Correction Nov. 7, 2010: An error in the spreadsheet calculating the number of vehicles required for 501 Queen in 2020 (either Flexity streetcar or replacement bus) caused these numbers to be understated. I have replaced the spreadsheets and modified the text in the article where appropriate.
The election of Rob Ford as Mayor of Toronto brought deep concerns to many about the future of transit as witnessed in the comment threads elsewhere on this site. Much of this focussed on the existing streetcar network and the planned Transit City lines, but transit as a whole is a larger issue.
This article is not intended as the definitive defense of streetcars. Indeed, the whole idea of “defending” them starts from a negative perception. The challenge for those of us who see a future for streetcars and LRT is to advocate for them, for the role they can play in decades to come. We also have to be honest about the tradeoffs. No technology — buses, trolley buses, streetcars, LRT, subways, gondolas, dirigibles, even swan boats — is without its problems and limitations. Pretending that any one of them is “the answer” is hopelessly shortsighted regardless of which one you might prefer.
The election brought a great deal of what I will politely call bovine effluent to the debate on the transit system, and many vital issues were simply ignored. Nobody talked about fares, only about the technology to collect them. Rapid transit networks were conceived to fit within funding that candidates thought could be available, rather than starting with the question “what do we need” and then addressing the cost and implementation. Regional transit was ignored, except for occasional hopes that Metrolinx, that bastion of clear-headed thinking and far-reaching financial planning, would take at least part of the TTC off of our hands.
Transit City was the heart of much debate. Whether your platform was “more of the same” or “Miller’s plans must be garbage”, campaigns ignored the fact that transit is much more than Transit City.
One note about terminology: In this article, I will use the term “streetcar” to refer to the existing TTC system, including those lines operating in reserved lanes. The operating characteristics of Spadina and St. Clair, with single cars using pay-enter fare collection at closely-spaced stops, really is little more than an upgraded streetcar. I will use “LRT” for much of the Transit City network where:
- service will be provided by 30m cars in two or three car trains,
- all-door loading and proof-of-payment fare system will be standard,
- routes will be substantially or completely on private right-of-way with transit priority signalling, and
- stops will be more widely spaced than on the streetcar and bus networks.
We can haggle about definitions, and will always run up against the fuzzy boundary where a streetcar becomes an LRV. Indeed, the replacement of existing streetcars with new stock and a move to all door loading will address some of my “LRT” criteria above, but won’t change the basic fact that most routes spend most of their time dealing with traffic. Either they run in mixed traffic, or have substantial interference at intersections.
Please don’t clutter the comment thread with this sort of argument as the real issue is the appropriate use of the technology, whatever we call it. The name is important when trying to explain things to the public who have been ill-served by the deliberate fudging of the streetcar/LRT differences in the campaign.
As I write this, the political standing on streetcars and the Transit City LRT lines appears to be shifting.
- Mayor-elect Ford’s YouTube video talks about streetcars as a source of traffic congestion, but does not mention eliminating them from Toronto. They are portrayed as simply not the sort of thing we want in the suburbs, and a few subways would replace the much larger Transit City network.
- Ford’s campaign literature does talk about removing streetcars from some city streets, and this was later clarified to indicate the right-of-way lines (Spadina, Harbourfront, St. Clair) would survive at least for a time.
- Ford hopes to meet with Premier McGuinty and change the terms of the streetcar purchase, ideally to kill it. Whether this position could be mollified by the arrival of new transit funding from Queen’s Park remains to be seen.
- Councillor-elect Doug Ford (brother of the Mayor-elect) backpedalled on the streetcar issue and claimed that the idea that Ford would get rid of streetcars was an invention of the nasty lefties to scare their supporters. The fact that Ford’s own literature and statements by candidate Ford directly contradict this position makes one wonder how much the brothers Ford actually pay attention to each other.
- Recently, Councillor Karen Stintz, mooted as a new Chair for the TTC, made what I read as concilliatory statements about Transit City. She would prefer subways, but is not unalterably opposed to LRT. This is a change from her campaign stance where her representations of streetcars, LRT, especially where the latter is underground, and subways were either uninformed or “misleading” in the Parliamentary sense. As TTC Chair, she would have quite a learning curve.
As I write this, it is unclear what a Ford administration’s position on streetcars might be.
We often hear that buses would be faster than streetcars, but one need only compare bus routes on comparable streets with (usually) 4 lanes much like those where the Queen and King car run. Slow scheduled speeds are a function of the individual routes, the demands at stops, the street geometry and the traffic on those streets. It is ironic that the Queen car has a faster scheduled speed over its long route than the Dufferin bus.
Although Ford’s literature claims that the average speed of streetcars in only 17kmh, the speeds planned for Transit City routes start at 22kmh (Sheppard East, Finch, Eglinton East surface section) and go up from there to be comparable with subways in the tunnelled section of Eglinton (28-31km/h).
Estimating the number of vehicles needed to replace streetcar lines turns not just on vehicle capacity, but on whether buses could match or better the speed of streetcars. From historical evidence on Bay Street, buses were slower than the streetcars they replaced by a factor of about 10%. Even on short routes like Junction and Mt. Pleasant, the trolley buses, and later the buses, could not make the running times of the streetcars they replaced.
The streetcar network has a backlog of additional peak service requirements going back close to a decade. The TTC’s ability to add service is constrained by the combined effect of the decision to retire the last of the PCCs, service cuts of the mid-1990s, opening the 510 Spadina line in 1997 and the gradual decline in reliability of the CLRV/ALRV fleet.
Current schedules require 152 of 195 CLRVs, and 38 of 52 ALRVs. Spares are over 20%, a generous allowance for transit vehicles. If the TTC were able to attain a 15% spare factor (15 spares for every 100 in service), it could field 169 CLRVs and 45 ALRVs. Five additional CLRVs will be required in January 2011 when the 504 King route returns to Roncesvalles Avenue (4 cars), and service is improved on 511 Bathurst (1 car).
The order for 204 new streetcars will very substantially increase the capacity of the fleet. Taking a CLRV (the existing 4-axle cars) as a unit of “1”, an ALRV (two-section, six-axle cars) as a unit of “1.5”, the current fleet is equivalent to
195 (CLRVs) + 78 (equivalent of 52 ALRVs) = 273
The service actually on the street as of January 2011 will be
157 (CLRVs) + 57 (equivalent of 38 ALRVs) = 224
[Note: For the careful readers, the number of CLRVs here does not match the total shown on the TTC’s Service Summary. The reason is that there is an ongoing problem in this summary with the count of vehicles in service due to double-counting of cars that switch between routes during the AM peak. The numbers I use are taken from the count of cars assigned to each route.]
Riding continues to grow especially on the downtown routes which were not as badly affected by job losses of recent years, compounded by high density residential construction on King, and already underway on or near Queen. Both the King and Spadina routes are at the limit of service that can be operated in the AM peak without moving to longer cars or trains in the manner of services once seen on Bloor-Danforth and on Queen.
