Month: April 2008

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Sheppard LRT Environmental Assessment Meetings (Updated)

The City and TTC will be holding two EA meetings for the Sheppard LRT line on Tuesday and Thursday, April 15 and 17, 2008.

These will also include discussions of the proposed extension of the Scarborough RT.

The FAQ linked from the EA notice page includes a variety of intriguing items giving an idea of how the project team views what they will implement.  Apropos of discussions in other threads here about stop spacing and vehicle speed, we learn that

there is normally a much greater distance between stops, relative to a typical bus route.

It should be interesting to see how the TTC and City reconcile this statement with the actual layout of streets and stops on the existing bus route, not to mention the Official Plan goals for Avenues with medium density development along transit lines rather than concentrated at major intersections.

Update: The presentation materials from the meeting are now available online.

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TTC Riding Counts — Are There More Passengers? (Updated)

The 2008 Service Plan report is out although only the cover document is posted online as I write this.  The detailed report is not yet up with the other Service Reports.

Updated April 20, 2008:  The report is now available online.

Once I get a chance to digest the updated route statistics, I will post them here.  However, it is worth noting that, as usual, several streetcar routes have riding counts that are years out of date.  We know that more recent data must exist because some service improvements are starting to work their way into the system, but it’s always troubling when the overall system reports don’t have current data.

Routes With Updated Riding Figures

  • 502/503 Downtowner & Kingston Road – 7,800 (up from 6,100 first reported in 2002)
  • 504/508 King & Lake Shore – 53,100 (up from 47,900 in 2005)
  • 501 Queen – 43,500 (up from 41,200 first reported in 2002)
  • 510/509 Spadina & Harbourfront – 48,000 (up from 43,400 first reported in 2003)

Routes With Unchanged Riding Figures

  • 511 Bathurst – 13,600 (unchanged since 2005)
  • 506 Carlton – 41,200 (unchanged since 2001)
  • 505 Dundas – 35,200 (unchanged since 2005)
  • 512 St. Clair – 31,000 (unchanged since 2002)

It’s good to see riding going up, but the infrequency of updated counts means that the so-called financial performance (a piece of creative accounting of the highest order) of major routes is misreported to their detriment. 

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Media Appearances

Normally, I prefer to let people stumble across me on various programs, but since I haven’t been posting items about the labour negotiations, thought that the really diehard fans (blush) would want to know that I did Goldhawk Live on Thursday evening on Rogers Cable 10.  It repeats at various times over the next day.

The calls from viewers were interesting and covered a wide range of potential strike impacts.  What was particularly notable was not just the primary effects — people who would not have transport to work or school — but the secondary effects on parents and others who are suddenly thrust into the roll of car pool provider for their families.

Also, for early risers, I will be on Metro Morning on Friday, April 18 at 6:15 am.

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A Grand Plan Revisited

Sean Marshall pointed out that I started a thread here just over two years ago under the title of A Grand Plan. The first post in that series included a long paper detailing what a regional transit plan for Toronto might look like as well as a technical discussion of transit modes.

In the process of writing my series on Transit City as an LRT network, many of the ideas from that paper were recycled, tempered by a few years of debate on this blog and other venues.  It’s worthwhile for serious readers (and especially those who haven’t been regulars here long enough to have seen posts two years ago) to go back to that original, and to follow the discussion thread that follows.

As a quick refresher, here’s what was in it.  Note that some of these proposals were mined from work by others and I claim no special right to them other than putting them all in one place.  Queen’s Park did roughly the same thing with MoveOntario2020, and Metrolinx stirred the pot with its three scenarios in the Transit Green Paper.

GO Transit

  • Several updates to services, but particularly all-day service so that GO is a real alternative regardless of when one makes a trip.
  • Various grade separations (some now in progress)
  • Service to Barrie (well, they got as far as a parking lot and may go further)
  • Service through Agincourt to Peterborough (I swear I am not a shill for the Finance Minister)

TTC Surface Transit

  • More vehicles and garages
  • Improved policy headways (this might show up in the fall, or in 2009, depending on budget)
  • Improved service standards and deliberate overservicing of routes relative to demand to encourage ridership growth (some work has begun in this area by TTC, but more is needed)
  • A new low-floor streetcar fleet
  • Retention of a mixed fleet of new cars and CLRVs/ALRVs to ensure that the fleet is big enough to absorb ridership growth until we can fully provision a low-floor fleet

LRT

  • Eglinton with an underground section from Leaside to somewhere around Keele including access to Pearson Airport
  • Don Mills to downtown via Waterfront east
  • An LRT replacement for the SRT extended north into Malvern
  • Sheppard east from Don Mills
  • Waterfront West connecting into The Queensway
  • Weston corridor from Union north connecting with Eglinton and turning into a Jane line (replacing Blue 22)
  • Kipling Station west into Mississauga
  • Downsview Station to York U and beyond into the 905
  • Finch West
  • Yonge north from an extended subway at Steeles

I hate to say “I told you so” as this doesn’t fit with the modest (yes, me, modest) way I publicize my own activities and opinions.  However, I think it’s worth reiterating than a lot of these ideas have been around one way or another for some time, but interagency rivalry, intergovernmental sloth, and the inability to let go of old, worn-out plans prevented a lot of this from being discussed.

