at all.

I’ve seen quite a few routes where the paper schedule is very good. It might not work on Dufferin or Don Mills (though it’s certainly pretty good for the night buses), however for smaller routes like Main or Woodbine, the paper schedule is very accurate!

Steve: When the TTC proposed a 10 cent fare hike in January, then rescinded the idea, they gave up about $24m worth of revenue for the 11 months January to December. Presuming that the elasticities would be the same, that is to say that the same proportion of riders would be lost to a fare increase (this is a hard call), then we are looking at an increase 2.5 times greater, and for a period 12/11 longer (full year). That’s about $65m. However, if we also get service cuts, or reductions in service quality (crowding), then there will be a longer term effect where people give up on the TTC and fare increases compound a negative impression.

The problem unfortunately remains on the assumption that everything increases at the prescribed rate of inflation, not true. We may tell our staff to cut back on salary increases, but the cost of purchases could still be over the rate inflation as seen with fossil fuel products (IE. diesel, asphalt, etc.) will mean further cuts to service down the line.

I am impressed by the depth of your understanding, but even when you spell everything out in a clear and concise fashion, this is still a difficult topic to understand in all its aspects. Changes in one area affect another and there are so many “by stealth” approaches that can obscure a clear vision of the future.

Did I understand from your discussion that a fare increase of 7% or so would largely result in the status quo – or a wee bit better with already promised improvements. If so, that is a minimum pre-requisite for the beginning of any discussion. Coupled with the foolish – politically inspired – fare freeze this year, that would mean a two year increase of a bit less than 3.5% a year (a bit less because last years portion of the increase is not compounded.) This is not out of line with the general rate of inflation and any excess can be justified by improving service.

Despite my social democrat leanings, I have never been shy about my support of service quality as opposed to cheap fares. I have just returned from London where you don’t have to run for the bus, because the next one is just behind. Transit there is not cheap – but it does provide great service. (Truthfully I was in a high demand area. I can’t speak for service quality in the suburbs. However, even in the “high demand” area, I never encountered a bus – at any time – that was as hopelessly overcrowded as an Ossington mid afternoon – non rush hour – bus that I took this week.)

The TTC should not have to pay (any more than the police should – who will not) for the mismanagement of the budget process by our Mayor. However, if the choice is between an even greater fare increase and service cuts, the fare increase must prevail.

We have made the first halting steps forward after years of the Transit Shrinkage Policy (defacto and unannounced). We must not slip backwards from the modest start we have achieved, notwithstanding the artificial crisis created by our Mayor.

Steve: I lean toward a fare increase, but would like to see better funding from the province. They used to give us 50% of the operating deficit, effectively 1/6 of the budget. That would be about $250m. In fact, we only get $90m, and that’s by taking gas tax money that should go to the capital budget and allocating it to operations. Mike Harris completely cocked up transit funding, and the Liberals didn’t fix it. I am not holding my breath.

That’s a lot of money just because they forgot to mention the website on the stickers they put on the stops (or anywhere else for that matter). I guess I’ll have to do it myself.

“Call me old fashioned, but I find the TTC’s paper schedules at bus stops, and simple information seems to work well.”

What route are you on where the schedule is so reliable?

Call me old fashioned, but I find the TTC’s paper schedules at bus stops, and simple information seems to work well.

It may not be fancy, but the system works, including using just tickets and monthly passes

Steve: The problem with the paper schedules is that they rarely reflect the times vehicles will actually show up. Either they are out of date, or the vehicles are running on a schedule of their own devising. At least real time info, such as is (or will be) available from NextBus, tells you when the streetcar (and eventually bus) will actually show up and whether it’s worth waiting for one.

As for passes and fare collection generally, the biggest problem is getting an agreement on revenue splitting and the combo fares that would apply to cross-system travel. That’s a political and financial problem, and much harder to solve without new money from somewhere than the technology implementation of Presto or any other system.