The TTC commissioned a report from Dr. Richard Soberman on the economics of trolley bus operation in Toronto. Cutting to the chase, the conclusion is that creating a new system from scratch is uneconomic, and we should wait for coming improvements in electric vehicles.
Soberman’s report makes a strong case against trolley buses on its basic economic arguments, and that’s a debate worth having. However, electric vehicles have yet to make a substantial dent in the personal car market, let alone for vehicles the size of a city bus.
I have one simple reply: Remember CNG? The saviour of the enviroment for the TTC? We lost the old system through neglect and through belief in an unproven technology, not to mention political machinations.
For your reading pleasure:
Updated February 15:
A detailed review has been added to this post. Some of the document is reasonably accurate, but there are enough outright mistakes and misdirections to cast the whole thing in an unsavoury light. This is a report that tries to sound balanced while hoping we won’t notice what it gets wrong either by accident or by design.
Update 2, February 16: My long-time Vancouver friend Angus McIntyre pointed out two issues with the Soberman report.
- Vancouver will order an additional 34 articulated trolley buses funded from the Federal gas tax. This adds to the new fleet of 188 standard and 40 articulated buses. These plans are not reflected in the TTC report even though the press release is over a month old.
- The substation spacing of 1.5 to 2km is a measure used on “feederless” systems such as Seattle’s where small local stations feed directly into the contact wires rather than the Toronto or Vancouver model with large substations feeding a local network of services. Has the report used Seattle’s close spacing, but Toronto’s costs for larger substations?
Power Supply
The report proposes a network based at Wilson Garage because power is already available from the nearby subway complex. Whether this is entirely germane is dubious considering that modern trolley bus garages tend to be largely without overhead and vehicles use their auxiliary power units to move around the yard. Some power is necessary, but whether enough to run a fleet of 150 to 250 buses is another matter. Similar considerations apply for overhead wiring which no longer needs to be the spiderweb of specialwork found in classic garages like Lansdowne at its height.
Substations are required at intervals from 1.5 to 2 km, although the lower bound is used in the calculated costs. This is quite amusing considering the scope of the former trolley bus and existing streetcar systems. The existing streetcar system (ignoring non-revenue trackage) has about 80 route-km of overhead, and this would imply a substation count on the order of 40 (at 2km spacing) or 52 (at 1.5km). The TTC has many, many fewer substations and of course these are shared by nearby routes.
Vancouver’s system in 1993 had 13 routes, 305 km of wire and 20 substations. (See T2000 BC’s overview of the network.) The ratio is ten times lower than the substation spacing claimed in the TTC study and shows what happens when resources are sized for a network rather than a hypothetical, stand-alone kilometre of construction.
One major issue is substation design. The TTC opts for large buildings including land where their service vehicles can park. If a substation will feed a considerable area, that may make sense, but not at the fine-grained spacing under consideration here. A good counterexample can be found in Vancouver where the UBC extension, in service since 1988 to a bustling campus bus and trolley bus terminal, uses “substations” small enough that they can hide behind hedges at the side of the road. This approach was used in recognition of the sensitivity of the UBC campus and of the fact that the extension would be an outlier of the overall system requiring only power for the local segments, not for other nearby lines fed from a larger, traditional substation.
Both the number and design of substations is important in the context of $2.7-million each, equivalent to $1.8-million per route kilometre on a 1.5km spacing.
Updated: As noted above, the close spacing cited in the TTC report may be based on Seattle’s feederless design which uses small substations and thicker-than-average contact wires to avoid the need for a feeder system. It is possible that the report has mixed this design with the larger cost of traditional Toronto-style substations.
Finally, overhead construction costs include an allowance of $50,000 per intersection for “special treatment”, and there are assumed to be over 5 intersections/km (220 spread over 42 route km). The last time I looked, trolley bus routes go through intersections with no special treatment at all because the pole spacing at these locations (typically the intersecting road’s width) is generally closer than the spacing on regular parts of the route. If these costs are adapted from Transit City, they may be taking into account special costs for different pole and suspension arrangements built into the LRT right-of-way design (see St. Clair for examples) that are not applicable to a trolleybus network.
TTC Engineering and Management Overhead
All of the base costs used for the power distribution system are factored up to include TTC management overhead at the following rates:
- contract changes (10%)
- design and engineering (25%)
- contingencies (30%)
yielding a cumulative total of 78.5%. I cannot find a polite word to describe such a blatant distortion of cost estimates. A trolley bus overhead system is not something that requires detailed inch-by-inch design and management. Once you establish the general parameters, you go out on the street, install poles, string feeder wire and install the overhead. The cost of design does not go up just because you extend a route another kilometre.
The report notes that recent cost estimates for Vancouver are “somewhat lower” but that Vancouver has a considerable sunk investment in electrical infrastructure. It would have been nice had the author bothered to find out why Vancouver’s costs were actually lower rather than suggesting that Toronto doesn’t have the foundation of electrical infrastructure on which to build. I will try to remember this the next time I hear the subway rumble across the Bloor Viaduct (in view outside my window as I write this) or ride the King car down Broadview.