Over the past decade, it is not unreasonable to estimate a backlog of demand for the streetcar system of at least 15%. Growth in future years, if only it could be accommodated, is projected to run at 2-3%. Conservatively, that is at least 20% over the coming decade, and the combined effect would be about 40% allowing for compounding from 2001 to 2020 by which time the new fleet would all be delivered.
Applying this amount of growth across the board to every route gives an approximation of future fleet requirements. Note that this is only for purposes of illustration. Some routes will grow faster due to population shifts and new development, others will grow less quickly. The overall effect is the point of the exercise.
Route Projection To 2020 [501 Queen requirements in 2020 corrected]
Including spares, about 155 167 of the fleet of 204 new streetcars will be required to handle growth on the existing system to 2020, assuming service replacement on a capacity-for-capacity basis. In some cases, rather wide headways by streetcar route standards result, and this may require some additional cars so that waiting times do not come to dominate transit trips on these routes.
Other planned improvements include the eastern waterfront services on Queen’s Quay, Cherry and eventually into the Port Lands.
Line management on wider headways will be crucial to the success of the larger cars. The TTC has a long history of creative writing in explaining why it cannot better manage its service, and this really must be addressed. The single largest problem with service reliability is that cars are not dispatched at regular intervals from locations where control on departure times is practical.
Short turns on wide headways will produce unacceptably large gaps, and the TTC must move to a headway management philosophy rather than using short turns in an attempt to keep operators “on time”. This will require a complete rethink of operator work practices by the TTC and the ATU.
The view from 2020 is important because this is roughly the timeframe in which some pronouncements about the streetcar system would have us roll the last car into the barns and retire it to life as a chicken coop.
When the projections are converted to an equivalent bus operation, we can see the effect on headways and on fleet requirements. In this projection, I have used a replacement ratio of 2.5 buses for 1 Flexity streetcar on a capacity basis. A separate calculation adds a penalty of 10% for slower loading of a bus fleet to see the effect. This penalty assumes that headways would stay at the target level, but more buses would be used to handle the added running time.
[The following paragraph has been updated to reflect the correction to the number of vehicles required on 501 Queen in 2020.]
The peak vehicle requirement goes from 135 145 flexity cars to 336 363 buses, or to 370 399 buses if the 10% speed penalty is added. (Note that spare vehicles do not consume operators and are not included in these figures.) On some routes, the headway would become very short (55.8 buses per hour on King), while on others it can be argued that the bus headways would be more attractive because for short trips, a long wait for a vehicle can contribute considerably to travel times. Conversely, fewer transit vehicles per hour reduces the interference, such as it might be, with other road traffic. Other possibilities include articulated buses or trolleybuses. These are not straightforward tradeoffs.
[Again, this projection is to give a general idea of the combined effect of replacing streetcars with buses and accommodating reasonable expectations for riding growth. Other scenarios are possible including one where transit is starved of resources to make a bus plan fit within a larger political agenda.]
Finally, turning briefly to Transit City, Mayor-elect Ford argues that the TC network will doom people to take hours getting across the city. However, his Sheppard/BD subway loop plan leaves large areas without rapid transit notably the northeast and northwest quadrants of Toronto, not to mention the dense Eglinton crosstown corridor. People in these areas will still have to ride buses to reach the rapid transit network.
If we are going to seriously talk about additional subway building, this must address actual needs for travel, not merely be an exercise in recycling the monies presumed to be available from cancelling Transit City. If subways are to be “the answer”, then let us be honest about the scale of construction, and the cost both for building the network and operating it for decades to come.
As I said earlier, this is not intended to be the definitive article on the future of streetcars, and many other discussions will spring from points raised here and from the inevitable proposals at Council and at the TTC.
The future of transit, whatever it may be, requires well informed debate. This should be based on more than a desire to get the Queen car out of the Mayor-elect’s way as he drives to City Hall.
Steve Munro 
As usual, this is a very useful summary of what is involved in looking at which mode of transit (bus, streeetcar or subway) is appropriate. Thank you!
There is the related issue of “trackage” and I wonder if you have any comments on the state of the existing tracks (and overhead) on the ‘legacy network”. If the new Mayor is keen to get rid of streetcars he will presumably look closely at all proposed capital expenditure to repair necessary infrastructure.
As far as I know, with Roncesvalles almost finished, almost all of the ‘revenue track” has now been rebuilt to the new higher standard – I think that maybe only Kingston Road and Wellington remain in very poor condition. The TTC are also making good progress on non-revenue “link” tracks like Bathurst to St Clair, Church and Parliament (all done in last few years). I think that downtown only Victoria, Wellington and York (all quite short) need replacement. Then there are the tracks on Richmond and Adelaide west of Victoria that have not been used for many years . Though I can see they could be useful for detours or even an express service I wonder if they will ever be done (or are really worth doing.) The Federal stimulus program allotted $$ for “overhead” but it is less obvious to the layman what its real condition is.
Steve: The major trackage awaiting replacement at current standards is King (Close to Roncesvalles), Queen (Greenwood to Coxwell including Russell Carhouse access tracks), Queen’s Quay (Bay to Spadina), Spadina (Queen’s Quay to King), McCaul (Queen to McCaul Loop) and Kingston Road (Woodbine Loop to Victoria Park). Of the “non revenue track”, there is Wellington, Adelaide (west of Victoria to Charlotte), Richmond (west of Victoria to York), York (Wellington to Queen). There is also a fair amount of special work notably the intersections on Spadina that were not as robustly built as they might have been and especially the grand unions at King and Bathurst/Spadina. There there’s the small matter of Ashbridge Carhouse.
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Thanks for the thoughtful analysis Steve (as usual).
What is behind the TTC’s resistance to headway management? I have a hard time coming up with excuses not to implement it.
Steve: This is already the way that they manage subway service. Sorting out the crews is handled by “short turning” them by trading trains at various places along the line. This avoids a situation where they would otherwise constantly be playing “catch up” to react to the fairly frequent delays that occur every day. The signal system enforces headway separation.
On the streetcar system, the surface route supervisors still do not have notepads that could display the graphic layout of service on a route — something anyone with an iPhone or similar can see already — nor is there any protocol for, for example, agreeing to run a wider than scheduled, but still managed headway during periods of severe congestion or bad weather. The biggest problem is that the very people who should provide supervision don’t have the tools to do it, but that absence engenders a certain amount of indifference among some supervisory staff.
At the senior management level, there is an attitude that “TTC Culture” is immutable and not, in any event, doing do badly. Sadly this is unlikely to change.
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I would certainly hope that you spam Rob Ford’s email address with this stuff. Interesting read, and I would certainly hope that Rob Ford would find the time to sit down with you to discuss this.
Ford needs to get the facts in front of him, and once he sees that he would most likely change his tune regarding the future of Transit in Toronto.
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This may be a sign of my downtown commie transit-loving upbringing, but I keep wondering if the “17 km/h average speed” thing is a failure of basic math, along the lines of “Only 17 km/h! When the posted speed is 50! Can you believe it?” Whereas in fact, the average speed of any vehicle — even a car — is going to be a lot lower than the posted speed limit, because it’s going to have to stop at least once in a while.
