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Transit City Bus Plan: Surface Routes Matter (Update 2)

Updated August 28, 2008 at 8:15 pm:

At its meeting on August 26, the TTC adopted the Transit City Bus Plan with a few amendments:

  • There will be a 6-month communication and consultation period  regarding the proposed plan.
  • Staff will report back on criteria for inclusion of routes in the plan so that these can become part of the formal Service Standards policy.
  • Staff will report back on headway-based rather than schedule-based management of routes with frequent service including those in the Plan.

As I was out of town for this meeting, my comments were submitted as a written deputation.

Updated August 23, 2008 at 8:45 am:

I have added information at the end of this article about streetcar and bus route headways illustrating some of the issues raised here.

Original article:

Today, the TTC published its Transit City Bus Plan, the next step in an ongoing attempt to focus attention on the transit system overall, not just the subway projects.

I would like to report wild enthusiasm about this plan, but we will have to drop the “wild” part, and think of enthusiasm tempered by disappointment.  The TTC is headed in the right direction, but with compromises.  In a constrained economy, compromises are necessary, but so are the bolder strokes giving politicians and the public at least the option of moving faster should they wish to.  That was the whole concept of the Ridership Growth Strategy (RGS) to which the bus plan is a successor.

The report linked above contains both an Executive Summary and a detailed set of proposals.  I will skip over the summary and comment on the main report.

A Note About Wheel Trans

Improvements to the Wheel Trans fleet and services are included in this report.  I have not commented on them here because they do not affect the operation of the base network, and more importantly because I believe that we shouldn’t need a “Transit City Bus Plan” to justify or trumpet improvements in services for the Wheel Trans community.

Introduction (Page 11)

The TTC depends for its success on the surface route network both to feed into major stations and to carry riders in the large “in between” spaces missed by rapid transit.  Much energy at the planning and political levels has focussed on expensive capital projects, and much of Toronto’s planning history consisted of lobbying, arm twisting and vote trading to build a few pet subway lines, not a network.  TTC mythology touts high-rise construction around subway stations even though these are the exception, not the rule, and most subway demand comes in on surface routes.

The Ridership Growth Strategy shifted from subway to surface improvements, although it was highjacked for a time by TTC subway advocates who feared that surface improvements would sideline their pet projects.  The original RGS had no subway lines in it, but they were quickly added to give the “RGS” blessing.  Still, the TTC has managed to work through most of the RGS plans.  That’s a major political accomplishment.

Now the TTC acknowledges the importance of its bus network which carries almost 60% of trips on the system.  The lion’s share of these include a rapid transit journey, but that journey could not have been made without the bus taking a customer from home to the subway station.

Rapid transit services are almost never cut, even if they are poorly used, as a matter of policy.  Bus services are another matter, and riders stuck in subway delays must agonize over whether they will connect with an infrequent surface route to complete their journeys home.  This is not good advertising for a transit lifestyle.

The Transit City Bus Plan addresses various aspects of bus service reliability and useability to enhance the attractiveness of the system overall.

What Have They Done Already? (Pages 12-22)

This section begins with a statement that cannot be repeated too often:

The TTC has learned, through direct input from customers and through market research, that one of the most fundamental and important aspects of service provision is that service be available during most hours of the day and evening — seven days per week — so that people know that their services will always be there, when they need them, and people can plan their complete travels on using transit.  Additionally, people prefer that their transit services be as frequent as possible, with crowding kept to tolerable levels.

Years of appalling TTC planning and budgeting going back to the early 1980’s recession operated on the basis that services could be trimmed around the edges — a headway widening here, a change in hours of service there — without damaging the system.  “Tailoring service to meet demand” was the motto, the concept of service quality never entered the picture, and a long downward spiral began.  This was masked by continued growth in travel demand, but the TTC didn’t keep up, especially on the surface system. 

Recently, the  TTC began to reverse the damage by restoring full offpeak service on the surface network, and by changing the loading standards so that crowded routes get more buses sooner.  The latter scheme ran aground this year thanks to reliability problems with the new bus fleet, and there remains a backlog of justified improvements that the TTC cannot operate.  They are proud that the average age of the fleet is now much lower thanks to so many new bus purchases.  Sadly, too much of that fleet isn’t on the road.

The TTC is changing its hiring and training policies to get the best employees possible, and operating staff will be consulted regularly for improvements to the system.  Putting that in print raises obvious questions for the TTC.  Don’t you have the best employees now?  Did you value them less in the past?  Have you just discovered that operators might know something about the system?

Route management will change in various ways aided by better technology, GPS vehicle location and increasing on-street supervision.  Whether this will prevent Dufferin buses from coming in threes and fours remains to be seen.

The TTC claims that customer information systems will improve as GPS information is integrated into the TTC’s management systems, a long overdue change.  Major stops will have displays showing real (as opposed to fictional, scheduled) arrival times, and info for all stops will be available via SMS text services.

I will believe this when I see it.  Today, Next Bus info is only publicly available for the Spadina and Harbourfront routes, and the quality of information displayed is not always accurate.  “Where’s My Bus!” might be a more appropriate name for this service.

By now, you have probably noticed that all of this applies to the surface system overall, not just to the bus network although that is the focus of the Bus Plan.  More on this later.

Bus Rapid Transit (Pages 23-26)

The TTC prefers dedicated, physically separate lanes for surface vehicles wherever possible because enforcement of lanes protected only by signs and pavement markings is almost nil.  This is a major problem in the relationship between the TTC and the Toronto Police Service.  Even though a new transit unit is to be formed within TPS, it will spend more of its time watching for “real crimes” on the TTC than policing wandering motorists on various “bus priority lanes” around the city.

Meanwhile, Bus Rapid Transit schemes are in the works including:

  • Downsview Station to York U (opening this fall)
  • Victoria Park Station to Kingston Road and Eglinton (EA in progress)
  • Yonge north from Finch Station (on hold pending a decision on the Richmond Hill subway)

Others that are at the twinkle-in-someone’s-eye stage are:

  • Scarborough Town Centre to Durham via Ellesmere and Highway 2
  • Kipling Station west via Dundas to Mississauga
  • Wilson west from the Spadina Subway to Keele (allegedly in support of a major development on Ontario government lands)

What is not discussed here is exactly what the preferred use for “BRT” is in the TTC’s scheme.  A line-haul operation such as the York U bus is simple — buses run express from one point to another on a reserved lane.  However, routes where intermediate stops are required trigger additional needs such as passenger areas and passing lanes.  Much planning, and not just by the TTC, of BRT seems to focus on drawing line on maps without considering the exact type of service that might be operated.

The Transit City Bus Network (Pages 27-36)

The premise of TCBN is that there will be a grid of routes on which service will never fall below a 10-minute headway (except for overnight operations).  These routes already have generally good service, and the effect will mainly be set a minimum headway standard for core surface routes as is already done for rapid transit lines.  (The TTC has yet to do so for its core streetcar lines, and I will return to this notable omission below.)

