Oh dear, oh dear! That poor old overworked, underappreciated TTC!
The Spadina car opened in July 1997, and one thing immediately obvious to anyone who bothered to look was that “transit priority signalling” was simply not working the way that phrase might imply to mere mortals who ride the service. Indeed, a newspaper article by Stephen Wickens has taken on legendary status with the claim (valid under some circumstances) that a trip down Bathurst to Western Hospital in mixed traffic makes better time than the Spadina car and its right-of-way. I’m not going to revisit that debate here .
In June 2005, I spoke to the issue of non-priority for Spadina cars at a Commission meeting. At that time, then Vice-Chair Olivia Chow moved that staff take the necessary action to implement priority signalling by September 2005 where it is not already active and report back by September 2006 on the impact; and that the recommendations in my submission be forwarded to TTC and City staff with a joint report to fall meetings, presumably in 2005.
The due date for this report has always been a few months away, and I have had the honour of holding the longest outstanding report request at the TTC for some time. I was expecting the report in April, but that month came and went. Now, according to this week’s agenda, the report will be at the Commission meeting of December 16, 2009.
That is at least still “fall”, by a few days, albeit not the one Olivia Chow had in mind.