Chris W. sent in the following comment:
Hooray! The St. Clair Transit website was updated today! There is a new, very informative flyer.
Highlights:
- Phase 2 (Westmount to McRoberts) to start October 15 and continue into the spring.
- Vaughan Road to Westmount Avenue to start next spring.
- Caledonia to Gun’s loop to start late next summer.
- Shelter installation on Phase 1 to start early October 2007!
- Later this fall streetcars will returns from Yonge to Oakwood loop, initially running straight through St. Clair West Station.
- Streetcars will be removed in spring 2008 “With other TTC work occurring on Bathurst Street “. Could this mean the tracks from Bloor to St. Clair will be replaced next year instead of 2009?
If this all comes to pass someone should throw a party.
Yes, I believe that Bathurst from St. Clair down to Bathurst Station is supposed to be rebuilt in 2008.Meanwhile, Stephen Cheung writes about an article in yesterday’s Sun.
Steve, I’m forwarding this article to you from the Toronto Sun. This is regarding the St. Clair ROW project, apparently this guy appears to be dead set against the project from reaching Corso Italia considering the “damage” already done to the street.
I’d like your opinion on this, as well as a rebuttal to Mike Strobel’s comments. If anyone can provide this rebuttal, it’s you.
Maybe if we follow Mike’s advice, we should cancel St. Clair as a Streetcar route and replace it with buses instead. I’d like to see what the SOS folks think about that.
Strobel’s comments are interesting for the mixture of political rant and for glimmers of truth. I will comment on a few statements.
“The ‘Concrete Curtain’ along St. Clair W. is closing businesses, idling traffic, squeezing out parking and the locals are mad as hell …”
[Strobel searches for a place to turn around]
“Finally, a gap. A U-turn light. For me? For streetcars? Pedestrians? The Orient Express? The midnight train to Georgia? Who knows? Whatever, it glares red forever.”
I hate to say this, but I am delighted that, for a change, the “transit priority” signals are screwing the motorists. From the day that Phase I opened, I didn’t believe that any of the detectors actually worked, and the lights cycled blindly through a preset program. Many times, I saw a left/U turn phase when no traffic anywhere nearby wanted to use it. Obviously this situation has been “improved”.
“It takes guts to realize you made a mistake and to stop,” adds Connie Lamanna, chair man of the Corso Italia BIA.
I attended the meetings about Phase II, and the BIA had a rep present who wasn’t unduly exercised about what was happening. Maybe she was resigned to the inevitable, but the BIA was among the group responsible for reintroduction of the east-to-north left turn lane at Dufferin Street.
“This neighbourhood is being destroyed,” says Sharon Moore, whose Retro Cafe stands shuttered. Sharon now opens only for dinner twice weekly and brunch on weekends.
In her block alone, the Concrete Curtain has killed a dollar store, an electronics shop, a Harvey’s, a shawarma joint and, ironically, a rent-a-car outlet. Survivors report a drop in business up to 30%.
Who wants to shop where the Curtain has squeezed out parking, even if you can fight through traffic to get there?
The Retro Cafe happens to be west of Vaughan Road and the whole area was badly hit not just by the design, which could have been better, but by the appallingly long construction period. Trying to do everything in one project looks good on paper, but in practice it shuts a neighbourhood down for so long that it falls off of everyone’s mental maps. This was not a strong neighbourhood to begin with, and the interminable construction hit it hard.
A pole is planted in the new sidewalk to protect St. Alphonsus Catholic Church from cars cutting the corner.
The Curtain’s sharp, six-inch platform, is streaked with rubber where drivers said to hell with it and crossed.
At night you can’t see the centre curbs and the turning angles are so tricky that drivers often run aground.
One big design problem on St. Clair is the lane widths. Very early on, there was a “compromise” to use narrower-than-standard lanes in recognition that this was not the 401, but a local street. There was even a debate over whether the white stripes counted as part of the width or not. However, the narrower lanes bring problems when they weave to and fro around parking areas, safety islands and other hazards. Cars need more room when they are turning all of the time.
This brings me to my old bugbear, the centre poles. That design decision cost about 1 metre of roadspace because extra clearance is needed between the streetcars and the centre poles. (The right of way is actually a metre narrower in locations where side poles are used.) A metre isn’t much, but distributed across the street, this could have been used for judicious expansion of lanes or sidewalk space in tight spots.
The centre design is supposed to be simpler for maintenance. We shall see. Meanwhile, the replacement bus service drives in mixed traffic because the buses have trouble staying on the right-of-way thanks to the poles.