TTC planners claim to have evaluated routes looking at the population and employment per route kilometre, together existing riding and a bit of fudging to eliminate gaps in the network.  The result of this exercise appears in a table on page 28.  These “data” are among the least useful planning information in recent TTC memory because only the routes selected for TCBN are shown, and there is no indication of the values or ranks of other routes for comparison.  This gives the semblance of analysis when anyone with a pen and a map could have easily coloured in a regularly-spaced grid. 

Most importantly, we do not know the criteria that get a route into this list and how it might be amended in the future.  This should be integrated into the formal Service Standards so that changes to the network are not open to abuse by individual Councillors.

The routes (arranged geographically) are:

  • 60 and 53 Steeles West and East (*)
  • 39 Finch East (*)
  • 84 Sheppard West (*)
  • 96 and 95 Wilson and York Mills (*)
  • 58 and 52 Malton and Lawrence West (*)
  • 54 Lawrence East (*)
  • 45 Kipling (*)
  • 44 Kipling South
  • 76 Royal York South
  • 89 Weston (*)
  • 29 Dufferin (*)
  • 7 Bathurst (*)
  • 24 Victoria Park (*)
  • 43 Kennedy (*)
  • 129 McCowan North
  • 102 Markham Road (*)
  • 94 Wellesley
  • 72 Pape
  • 22 Coxwell

Of these routes, many are long and could benefit from new or expanded express operations (shown with “*” above).  However, implementation is not planned until 2014 once buses from future Transit City Light Rail lines become available.

This is a change in TTC planning because an actual bus fleet reduction was expected to occur as the Sheppard, Finch and Eglinton LRT routes began operation.  The TTC deferred a planned new bus garage on that account, and it is not apparent whether the express bus scheme’s need for a larger fleet has been included in the overall plan.

Notable by their absence above are the future LRT routes which are obvious candidates for service improvements in these important corridors.  The TTC’s approach here is quite bizarre, and treats their prime surface routes as second class.

  • New and improved express services will be implemented on Jane, Don Mills and Morningside, but not until the fall of 2011.  These services will remain until the routes convert to LRT operation.
  • Finch West, Sheppard East and Eglinton get no additional service and are not even part of TCBN because, the TTC claims, it will not be possible to maintain reliable service during LRT construction.  This is a double standard considering that the second-stage TC lines like Don Mills will have improved service right up until the LRT lines open.
  • None of the future LRT lines will be part of the 10-minute network, a major oversight considering that most of these bus routes do not have 10-minute or better service all day today.
  • Waterfront West (the 501 Queen car on Lake Shore) isn’t even mentioned on the grounds that (a) it isn’t a bus, and (b) one of these days the TTC will actually fix the service.  This is ridiculous.  Future, and indeed existing LRT lines should be part of the 10-minute network regardless of the fact they run with streetcars.  This affects only off-peak service and, therefore, has nothing to do with streetcar fleet requirements.

The TTC needs to establish a Service Standard making all current and future LRT routes part of the 10-minute network.

The Twenty Minute Network

For the routes that are not part of the core network, the TTC plans to move to a twenty minute maximum headway.  This will be rolled out in two stages in the fall of 2011 and fall of 2012.  There is no list of which routes fall into which round of upgrades.

This will implement the last outstanding phase of the Ridership Growth Strategy.

Transit Signal Priority & Queue Jump Lanes (Pages 44-48)

The TTC plans a massive expansion of transit signal priority throughout the city and, in the process, hopes to recoup about 50 peak buses (more like 60 if we include associated spares).  Whether these buses will represent a real capital saving, or will go toward improving service, remains to be seen.

The report contains no discussion of improving the sophistication of the signal priority system.  A slide in the media presentation (not in the report) shows the familiar scheme with an approach detector before an intersection and a cancellation detector to pick up buses once they cross.  There is no discussion of providing interactive capability so that operators could release green lights they don’t need (during heavy loading) and then request signal priority shortly before they are ready to leave a stop.

A review of the signal priority technology and scheduling algorithms is long overdue in Toronto.  The last thing we need is to spend millions on a new installation covering much of the bus network only to find that it might have been done better in a different way.

In a related scheme, the TTC proposes the creation of queue jump lanes at a few intersections where buses can be stalled in long streams of traffic.  These would be quite small in number, and the design only works where there is room for a road widening.

A few of the locations on the proposed list raise intriguing questions:  Finch at Bayview bothways, and at Don Mills westbound.  These locations will be significantly changed as part of the Finch LRT project, and indeed there will no longer be buses at Finch and Bayview.  Has anyone told the authors of this plan about the extension of the Finch LRT to Don Mills?

Shelters and Subway Station Improvements

By now, we are well into the part of the “Plan” that contains all the leftovers sitting around in the TTC that were pulled together under the “Transit City Bus Plan” rubric.  This is a “let’s hope they just approve the package” approach, and it weakens the overall proposal.

Many transit stops do not have bus shelters, and these appear bit by bit as the City of Toronto’s shelter contract rolls out.  The TTC wants it to roll out faster, and is prepared to pay for additional shelters.  I have to ask why the TTC is paying for this at all considering that advertising revenue is supposed to cover this capital investment.

Victoria Park Station is now under construction with a new, improved bus interchange at street level.  The designers appear to have omitted proper shelter for passengers waiting for buses in about half of the new terminal, and this oversight is to be remedied.  Normally this would be a “we goofed” change order on the construction project, but slip it into the Bus Plan as a “customer improvement” and it’s a lot less embarrassing.

Lansdowne Station has surface connections that are protected, but leave a lot to be desired.  Northbound, the station building is set back from the street, and passengers waiting inside cannot see approaching buses (nor can operators see would-be passengers) until the last moment.  Southbound, the building is across an intersection from the bus stop at a location formerly used by the Keele bus when it operated to Lansdowne Station.  Now, passengers wishing to wait in a shelter must run out across the street to the southbound stop to avoid being passed by.  The station building will be extended, and the stop will be moved farside so that it is close to the building.

Don Mills Station’s bus loop has poor lighting, and large parts of the platform are remote from the sheltered area.  The lighting will be improved to the level now at York Mills (itself no gem, especially in the GO Transit area).

Royal York Station has few doors serving the platform as this was designed as a low-volume station in the 1960s.  A new set of sliding doors will be added on the north side of the station.

Dupont Station’s canopy is unusual for TTC stations, but it suffers from bad design in rainy weather.  Water runs down the glass and drips directly onto passengers coming through the doorway, and snow/ice can accumulate on the roof and slide unexpectedly onto passengers.  A small canopy will be added at the affected doorways.

Other stations in the system will be surveyed for improvements of this kind.  Why we need a “Transit City” plan to correct basic design flaws in stations, I don’t know.

The Streetcar and Light Rail System

As I mentioned earlier, this is a “Bus” plan, and the TTC’s response to challenges such as “what about Lake Shore” is that that’s a streetcar line, and someday we may live to see a comparable plan for streetcars.