The combined effect of overstating the cost of substations and larding the entire estimate with overhead charges (pun intended) that should be distributed (you can groan now) over a larger network is to substantially inflate the projected cost of the power distribution infrastructure. This is addressed briefly by a chart showing the effect of changing the assumed ratio electrification costs and future diesel prices, but the overall impression left with the casual reader is of a wide gulf between diesel and TB options.
Fleet Size and Network Layout
The TTC’s own studies have shown that a fleet should contain at least 150 vehicles and that 250 would be ideal. However, there is no attempt to sketch out a network that would yield this fleet nor to determine the economies of scale this would bring.
As others have already commented, the proposed network of 52 Lawrence, 29 Dufferin, 63 Ossington and 90 Vaughan is an odd one that includes no common running between the routes and may not even be ideal from the viewpoint of network density, service levels and possible expansion. Lawrence, for example, shares running with 59 Maple Laef and 58 Malton, but these services would remain diesel.
Notable for their absence are 96 Wilson, 41 Keele and 7 Bathurst all of which would fit into the target service area. These routes also lie in an area that is or will be well populated with subway, streetcar and LRT routes with which they could share substations.
Previous Studies
The current report cites a 1992 TTC study prepared when the clear intent was to justify trolley bus elimination. Some statements cited from the earlier report were questionable in 1992 and remain so today.
- “Overhead wire support systems involve some degree of objectionable visual intrusion”. The question here is the trade off between other effects including lower noise and better vehicle performance and the so-called intrusion of the wires. “Visual pollution” was a term coined by TB opponents in an attempt to make vice of the virtue of electric propulsion.
- “Routing for trolley buses is far less flexible when compared to non-electric buses”. Ah yes, all those bus routes that are changed so frequently that the map can hardly keep up. Any TB network would be designed around routes that are well-established and unlikely to need restructuring or rerouting just as, indeed, we design LRT and, dare I say it, subway lines. Off-wire capability for emergency situations was not considered seriously by the TTC.
The telling line in today’s report is this:
At that time, CNG buses received considerable attention …
That’s quite an understatement considering the cabal assembled to promote this now-abandoned technology.
The Hamilton Peer Review Group report is also cited without mentioning that the HSR system, like the TTC’s, was run down and that its management was part of the group pushing CNG buses.
GHG Emission Reductions
Here, the TTC report goes right off the rails, or more aptly, dewires. (I am reminded of the occasional Yonge 97 trolley bus operator who forgetfully thought he was driving North Yonge, and wound up in Hogg’s Hollow far from the nearest overhead at Glen Echo Loop.)
The TTC compares the cost of GHG reduction per tonne calculated at $1,840 with the Metrolinx Benefits Case Analysis value of $40. This comparison is faulty on three counts:
- The cost of the TB system is inflated as discussed above.
- Metrolinx is calculating the cost per tonne saved by diverting auto users onto transit. This conversion reaps a large benefit per user because of the relatively high GHG output of auto commuting. Here we are replacing a transit bus with an already-lower emission level per passenger km with a trolley bus.
- GHG savings are only one of several factors considered by Metrolinx studies, and they do not assume that the entire cost of a project should be assessed against emission reduction. Pollution reduction is only one of many benefits conferred by construction of a transit project and the project cost is properly charged against all of the benefits it brings.
The report concludes that there are less expensive ways to address GHG production by transit vehicles including:
- Improved hybrid bus performance: This is dubious considering that performance problems relative to expectations are already traced to the operating characteristics of routes, not to inherent problems with the technology.
- Improved cost effectiveness of fuel cell buses: I have already written at length about this boondoggle. Does anyone beyond a handful of desperate promoters expect this technology to scale up to bus fleet demands?
- Development of an electric bus. Such a vehicle requires power from somewhere. Either the vehicle carries an enormous battery pack to carry a long-term charge, or the vehicle is constantly going out of service to top up its batteries. Note that this means that charging would not all occur on an overnight basis as many electric bus advocates claim, but throughout the day. Moreover, charging stations would have to exist all over the network where buses could pull out of service to charge up.
Conclusion
This report, like so many I have seen before, tries to hard to make its case and in the end shows the preconceptions and anticipated outcome on which it was based.
I could have written a paper that said, yes, trolley buses might look good under certain assumtions, but it’s a leap. That would at least have been honest.
Reintroducing trolley buses in Toronto isn’t an easy decision, and there will be costs, certainly in the short term, well in excess of the benefits. We could say the same for Transit City’s LRT network or various subway expansion projects.
Some projects have sponsors, some don’t, and reports about them reflect the political markets for which they are written.
Steve Munro 
One point to make is that GM is not developing an electric car, rather what is now being referred to as a full hybrid, one that can run solely on its electric motor with a limited range, and supplemental gasoline fueled engine. The only major proponent of electric cars for the mass market would appear to be Nissan and a handful of specialty manufacturers. Also, this proposed network seems odd in that it would require an awful lot of deadhead mileage for a bus to get to St. Clair West Station unless some sort of connecting trackage were established along Eglinton.
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Well the only thing that is holding back this great tech. is the investment. Whatever happened to pay more now and see benefits tomorrow? The operating budget expeditures would be reduced? Translation, same service for less, or more service for the same costs. All transit systems that cover a population of over 500,000 people should be investing in this. Imagine if they have articulated trolley buses? Cheap to run, and the potential to actually post an operating profit…of course I would put more buses on the road. 🙂
Steve: It’s amazing how the term “investment” is used selectively for projects with political support.