As I say, I can’t decide whether the people who complain about 17 (or 22) km/h being terribly slow failed Grade 8 math and physics and deserve our pity, or if I’m being a horrible condescending liberal who is missing something fundamental in the discussion. (Out of interest, what is the average speed of the subway?)
Steve: The scheduled speed of the rapid transit lines ranges from about 30 to 35 km/h with the SRT being highest because of the wide station spacings, comparatively short dwell times, and short terminal times.
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If governments cannot honor their words and commitments, it will drive up the cost of doing business in Toronto. If I was a condo developer, would I buy that land on Eglinton where the tram line may or may not be built. Would SNC Lavalin enter into a public private partnership if the next adminstration may just tear up the contract?
Steve: SNC is a poor choice for your analogy because they walked away from the Air Rail Link deal. It was not economically viable even though much of the infrastructure to operate it was paid for by Queen’s Park.
Look at the restrictive contract that was signed between the Province of Nova Scotia and Park Place Entertaiment to build Casino Nova Scotia Halifax. This is just to get the private sector to invest $100 million in a “Vegas style” facility. Government cannot be seen as a risk. We are better than Third World countries where successive adminstrations tear up contracts.
Before Mr. Ford announces that “We are open for business”, he needs to consider that backtracking is not an option now. Strangely, the Globe had an interview with Bombardier a week ago. They are still confident that the tram order will go through.
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I think how Ford handles Queens Quay/Cherry will inform how the rest of the network is likely to go. Making QQE-Cherry a light busway (and binning the Bremner project) might be stage one in “how to sell Toronto on busways”, especially since it can be sold on the basis for avoiding the horrifically expensive business of rebuilding Union Loop and building the new portal.
Steve: The flip side will be figuring out how to fit all of the buses needed to handle the folks using the waterfront (residents and visitors) without a decent bus station at Union. The proposed intercity bus terminal is a very long walking distance south of Union and not likely to encourage transit riding to the waterfront.
The TTC must take some of the blame here for so flagrantly overselling the capacity of the original loop at Union Station where their engineering staff, with a straight face, actually claimed it could handle 7,000 passengers per hour. The words “incompetence” and “misrepresentation” do not begin to describe my feeling about the travesty of Union Loop and the constraints it places on growth in riding to the waterfront. Of course, 20 years ago, it was hard to find someone at the TTC who would believe that such growth was possible.
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This is the most objective, unbiased article you’ve ever written on the whole subway/streetcar/LRT/bus debate. Are you the real Steve Munro, or an imposter?
Here’s a crazy idea, but is it possible or practical to build two sets of streetcar tracks at certain problem intersections and have the streetcars simply pull out to the curb via an automated switch whenever they need to service that stop? I’m not suggesting that we do this everywhere — only at certain intersections.
Steve: Thank you for the compliment. The debate over streetcars and LRT will not be won simply by painting the new regime as a bunch of know-nothing suburbanites who simply don’t understand the manifest destiny of Toronto, but by arguing for these technologies on their merits. If reasonable arguments are met with unreasoned responses (including such gems as the concept that streetcars cause pollution by slowing traffic down), well, then we know that the other side is simply concocting a premise to justify a bias, a predetermined outcome. I prefer to present the reasonable side of the debate.
As for your intersection proposal: I can see a few problems here notably the fact that you would be taking over the curb lane for a distance of at least two carlengths on either side of an intersection (nearside for the pullout and stop, farside for a storage bay to allow merging back into traffic without blocking the cross-street). Also, if streetcars only selectively pulled into the curb lane, then passengers might become confused about where/how they were supposed tro board. Cyclists will hate you for adding streetcar tracks to their lane. I presume your purpose is to allow streetcars to dodge around left turning traffic.
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During the election campaign I questioned Rob Ford on the wiseness of removing streetcars and he replied “the public will decide.” This told me early on he was open to rethinking the matter. I believe it was actually someone else on his team that was pushing this, not Ford himself.
Steve: My problem is “which public”? The one that rides the cars and wants more service, or the one that spends its time mainly driving outside of downtown and interacts with streetcars only when they venture down to the evil city for some reason? I really have a problem with a mayor whose attitude to leadership is to hold a plebiscite. We elect a council to represent us, and to listen to various positions in debates. If all issues were to be decided by referendum, we could save a lot of money on politicians, including the mayor.
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This should have been required reading for every candidate during the election. It might have dampened some of the idiocy.
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While I tend to generally agree with the above, let us not forget that Transit City has it’s flaws too. Maybe you may have a answer to these.
1) Why build Eglinton as an LRT instead of subway? Most of the route is underground anyways. The LRT tunnel is much larger than the subway tunnel due to OCS and I am willing to bet that the underground portion will cost just as much as subway if not more.
Steve: Most of the route is not underground. From the Airport to at least Weston or to Black Creek (depending on which design one might advocate) is on the surface, as is the section from Leaside to Kennedy except for Don Mills Station and the new interchange at Kennedy itself. The line is 33km long, of which the central tunnel accounts for less than half (about 12km, or maybe 13km if the tunnel goes all the way to Weston). A very substantial saving on construction will occur because about 60% of the route is at grade. Even if the section west of Jane were redesigned to be in a trench in the space reserved for the Richview Expressway, this would still be much cheaper than a full-scale subway. At the airport, a subway access would be considerably more expensive than the proposed LRT access which would, in time, be shared by the Finch West and, possibly, Hurontario/Brampton LRT lines.
Yes, the underground portion will be expensive, but the average cost along the line will be much lower than a full Eglinton subway. That is the whole point of an LRT proposal — it can operate on the surface where room exists for this type of design. Subways are always subways.
2) Why not extend the extend the Sheppard subway further to Consumers Rd./Victoria Park and then build a brand new transfer station there to the LRT which is always above grade instead of retrofitting the existing Don Mills Station. Let’s not forget that LRT uses 750VDC instead of 600VDC so you have to make special traction power arrangements.
Steve: The TTC studied this option. One way or another, a tunnel is needed under Highway 404. If it is a subway extension, this will extend to and beyond Consumers and there will be the cost of a new station. As an LRT tunnel, it is shorter (because the line remains at grade until west of Consumers), the station expansion at Don Mills is not as extensive as what would be needed at Consumers, and the connection between the two routes for passengers is much simpler.
If the subway were extended to Consumers, there really would be little justification for stopping there, and instead there would be calls to go to Victoria Park. I happen to agree that if the subway is going to cross the 404, then it should go to a location that makes a logical transfer point, something Consumers Road does not do at all. Re traction power, question 3.
3) Why does the LRT use 750VDC and a standard gauge? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to have the same cars for streetcars and LRT from an operations point of view?
LRTs make a compelling argument against subway if constructed at grade, but I think it is foolish to use them underground for long runs. I feel that the artificially created differences between LRTs and streetcars due to political reasons are foolish and will only lead to higher operating costs in the future. Now we have to pay for two separate engineering, operations and maintenance departments within TTC.