That’s poppycock (he said politely).

Surface routes are surface routes regardless of the technology they use, and any new standards concocted to define rules for enhanced services should apply to all routes.

The Wellesley bus carries about 10,000 passengers a day, and is just over 6km long.  The Queen car west of Humber carries somewhat more passengers and is just under 8km long.  Why do riders of the Wellesley bus get much better service than riders of the Queen car in Lake Shore?  How can the TTC talk about building ridership on future LRT lines while ignoring the infrequent service (even if it ran on time and all reached Long Branch Loop) on the Queen car?

At a minimum, all streetcar routes that are now “LRT” or will be in the future (Spadina, Harbourfront, St. Clair, Queen West, future waterfront lines) should automatically be part of the 10-minute network.

Conclusion

The Transit City Bus Plan has a good premise — surface service is important, and the TTC needs to move toward frequencies on major routes that eliminate the need for and stress of dealing with a timetable for riders.  This has the dual benefit of making service truly convenient and of allowing lines to be managed to a headway rather than to a schedule.

However, the plan is compromised by budgetary considerations and a staged rollout.  Decisions about which lines get service and when don’t make sense in a planning context, but we don’t have the information needed to see where the compromises occurred or what alternative strategies might be possible.

Most critically, no standards are proposed that would be used in the future to automatically dictate which routes were eligible for enhanced services regardless of which technology they use.

The Transit City Bus Plan is a good start, even if it does feel in places like a grab bag of every left over project that vaguely involves bus operations.  A good start, but one that needs improvements.

Updated August 23, 2008 at 8:45 am:

The TTC claims that the future LRT lines should not be included in the 10-minute network because of problems with headway reliability during construction.  Presuming that they don’t duplicate the St. Clair disaster, construction should not affect the entire length of all of these routes for the next decade, and there is no reason for withholding 10-minute service on these lines.  In many cases, the routes have service at least this good already.

Including more routes in the 10-minute network, especially when this can be done at no or little cost, is a no-brainer from a marketing perspective because the map will have more lines on it.  The information below is taken from the September 2009 Service Summary.

36 Finch West (excluding the Milvan branch which is not part of the future LRT line)

  • 13′ late evenings on Saturdays and Sundays
  • 15′ early morning on Sundays

39 Finch East never has service worse than 10 minutes on any branch.

32 Eglinton West (Yonge to Keele)

  • 30′ early Sunday morning

32 Eglinton West (Keele to Jane)

  • 15′ early Sunday morning

32 Eglinton West (west of Jane, see note below)

  • 11′ midday and early evenings on weekdays
  • 15′ late evenings on weekdays
  • 15′ early Saturday mornings
  • 20′ early Saturday evening
  • 24′ late Saturday evening
  • 30′ early morning and late evening Sunday
  • 14′ late Sunday morning
  • 18′ early Sunday evening

A related problem is that the 32D Emmett service is scheduled on headways that do not mesh with the other branches of this route causing irregular service by design.

34 Eglinton East (Yonge to Don Mills)

Between Yonge and Leslie, the 54 Lawrence East route will be part of the 10-minute network in addition to other routes already in this section of Eglinton, notably 100 Flemingdon Park.  To Don Mills, the combined service of the Eglinton East and Flemingdon Park routes is 10 minutes or better except early mornings and late evenings on Sunday.

However, the schedules of these routes are not co-ordinated and gaps wider than 10 minutes can occur.

34 Eglinton East (Don Mills to Kennedy)

  • 14′ late evening on weekdays
  • 12′ early mornings on weekends
  • 11′ early evenings on Saturday
  • 15′ late evenings on Saturday
  • 17′ early evenings on Sunday
  • 20′ late evenings on Sunday

85 Sheppard East (to Meadowvale)

  • 15′ late evenings on weekdays and Saturday
  • 20’early mornings on Sunday
  • 15′ early evenings on Sunday
  • 20′ late evenings on Sunday

25 Don Mills (to Steeles)

  • 12′ late evenings on weekdays
  • 15′ late evenings on weekends
  • 30′ early morning on Sunday

35 Jane (to Steeles)

  • 30′ early morning on Sunday

116 Morningside (east and north of Guildwood & Kingston Road)

  • 14′ late evenings on weekdays
  • 18′ early mornings on Saturday
  • 15′ late evenings on Saturday
  • 14′ early mornings on Sunday
  • 11′ early evenings on Sunday
  • 24′ late evenings on Sunday

In addition to the local service, there is an express service to Scarborough College running half-hourly during the periods listed above.

501 Queen (Humber to Long Branch)

  • Service on weekdays varies between 10’40” and 20’00” all day
  • Service on Saturday is less than every 10 minutes only in the afternoon, otherwise between 12’30” and 18’00”
  • Service on Sunday varies between 11’00” and 20’00” all day

Actual service quality is affected by operations on the Queen route east of Humber.

Streetcar Routes

  • 511 Bathurst and 512 St. Clair runs every 10′ or better at all hours
  • 510 Spadina runs every 15′ early on Sunday, otherwise 10′ or better
  • 506 Carlton runs every 11′ on Sunday evenings, otherwise 10′ or better
  • 505 Dundas runs every 10′ or better except early Sunday morning (20′), weekend early evenings (12′) and late evenings every day (14′)
  • 504 King runs every 15′ early Sunday mornings, otherwise 10′ or better
  • 509 Harbourfront has many operating periods when headways are wider than 10′.  Although it shares trackage with the Bathurst and Spadina routes, these services are not necessarily appropriate or available to all riders (the frequent service on Bathurst is of no use to a rider waiting at Union Station).
  • 502 Downtowner runs every 20′ weekday middays on Kingston Road.  Much better service will be provided evenings and weekends by the 22A Coxwell bus as part of the 10-minute network.

In brief, the Bathurst, St. Clair, Spadina, Carlton and King routes now operate at 10′ or better with minor exceptions and these could easily be made part of the 10-minute network.  The anomaly of 20′ service weekdays on Kingston Road needs to be corrected.

46 thoughts on “Transit City Bus Plan: Surface Routes Matter (Update 2)”

  1. In 2011, in preparation for the arrival of the new LRVs, and to mark 150 years of street railways in Toronto (including horsedrawn cars), maybe we could get the TTC to roll out a “Legacy City Plan.” (sic)

    Victoria Park Station to Kingston Road and Eglinton (EA in progress)

    Is this related to Kingston Road? When did this EA start?

    Steve: The Kingston Road EA is recommending BRT to Vic Park Station as the preferred alternative.

    About route management; can we expect the TTC’s changes to the practice to include filling the roles and ranks of route managers with people actually experienced with operating the routes being managed?

    I’m going to take a cautionary position and agree with the TTC on holding off on bus improvements for the earliest LRT lines. With construction impacts, reliable headway management potentially becomes quite difficult, particularly if diversion are involved, which would be particularly common on Eglinton’s cut-and-cover areas if that construction method is used. I expect headways to fall apart completely on Don Mills and Jane and Morningside when they enter construction 6-8 years from now.