Although I think making an economic case for TBs is a challenge, there are aspects of the study — the odd selection of routes, the small fleet, the huge “contingency” larded onto the infrastructure cost — that weigh the analysis against TBs.
Whenever someone tries to bamboozle me with “new technology”, I get very suspicious.
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Forgive me if i’m way off the mark here as I am pretty tired, but I would argue that there’s a fundamental flaw in the Soberman report on trolleys. The cost for the hypothetical trolley network is astronomical because none of the four routes interline, creating a significant requirement for new infratructure. An analysis focusing on routes sharing common infrastructure (e.g. 84 Sheppard West, 106 York University, 196 York U Rocket) would result in lower electrification capital and long-term servicing costs given the number of route kilometres travelled, no?
Steve: If you’re tired and can spot things like that, imagine how many other flaws are lurking. I am holding off on a full writeup as I, too, am tired and want to leave this for later in the weekend.
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If service was returned to routes that had previously existed then the infrastructure costs would be greatly reduced. The report mentions existing substations, all of which used for the trolley bus network should still be present. One of the strangest things that has occurred since trolley removal is that vast numbers of the steel posts which are still owned and maintained by the TTC along the former routes have since been replaced with the newer galvanized steel poles. In other words a lot of the infrustructure has actually been UPGRADED since. (Even all the poles in the short-turn loop at Annette/Keele were replaced even though they weren’t holding up anything! Only just recently was that loop filled in and the brand-new poles removed.) Most of the 600 Volt feeder trunk lines are also still in place.
Ignored is the fact that the TTC workforce is already well-versed in the installation and maintenance of the electrical and overhead systems required and has all the necessary service and diagnostic tools. One absolutely ridiculous suggestion was that the Transit City infrastructure might be constructed for 750 Volt DC. That would render it completely incompatible with every piece of equipment of any sort already owned by the TTC and require that there be absolutely no connections between the overhead wires of the new lines and the legacy lines. It would also negate the possiblility and benefits of shared maintenance/storage facilities.
Steve: The old network contains many lines that are not prime candidates for TB conversion. They are left over from the remnants of the streetcar system that served now-vanished industrial districts on Weston, Dupont and west-central Toronto. Any new network should focus on major routes that have strong demand and a fairly compact geometry as well as opportunities for shared infrastructure (running wire and substations).
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Steve:
“should focous on major routes” – Major routes for a community or for the whole city?.
I find that planning a route, there is the chicken/egg thing. To get riders you need a bus/streetcar route, but for a bus/streetcar route you need riders.
While typing this comment I went to search for a photo of a trolley bus.
(http://media.canada.com/51df8522-e0a5-44bf-ad15-5fc7d54dfa34/trolley0799.jpg) Isn’t that basically just a streetcar but with rubber tires and no rail tracks?
Steve: Yes, that’s more or less the idea. Many routes don’t need the capacity of streetcars/LRT, but have enough demand and physical characteristics (hills and frequent stops) that are advantegous for TBs.
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For me the place for trolleys is downtown – with second wire strung along the streetcar network – especially along those bus routes which have diversion track like Parliament and Bay and splitting routes like 29/63 at Bloor. The peak buses could then be spread over the blue night streetcar routes rather than using diesels. This maximises the existing infrastructure and means the blue night buses could be electric rather than diesel.
Talking about running them out of Wilson, requiring all new infrastructure, and for only four routes is just setting it up to fail. Get the Portlands yard built – it’s going to be needed anyway right? – and run them from there. God almighty, Wilson…
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I visited a major Southern Hemisphere city a couple of years back – the one with the Opera House, Bridge and actual Olympics site. At least half of the buses were CNG – probably more now. (The transit system in Sydney worked very well – at least from a tourist perspective – trains, ferries and buses.) Just curious as to how the political machinations may have messed up the CNG buses here in Toronto.
Steve: Toronto’s CNG project was born of a confluence of interests. TTC staff wanted rid of the trolley buses, but the Commission would not agree to replacing a “clean” technology. CNG, at the time, had much better emission characteristics than diesels. This is no longer true due to advances in diesel technology forced on the trucking industry. Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation had a small office of alternative technologies just busting for a major demonstration project. The Natural Gas Industry was sitting on a bubble of surplus product (remember when we had surplus energy?). A vendor of storage tanks, a small Ontario company, was hot to get in on the ground floor of a new market. Finally, Ontario Bus Industries (now Orion) really wanted to steal a march on Flyer by providing a unique vehicle (and thereby avoiding tender competitions).
The trolley bus system was sacrificed in the name of Ontario technology. Does this sound familiar? Can you say “Scarborough RT”?
You can read about this in more detail in an earlier post.
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There are also dual mode buses that alternate between trolley (electric) and diesel.
Have they even looked at that?
Steve: The problem with such a vehicle is that you need all of the machinery for a diesel bus plus the infrastructure for a trolley bus. This is the sort of thing that has very specific applications such as buses that have to run in tunnels or a route structure with a dense shared area where the noise and fumes of diesels on close headways would be unacceptable.
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I understand that the original network isn’t necessarily a good starting point for re-introduction. But the report seemed to exaggerate the infrustructure costs by ignoring the possibility of re-introduction on former routes. I’m only trying to question the validity of the report’s fundamentals, not the viability of the old routes.