Steve: This decision was made by Metrolinx who were reacting to complaints from non-Bombardier vendors that the non-standard “TTC” requirements made them unable to bit competitively. Personally, I think that’s hogwash, but using a car that’s as close to “off the shelf” as possible allows Metrolinx to defuse that complaint. Of course, the idea that Ontario would buy from anyone other than Bombardier is hard to believe, but a modicum of competition remains, if only on paper.
From a provisioning point of view, the need for a separate voltage is really not an issue at Don Mills because the LRT would be fed from its own substation anyhow regardless of where the lines met. If this were at Consumers, you would still have two voltages at the same location, only with a different layout. The cars will be maintained at Conlins Road Carhouse which will also, in theory, service the SRT replacement line and possibly other routes. The “city” and “suburban” networks will not interconnect (the suburban cars cannot run over the city tracks even if they were the same gauge due to issues with curves and grades).
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It seems very unlikely to me that council will ever approve the elimination of streetcars because few councillors other than Ford and a few of his right-wing friends would approve it. At worst we might get a bit of tweaking around the edges like abandoning the Kingston Road streetcar (as you said before, it is one of the few parts of the streetcar system requiring rebuilding, and would probably not be a great loss since the 22A clearly provides more reliable service).
Steve: One galling fact about the 502 is that it runs much, much worse service during the day than is provided by the 22A which replaces it evenings and weekends. The TTC, of course, will say that the ridership does not justify better 502 service. Considering that 502s are hard to find on many days, it’s no wonder the riding is so poor.
As for Transit City, I seriously hope that Ford isn’t dumb enough to cancel Eglinton. This is a planned subway tunnel (and it would be fairly trivial to change the plans to conventional subway trains between Jane and Don Mills at this stage if he chooses to do so). I am not opposed to building a subway on Sheppard or to replace the SRT (IF Ford can come up with the money) but obviously the deferral to 2020 or so is a major disadvantage of doing this. As to Finch, the LRT needs to be kept, otherwise we are hurting everyone in northwestern Toronto (I wouldn’t really say that replacing the Sheppard LRT with a Sheppard subway to STC hurts northeastern Toronto very much).
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Let’s hope the newly reconstructed track holds up well against the increased axle-loads of the new LRV’s.
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Actually no — my idea is based on Ford’s argument that streetcars block both lanes when they’re loading and unloading at nearside stops without islands. If we can get streetcars to pull over to the curb at certain key intersections, then one very large argument against them vanishes. I don’t think Ford objects to left-turning cars holding up streetcars, although you’re right, those tracks would allow a streetcar to go around a left-turning car waiting for an opening in oncoming traffic.
As a motorist, I really don’t find streetcars difficult to pass at all between intersections. Those drivers that complain about it simply don’t know how to drive, or are inexperienced. Parked cars, cyclists, pedestrians, and the absence of left- and right-turn lanes are more of a problem downtown than streetcars. I find I’m always having to constantly switch lanes to avoid left-turners and parked cars anyway.
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Well done again Steve,
I do think a debate about the appropriateness of streetcars on some routes would be worth having. I have long suggested that the 502/503 service on Kingston would be better served by running the 22A Coxwell all day instead of only evenings. It would also save on track repairs, it would seem from this. From the charts the 508 would almost certainly be better off as a bus.
But that’s really just playing at the margins. Downtown, streetcars work. The only remotely viable way to reduce the streetcars on King would be a Downtown Relief Line.
Steve: Routes 502, 503 and 508 provide some added service on the 501 and 504 during peak periods, although some reorganization and reallocation of vehicles might provide a better overall setup (for example, sending both Kingston Road services to the same destination downtown so that the headway was worth waiting for).
As for the DRL, it is often cited as a potential streetcar replacement, but this is very dependent on where it is located and which traffic it would actually intercept. The King car depends on a great deal of demand along the route, and travelling (or walking) some distance out of the way just to reach a DRL station would not be of any benefit given the comparatively short trips involved.
When the BD subway opened, the TTC foolishly cut over half of the service on the King car on the assumption that everyone would take the subway. Pre-BD service of about 1’40” was cut to 4’00”. Very quickly this was changed back, and there is now a 2’00” am peak headway. Oddly enough people on Roncesvalles and in Parkdale don’t find the BD subway all that handy for many of their trips. Similarly the stretch down Broadview and through King East generates lots of traffic on its own, and this would not necessarily be served by a DRL.
Subways have their greatest effect on surface routes by intercepting trips and redirecting them to the rapid transit network. A DRL east could intercept some trips on the Carlton car, for example, but only those originating east of, say, Carlaw. Many people live west of there and can get downtown faster on the surface routes. The closer one gets to downtown, the less the saving in travel time, and the more a transfer from surface to subway is a time penalty. Intercepting King riders at, say, the Don River would produce very small overall travel savings and impose a transfer connection that does not now exist. Many routes have been proposed for the DRL, but we cannot build all of them. A true Queen or King subway would run counter any schemes to use the DRL to serve the new developments in the waterfront, for example.
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Adam:
“Why build Eglinton as an LRT instead of subway? Most of the route is underground anyways. The LRT tunnel is much larger than the subway tunnel due to OCS and I am willing to bet that the underground portion will cost just as much as subway if not more.”
Steve Munro answers a lot of your questions with his usual expertise, but I think this bears emphasizing.
Between Black Creek and Brentcliffe, we are building a subway. Plain and simple. Yes, it’s being operated by LRT vehicles, but it is in every way, shape and form, a subway. It’s underground, like a subway. Using three-car LRT trains at frequent intervals, it will have a higher capacity than the current Sheppard subway and likely carry more passengers. It will have the speed of a subway and possibly be even a little bit faster, since the cars won’t be as heavy, will be powered by 750 Volts instead of 600, and may accelerate faster. I’ve heard that transit travel times along that portion of Eglinton will drop from 45 minutes to around 19.
And it gets better. East of Brentcliffe, the line will likely operate on the south side of Eglinton, where driveways are few and far between and intersections are nonexistent. It will dive underground to service Don Mills before coming up for air again east of that intersection. So, from Black Creek to Don Mills, you have a full fledged Eglinton subway operating at subway speeds, frequency and capacity, but using LRT vehicles.
Steve: Current plans have the line in the middle of the road, not along the south side.
So, why not build the whole thing as a subway? Well, here’s where the advantage of the LRT comes into play. West of Black Creek (or, more accurately, west of Jane), and east of Don Mills, Eglinton widens and the intersections spread out. We don’t have to be underground anymore. The street right-of-way west of Scarlett Road is especially wide, with a long stretch of green-space on the north side of Eglinton highlighting the legacy of the planned Richview Expressway that fell by the wayside. You can put LRT tracks on the surface here without removing a single lane of traffic.