    Steve: And so it’s ok for us to still have headways of 15 to 30 minutes SCHEDULED on routes that are supposed to become LRT lines? Sure the service may be screwed up, but if there isn’t any there to begin with, it’s a bit of a joke doing the construction.

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  2. I remember in 1968 when the BD extensions opened the TTC rolled out this plan for all buses in Scarborough to run at a minimum headway of 15 minutes until 11:00 p. m. and make guaranteed transfer connections. The problem was that most of the guaranteed connection were useless, SB Warden to EB Lawrence East and resulted in the buses sitting for an ungodly amount of time for the connecting bus, which had no one for it. After the 6 month test they put all the buses back on the previous schedules and service improved without the ‘guaranteed connection.” I hope that they don’t come up with another hare brained scheme like that one.

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  3. I must have missed something. When was the public consultation for this plan? The public consultation events? The focus groups? The online surveys? The advertising at bus stops? I must have missed something.

    Steve: First off, routine service changes do not trigger the need for full-blown consultation like an EA for a new LRT line. Having said that, the first implementation isn’t until the all of 2010, and there is time for fine tuning. I fully expect a big debate about the final configuration of the 10-minute network. They may tweak it a bit, but not much will change.

    The TTC is quoted in the papers saying that this is a plan reflecting what the TTC can do without the assistance of Transportation Services or motorists. Why is that?

    Steve: None of this (with the exception of the queue jump lanes) requires any physical construction or changes in road use. The signal priority system, flawed though it is, already exists. Improving it would require involvement of other agencies, and the TTC seems utterly unwilling/unable to take on this issue.

    We do we accept that bus lanes “cannot” be enforced? What is so special about us that we can’t do something seemingly so simple?

    Steve: In Ontario, it is claimed that only the police can issue tickets for violations of the lanes or have cars towed away that are parked illegally in them. This does not seem to be a problem in other jurisdictions. The police don’t primarily see their job as enforcing transit lanes as this has nothing to do with road safety (by comparison with speeding or running red lights). Moreover some of the commercial violators (vans, taxis) practically laugh at any attempt to police their use of road space. There is a lack of political will that this is an important issue, and so we just wring our hands about how people won’t obey the signs.

    Add to that no real improvement to the signal priority system… no discussion on fare media… although it could all be there, I haven’t read the document in great detail. Is it?

    Steve: Not a word about fare media or collection.

    And what about a good N-S route between Yonge and Victoria Park? What about Jarvis to relieve the subway and help with the proposed narrowing?

    Steve: Don Mills is the obvious candidate, but as that’s a future LRT line, it isn’t eligible under the convoluted logic of TTC planning. Jarvis (or any surface route downtown) isn’t going to relieve the subway in a meaningful way unless we close it to all other traffic and run fleets of buses. This will never happen.

    In the end, don’t we risk creating clumps of bunching buses all over the city? At least partially, it seems like a waste of money and at the very least, a wasted opportunity.

    Steve: What is really missing is a definitive statement about line management. Better tools, more on street supervision, but nothing about techniques. As long as they care more about schedule management than headway management, nothing will change.

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  4. “A line-haul operation such as the York U bus is simple — buses run express from one point to another on a reserved lane. However, routes where intermediate stops are required trigger additional needs such as passenger areas and passing lanes.” – The portion of the YorkU line on Dufferin St. will be shared with the 105 and 117 buses. Should be interesting to see how this is resolved operationally since there are no bus only passing lanes here. Of course the service on the 105 in particular is so poor (weekday daytime service was “upgraded” last year to every 30 minutes) it may not be an issue.

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  5. I agree much of this “new plan” seems like recycled old plans – some of the images and paragraphs in the plan itself seem recycled from just a few pages back in the same plan.

    However, considering the do-nothing attitude of the TTC over the past few years, it’s quite a pleasure to see something being done.

    On a side note, you mention the TTC saying it now likes its employees and ask if they have the best already or not. I want to relate a personal story of mine from new years 2009. I had to take the blue night home due to the fact that I work a 24/7 industry that does not recognize holidays. My operator was some jerk that literally laughed in the faces of passengers (literally). I wrote the TTC about this and actually filed an official complaint – my first and hopefully only – but have nary heard back beyond a little “we got your letter” mail.

    I remember this. Despite the fact that since arriving in the city in 2005 I’ve made (takes out calculator) at LEAST two thousand passenger-to-operator contacts in that time. If you went to McDonalds and the cashier laughed in your face, he would be fired. I have a very strong suspicion that this operator still drives buses for the TTC, and that my experience with him was not the first, or last time he’s done something like this.

    As I said above, this is a 1-in-2000 occurrence, yet I still remember it as clearly as yesterday even though it took place over 8 months ago.

    In general, I feel most operators have proper customer service skills, but I’ve felt that way since 2005 when I arrived in the city. I for one have seen no real improvement.

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  6. Two points:

    1. How did the TTC come up with the list of routes that need improved service? Most of these are quite sensible, but some of them seem quite bizarre, in particular the 94 Wellesley, 72 Pape, 22 Coxwell and 76 Royal York South. The 94 Wellesley is a slow local service paralleling the Bloor-Danforth subway, and the other three are short feeder routes connecting to the BD subway from the south side. None of these is particularly overcrowded.

    2. I am not impressed by the complete rejection of better enforcement on existing bus lanes and creation of new ones. Bus lanes work well elsewhere, they can work here if the police are willing to take them seriously.

    Steve: The absence of a clear explanation for the choices undermines the credibility of the proposal, especially when coupled with the omission of 10-minute headways on the future LRT lines.

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  7. Isn’t it fortunate that TTC doesn’t have to go through an EA before substantially increasing diesel-haul services in Toronto? 🙂

    As for police enforcement – I’ve started to notice the bike cops ticketing the SB HOV lane every once in a while on Bay between Richmond and King in the PM rush – but it needs to be every day both ways until people get the message, and not just downtown.

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  8. It’s easy to be negative about this plan (or any plan), but I’m afraid Steve, that your post highlights the negatives … when really there are a lot of positives here. There is clearly a lot of thought that has gone into this 5-year plan. And generally things are moving forward in the right direction; and a lot faster than they were 5-10 years ago.

    Steve: I highlight the negatives because this report makes too many compromises. At the very least it should aim high, identify the costs, and let the political machinery decide. That was the approach used in the Ridership Growth Strategy.

    I think criticizing that it doesn’t deal with existing streetcars is unfair. It’s a bus plan, not a streetcar plan. We’ve had the plan to expand LRT. Now we’ve got a plan to expand and operator bus services. What we need now is the equivalent comprehensive plan for existing LRT operation. But to be fair … until the new vehicles start showing up after 2011, the options on LRT are limited. A comprehensive plan on how the existing and expanded streetcar/LRT network will be operated with the new vehicles is necessary … but surely there is still a year or so to put that together.