I’m getting really tired of the idea that buses are supposed to carry ridiculously heavy equipment on-board to operate. A trolley bus is almost the best of everything by minimizing weight and maximizing performance while virtually eliminating street-level noise and emissions. Part of what is trying to be achieved in this city is basic quality-of-life improvements, especially to compact residential neighbourhoods. The noise and emissions eliminations have to be given a much-higher weighting factor in the cost/benefits analysis. Any future technologies are still going to waste substantial energy by carrying heavy sub-systems on-board or rely on fossil fuels and generate noise and pollution locally.
When the trolley bus network still existed it seemed to make financial sense given how long it survived. Was it really that disproportionately more expensive to operate and maintain these routes? When we’re comparing apples to apples, is it the bus or the streetcar that is the apple? Or is the trolley bus a pear and deserving of consideration on it’s own (oranges aside)?
Steve: Much depends on context. Any collection of vehicles or infrastructure if not maintained properly will inevitably have higher costs because of all the patchwork needed to keep it going. The original trolley buses lasted for over two decades, and the TTC was even planning to reuse buses from the old Yonge 97 line on St. Clair after the subway was extended to York Mills. The electrical equipment from most of the fleet was recycled into Flyer bus bodies in the early 70s, and these buses lasted another two decades. The limiting factor was the bus body condition, not the electrical gear.
(This sort of recycling is less likely today because electronic propulsion controls change quickly enough that by the time a bus body wears out, the electronics are obsolete.)
By the end of their life we had not only worn out bodies, but 50 year old electrical equipment and power distribution infrastructure that had been allowed to fall into disrepair. The cost of bringing it all back to first class condition was quite large and by this time the pressure was on to get rid of the TBs. Relative costs were quite misleading because they compared a fleet of antique TBs and infrastructure with a relatively young fleet of diesel buses.
This story begins with a good example of creative reuse of equipment to lower capital costs and ends with the classic story of disinvestment that condemns any transit mode, including subways, if the system is not properly maintained.
Reintroduction on former routes would have very little infrastructure available for reuse. Many of the overhead support poles were replaced with standard Hydro equipment years ago, and in any event the TTC poles still in the street are old enough they should be replaced. Some prime examples can be found on Eglinton east of Yonge. Yes, there’s some existing substation capacity, but if we are serious about TBs we will push into territory beyond the reach of the existing spare capacity.
I agree that the report’s fundamentals have problems, but don’t want to give the impression that if all we did was tinker with the route layout, the conclusions would be different. Far more is wrong with the report than the route map.
For more info on the history of the trolley bus fleet, visit Transit Toronto.
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Given the quality of the service such as noise and emission reductions, improved rider comfort, and increased performance on hills (York Mills, helllllooo!!!), wouldn’t the implementation of this have impacts on property values along the corridor and lead to increased tax revenues to mitigate the costs of the capital investment for the City?
Steve: But all those nasty overhead wires would block out the sun! Karl — what can you be thinking?
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Having frequently ridden trolley buses in Beijing, I can say that they offer much better service than buses. They’re extremely quiet, with esentially no noise to be heard (unless the A/C was running), they accelerated very well, and there were no issues with diversions or flexibility as they could all run substantial distances off wire. Beijing also has a lot more traffic and congestion than Toronto, and the trolley buses did not have any disadvantage. The wires were discreet and do not impact anything, double deckers and trolley buses often run on the same route.
I don’t know how the configuration was here before, but in Beijing, in the terminals/storage areas, the buses would run off wire, and there need not be huge tangled messes of wires up top.
Toronto would definitely benefit from trolley buses, both as a green initiative and improve the service, and infrastructure costs can be migitated with good planning (like the 84/196 example above), and trolley bus systems can handle very high frequencies, in Beijing 3 or 4 routes often converge on one section and share the wires, there was never a problem.
Just a question, could the substations possibly be shared with any of the transit city infrastructure?
Steve: Possibly. One complicating factor would be if all our new vehicles run at 750V, a fairly common standard these days, but the old city streetcar system remains at 550V. It is technically possible for routes with different voltages to cross, but not the sort of thing you would design on purpose if you could avoid it. If everything is at the same voltage, then substation capacity can be shared as, indeed, it was for the old TB/streetcar system. After all, most of the TB lines were former carlines.
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Hi Steve and Kristian:-
One of the neglects and reasons why the old TC system had to go was a great percentage of the overhead support poles were in need of replacement. Those old steel poles were by and large rusted out from the inside out. They were next to life expired as far as supporting the great and dynamic weight of an overhead system. Those that remain on the former TC lines now have a much lesser demand on them and may indeed survive a while longer in utility service, but may be unsafe if overhead is restrung using them.
And those new utility poles seen where the old steel ones have been removed may not be able to support overhead. It takes a mighty strong amd purpose designed pole to be able to carry the loadings that overhead demands. I’m not sure why a pole that would be manufactured new and identical to those 75 year old guys could not be purchased anew. It may be because we’d only get 75 years out of them so why consider. Not long enough to pay back the capital costs I guess.