You could theoretically do the same thing with a subway as well, but you’d have to put the thing in a trench. You have at least seven intersections to contend with here, and if you brought the subway to the surface, how would you contend with the level crossings? Chicago does allow its third-rail-using El trains to cross streets using crossing gates, but it has the benefit and/or curse of working with a system that’s about a century old. Do you think Toronto residents would allow the possibility of open access to the third rail at intersections people use? Do you think car drivers on Kipling would particularly appreciate crossing gates going down every five minutes or so to allow a four car subway train to pass?
The latter image is quite cool, in my opinion, but I don’t see it happening. So, if the subway came out here, you’d have a trench to dig and bridges to build and fences to erect. Advantage LRT.
East of Don Mills, you don’t have that long strip of undeveloped land to run the LRT down. Eglinton is still quite wide, and could possibly put in an LRT reservation without eliminating lanes of traffic, but you don’t even have the option of taking the subway to the surface and running it in a trench through a series of bridges. A subway here would have to be underground from Don Mills to Kennedy, and that would substantially increase costs.
So, the Eglinton LRT promises to be the line which showcases what a true LRT can do. It will be underground where it needs to be underground, and it will operate with the frequency, speed and capacity of a true subway, but at the ends, where ridership will be lower and more space is available above, the line can surface, and operate on a reservation that would be much less expensive to build, but still pretty effective in the moving people department.
Of all the Transit City lines proposed or under construction, this is the line that is most important that it be built.
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I must comment on Stephen Cheung’s belief – naive belief in my opinion – that simply writing to Rob Ford and telling him the “truth” will alter his approach. Mr. Ford has been a bombastic, simplistic, populist for his whole career. He ran a campaign on that basis and based on today’s revelations, did not neglect to stoop to any dirty tricks in order to win. (I voted for Joe as the campaign unfolded, but if Mr. Tory had run I might have been charmed enough to vote for a more “conservative” – but also mainstream – candidate. Using dirty tricks to impugn Mr. Tory’s integrity is nothing else but “low class”)
Expecting Mr. Ford to read an e-mail or two from Steve or anyone else and have the bombastic buffoon say “Well by golly, I was wrong” is nothing less than silly. Rob Ford is what he is, and in my opinion that is not nice. The chance for reality to intervene in our City Politics is based on the possible sensible approach by at least half of our councillors.
Steve: On a related note, if a Mayor Ford had to spend his time saying that after talking with members of the public, he finds his campaign promises were faulty or downright dangerous to the city’s future, he might gain points for honesty, but would lose credibility for so gullibly believing what he spouted during the campaign. Getting a politician to admit that he was wrong is extraordinarily difficult, especially one who can always find a “public” to support his position for almost any position.
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Steve said: “Yes, the underground portion will be expensive, but the average cost along the line will be much lower than a full Eglinton subway. That is the whole point of an LRT proposal — it can operate on the surface where room exists for this type of design. Subways are always subways.”
I disagree with this dangerous line of thinking. Why should we settle for mediocrity when subway ROWs have a shelf life of 90 years or greater? Citizens are willing to pay more in the way of fares or levies for better quality service (let’s not forget that LRT in the Toronto context comes with several hidden costs – More construction required overall than subways, longer implementation, introduces new technology, requires special facilities, shorter vehicle and ROW shelf life, less vehicular capacity, less service frequency). Taxpayers are simply fed up because we’re expected to pay more for the same or lesser quality services (compare the TTC of the 1980s to today, for instance).
Steve: The myth about 90 year subways vs 30 year LRT was advanced by Councillor Stintz during the campaign, and it is deeply misleading. Yes, a subway tunnel should last 90 years. So should a road foundation properly built. So should a carhouse and maintenance shops regardless of what vehicles are inside.
Large amounts of subway infrastructure are replaced on a 20-to-30 year cycle including track, vehicles, escalators. Simply owning a subway commits one to maintaining a lot of infrastructure that has no equivalent for an LRT line. Anyone who watches TTC operations knows that tunnel and station structural repairs are an ongoing job, and the subway is well under 90 years old.
The construction of subways requires far more construction than LRT. Yes, LRT is on the surface, and over a 90-year period, tracks will have to be replaced at least twice, maybe three times depending on the level of wear. For the past 15 years, the TTC (and Toronto) have suffered the effects of shoddy track construction of preceding decades that caused streets to fall apart prematurely. Now the TTC is rebuilding streets properly, and the foundation infrastructure will last a very long time. As for capacity, yes, a subway can carry more people, but this capacity is not required in many corridors.
Taxpayers who rail against wasted spending turn a blind eye to the cost:benefit ratio for projects like the subway to Vaughan.
Eglinton Line can definitely be elevated/trenched beyond Mount Dennis and Brentcliffe. Etobicoke’s Eglinton is a de facto highway, there’s no need to run a ROW down its median nor to have 15 stops (!) west of Jane Street through such a low-density area. Not to mention the contentious issue of median u-turn crossovers/Michigan lefts. Running parallel to Dixon in particular west of Highway 27 (the better, shorter alignment for reaching Pearson, IMO) the line can be along an elevated guideway weaving its way through to Terminal 1. And what’s so special east of Brentcliffe along Eglinton that elevating/trenching couldn’t also be implemented? I notice the stop spacing through Scarborough are farther apart, so an elevated subway guideway would suit the Golden Mile’s commuter needs quite nicely.
We don’t necessarily have to tunnel-bore everywhere (case in point, the largely industrial wasteland areas flanking TYSSE leading up to and following York U should be cut-cover). And we also don’t need massive mausoleum-style bus terminals for every station either (Hwy 27, Martin Grove, Kipling, Jane, Keele, Dufferin, Allen [existing], Yonge [existing], Laird, Don Mills, Victoria Park, and Kennedy [existing] would suffice; with the rest permitting walk-in bus transfers). A bare-bones construction method would dramatically scale-down the building costs, allowing for a true Cross-town route. Every other major metropolis in the world can pull it off it seems, so why can’t we? We may not get it built all in one shot – Transfer City was to be built in stages too; but at the very least from Royal York to Victoria Park could at least be in the construction phase by 2020 if the political will’s there to implement it. Political pressure to extend the line just a bit further to Kennedy could guarantee that gap would be infilled. And to Pearson has the opportunity for cheaper trench/elevation to incentivize building that extension.
Steve: I strongly disagree about the use of elevated construction as a quick fix to the high cost of subways, and suggest that a populist like Ford will be subject to a great deal of feedback from “the public” about such a scheme.
I happen to think that it’s a good thing that we have a Mayor willing to entertain the possibility of subway expansion again. That’s a good place to start. Miller/Giambrone by contrast were pro-LRT to a fault, even postponing a study on the DRL until the very last minute. Not to knock on Transit City or anything, but no one’s really looking forward to the next 15 years of ongoing road closures and local economic turmoil due to hodgepodge surface ROW construction at locations all over the city. Some balance between subways and LRT expansion would be welcome.
Steve: The greatest upheaval of construction will be for station construction along any underground lines. Compared to this, the work needed to build a median right-of-way is a small effect. Upheavals on St. Clair and more recently on Roncesvalles were due not just to track construction, but the complete rebuilding and redesign of the street coupled with large-scale utility work on century-old plant. This is not the situation on suburban roads where TC routes are proposed.