    Steve: This started out life as a proposal for a 10-minute network, not a bus network, but got highjacked somewhere along the way. As for new LRT vehicles, the 10-minute network ONLY affects off-peak services, and then only on a few streetcar routes, and could be implemented with the existing fleet. The TTC is far to quick to say “we can’t do anything about streetcars” as a generic excuse. Meanwhile, we will have to wait at least 4 years for there to be enough new cars in the system to make a real difference, and the TTC needs to make what improvements it can in the interim.

    I agree that the TTC should put together a plan for the streetcar/LRT network, but there is no reason that the 10-minute network could not include streetcar routes when it rolls out in fall 2010.

    In particular you comment “Notable by their absence above are the future LRT routes which are obvious candidates for service improvements in these important corridors.”. Much of the changes in the plan don’t take effect until 2014. For the routes where construction is starting, much of it will be finished then; it seems fair to not focus too much energy on those routes. Most already have the minimum 10-minute service, and express vehicles. Why bother branding something that will disappear soon.

    And as for Jane, Don Mills, and Morningside … there’s a huge commitment in here for service improvements in 2011. And that’s sooner than any of the other routes. If anything the addition of Don Mills express services are the good news suprise story in this. Perhaps I’m biased, spending far to much time on the existing bus …

    Steve: Not true. The 10-minute network comes in 2010. The express services on Jane, Don Mills and Morningside, as well as the first half of the 20-minute network, come in fall 2011. The rest of the 20-minute network comes in 2012. The only thing that waits for 2014 is the express services overlaid on top of the 10-minute network.

    Why bother branding something that will disappear? If the TTC is going to announce a 10-minute network, then it should at least include routes that already meet this criterion. Otherwise, people may think that routes that are NOT in the network don’t have good service. This is marketing: if you already have something in the store, sell it!

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  9. It was a sloppy report in general. At its beginning, 300 million customer-trips were made per year on TTC bus services. By the end, it was almost 400 million. Apparently, it takes so long to create a “short on details, long on marketing jargon” report that ridership materially increases in the interim.

    Steve: Page 1 says 300 million, while Page 9 (the end of the Executive Summary) says almost 400 million.

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  10. I like the part that’s almost throw-away about equipping vehicles for entertainment!!!
    Wow, priorities, eh?

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  11. Were 100% exclusive reserved bus lanes prioritized for select corridors right across the city that’d implement true transit signal priority, queue jumping and designated waiting areas for customers; it is possible to route vehicles at headways of every 180 seconds or 24 bus trips per hour. Were bi-articulated buses (i.e. ones with three compartments) utilized for these corridors, a passenger load of up to 275 riders per trip is also achievable. If there’s still any doubt about the capability of BRT to handle the bulk of a large city’s commuter traffic, please read this excerpt about the world-renowned BRT mecca of Curitiba, Brazil:

    “Based on 1991 traveler survey results, it was estimated that the introduction of the BRT had caused a reduction of about 27 million auto trips per year, saving about 27 million liters of fuel annually. In particular, 28 percent of BRT riders previously traveled by car. Compared to eight other Brazilian cities of its size (pop. 1.8 million), Curitiba uses about 30 percent less fuel per capita, resulting in one of the lowest rates of ambient air pollution in the country. Today about 1,100 buses make 12,500 trips every day, serving more than 1.3 million passengers, 50 times the number from 20 years ago. Eighty percent of travelers use the express or direct bus services. Best of all, Curitibanos spend only about 10 percent of their income on travel, much below the national average… Curitiba’s Master Plan integrated transportation with land use planning, calling for a cultural, social, and economic transformation of the city.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curitiba#Public_transport

    One word… Wow! In retrospect, it’s a pity Bus Rapid Transit wasn’t seriously looked at as a possible solution for the city’s/region’s transit woes ahead of Light Rail Transit, especially through areas such the Finch Hydro Corridor (bureaucratic hiccups aside) where BRT could garner speeds and service reliability unparalleled by those of mixed traffic operated LRT lines. In lieu of building the two lower-priority Transit City LRT lines particularly, Scarborough-Malvern and Waterfront West, perhaps the following two BRT alignments could work just as well:

    (1) Kingston Rd BRT:- Upper Beaches (6 stops) – Birchcliff (5 stops) – Cliffside (3 stops) – Cliffcrest (3 stops) – Guildwood (3 stops) – Galloway – West Hill (4 stops) – Highland Creek – UTSC/CC Ellesmere Campus – Centenary Hosp – Sheppard/Neilson – Malvern Town Centre
    (2) Highway 27-Lakeshore BRT:- Queen/Roncesvalles – Swansea – Humber Loop – Park Lawn – Mimico – Islington – Kipling – 30th Street – Long Branch – Horner – Evans – Sherway Gdns – Cloverdale – Etobicoke Ctr/Burhamthrope – Dixon – Woodbine Racetrack – Woodbine Ctr – Humber College – Albion Centre

    Both these lines could be built in anticipation of possibly connecting to DRL stations somewhere in the outer reaches of the downtown core (Queen-Roncesvalles or Queen-Dufferin in the west and Queen-Carlaw or the unlikely but more practical intersection of Queen-Coxwell on the east end). Bloor-Danforth and SRT extensions to Sherway Gardens and Malvern Town Centre respectively would also enhance connectivity to the service. The Lakeshore BRT could compliment the 501/508 car, functioning more as a limited-stopping Rocket express bus than a full-scale BRT in ROW. Three of the stops would be somewhat tricky to build and operate due to them being in a reserved median down the 427/27, but these station locations’ proximity to major commercial and employment centres would make such investment worthwhile.

    Proposed Transit City LRT is anything but direct. Travelling through lower-density housing estates and repeatedly stopping there will take up time, which will make the service less appealing. The additional distance and travel time will also lead to increased costs for Transit City LRT because the LRT trains will spend increased time in the suburban areas overall, where there are fewer passengers. We should consider that the money could be better spent by building additional subway lines where they are needed in downtown Toronto, and higher-density parts of Etobicoke and Scarborough. These lines will move far more people guaranteed, and recover costs faster. Suburban extensions of an LRT line will lose money for a long time because passenger levels in the suburban areas are always lower than in the city. Suburban areas, which have wider and faster roads, can be better served with a fast and efficient system of express buses.

    So given the more affordable by far costs per kilometre to build Bus vs. Railed Rapid Transit it begs the question, what would Toronto really look like within five years from now in terms of fast and reliable long-distance commuter transit, were the politicians and special interest groups (i.e. NIMBYs) told to butt out of the process and let folks get to the business of making true cost- and time-efficient cross-city travel via TTC a meaningful endeavour for once? BRT corridors are quick to build, cheaper to build and maintain (cost recovery), offer operational flexibility, can trigger infill development just as readily as Rail Transit does and offers a similar quality of commuter benefits. What’s not to like?