Dennis Rankin
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Well, maybe the Transit City movers and shakers can be convinced to design the electrical infrastructure with the capacity to allow the reintroduction of ETBs on routes deemed suitable for it. Back in the day I got the New Electric Railway Journal and I recall the magazine describing the abandonment of ETBs in Toronto as being ” a triumph for the know-nothings of the industry.” What I’ve been wondering lately is if there has been any kind of opposion to ETB abandonment in Edmonton or if the die has been irrevocobly cast against their retainment.
Steve: The Edmonton system has fought an uphill battle for years and it’s not seen as a core part of the transit system by many there. I don’t think you will see it revived.
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Is it a drawing error, or are they showing the 52 LAWRENCE WEST operating from Bayview? Were they looking at a 1960’s map???
Steve: Yup, they goofed. It’s small errors like this that cumulatively undermine the report as a whole.
When I was growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, I lived at 42 Lawrence West, just one block in from Yonge. Now, everybody knows about the short stretch of emergency service trolley wires on Lawrence between Mt. Pleasant and Yonge, but the thick black power supply cables went along Lawrence from Mt. Pleasant to Avenue Rd. As well, the utility poles on Lawrence between Yonge and Avenue Rd (the portion within the city of Toronto, at least), were positioned and spaced in such a way that suggested the possibility of eventual trolley bus service on the entire Lawrence route (as it existed in 1954 when the subway opened, between Bayview and Avenue Rd)., so it is ironic that Lawrence is being considered again.
On the other hand, I always thought that the bus tunnel at Lawrence Stn. would have scuttled any plans for trolley operation. The overhang would be way to low without altering the tunnel in some fashion, which would add to the cost of converting to trolley bus operation.
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@Steve – has the City specified what voltage the downtown streetcar replacements will run on? If it will be 600 or 750vdc the conversion of the existing network – vehicles and substations – will be tricky, pricey and disruptive, but if it’s 550vdc then either interoperability between TC and downtown will be difficult or the entire TC network will be even more bespoke and using a voltage which increases transmission losses over its higher voltage counterparts.
Steve: The downtown network must run on 550V because the CLRV/ALRV fleets will co-exist with the new cars for years. The question then becomes whether cars can and will be designed to accept both 550V and 750V input supply to allow them to run on either network.
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Another annoying phrase that turns up in the report is the constant reference that trolley buses cannot be used to extend service into new areas, yet the premise is to use these vehicles on heavy trunk routes, which last time I checked were not getting many extensions into entirely new areas. The report also ignored any opportunity to use or enhance existing substation infrastructure for part of the electrical infrastructure in the sample network. For example, there is a substation on Shaw St. just north of Queen that must have been servicing quite a bit of the south end of the Ossington route, whatever substation is feeding St. Clair could be used for the middle section of Dufferin, and both Ossington and Vaughan. For those wondering why Wilson garage, it’s because Wilson already has the subway power supply feeding the 600V system in place. I look forward to further analysis from Steve and others on this report.
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Steve, About two months ago in another strand, I mentioned something about the TTC abandoning many years ago the best ecological bus they ever had in the trolley bus. Having grown up in the west end, I travelled many times on the Annette, Lansdowne, Ossington, Bay, Junction, and due to work Nortown and Mount Pleasant. It was quite good for the area’s needs.
I just finished reading most of the Soberman report and one thing bugs me about it all. The trolleys would not be using a diminishing resource (fossil fuel). Say what you want but there is only so much in the ground and prices do not reflect that now, but I’m sure it will again and soon!!
Another thing that bothered me was that there was mentioned that it was unacceptable because those routes could not be extended in future situations. I think that most of the routes mentioned (if one looks carefully), cannot be extended beyond their current routings. Dufferin, Vaughan Road, Ossington, and Lawrence West are pretty well stuck in the routings they are in right now!! In fact, if one looks at the current transit map of Toronto, with the exception of routes along the subway extensions,or northeast Scarboro, most routes are set for some time. (we’ll see what happens with transit city, if it ever happens!!!)
Because of this rational thought, I cannot see why that excuse was used. It almost strikes me that the old guard who wanted the TCs gone were still around.
Steve: To be fair, the inability to change a route on five minutes’ notice (as if the TTC ever responded to growth that quickly) is a downside of trolley buses, but the challenge then is to select routes wisely.
All I know is I go to work extremely early in the morning and there have been many breakdowns with the Hybrid buses and some of the Biodiesels also. Two weeks ago one morning, just after 4AM, several customers were waiting for the Yonge night bus just north of Finch. There was no 3:52, 4:02 or 4:16 bus(all AM and at that time it gets very cold, very quickly!). Just after 4:30AM an old GM showed up and boy were we glad. Found out that buses had broken down (guess which kind?) several times that night. Unfortunately, it affected us the worst because they had banded them together.
We know about the trolleys. They have been tried and tested and found to be reliable.We can’t say that about other bus sources that they have used. And you know what also, Bay Street hasn’t looked the same since they left!
Steve: Fairly soon, the TTC will no longer have “we used the wrong batteries” as the standard excuse for hybrid bus failures and they will have to start addressing the inherent reliability of the vehicles.
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Is it economical to use dual-mode buses to ply on routes which branch out? The Lawrence West bus and its branches into Etobicoke quickly come to mind.