I agree with your comments about the “Michigan lefts” and don’t think this has been properly thought out, but that’s a whole separate discussion.
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One other thing, beside streetcars, that Toronto is raked over the coals about is the cost of its subway stations. I am originally from Montreal and have lived most of my adult life in Vancouver before moving here to indirectly to Toronto 6 yrs ago. After living and visiting other cities transit systems I am always grateful for the design of a good majority of Toronto’s subway station. Always, especially in bad weather, appreciate that the bus/or streetcar enters directly into the station. This fare paid zone that is sheltered a lot of time, makes transferring much more comfortable. I know Vancouver is much milder but when I had to wait, out in the elements on Granville for my connecting bus, it made transferring very uncomfortable.
I live near Victoria Park Station and appreciate the investment in improving the efficiency and comfort of making our transfer that the TTC is doing — it is already much better and the work isn’t even completed yet. I hope more stations get similar treatment and investment. This design truly makes the TTC much more commuter friendly then most other systems I have experienced.
I hope the plans for Union Station survive Ford’s tenure as mayor. The plans I read for the streetcar docks, expansion of the subway platform and possible bus single level bus platform will make this heavily used station much more efficient and easier to use. I hope the TTC continues to invest in the stations as they are really appreciated by this transit fan. I think and hope that a lot of the plans are locked up in legally binding contracts or letters of intent.
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James Bow unwittingly hit the nail on the head. It’s all about marketing. He says “We are building a subway”. Someone should tell the TTC that.
Just take a look over at VIVA or ZUM. They are just everyday buses, but they are sold as being something special and people think they are.
Streetcars here are seen as not much better than a bus. Why tell people then that you are going to build a Not-much-better-than-a-bus along Eglinton? Sell it as a Subway, but not a normal subway, a modern subway that can run on streets too!
The whole problem we have is one of how we sell (or rather mis-sell) LRT in the city. Until we can begin using the right language (buzz words) consistently, we will always be met with public opposition.
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I wouldn’t say “much” larger; the difference in diameter is less than 1 metre (5.2m for subway (5.4m if it’s a curvy alignment like TYSSE), and 6m for LRT). Yes, it is absolutely true that the LRT will incur more spoil costs and more concrete for lining the tunnels, but remember that there are some additional requirements for subways that counter-balance the savings against LRT in spoil and concrete. Subways require longer X-overs, longer pockets, and bigger station boxes (although the station box difference is marginal given the huge maintenance/service areas being put in to the Eglinton LRT stations, hugely disproportionate compared to subway stations as far as I can tell; they must go well beyond ventilation requirements for their size). I think the cost difference is pretty small, but I’d put subway at a slight notch higher in cost than underground LRT.
I have to disagree with you on that; it is not “in every way, shape and form, a subway.” I have noticed over the course of the election that people have been told, supposedly by someone from (or on contract with) the TTC, that Eglinton’s tunnel is being built to subway spec. If it actually is someone from/with the TTC, this is very troubling because it is irrefutably false, but only transparently so if you know anything about engineering. This is effectively preying on the general public’s lack of specialized knowledge, and that bothers me a lot. This should not be tolerated, and the City and TTC should go out of their way to set the record straight that this is not being designed to subway spec (unless there have been substantial and dramatic changes since the EA was approved, which I doubt). This kind of misinformation ultimately only undermines any support for LRT anywhere.
There are a number of elements with the tunnel that make it outright impossible to be served by subway in future. These include:
– Grades (4.x% and 5% grades can be found in the Eglinton tunnel’s proposed design, but 3.5% is the max for HRT)
– Turnouts at X-overs and pockets (turning radii requirements differ dramatically between the two technologies)
– Pocket lengths (far too short for subway in the Eglinton tunnel’s proposed design; only fits LRTs)
– Vertical curvature (minimum “K” value for subway is 35m, but many instances of 25m in Eglinton tunnel, and one at 23m)
This is not a small list, especially when you consider directly related vertical alignment requirements that result in a long series of domino effects. Given the money involved, and the relatively small difference in cost, it should be a subway-compatible tunnel, platform height issues notwithstanding. In my opinion, the design proposed currently for the Eglinton tunnel is unacceptable, as it is not “future proof.”
I would also disagree with Sheppard’s capacity being lower than the Eglinton LRT’s would be. Even with 4-car trains and no ATO (Sheppard actually does have ATO signals already, just not ATO rolling stock), its practical capacity (if you add rolling stock as required (a non-issue since TTC will soon have a surplus of T1s after TRs are delivered)) is 17,000! Given that the station boxes are roughed in for full-length 6-car trains, there’s no major impediment to a capacity of ~25,000 on Sheppard with T1s (higher still with TRs), truth be told. Not that that would ever be needed, seeing as it only carries 5,000 now (hence its $10M loss per year), but its capacity is far higher than the Eglinton LRT can ever hope to be, with its maximum at 13,000.
Given that Sheppard carries 5,000 now, I find it hard to believe the projections of only 5,400 for Eglinton in 2031. If a proverbial “subway to nowhere” can net a demand of 5,000 today, one that actually goes somewhere will surely hit higher than 5,400 in 20 years from now.
As for the speed, although it is quite probable that the acceleration rates will be superior on the LRT vehicles, the real reason that the Eglinton LRT will be faster than its Bloor-Danforth equivalent is because it has far too few stations along the underground part of the line. This issue was glossed over with an unacceptable frame of reference, comparing the 10-or-so-km Eglinton tunnel with the entire 26km Bloor-Danforth subway, which is itself a piece of repeated misinformation throughout the consultation process.
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Mikey wrote: “And what’s so special east of Brentcliffe along Eglinton that elevating/trenching couldn’t also be implemented?”
The most obvious thing that’s special is needing to cross both Sunnybrook Park and the Don Valley. The same applies in the west end at Black Creek. ROWs (or is it RsOW?) in the median will be far less expensive than descending into tunnels or suspending tracks under the road like the Prince Edward Viaduct. I would expect that elevating a ROW over the roadway would be more expensive too, and frankly, ugly. Not to mention that street-level LRTs have another advantage over either elevated or tunneled vehicles of any flavor, in that you won’t need to install elevators and escalators at each stop so they can be out of service for 5 months of the year.
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Andrew Wencer, I am still waiting for the elevators to be installed at Parkside Drive to get up to the 501 streetcar right-of-way on the Queensway. At least the Glendale stop is just east of it.
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Karl — thanks for all the detailed info, but …
“Grades (4.x% and 5% grades can be found in the Eglinton tunnel’s proposed design, but 3.5% is the max for HRT)”
This can’t be true. The grades inside the Bloor-University wye are steeper than that.
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@Mimmo: What makes you say that? 125m at 3.5% would be a change in depth of over 4.3m. Considering that one track rises while the other descends between Bay and Yonge, it looks to me like the TTC would certainly be able to work within those maximum grades. The tracks to/from Bay Upper should only need a grade of around 1.25% or so to make up the shortfall of the tracks to/from Bay Lower at 3.5% (I think you need about 6m between finished floor levels/tops of rails).