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  12. Initial media coverage of the report piqued my curiosity which led me to mine the TTC’s website for the actual document. My hope that the TTC had finally discovered the methodology to improve passenger management on its bus routes was quickly dashed as I struggled through the endless repetition in the sixty-three pages. As someone who has experienced the joy and pain of using transit systems around the world, I’m always fascinated to observe how each operator recognizes and deals with on-board passenger management. By this I mean the process of boarding riders, collecting or processing their fares, distributing people through the vehicle, and finally, safely disembarking passengers at their correct destination. The great transit operators in Northern Europe have long understood the critical importance of passenger management, which together with accurate and legible information, results in transit systems that function well and contribute to urban vitality. Alas, the TTC doggedly continues to disregard the severe deficiency of its passenger management on the entire system with particular failure on the surface routes.

    The report deals almost entirely with the physical movement of buses along the city’s roads. However, that movement is impacted constantly and dramatically by how the transit vehicles “process” the passengers who ride these vehicles. Painfully archaic and slow fare collection together with badly designed passenger flow contribute immeasurably to service reliability through repetitive delays with passenger loading and un-loading. And it’s this concept, reliability, that is in dire need of first recognition and then improvement for transit to ever become a legitimate alternative to the car in Toronto. Transit City, in all its forms, is doomed to failure for its almost total neglect of passenger management. This report confirms this.

    Steve: Transit City routes will operate with self-service fare collection and all-door loading, as will the streetcar system once new vehicles are delivered.

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  13. 30-minute bus lines include Jones and Christie, both of which I take. (Also Forest Hill and Maple Leaf, I think.) These two show the unsuitability of applying standard principles across the board.

    Try as I might, I can’t see a reason for Christie to run faster than every 30 minutes. The demand just isn’t there, and it’s 100% regulars, The main trick is explaining to new drivers that they can never, ever be early or they miss people, because we walk to the stop 30 seconds before the bus always arrives.

    Jones is different. We’re supposed to be all grateful that this bus through a poor, neglected hood actually got Sunday service. Yes, it only ran six days a week. But there are half a dozen traffic lights between Leslie and Commissioners and Queen and Jones inclusive, and it is now impossible to finish a run in 15 minutes. Hence the 30-minute service should really be 36-minute service, except during rush hour.

    The bus is always late. If something happens, like yesterday with the new driver who apparently has gotten by on his looks all his life (arrived –10; went to the john; missed the first stop; stuttered the bus repeatedly), then you might as well just skip a whole trip and try to leave +3 so you have a chance of doing one or two trips more or less on time.

    TTC seems to want 30-minute-service routes always to leave a station at a nice tidy :00 or :30 on the clock. Cute! It works for Christie, but Jones is broken. Adding Sunday service merely added another broken day.

    It would be pointless to recommend any of this to TTC. First of all, they know better. All problems are due to traffic congestion. And they just gave us Sunday service on this piece-of-shit line, so why are we complaining? We’re complaining because it isn’t working.

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  14. Shouldn’t blended service frequencies be used for 32 Eglinton West?

    Steve: The point I made was that the headways on some branches don’t mesh with others. An “average” headway that looks good can actually be made up of buses that are scheduled to run close together followed by a large gap. In any event, the wider headways are west of Jane Street where there is only one branch operating at the times in question.

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  15. Joe Clark said : “Try as I might, I can’t see a reason for Christie to run faster than every 30 minutes. The demand just isn’t there, and it’s 100% regulars, The main trick is explaining to new drivers that they can never, ever be early or they miss people, because we walk to the stop 30 seconds before the bus always arrives.”

    Personally, I can’t see a reason why a route like LAWRENCE-DONWAY operates at all! If the TTC wants to provide service in this exclusive enclave, why don’t they reroute the 54 LAWRENCE EAST into Lawrence Stn? That would eliminate so many traffic lights and bus stops for the LAWRENCE EAST, diverting up Bridle Path, Post Rd and down Baview back to Lawrence, rather than using Leslie and Eglinton to Eglinton Station. I’m sure the travel time to the subway would be significantly cut. Are they not doing so because they don’t want complaints from the economically elite from all the buses going through their neighbourhood? Hypocrisy on many levels.

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  16. Why does Forest Hill run at 30-minute intervals? I see those buses sitting on Chaplin for a good ten minutes before leaving, so why not try a 20 minute round trip?

    Steve: The padded running time and wide headway is probably left over from the longer version of the route. Either that, or the operators need recovery time after all the traffic congestion they encounter (grin).

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  17. I’m sure that by this time, there is significant demand between points on Lawrence East and Eglinton East, the route having been like this for so long. There is a lot of high school traffic (I can vouch for that), among other things. Besides that, it probably wouldn’t be faster to take the Bridle Path with its speed bumps and limit no doubt being 40. What might make some sense would be to interline the 124 and 11C branches or extend that service to Eglinton some other way so that people wanting through service on Lawrence would have to only make one transfer.

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  18. DAVID CAVLOVIC SAID: “Personally, I can’t see a reason why a route like LAWRENCE-DONWAY operates at all! If the TTC wants to provide service in this exclusive enclave, why don’t they reroute the 54 LAWRENCE EAST into Lawrence Stn? That would eliminate so many traffic lights and bus stops for the LAWRENCE EAST, diverting up Bridle Path, Post Rd and down Bayview back to Lawrence, rather than using Leslie and Eglinton to Eglinton Station. I’m sure the travel time to the subway would be significantly cut.”

    I can – ALL THE ROADS in the enclave are speed humped. Low speeds and uncomfortable rides for all just won’t work.

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  19. I’d love to know how TTC budgets $200,000 towards the installation of two awnings at Dupont station. I could build a house for that price and have plenty left over.

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  20. Jonathon Markowski said : “What might make some sense would be to interline the 124 and 11C branches or extend that service to Eglinton some other way so that people wanting through service on Lawrence would have to only make one transfer.”

    They did at one time. It was called 28B DAVISVILLE VIA SUNNYBROOK.

    … and John Bromley. I know about the speed humps, but I live in a city that has a number of these with regular bus service, and no passenger complaints. I guess my real question is why LAWRENCE-DONWAY gets anthing beyond peak service. If it’s a matter of providing service into the new condos on The Donway, then why not service it with either a branch of LAWRENCE EAST or DON MILLS?

    BTW John Bromley, I seem to recall you writing somewhere that one of the routes considered for streetcar service before the Great Depression hit was Davisville. That would have been interesting. But i expect that would have required some widening of Davisville Ave. Oh, to have seen streetcar service between Sunnybrook and Yonge Street….

    Steve: I suspect that any service on Davisville would have gone only to Bayview and, maybe, north to Eglinton at the city limit. In those days, Bayview and Eglinton was a swamp, so I don’t think it would have attracted much ridership.