Steve: Unless we have a very large TB network, the subset of it that would use dual-mode buses would be small, and we would have an expensive fleet for a limited application.
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I noticed that some of the comments complain about the trolley wire being an eyesore. I lived int the West End of Vancouver for almost 15 yrs. and that neighborhood is mostly served by trolley buses, I didn’t even notice the wires after living there so many years. One thing I did notice was the sound of the diesel buses when they ventured into our neigborhood. The West End in Vancouver has a very high denisity of people and trolley buses helped improve the air quality and noise reduction that the small cost of living with some overhead wires was worth it.
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I just can’t quite picture how trolley bus wire overhead would look strung along The Westway. It’s like someone took a map of Toronto and picked routes, never having been here in person.
Steve: A great deal of highly-paid transit planning is done like this.
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Were the routes purposely selected in the report, to take advantage of the existing substations? Every route passes within shouting distance of several existing traction power substations. The extreme west end of the Lawrence line may require an additional substation but that would be the only building required.
Overhead wires my seem unsightly but that is more than offset by the electric bus which does not exhaust fumes onto the street and uses no energy when stopped to load passengers.
Poles, feeder cable, trolley wire, ductbanks, breakers and controls are the needed infrastructure. Installing trolley bus on the selected routes may probably be more economical in Toronto that any other city in the world.
Please note that when the trolley bus was discontinued in Toronto the TTC reduced it’s overhead workforce by a grand total of 6 employees.
Rejecting the electrical substation infrastructure argument makes me think why wouldn’t Toronto be taking advantage of what they already have and roll out the trolley buses?
One other consideration please, trolley bus is not streetcar. Run the trolley bus around the block and stay out of loops. The loop at Keele and Annette was an overhead nightmare.
2 Cents and Best Regards
Ray
Steve: Well, if the routes were selected to take advantage of existing substations, the report is out of whack. If you work through the info in the costing chart, there are 42 route km with substations every 1.5 km, or 28 substations. These are estimated to cost $2.7-million each, or $75.6M just for substations! This is ludicrous, but sadly typical of the sort of “analysis” this issue has received over the years.
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With regards to Ray Bateman’s comment above, it is also worthwhile to note that any error in the base costs (e.g., for substations) is almost doubled because of the 79% mark-up for engineering, contingencies and contract mark-up, and the annual 6.5% debt charges (plus debt charges on the mark-up). This works up to a 90% increase on the capital costs (electrification, vehicles etc.). Each of those $2.7-million substations costs somewhere in the order of $5.1 million after accounting for these factors.
The report findings are so unfavourable to trolley bus conversion that it is easy to dismiss “what if” questions by saying that the margin is so large that even accounting for this difference would not change the overall findings. In fact, the report does this (see Figure 5.4, which displays the results of sensitivity analysis of a 50% decrease — or increase! — in electrification costs). The question then is, how many of these worst-case assumptions are realistic, and what is the cumulative effect of removing the unrealistic ones?
For example, if we assume that one-third of the substations are already available, and that we can cut the remaining ones in half using the Toronto type rather than the Seattle type, we cut the substation cost by $2.3M per km ($1.2M x 1.9).
If we assume that the “intersection” cost refers to special work only and will then be limited to a few isolated locations, we eliminate the intersection cost at $0.5M per km ($263k x 1.9).
Add those two items together and it reaches $2.8M/km, which is more than a one-third reduction in the assumed electrification costs. How much more efficiencies would be realistically achievable through different route assumptions?
I suspect that it would not change the overall findings, but the “sticker shock” would be lower.
Steve: Yes, exactly. The report is either incompetently prepared, or deliberately structured to paint so odious a comparison between options that the average politician wouldn’t dig deeper. This is the kind of crap so common in the bad old TTC days, and I thought we were past that. Sigh.
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Why was this report even done? We all know that Trolley Busses wil never be brought back to Toronto and that’s that.
Steve: The issue was raised by the Commission who requested a staff report. While your comment may reflect the organizational politics, stranger pieces of technology have found their way into the TTC.
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Vancouver in fact originally ordered 188 rigid trolleys and 40 articulated trolleys (not 180 rigids and 48 artics).
This has since been updated with an additional 34 articulated trolleys.
Steve: Thanks for this clarification. The numbers were quoted from the TTC report.
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If the TTC commissioners decided to build a network of swan canals in the city, they can always hire a consultant who will somehow find a way to make an economically positive case for it.
Steve: You will also require a PPP with a company who will get a sweetheart deal on the scheme.
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“The report proposes a network based at Wilson Garage because power is already available from the nearby subway complex. Whether this is entirely germane is dubious considering that modern trolley bus garages tend to be largely without overhead and vehicles use their auxiliary power units to move around the yard.”
Actually, Steve, Vancouver’s new garage in Marpole – as it was at the old garage on 41st Ave – is covered with a spiderweb of overhead wires. All of the trolleys are hooked up to the wires at all times. They don’t use auxiliary power to move around the yard.
Steve: Thanks for this clarification.
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“Soberman’s report makes a strong case against trolley buses on its basic economic arguments, and that’s a debate worth having.”
well in this case theres a lot of things to talk to but i think its clear that weshould be more considerate
Steve: I am not sure whether we should be more considerate to the trolley bus, or to authors of reports.
