The Public Works & Infrastructure Committee will consider a report on October 3 entitled Sustainable Transportation Initiatives:  Short-term Proposals.  This report includes a discussion of bike lanes and pedestrian improvements, but the parts that caught my eye deal with transit.

There is no question that we need to improve transit’s priority on our road system, but some of the recommendations show a mixed feeling toward this task.

1. Extend peak period parking restrictions. 
2. Introduce or extend left turn prohibitions, or create exclusive left turn phases, in the interest of clearing traffic in front of streetcars.
3. Revise the transit priority signals so that they would only apply to transit vehicles that are behind schedule or to maintain headways.
4. Implement queue jump lanes and far side bus bays where feasible.
5. Implement shoulder bus lanes on the DVP from York Mills to Lawrence.
6. Investigate automated camera technology to enforce stopping, turning and parking prohibitions.
7. Ensure that all new light rail vehicles (streetcars) be equipped to handle some form of Proof of Payment (POP).

The report states that downtown peak parking and stopping restrictions are generally from 7:30 to 9:30 am, and 3:30 to 6:30 pm, and suggests that these hours be extended throughout the city where practical.  A good argument can be made that, for the downtown area, these hours need further extension, but the report is silent on this topic.

The proposal for transit priority signals depends on full integration with a GPS-based scheduling system that could decide whether a transit vehicle is early or not, or whether some sort of headway regulation is needed.  While this is technically possible, I can’t help thinking this is yet another example of technology overkill — a nice project for a consulting company, but not something that will have significant benefits for transit.

The underlying assumption is that there are actually times when transit priority is not needed, and that by providing it we are robbing hapless motorists of green time they would otherwise get on cross streets.  Somehow, the basic fact — that transit vehicles will tend to be early when there is no congestion — seems to have escaped the authors of this proposal.  Moreover, the many instances now in place where so-called priority signals either do not work, or actually impede transit movements, are not addressed at all.

As for automated camera technology, I am all for better enforcement but have to ask how we will possibly read licence plates in a row of parked cars.  What is missing is any discussion of enhanced powers for ticketing and towing by TTC itself.  Cameras can easily monitor illegal turns, but these are a minor problem compared with the loss of road space through illegal parking.  Towing is far more effective in discouraging commercial vehicles than fines which are treated as a business expense.

A vital observation is buried in the report, but omitted from the recommendations.  A section on the Ridership Growth Strategy states that failure to implement RGS “will result in lost opportunities to increase transit ridership in Toronto, and to promote sustainable transportation”.   We can nibble around the edges of traffic management all we want, but unless we substantially improve service (either with more vehicles or much better utilization of those we have), everything else is small change.

In honour of Car Free Day, a post about bicycles.

Let me state my outlook right up front:  I am a pedestrian, and I do not own, let alone ride, a bicycle.  My relationship with these two-wheeled vehicles often consists of nearly being run down by them.

Having said this, I accept the premise that bicycles should be viewed as an important part of our transportation repertoire.  The question is this:  how can we meaningfully integrate them with the transit system?

Efforts to date have attracted a lot of discussion — bike racks on buses, off-peak carriage on surface and subway vehicles — but frankly I don’t think these contribute much to creating a workable culture for bikes on the TTC.

Bike racks have a limited capacity, and the number of travellers, especially in peak periods, whose trips could be carried partly via bike rack is a very small proportion of system ridership.  Moreover, since most trips involve at least some subway travel, and bikes cannot enter the subway during peak periods, many trips simply cannot be made with a bike/TTC combination.

Recently, the City has begun to install bicycle lockers around town.  Indeed, there are three down on the mall in front of Scarborough Civic Centre where I work (not for the City).  Three lockers compared with the acres of parking around here are nothing in anyone’s grand scheme.  They may give a few politicians a photo op, but they make no real contribution to regional transportation capacity.

Regular readers here will know there has been some debate about TTC parking lots.  Why, one might ask, doesn’t the TTC and its pro-bike Chair concentrate on providing capacity for bicycle storage at parking lots beside subway stations?  This would allow cyclists to ride to the subway, stash their bike and continue on via transit.  (Yes, if they wanted to bike at the other end of the trip, this is not much help, but their bike isn’t going on the subway anyhow.)

Maybe we could even let Metropass holders use the bicycle storage facilities free of charge just like motorists.  (You have to imagine a Machiavellian grin here which no collection of punctuation can duplicate.)

If the TTC and its pro-bicycle Commissioners want to do something useful for cyclists, why don’t they look at the big picture?  Make it easy for people to have a cycle/TTC trip and put them on the same footing (yes, I couldn’t resist that one) as motorists.  If cycling is going to be an alternative for cars, it needs to have comparable facilities to be integrated with transit travel.