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  21. Some years ago I saw the Police ticketing cars on Bay between Richmond and King. I asked one of the officers if they were enforcing the Bay Street Urban Clearway. The officer laughed and said that they would never enforce that law. They were, instead, enforcing the law against people who engage in that dangerous (to car traffic flow) of an illegal turn. It is interesting how the Police can allocate resources to such activity when they “don’t have the time” to look after problems that I would consider to be much more important.

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  22. I have to say I was excited for this plan, and while I am glad with some of the ideas presented in it, I was expecting more bang and unique ideas.

    Super Express buses using highways should have been part of the plan, connecting cross city transit centres together, like Scarborough Town Centre to York Uni, or Kipling to York Uni, etc.

    The fact that the TTC did not look at any way to provide very fast crosstown express service is sad.

    Second I hope the TTC rejigs some of these express routes planned so that they operate more like the METROBUS routes in Montreal, where buses operate non-stop for very large lengths so that people can get to the subway faster. One bus in Montreal opreates something like 14KM before stopping (out to Dorval and the West Island) and is a total hit.

    The TTC is already a leader in bus service levels. No other system in North America operates buses as frequent in suburban areas as the TTC, so the dedicated 10 min service is good, but again not that out there, as these services already operate frequently most of the time.

    The TTC knows how to operate very good service levels. What they don’t know how to do is try out new ideas like super express routes, and other different services. And that is what I was expecting from this plan. Some new ideas instead of just a bus every 10 minutes.

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  23. 162 got off-peak service because it was a broad-sweeping addition. Anything that ran through a remotely residential area got full service. The only routes that do not have full service now are either primarily industrial — 117, branches like 36D via Milvan or 84A/D, or downtown express routes or those that overlap other services — 28 comes to mind.

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  24. I don’t recall writing about Davisville as an extension (if I did I have no idea where I put it down but if I did it was a TTC plan at some stage). There were lots of those, including many that would have been operated as “suburban lines” like the York Township Railways). On page 47 of ’50 Years of Progressive Transit’ (if I were to do an extension of that as a follow-up I’d replace one word with ‘regressive”!!) I outlined various TTC city and suburban plans for extensions that were buried by the depression. I won’t try to pre-empt Steve’s blog by repeating them all here, being irrelevant to the topic at hand – go look them up if you care.

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  25. One big concern is the loading standards. Is the loading standards going to be more realistic in terms of what the Orion 7s can handle or will the TTC scare ridership away by bringing overcrowded buses to the local bus stops?

    As much as I like the idea of seeing articulated buses, I have been searching far and wide for a model that might work, but like you said those artics are mostly crappy.

    Finally no limited stop routes. Stopping only at major transfer points and major customer pick up stops limited to one stop between transfer points. Something like that should be looked into with somebody who has brain at the TTC.

    Steve: There are new express services in the plan, but not until 2014. This is partly related to constraints on bus purchases and the knowledge that vehicles will come available as the Transit City routes open. Something the TTC has found in designing express services in the past is that there is a lot of local traffic on some routes, and re-assigning vehicles between local and express degrades service for a large chunk of riders. Indeed, they can create a problem where the express service runs infrequently enough that wait times undo some of the benefit of limited stop operation.

    Of course the problem is in trying to make a “no cost” add to a route by taking buses away from locals to give to expresses. Even worse, if the express is intended to allow the same traffic to be handled with fewer vehicles, we get a classic TTC service problem: the goal is to save money first and provide service second, and the result is that the overall attractiveness of a route is compromised. If expresses are intended to give better service and build ridership, they will almost certainly require more vehicles, at least in the short term until demand balances out.

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  26. Any improvements south of Bloor-Danforth could, again, be hot-air if a detailed study of DRL gets underway. “We must wait”, they may say “until we know further what’s going on with DRL”. And wait, and wait, and wait…

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  27. Would it be possible for the TTC to hire cops to police the right of ways, that way it’s still happening through the toronto police? Or engage in some sort of revenue sharing for it to happen?

    What about giving out “fake” tickets, I know this happens in some private parking garages … the amount of time to be pulled over and realize that it was a fake ticket would be enough to stop a lot of people.

    Steve: The cost of hiring police to do traffic duty like that is very high, and unless TPS provided the manpower as part of its own budget, the TTC would wind up paying a fortune for the police to do what they should be anyhow. As for fake tickets, there are two problems. First, people will learn they are meaningless; second, stopping someone to give it out blocks the very lane we are trying to keep open.

    What is needed is the equivalent of a red light camera (tricky, because some transit lanes allow other vehicles like taxis and turning autos), and ruthless towaways for parking. When the curb lane is for transit, parked cars block it. When the centre lane is for transit (such as on King), parked cars force all other traffic into the transit lane.

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  28. If fines, hefty ones at that, are properly stated on signs in BRWs, people might pay heed. It works that way in Ottawa, and I rarely see someone purposefully using a bus lane, unless by accident, like out-of-towners. The fine, by the way, is $150.00.

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  29. If they cut the 117 and just ran the 104 to Downsview and then up to Alness via Wilmington, that would make more sense then the current 117 and 104 services and cut down on the Dufferin buses south of Finch. Yes, it would add 5 minutes the morning commute to Global furniture et al but it would make more sense then a service running from Finch and Dufferin that doesn’t connect to Downsview.

    The current 104 route seems like a political compromise left over from when Downsview opened up – people on Faywood have to get to the system some how.

    But I suppose the rerouting of things in that area awaits the subway expansion and the LRT. I wonder what they are going to do with the BRT to York at that point?

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  30. You should see the enforcement levels on HOV lanes in Vancouver. Most of them are lanes that are parking lanes during the day, and HOV during rush hour only. At 3:30, not a minute later, tow trucks begin picking up cars parked in these lanes… they must make a killing. Also in my experience, bus drivers will honk their horns angrily at anyone who dares enter/stop in these lanes during rush hour (that doesn’t seem to be a huge issue anyway– for a reason I am unaware of, drivers seem to respect these lanes).

    Steve: This is a perfect example that claims that only a police constable can order a tow due to criminal code problems are a lot of bunk. In Vancouver I have seen the tow trucks in action, and it’s quite impressive. Meanwhile Toronto is held hostage to misinformation about police powers.

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  31. The 10-minute map shows 54 Lawrence East running atop the Eglinton LRT line from Eglinton Stn to Leslie. While this makes sense — I can imagine a double transfer (subway->LRT and LRT->bus) would be unpopular — it does have the interesting side effect of continuing to run a high-frequency bus service along Eglinton after the Eglinton LRT is in service.

    Given it’s also on the Express Service map, perhaps the thinking is that 54 Lawrence East would run express from Yonge to Leslie. But isn’t there a tradeoff worth investigating of whether the Eglinton Crosstown line should be the one running express through that stretch, saving on underground station construction costs, speeding up the “crosstown” service, and allowing route 54 to handle local demand along Eglinton East? (Lawrence passengers could then experiment and decide whether they’d rather the extra transfer or the slower ride.) After all, it seems like the TTC is committing to provide frequent surface service, which would be a pre-requisite for wide LRT stop spacing.