Pedestrians? The Concrete Wall takes up so much room, sidewalks must shrink. Sharon Moore had to shut her patio. The eateries of Corso Italia face the same fate.
Guess what, folks? The curb cuts, including the one in front of The Retro, were needed to accommodate, wait for it, turn lanes. It seems that the BIAs didn’t want traffic to be impeded.
Repair the existing tracks, [the locals] said. Add more streetcars. Widen and spiff up sidewalks. Use inset curb parking, like on College St. Make St. Clair just as friendly and flexible.
College and St. Clair are different animals. College is wide, but for a very short stretch, and the area around Grace Street, the apple of the St. Clair BIA’s eye, is only 4 lanes wide and often congested. The opponents of the St. Clair plan were happy to have a narrow, congested street in the name of parking and wide sidewalks, but not in the name of improved transit.
For the TTC’s part, they’re still living down the initial claim that the main benefit of the right-of-way was to run the same service with fewer vehicles. Yes, a right-of-way will make what service there is more reliable, but savings in running time should have been plowed back into more frequent service. That was an “own goal” for the TTC, and no amount of protest from that corner will undo the initial damage of their short-sighted proposal.
I wish we could make the politicos and planners spend a day to and fro on St. Clair, to see what they’ve wrought. (The streetcars are temporarily derailed for work on the St. Clair subway station.)
The situation at St. Clair West Station is a joke. Partly it’s due to a fight with a contractor, but I can’t help asking just what started that fight, and whether the TTC screwed up the specifications for the job. How long, after all, does it take to replace a streetcar loop and a few blocks of track, and repair an expansion joint in the station structure?
Soon, according to the project’s website, there will be transit shelters. These are for the part of the line that should have opened a few years ago, and calling their installation “late” is rather generous. Temporary poles installed hither and yon will be removed and we will finally see what the street was intended to look like. Dare I mention the streetlights that burned out because the original luminaires overheated? Dare I mention that the number of poles holding these lights is about 50% more than originally planned? Dare I mention that these luminaires are less efficient and require higher-wattage bulbs than the ones they replaced?
The St. Clair project is a textbook example of how transit should not be implemented. Yes, the TTC had to put up with a feisty neighbourhood that painted the scheme in the worst light, but often the TTC deserved what they got.
Going into the last phase, I can’t help worrying that once again the designs will be presented days before they are due for final approval. Bluntly, I don’t trust the TTC and the City on this project, and that’s saying something as a transit advocate. The bad publicity from St. Clair keeps showing up in feedback on other proposals like Transit City, and LRT gets a bad name.
I have not heard a word yet about community consultation for Phase III, and with a spring 2008 start, it’s time to tell folks what is planned for that last phase.
Steve Munro 
The only saving grace for Transit City is that most of the routes will be on suburban streets with little or no street life, so that should make things easier for the TTC. The routes that cut through dense, urban areas are supposed to be underground (Eglinton, Pape), so hopefully the mess that the TTC has created up on St Clair will have no impact on the building of Transit City. Still, I can’t help but worry. The TTC should be using St Clair as a showcase for what Transit City will be like, both in terms of construction processes and the end product. Cleary, they have failed in this regard.
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As you have probably noticed, I am hugely supportive of some parts of Transit City while Vehemently against some other parts. Miller had big hopes for St.Clair as the “prime example” for how network expansion can be done in this city better than subways. This is failing miserably, and if they screw up Finch like this (a high ridership candidate that could have been a superior extension of the Spadina Line westward from York U instead of VCC), the city is going to be taking steps backwards, not forwards. These long construction periods are starting to ring similar to subway construction, although there are some shocking abnormalities causing delays for the TTC on purpose by the opposition. Would subway service have been as disruptive between stations? At stations, obviously subway construction would be more disruptive, but between, they don’t use cut and cover anymore. St.Clair does not need a subway, that’s Eglinton’s department, but it is interesting to see streetcar construction cause more chaos than a subway’s construction.
Steve, you don’t trust the city and TTC on these projects, yet you don’t trust the private sector either. We were talking about TRC earlier and how their maintenance practices were not only bad but nonexistent, the TTC is guilty of this too though (streetcar track repairs were long overdue before they finally got to it a decade ago), and included the subway as discovered after Russell Hill (talk about shocking management “yeah, it’s OK to ignore red lights” they told subway drivers up to the accident… that’s worse than a private operator if you ask me) – TRC was worse in deteriorated infrastructure I’m sure, but times are different in the two cases, as are standards as a result. The question remains though, you don’t trust the public sector, you don’t trust the private sector (I would, having seen and ridden very successful first hand, heck, even live along side an example today), so who would you trust to run transit projects? You seem to dislike both equally. Lots of people would probably vote for you to run it, but would you then count as a private operator? 😛
Steve: My opposition to calls for “private sector involvement” stem from some interlinked points. First, this is usually code for “bust the Union”, and that has little relationship with efficiencies, real or imagined, of either sector. Second, the private sector expects to make a profit on what it does, and this adds overhead to whatever their base cost must be. Third, a lot of the design, planning and management of TTC projects is already done by private sector firms under contract. The only incentive for them to provide really high quality work would be to never, ever again give them contracts. Given the old boy’s club in the engineering and construction industry, this is highly unlikely.