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We should not be considerate of the author of this report. As Steve said above: “stranger pieces of technology have found their way into the TTC”. And that having been said, along with the many inconsistencies pointed out by Steve and others, I believe this report was designed to fail.
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I think that this just proves that the TTC can write a report on anything and decide in advance what the answer will be and then justify it. We see this with regard to downtown subway capacity, for example (why not spend $500 M-$1B re-rebuilding a subway station for 5 years instead?). We also can note that the commission can also ignore a staff or outside report – like going ahead with bike racks even though they were not
What’s become of the Scarborough RT replacement decision anyway, based on the report authored by the same person? I keep hearing it might end up as LRT after all.
Steve: The Benefits Case Analysis at Metrolinx clearly shows LRT as the better option in this corridor, but the whole question is in limbo until the Eglinton line’s BCA is finished in a few months. I fear that some at Metrolinx are still desperate to see a large-scale RT project in Toronto. The SRT report didn’t come out as they expected, and it remains to be seen whether they will “adjust” the Eglinton report to make up for this. Why there has to be a through service from Malvern to the Airport via Eglinton is a mystery.
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Presumably there is an arbitrary service-level (km/year/bus) and electricity price embedded in the report. Mid-peak and off-peak electricity prices are a lot lower than on-peak, periods which the TTC runs considerable service (weekends are also off-peak). The trolleybuses to UBC must have heavy demand all hours of the day and well into the evening – ever been on a 510 streetcar after night class at UofT lets out?
The higher the service level and the higher the price of energy, the better the case for electrified transport. Imagine the diesel costs if the TTC ran all its buses all the time. More service and pricier diesel and electricity do not affect capital costs per se. Is Soberman betting that we’ll be providing less service by Public Transit and that energy prices will drop in the future? I hope not!
Steve: If you read the report you will see that there is no discussion of the complexities of service levels and time of day pricing. I think that the capital costs were so skewed that no work was necessary to fine tune the operating costs — power could have been free and the conclusion would still be the same.
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I think there is a reason that Vancouver is using articulated trolley buses. I think the smell of the outhouse that is city hall needs to grow a backbone and look at things at a diffrent light. Investment, yes the term is thrown around by the bumsquishes that we vote in, but I see it as just that. We could start downtown and work our way out, as the diesel buses starts to retire. A vast network of light rail and TBs would actually eliminate a good chunk of smog, (even thought this is not my reasons) and eliminate the need for what will become overpriced diesel fuel. Of course I can settle for lots of diesel buses providing tons of service. I just think we can do better and keep our day to day costs down. I always want more bang for my buck.
Steve: While you’re busy trashing the folks we elected at City Hall, please remember that the TTC report, such as it is, only exists because those politicians told staff to go an investigate TBs. The fact that they didn’t do a very good job simply sets the stage for a better review.
After all, we’ve gone from a TTC report advocating replacement of the RT by more RT to a Metrolinx BCA that says LRT is best. The problem now is with the folks at Metrolinx who may attempt to derail this conversion by gerrymandering the Eglinton study.
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Steve, I have ridden on the trolley bus to UBC (in Vancouver). Bradley Wentworth is correct, it does have high ridership at all hours! You know, it’s a shame that someone somewhere in the system of the TTC(whoever proposed the report or influenced it being proposed) has the foresight to even suggest such proposals. Vancouver get’s it.
Lyon, France started their new trolley line known as the Citidalis (I think that was the name) just last year. As everybody dissects the Soberman Report, it is very obvious that it was meant to be a failure on paper. At one time, the trolley buses and streetcars were a huge part of the tourism picture. No one would ever mention that either.
Steve, I grew up less than a block away from Rogers Road. You could always hear in advance when the streetcar was coming, and in later years the bus, but when the Ossington bus was extended on Rogers, I sometimes missed it because I could not hear it!
Steve: I grew up a block and a half from Mt. Pleasant Loop where one could hear streetcars turning late at night when the track temperature and humidity were right, but could never hear the Nortown trolley buses.
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Steve, I know that Mt. Pleasant loop very well.
The line (and vehicle) in Lyon is called Cristalis. If you go to their system’s site, it is listed on the map as a trolleybus. If you cannot find a picture under Lyon, then look under Limoges, France. They use the same buses and they are lookswise a little different from the TBs that we knew.
In Lyon, they have 4 Metro (subway) lines, 2 tramway lines, and 2 trolleybus-Cristalis lines (most recent). That’s on top of the regular bus system. Quite the diversity!!! Possibly TTC commissioners could learn something from this!
C.B.at H.
Steve: Here are links to an exterior and interior view of the vehicles.
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Hi Steve.
A couple of points on these thoughts. The TTC should check out Rome’s new trolley bus route number 60. It features standard overhead plus off wire running to the main bus terminus in Rome. What is interesting is that route has reintroduced TB’s to a city that once had them. Food for thought, indeed.
Some of the reports that are coming out of Richard Soberman are disturbing. I had a lot of respect for him in the mid-70’s when he proposed an LRT system to be built instead of the then cancelled expressway network. The reports that have come out recently seem to suggest a conclusion that has facts marshalled in place to justify it regardless of the correctness of the material presented. Besides, Adam Giambrone’s suggestion of developing a TB system around the proposed Transit City scheme seems to have been altogether ignored.