    Steve: Don’t make any assumptions about the network configuration post-LRT implementation. I fully expect the 54 Lawrence East to be cut back to connect with the Eglinton LRT line, possibly at Don Mills. The 54 has a demand pattern that almost makes it a separate route from there east.

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  32. Steve: [Enforcing HOV Lanes in Vancouver] is a perfect example that claims that only a police constable can order a tow due to criminal code problems are a lot of bunk. In Vancouver I have seen the tow trucks in action, and it’s quite impressive. Meanwhile Toronto is held hostage to misinformation about police powers.

    Same for Ottawa. Do NOT get in the way of an OC Transpo bus in a bus lane. You will lose.

    This is also the best proof that Toronto is not the transit city it claims to be. Not by a long shot. When I read that John Bromley considers it regressive rather than progressive … oh my!

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  33. There is a connection from Dufferin and Finch to Downsview Station, and that is the 105/117, which will be rerouted onto Dufferin to provide a fast trip to the station, not to mention the rocket after the busway opens. The 104 exists not as a compromise but as one might expect local service to remain on Faywood.

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  34. The policy headways are going to be nice improvements, but the most important part of this plan (if not as obvious to casual riders) is the proposal for improved route supervision — if it has the desired effect of reducing bus bunching. It does no good to run 10-minute headways if there are two buses 3 minutes apart, followed by a 17-minute gap. Not only are a good proportion of riders waiting more than 10 minutes (and riding on the overcrowded leading bus), but the wait times become unpredictable.

    The TTC throws a lot of resources at keeping subway service evenly spaced, and for the most part does a pretty good job, and it justifies this on the basis of the subway being its most critical infrastructure from a capacity, efficiency and public relations perspective. (This is likely why Ottawa is more attentive to HOV lane violations — the transitway is its equivalent, carrying most of its riders and with service levels so high that any disruption can have major implications.) I would be interested to know whether a similar approach to bus (and streetcar) operations would have a similar result, or if bus bunching is simply a fact of life that we have to accept. Certainly many other transit agencies suffer from it and I have yet to read of an agency that has solved the problem. If the TTC can solve, or even significantly improve, their bus bunching problem, they will certainly have an attentive audience.

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  35. I had associated “tailoring service to meet demand” with the 1990s downloading cutbacks, and didn’t realize that the concept dated back to the previous decade, well before I was following the TTC other than the occasional subway ride as a youngster from the suburbs. I would be interested in knowing how service levels were determined in the 1970s and early 1980s, if not based on ridership levels — and how the TTC would be different if that approach were followed today. (I would imagine span of service was essentially full-day, 7 days per week for the majority of routes, which we are back to now, but how would headways have been determined?)

    Steve: The change in the early 80s was that the slack built into many schedules was tuned out. Routes that were prone to surge loads and unpredictable traffic conditions would typically have more service than was “justified” by raw riding counts. This extra service gave route supervisors more leeway in shuffling vehicles around because surplus capacity was available. Also, small delays and surges could be absorbed by a line with less effect.

    Once that extra service was removed, lines became more sensitive to small scale disruptions, and these could snowball into major problems much more easily.

    One important change in the Service Standards implemented last year was the change in target average load of vehicles. These targets were reduced with the effect that well-used routes qualified for more service. To the bean counters and the anti-transit politicians who rail against “waste”, this may seem like a bad idea. However, crowded vehicles take much more time at stops and, of course, are much less comfortable for riders. Both of these are counterproductive to service reliability and attractiveness to potential customers.

    How would the TTC be different today? We would not have passed through decades of excessive service cuts if the TTC had been funded at a level allowing it to maintain better headways. The biggest difference would have been an attitude that service is something to be improved whenever possible rather than an annoyance draining money from our taxes. Especially in the growing suburbs, transit could have captured a larger market share.

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  36. In Ottawa, city snow-removal operators can have cars towed . It has happened to me. Also, city by-law officers can have cars blocking driveways to be towed, if the affected home owner requests it. I’ve done it.

    Do these types of tows not occur in Toronto? Does it never snow?

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  37. The only problem with more vehicles to provide quicker headways is that without dedicated lanes, you get the Finch West problem. They went from having 4 buses every 30 minutes, to 6 buses every 30 minutes (usually 1 or 2 packed full and the rest running empty). What really really bugs me, is that when you’re waiting at a stop, the 2 packed full buses are the ones that stop while the 4 empty buses go flying by.

    Steve: This speaks to the poor condition of route management on many lines, Finch among them. TTC riding stats also do not reflect the variation in load on vehicles, only the averages. They would be a lot more meaningful if they reported the max/min values of both the loads and the headways as a measure of actual service quality.

    This is related to a topic I urged in relation to the new plans — all routes with frequent service should be managed on a headway basis, not a schedule basis. Riders don’t care if frequent buses are on time, only that they are reasonably spaced and evenly loaded.

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  38. It snows in Toronto, and I have seen cars being towed during massive snow storms, etc. That’s so they don’t block OTHER CARS!

    During the “big” snow storm of 99, you know, the one where Mega-Mel called out the Military to help, and then said “see-ya!” once the bill was presented (and, Anaopus, myself having survived that storm, and the big Ottawa dump of 2009, and Ottawa’s was WAY worse, yet we survived!), there were PLENTY of stories of entitled drivers stopping their cars on the streetcar tracks, not caring that they were blocking all the traffic, in order to “quickly” run in and get their Starbucks coffee, and no tow truck in site.

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  39. Johnathon Markowski wrote:

    “There is a connection from Dufferin and Finch to Downsview Station, and that is the 105/117, which will be rerouted onto Dufferin to provide a fast trip to the station, not to mention the rocket after the busway opens. The 104 exists not as a compromise but as one might expect local service to remain on Faywood.”

    The 104 scoots up Faywood and Wilmington and then over to Finch and Dufferin and back down to Wilson. Very neighbourly but also realtively underused. If there is a concern about bus traffic up and down Dufferin south of Finch, the amalgamation of the 104 with the 117 is a good candidate. The 105 covers the section south of Dufferin quite well. That, and regardless of the scheduling or construction, the 105 and 117 always seems to arrive on Dufferin within 1 minute of each other anyways.

    As for the BRT after the subway, I seem to remember the Finch West LRT may run expresses to the Keele and Finch subway station via that route. In theory this would be the fastest way to York U from Finch station and the North East of the 416. In the service of York students the Finch West out to Highway 27 may lose scheduling, which wouldn’t surprise me.

    Mind you, while the North West part of the 416 awaits the Nirvana of transit choices that has been promised, the 36 is going to be a big mess.

    Steve: There is no express service planned for the Finch West LRT.

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  40. Steve,

    What happens (if anything) with the routes that go outside of Toronto?

    The 129A goes north of Steeles. Would they even be affected by this?

    Steve: No this is for “416” services only. Anything in the 905 is a contracted service to the local region, and service levels are set depending on what they feel like supporting.

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