Many of the problems on St. Clair stem from a paternalistic attitude that design comes first, then public participation when major changes are no longer possible. This attitude infests both the TTC and the City Works Department, and the politicians rarely suggest that things are not right. There have been some acknowledgements that St. Clair could have been done better, but no specifics, and the project is continuing on more or less the same trajectory.
Private sector companies are even better at locking out the public, especially if they work under the rubric of commercial confidentiality.
What is needed is the recognition that this is “our” city, and how it is designed and built matters. Recent discussions about pedestrianization and traffic calming show that there are fundamentally different ways of looking at these problems from the Toronto model which, alas, is rooted in wide, free-flowing suburban arterials. Once you change the assumptions, the importance of good design and neighbourhood sensitivty become integral to the process rather than pesky annoyances.
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Hello, Steve!
Report #8, of the November 30, 1982 Transit Commission meeting outlined a need for reserved transit vehicle lanes on the following T.T.C. routes/streets: -Spadina Avenue – Bay Street – Yonge North and all central area streetcar routes. The benefits of bus lanes and streetcar R.O.W. projects have been noted since the opening, in July, 1957 of the QUEEN car R.O.W. between Humber Loop and Sunnyside Loop.
Steve: Alas the service on those routes was generally much more frequent then than it is today, and arguments for exclusivity run into obvious questions about reserving a lane for something that only comes by occasionally, if at all.
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The most significant problem with the implementation of the St. Clair ROW (just like Spadina) is the lack of proper signal priority. Without it, Transit City will be a joke, barely faster than the bus service it will replace. With it, it will rival the speed of the subway (assuming that the stops are spaced far enough apart). Left turning cars (or non-existent cars, as the case may be) should not have priority over streetcars. How long will it take before the TTC learns how to implement transit signal priority properly? When some consultant working on Transit City shows them? It works in other cities – why can’t it work in Toronto?
As for the construction timing, the work on Bathurst should have been done long ago, during the first phase of construction – so as to avoid closing the entire line multiple times. Fortunately, when Transit City is being built, there won’t be any disruption to existing streetcar lines – only disruption to bus routes, and it should be possible to maintain at least one lane in each direction during construction. Hopefully Toronto Hydro won’t cause problems for Transit City – or the TTC will have the sense to do the utility relocation work itself.
The BIAs are justified in complaining about the construction (which is inevitable for a project this size, but it has been more disruptive than it should have been) but they are not justified in placing a heavy emphasis on cars. Only a small percentage of customers come by car on a street with quality transit service; thus, more space should be dedicated to transit lanes and sidewalks, and less space should be dedicated to cars and in particular turn lanes and parking. Fortunately, they won’t be complaining about Transit City, since the line will be underground along the dense urban streets.
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The only reason why Signal Priority is not on at Spadina is because the Roads department refuses to turn it on. Someone mentioned that the Roads department is under the purview of the same guys who are on Transit Council. I doubt these concillors are hyprocrites, rather I believe that the actual Roads committee runs on its own without influence from council. After all, these guys are more concerned about jamming up other streets rather than “give a few streetcars some priority”.
As far as I know, signal priority is currently on at St. Clair. But do not be surprised if it is turned off after the ROW is completed. We can’t have streetcars getting all the “preferential treatment”, can we?
Andrew: only the portion of the Eglinton Crosstown line will be underground, between Bayview and Dufferin. Everything else will be above ground. But despite the absense of transit priority on Spadina, the cars move quite frequently. However, it should be pointed out that once Transit priority is established on Spadina, the pace will quicken even further, and thus less cars are needed on this line when you have smoother and faster service.
I also have to say that I find the fact that Stephen Cheung, of all anti-LRT people posted this article. One wonders if he has some sort of secret agenda. Care to clarify yourself Stephen? Maybe you are in favour of cancelling the ROW and converting the streetcar route to buses, as you stated in your comment, mmm? Why are you for the St. Clair ROW if you are against Transit City?