Metrolinx is now trying to build a regional plan, and I worry that this will be held hostage to many of the same preconceptions about what is acceptable.  I hope to be proven wrong.

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The Downtown Relief Line Gets On The Map

In what has to be record time for a transit proposal to get from a blog discussion to publicly debated policy, the Downtown Relief Line (DRL) is now barely a decade away.

Yesterday, Sean Marshall’s post at spacing generated a blizzard of comments, and today, the National Post reports comments by Adam Giambrone and Rob MacIsaac.  Giambrone will start looking at the line in 2018.  That is far too late, and the TTC needs to start looking at it today if it’s going to be open, as he suggests, by 2020.

A few comments raised my eyebrows, however:

As the city core becomes more dense, passengers are choking the Bloor-Yonge and St. George transfer points, as well as the King and Queen streetcars. The Bloor-Danforth line will soon be congested, too, Mr. Giambrone said.

Rob MacIsaac said:

“There’s so much demand that you’re exceeding what a streetcar line can carry. I had a discussion with [former TTC general manager] David Gunn once and he said, ‘Don’t build a subway until you can jump from the top of one streetcar to the next,’ which is probably a circumstance that you’re getting close to on Queen Street.”

I don’t know who has the idea that streetcar service on King and Queen are anywhere near capacity, and the only streetcars someone can jump roofs on are in Russell and Roncesvalles Carhouses.  Service on both streets has operated at twice the current capacity, and there’s lots of room for more streetcars if only the TTC had a large enough fleet.

What’s fascinating to me is that, finally, it is acceptable to talk about adding transit capacity into the core of the city.  For years the focus has been on the suburbs going  back to the deal-with-the-devil struck by then Councillor Jack Layton and Mayor Lastman.  Layton supported suburban subway expansion as a means of diverting intensification from downtown.  The DRL fell off the map because it did not fit with the goal of strangling core area development to benefit the suburbs. 

We all know how successful this was.  A good chunk of the office and commercial space in North York Centre is empty, while downtown fills up with condos and resurgent office development.

As for the DRL, the original proposal was simply for a line from Flemingdon/Thorncliffe to downtown.  Subway fitted with existing technology in the area, and nobody was taking LRT seriously as a “light subway”.  We have more options today including a through connection to a line in the Weston Subdivision (as described in the Post article) up to at least Dundas West Station.  It doesn’t take a genius to see how this fits into Transit City and a service to the airport.

Very frequent service can operate on the southerly parts of the Don Mills and Weston lines where they are completely on their own right-of-way, with less frequent trains continuing up Don Mills in the street median, up Jane and out Eglinton West.

When we look at the possibilities of both an Eglinton and a “DRL” built with LRT, but spanning almost the complete range of LRT implementations from street median up to near-subway, we see the real possibilities of this mode for our growing transit network.

(And yes, Hamish, the Waterfront West service can hop onto the same corridor at Queen and Dufferin.)

While we’re at it, as I mentioned in a previous comment, we must keep sight of the role for regional services on existing and future GO lines.  One source of subway overloading is long-haul riders for whom GO service (if any) is too infrequent.  Better GO service with a fare structure integrated with the TTC will give riders a fast, alternative way into downtown, at a much lower cost than expanding subways everywhere.

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Why Transit City is an LRT Plan (Part 3)

This post will be a lot shorter than the previous one, but it’s a necessary technical prelude to what will follow.

We hear a lot about the relative capacity of various transit modes, and the appropriateness of any mode depends both on its capacity and on the constraints of the alignment where it will operate.

I will start off with a familiar TTC chart (in the format presented at tonight’s public meeting) showing both the theoretical capacity ranges of various modes, and the projected demand on the extended SRT. Continue reading →

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Sorry, But We Don’t Run Service There

The TTC is holding two meetings for the Sheppard East LRT Environmental Assessment.  The first is tonight and it is located on Milner west of Markham Road.  At least there’s bus service to the location on both Milner and on Markham Road.