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“This can’t be true. The grades inside the Bloor-University wye are steeper than that.”
I don’t know if that’s true, but the wye certainly seems to be a product of a much simpler age, with tight, screeching curves that would be impossible to contemplate on a fresh subway extension these days. I’m very interested to see what the Toronto Rockets are going to look like squeezing through it…
Maybe the Eglinton tunnel could someday be upgraded to subway capacity by lengthening the platforms, and then using some kind of longer rolling stock that is an adaptation of the subway cars to the tighter curves and steeper grade. (Much like the new streetcars are being adapted for existing Toronto trackage from Bombardier’s less maneuverable standard LRT cars.)
Or we could just stick 6 LRV units together into a long train that doesn’t go out onto the surface sections, and call that a “subway”.
Since we’re talking about the Eglinton tunnel, one thing I’ve always been curious about – are the stations being planned with platform screen doors of any kind? It seems to be a reasonable thing to put in from the start, considering how much lower the platforms are going to be.
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Karl — not the tracks between Bay and Yonge … the southbound track entering Museum from Bay drops rapidly and appears to be steeper than 3.5. I remember that the Gloucesters had trouble climbing it.
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re: Bus Projections spreadsheet
Am I reading this right? 77 buses on King St. in the morning? 50+ on College/Carlton and on Queen? What would be the additional manpower needed as far as operators compared to what is needed for the new streetcars? How does anyone think all this will help gridlock? I’d like to invite Mr. Ford to ride the 6 Bay bus sometime during rush hour. He can enjoy waiting behind left-turning traffic, plus deal with trying to merge in and out after stops while the car ahead of the bus is trying to force a right turn through the masses of pedestrians at each intersection.
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Let me interject a couple of points about grade limits. I do not know what the actual maximum grade is through the Bloor-University wye but I can think of a couple of points that work both for and against the point being raised here.
Mimmo Briganti states that grades through the wye may exceed the 3.5% maximum stated by Karl Junkin, which could be possible as the maximum can be exceeded, at least slightly, for short distances, particularly when the distance is less than the length of a train. I’m not saying this is the case, just that it could explain what may exist.
Karl questions whether anything steeper than 3.5% is needed given some vertical changes over distance available. The possible problem with doing this sort of calculation is that it does not take into account transitions into and out of a grade. For a given distance, the average grade to make a transition from one level to another might be only 2%, but it is not possible to change from level track to a 2% grade at a single point. Instead, the transition must be gradual, taking up some of the linear distance, and the same must occur at the other end. In order to obtain an overall average of, say, 2%, the steady grade in the middle might very well have to exceed 3.5%.
Again, I do not know the actuals of the wye, but these points could explain why both Mimmo is correct (that parts of the wye exceed a 3.5% grade) and Karl is correct (that the average grade in the wye is under 3.5%).
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Your Streetcar Fleet Projection for 2020 shows that the 501 would have 42.8 ALRVs, equivalent to 64.2 CLRVs, and that would be replaced by 21.4 Flexity units. Shouldn’t that be 32.1 Flexity units?
Also your bus replacement uses 2.5 buses for each Flexity, so isn’t the Queen replacement 80.3 buses rather than 50.4 buses?
Steve: Thanks for catching this. I converted to Flexities using the wrong base column (ALRVs rather than CLRVs) and this affected a few other figures. I will post a correction in the main article and replace the spreadsheets.
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As we have seen, a large swath of the population now thinks in terms of what does the most for the least. That is what lies behind the words “respect the taxpayers”. Having the information to be able to back up streetcars and LRT is all well and good. But, if people are going to advocate for better transit, they need to speak the language of the taxpaying public. Being pure in using transit friendly/liberal friendly terms is not as important as being successful in telling people truth. If people care first about their wallet, then coach the transit discussion from the get go in terms of their wallet.
The streetcar/LRT debate that will pressure Ford to do or not doing anything has not really happened yet. I’m happy to see the attempt to discuss the streetcar debate from the perspective of facts. However, as soon as the discussion turns to such things as whether or not the Eglinton line is a subway or LRT thru the difference in diameter of the tunnels, the eyes of most residents of Toronto will glaze over.
It is a good idea to be listening to those who would scrap streetcars and Transit City and use reasonable arguments in response. But, as we have seen with “stop the gravy train”, people prefer simple statements, at first, until they want to delve deeper.
If we boil down the arguments for the streetcar expansion to pithy comments it would be:
The status quo of how we get around this city isn’t working and is costing us all money. We need better transit.
More cars and buses can’t move everybody around this city and is expensive for the taxpayer to maintain.
LRT works at providing cost effective transit that respects tax payers.
Streetcars as we know them are not LRT.
LRT is cheaper to build and maintain then subways and lasts longer.
The St. Clair build was a mistake because the project got messed up with road reconstruction and tried to do too much. (TTC would never say this but transit advocates need to)
Stick to LRT, focus on doing the line construction right, and we will move more people faster for less taxpayers money.
(Only then can the discussion of where the LRTs should go can begin.)
Eglinton is the most cost effective project – biggest bang for the buck.
Changing the SRT to LRT or subway does not respect the taxpayer.
Steve: If not LRT or Subway, then what? Are you sure this is what you meant to say?
The people of Scarborough and Rexdale deserve transit improvements, LRTs can provide that cost effectively.
I would prefer we didn’t have to use this language, but the days when advocates could ignore or downplay the taxpayer arguements are over.
LRT and streetcars save us money and respect taxpayers. Not expanding to LRT and getting rid of streetcars will cost taxpayers more.
Steve: If we are going to talk about taxpayers, then we must also talk about investment. All this gravy train crap plays to the idea that we can just stop spending money and all will be well. Don’t spend a penny on projects advocated by those latte sipping elites, or on anything that might actually improve the city. Just let me sit in my gated suburban enclave and pretend the rest of the world does not exist, except to lower my taxes. Sorry, but I refuse to engage in debate on the false premise that the only thing that counts is taxes. What we get for those taxes is equally important. How we build a better city, attract visitors, make Toronto a place people want to live and work, those are vital.
People do not visit Toronto to see Rexdale. Santa Claus comes to Yonge and Queen. Get used to it.
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@Mimmo: You’re right that it is a tighter fit north of Museum Station than between Bay and Yonge (I had assumed the opposite would be true, my mistake), but it looks like it just makes it after clearing the west-to-south curve of the wye. The north-to-east curve of the wye, however, seems it would undoubtedly have to exceed 3.5%, but that is manageable as that should be exclusively downhill operation, and trains would never have to climb that hill (but they would give their brakes a work-out). In visualizing, I’m actually baffled that the south tracks on both levels of Bay aren’t reversed given the presumably beneficial impacts that would have on grades. 50 years ago, who knows?