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Would it be safe to call this study a whitewash? Hell, Any study from any place in time from any where in the world on any subject can be influenced by any kind of bias. I swear somebody could do a study on running GO trains down the middle of Eglinton and find some way to make it look like the greatest mass transit innovation in since the invention of the wheel! My dad lived in Detroit for a few years back in the 1940s and while he lived there a study advocating an all diesel bus future for Detroit was sponsored by-guess who-GM, as if that was any surprise.
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Mention of articulated TBs prompts the question: can articulated TBs be designed with power to the second axle (the back of the front body section) instead of the third or rear? Would this alleviate the problems the diesel powered articulateds have in snow?
Put me down as thinking that overhead wire is beautiful.
Steve: I will leave this question to the bus technology gurus among the readers.
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One of my fondest memories is riding a trolley bus in Dayton a few years ago. While stopped at an intersection, I whispered to a friend sitting across the aisle and we could clearly hear one another. Wow! Try that on a diesel bus! (It’s discouraging to hear that Soberman’s study is flawed. Steve, any chance that the TTC or the Commissioners care?)
Steve: The Commission received the report without comment. I don’t think much would have been served by a debate on the merits of the report and this is simply one of those missed opportunities. What needs to happen now is, in effect, “nothing” — the idea of electric, overhead-free buses to not progress beyond small-scale demonstrations. The excuse that there will be a viable alternative to trolley coaches has to evaporate so that “wait and see” isn’t a valid political position.
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Hi Steve:-
I wonder if yesterday’s Ottawa summit will have something concrete come out of it? As I understand, one of the major focuses of it was an agreement in principle to invest in green. The overview I understood from the CTV coverage was power grid and pipeline centred. If so, this could put the trolley bus in the forefront in eastern cities.
One of the critcisms that I found after only a few pages into Mr. Soberman’s report was the total equality of TC service requirements and per vehicle maintenance costs. My understanding from any TC system before now was that one needed fewer vehicles to provide a slightly better level of service and that the all electric aspect of the vehicles required less maintenance and downtime overall. Although only a small percentage less, the TC has none the less a slight advantage over the diesel or hybrid in this regard. (this too is assuming that the hybrids can actually have the bugs worked out and become a reliable service providing vehicle) The Shedman’s costs alone in hostling those fuel consuming vehicles in and out of the fuel bay daily is totally gone. Too the fact that TCs can be left outside in the most horrendous weather and don’t need coddling in a warm down quilt of a garage appears to have been ignored also.
I’m sure I’ll find more that is a little skewed as I progress through the report, but why should this have been? It’s not like Big Bad GM and their evil spawn ‘National City Lines’ are still players in the anti-trolley argument, or is it that the residual negativity grown from that 50 year ago campaign still haunting us, thus allowing a report like Mr. Soberman’s to so easily re-wool the sheep.
Up front cost for trolley, yes indeed, but quality is seldom if ever the cheap way out! Residual benefits from those investments, wow!!!
Dennis Rankin
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I just got back from Quito in Ecuador and Lima Peru. Quito is a long, 15 to 20 km, and narrow, 5 to 8 km, city that runs North South in the Andes at an elevation of 10 400 feet. It has many hills and has a trolley bus BRT system that is unique. The TB’s are articulated Mercedes Benz units with three double doors for high platform loading. The station have glass walls and doors that open opposite the TB’s doors which fold inward and have an external drop step like the Peter Witt cars had. There are no trolley retrievers on the poles which run on speed wire overhead that is only about 12 to 15 feet above the ground. There does seem to be a hook at the end of the poles o that they can probably be pulled down using a long pole; I never saw one de-wire. It is amazing what good overhead will do.
Almost the entire system is in a reserved lane and the fare collection, $0.25 US, is done in the stations. The service is very frequent and is usually a crush load. There are two other major north south lines, one east and one west of the central line, which operate with normal articulated buses. The hills on the TB BRT line are very steep and would probably not allow LRT operation. The port city of Guayaquil has articulated diesel buses in a BRT with four left hand double width high platform doors like the Quito buses. They run in the left hand curb lane of one way streets which is exclusively for buses.
Lima Peru has 80 000 buses for 8 million people and many eight lane streets have two lanes in each direction reserved for buses. It was not unusual to see 14 buses lined up at each stop light. The longest buses seem to be about 35 feet, no articulateds, but many are mini van jitney operations. Two thirds of the buses seemed to be privately operated and all had a driver and a conductor. Toronto traffic and the 401 seem tame compared to South American traffic.
If Toronto is going to bring back TB then they should be articulated and start with a compact network that makes sense from a point of minimizing the infra structure needed. The Transit City plan would put LRT lines on many of the routes that would otherwise be candidates for TB but at least they would make a lot of sub stations available for TB and LRT uses. Increasing the voltage fro 550 V to 750 V does have the advantage of increasing the substation spacing distance by about 85% for the same power losses. Their figure of 1.5 to 2 km spacing for sub stations does not make sense unless they plan on having a lot of really small substations eliminating the need for large feeder cables which might make economic sense as well as reducing the visual pollution.
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I went looking around the Net and found a great website about the Quito system, including a sub-section about their much older and long-gone electric tram lines. Visit http://www.tramz.com/ec/q/00.html
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