Steve: In Stephen Cheung’s defence, I believe he is not anti-LRT per se, just anti bad or inappropriate implementations. As someone who often straddles the fence on this issue, I can understand what appear to be contradictory positions.
By the way, with luck we may have a report on the status of Spadina signal priority in the TTC agenda soon.
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First off – now that I see the center poles, they do nothing to make the street look better. They do seem to be closer spaced than I thought. Basically ugly dark looking poles.
2nd – in response to what Chris W wrote – yes many people around here would open their best bottles of wine in celebration if the streetcars were completely removed – and many of these are riders. Probably more people think that now than a couple of year back.
Steve: Thus is good transit service destroyed. Run crappy service, blame it all on traffic congestion rather than endemic service cuts, let the street fall to pieces, destroy the place to rebuild it, run (comparatively speaking) far better bus service during construction and what do you get? People hate streetcars.
I couldn’t have done a better job if I had tried to demolish the credibility of LRT myself.
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Eric Chow wrote, “However, it should be pointed out that once Transit priority is established on Spadina, the pace will quicken even further, and thus less cars are needed on this line when you have smoother and faster service.”
Assuming that is true, one wonders why the TTC, when asked to cut its budget recently, didn’t use this as a way to get the signalling priority to be turned on.
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François G Said:
Just to clarify what I meant. I was saying that if the entire project is completed according to the new timeline, without further setbacks or delays, then I would be ready to celebrate. With or without signal priority properly implemented, streetcars running on the ROW from Yonge to Keele would provide much better transit than what we have now or had before the project started. The day signal prority is implemented, in a way that truly prioritizes transit, things will be even better for those of us relying on transit to get around.
I agree that the centre poles are a mistake. Having a ROW that can’t be used by buses when the streetcars aren’t running is a real shame. As others have said, the extra space used by this design could have been better used in the sidewalks or traffic lanes.
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Steve, thanks for posting the article I forwarded you. Somehow I think that perhaps the two of you should go on a televised debate or something…..
While I appreciate your defense against Eric Chow’s Comments, it makes me wonder why it was allowed to be published in the first place. First of all, I don’t think Eric is playing nice at all, and his comments are very offensive to my character, especially on allegations that I am anti-LRT or anti-Streetcar for that matter. But again, I appreciate the defense.
As for Eric Chow: I don’t think I will reiterate what I have already stated regarding my views on LRT and Transit City. Look up your own comments, Eric regarding the “Letters” thread and note your own comments against my views in that thread.
As for St. Clair itself, construction hasn’t started yet so hopefully there will be some change to the design, specifically the Centre Poles. I agree with a lot of people here that the centre poles were a bad idea from the start. Makes me wonder what is it on Spadina that made them not consder centre poles for that street. Also, the segment that has these “centre poles” is between Vaughan Road and Yonge, where the space taken by these poles may have minimal impact. Hopefully west of Vaughan, the TTC will see the need to sidewalk and road space and junk the poles altogether. I’m hoping it is not too late.
As for the Roads department: I have also heard that the roads department and the infrastructure council rarely see eye to eye, given the pro-roads stance it always takes. As much as I like to see more priority going to public transit, I can understand their viewpoint in order to prevent unintended traffic chaos. And what about connecting routes like Dufferin (which also has signal priority AFAIK)? How do you do signal priority for them?
The one thing they probably don’t want is a boatload of commuters complaining about the lights and that they can’t get anywhere because “of a few streetcars” (add empty to that sentence and that will increase their ire). At this point, the Roads department has a delicate situation in its hands, someone is bound to be screwed, so the question here is, who?
Steve: The design for this year’s stretch from east of Dufferin to west of Lansdowne clearly shows centre poles. However, there is hope that the far west end of the line won’t have them because the street is narrower and they just won’t fit. Who knows what will happen between Vaughan and Dufferin. It is all very frustrating.
As for a potential personal thread between my two correspondents, I will not entertain it here. I left the original exchange with my own comments because I thought the balance was needed, but people don’t need to read an ongoing exchange.
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I received my Ward 21 E-News Community Update from Joe Mihevic today. I was glad to hear that he is taking the situation at St. Clair West Station seriously. Here is his update.
Some unanticipated electrical cables got in the way of the construction work. It sounds like we could see streetcars running from St. Clair Station to Oakwood Loop in a couple of weeks. St. Clair West Station Loop opens in December hopefully.
I guess they better install those shelters soon.
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On the subject of poles, I would suggest that anybody who wants to see some REALLY ugly poles take a trip to the Cleveland, Ohio suburb of Shaker Heights. Now if those poles aren’t ugly I don’t know what is.
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