Thursday night’s meeting is at 2300 Pharmacy between Huntingwood and Finch.  The 167 Pharmacy North bus stops running after 7 pm, and the 169 Huntingwood shortly later.  The nearest transit service requires walking in from Victoria Park to Pharmacy.

An excellent question for tonight’s meeting:  Why are we talking about rapid transit plans when you can’t even organize a meeting where there is bus service?

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Why Transit City is an LRT Plan (Part 2A)

In Part 1 of this series, I talked about the history of transit plans since the mid-1960s in Toronto and the evolution of planning goals into Toronto’s new Official Plan. That plan has a very different view of our city, and addresses the need to accommodate very large growth in population and transportation demands.

Much of that growth will come in the old suburbs where 50’s style developments are showing their age and opportunities for more effective land use are ripe.

Although the Official Plan didn’t exactly trumpet LRT as its mode of choice for a future transit network, the references are there for anyone who takes the time to find them. The vision for a new city includes:

  • vibrant neighbourhoods that are part of complete communuities;
  • attractive, tree-lined streets with shops and housing that are made for walking;
  • a comprehensive and high-quality transit system that lets people move around the city quickly and conveniently. [Toronto Official Plan, Page 2]

“Principles for a Successful Toronto” include:

  • public transit is universally accessible and buses and streetcars are an attractive choice for travel. [Ibid, Page 3]

In a background paper to the plan lies this key paragraph:

Increasing transit ridership within the City for trips originating in the City, as well as elsewhere in the GTA, can probably best be achieved by improving coverage in those areas not well served by transit (generally speaking, in the West, Northwest, and Northeast) and increasing connectivity of various elements of the system in ways that make it easier to use transit for more than just centrally oriented travel. Major areas designated for revitalization and new development, such as the waterfront and port lands, should also have improved transit coverage and better connectivity with the rest of the transit system. [A Transportation Vision for the City of Toronto Official Plan, April 2000, Page 43, italics are in the original text]

Moreover, in discussing rapid transit (subway) options then under study, we learn:

These proposals will undergo detailed evaluation, including benefit-cost analysis in which the benefits of more riders, travel time savings, and improved transit accessibility and connectivity will be balanced against the best available cost estimates. This evaluation may lead to the consideration of other rapid transit technology, such as exclusive busways and streetcar/LRT, which may prove more cost effective in certain travel corridors. Rapid transit expansion is a long-term, major capital investment that would have to justify the cost before being considered as an element of the new Official Plan. [Toronto at the Crossroads: Shaping Our Future, July 2000, Page 105]

A clear thread runs through the Official Plan of neighbourhoods with fine-grained, local services, a built form that encorages short pedestrian trips and developments that embrace the street rather than isolating their occupants in towers surrounded by parking. “Mixed use” means the co-existence of residential and commercial space as found in older cities, not alternating, kilometre-wide, single-use blocks isolated from each other. Trips within and among neighbourhoods need good surface transit that can be easily reached by a variety of riders — not just commuters to downtown, but people of all ages and interests moving around the city. Continue reading →

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Why Transit City is an LRT Plan (Part 1)

One year ago, with much fanfare, the TTC launched the Transit City plan.  Those who have followed the debates on my site will know we had a lot of discussions about whether lines were in the right place, what demands would be placed on the system, whether the cost estimates were reasonable and many fine details of individual route designs.  As I said here, it felt as if I was running a one-man Environmental Assessment for the whole plan.

The official EAs are now starting for some routes (Sheppard, Finch West and Eglinton), and Waterfront West is already underway.  Although not officially part of Transit City, we also have studies for the eastern waterfront and Kingston Road.

Notable by its absence in Transit City is one common part of every EA that has gone before:  an alternatives analysis.  Many here have debated the LRT-only premise, and even some of the professional planners are miffed that Transit City came out as a single-mode proposal.

I have little sympathy for this view.  In years past, studies for a variety of transit projects have gone through the motions of looking at alternatives, but the fix was in from the beginning.  Some current resentment is at least partly a question of sour grapes among those who have a brief for other schemes sidelined by the Transit City announcement.

This post will appear in several segments as I get a chance to write them, and I may do some polishing along the way, possibly even pulling the whole thing into a single paper in a few weeks.  I will open the posts to comments, but will concentrate on getting all of the material written and up first.  I’ve found that moderating the comments can take a lot of time, so please bear with me.

My current plans for this series are:

  • The origins of Transit City (this post)
  • Why LRT?
  • A comparative review of technologies
  • Expansion and extension options for Transit City

Public agencies wishing to pillage my work should feel free to do so provided credit is given.  This material is produced pro bono. Continue reading →