@Calvin: I actually did include the transitions in grade. There is more than 125m between Yonge and Bay (they’re close, but not that close). There is approximately 275m of tunnel between Bay and Yonge (excluding entirely the station boxes proper). 112m or so at each end of the slope is required for changing grade between 0.3% (standard at stations) and 3.5%, if K=35 (i.e. 35m to change grade by 1%). By taking half of those values, one can approximate the PVIs, which are the (imaginary?) points where the vertical changes in track angles would “fold” if they didn’t transition gradually. 275 – 2(112)/2 = 163m. I lobbed off another 38m to clear the switch immediately west of Yonge Station, which cannot be on vertically curved trackage, as well as for the lower level tracks of Bay to S-curve in under the upper level tracks.
@Serhei: Yes, the wye curves do not meet current standards. At the time, the lead engineering consultant to the TTC, Norman Wilson, specified that rapid transit mainline curvature should not have a radius less than ~200m, except in exceptional circumstances, in which it could go as low as ~135m. The wye is one of those exceptional circumstances. Yard tracks can have even tighter curves.
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The question of a boundary between LRT and HRT is not easily defined. I am sure that the People of Chicago regard the EL lines as HRT but the vehicles are the size of PCC’s, though they do run in trains up to cars long. Their short length and narrowness allow them to take curves slightly longer than street cars do.
The Eglinton LRT subway will have station spacing like that of the faster parts of the subway. The stations have a 60 m long platform that are expandable to 90 m but if you look and the diagrams there are “service area” beyond the platform that are part of the dug area. I am sure that they could be used to expand the platforms. If they ran 4 car trains on 2:00 minute or less headways you would exceed the actual capacity of most HRT lines in North America except New York and Toronto.
The advantage of going to 750 VDC instead of 600 is that increasing the voltage reduces the current and the size of wire needed to carry it. It also increases the spacing between sub stations for an acceptable voltage drop by the square of the voltage increase. Since the voltage is increased by by 1/4 the sub station spacing could, in theory, be expanded by the square of this or 25/16. In reality you would not go this high. The new standard for these vehicles seems to be 750 V so quit harping about it. With the solid state controllers they will operate over a large range of voltages without the light dimming that used to occur on heavy lines in Toronto in the winter when heaters were running. Does anyone remember the outer end of Rogers Road?
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Going back to the heading of the post, “The Future of Streetcars in Toronto”, I very much agree with Steve Munro’s statement. “The challenge for those of us who see a future for streetcars and LRT is to advocate for them, for the role they can play in decades to come.”
Toronto has an amazing resource in its streetcar network that just gets no respect.
A gaggle of politicians and TTC managers should be dragged off to Zurich to see how this kind of resource can be used and made very popular.
Zurich made a decision in the seventies not to build a Metro but rather to optimize its existing streetcar network. (Swiss Railways provides the regional network, although somewhat more effectively than GO Transit.) For over thirty years now, the overall street systems (lanes, lights, and priorities) have been improved for transit use.
At first glance, the system seems unremarkable. However, one soon realizes that the streetcars never stop except at transit stops. The streetcars are full but not packed. Passengers get on, travel one stop, and get off (as if the streetcar were an elevator). Ticketing is off-car with all-door boarding but fare checking is frequent and draconian.
Toronto already has much of the underlying infrastructure for this. What it doesn’t seem to have is the political will. Perhaps the non-streetcar streets need to be optimized for car travel at the same time that the streetcar streets are optimized for transit.
On-street parking would have to be reduced for all this to work. That is probably the area where the most difficult political advocacy work would have to be done. FWIW, a recent study in Victoria for BC Transit showed that on-street parking was perceived as substantially more important by businesses on a potential transit street than by their actual customers.
It has always seemed to me a pity that Toronto, with the difficult and expensive elements of a wonderful system already in place, has never focused on optimizing it to its potential.
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Why is the maximum grade between the two modes different? I was under the impression that the ability to go up those hills had more to do with the size, power, and number of motors on the train than whether it is shaped like a T1 or Flexity.
If a 100-ft Flexity with an unpowered centre bogey can make it up there, why can’t a 75-ft T1 that has all of its axles powered? Am I wrong here?
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I think it is blanket comparisons to places like Zurich that have turned the City so off LRT. I suspect this because I find there is such a lack of thought behind such comments, as important differences never appear to be acknowledged. People in Toronto, I suspect, are very tired of hearing “If [European LRT example city of your choice] can do this, then we can do that here in Toronto!,” because people in Toronto believe that this is not Europe… and that’s true! Toronto isn’t Europe, and importing their infrastructure model(s) is not so simple. I think there are too many LRT advocates that haven’t come to grips with that reality.
Spadina worked because it was an exception. The reason why it was an exception is because of its exceptional width, a width not found elsewhere downtown except on Lake Shore and University Avenue, neither of which is particularly helpful for completely different reasons.
LRT advocates, in my opinion, do not pay enough attention to the built form. I believe that’s where the big disconnect sits, and that far too few on both sides of the argument realize it. Not to suggest that it is the advocates’ intention, but the disconnect in their advocacy can inadvertently come off to some as if the advocates aren’t interested in what exists along the street today because they believe that it will just be redeveloped after the LRT is up and running. That’s not going to win over much support for LRT projects.
There is a need to respect what’s there today if something is to built there tomorrow… and I think that’s gone over everybody’s head, and that’s why Transit City is in the mess that it’s in. There’s more than one way to do anything.
Steve: Equally, subway advocates point at “city X” and say “why can’t Toronto have a network like that” without looking at how our cities differ from each other.
The TTC is guilty of appalling cases of failure to address the existing and likely future built form on some TC lines, notably Don Mills and Jane, but also on parts of Eglinton.
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Very well written, I enjoyed reading this a lot. And s much as I am hoping Ford is going to do *something*, I don’t think he actually will. That is why we need to get together and as already pointed out, “spam” his mail with stuff like this. Yes, he is the Mayor(elect) and he is supposed to know and act, but on the other hand, there have to be active citizens as well.
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If we had abolished our streetcar system 40 years ago, there would be absolutely no opposition to a new suburban light rail network now. Torontonians oppose light rail because they’ve seen the TTC’s track record building and operating it downtown. I’m willing to give the TTC one more chance, but if Sheppard turns out to be only slightly better than St. Clair, then I think all the LRT advocates should run for cover. As for Eglinton, I don’t see how it could ever be upgraded to a subway. If ridership on it reached 10k per hour, how do you close the line for 2 years to upgrade it? How do you handle that traffic during the closure? Did people here not see what happened when BD was closed during that flood at Greenwood? It was chaos.
L. Hall said …
“If a 100-ft Flexity with an unpowered centre bogey can make it up there, why can’t a 75-ft T1 that has all of its axles powered? Am I wrong here?”
I was on a train of T1s on that steep climb into Museum on the last diversion. The train stopped at a signal, and when it turned green, the driver could not get the train to move forward again. It kept rolling further and further back down the hill every time he tried. Finally he put the brakes on and a supervisor had to come in to the train (he walked down the tunnel from Museum) and show the driver how to get it moving forward again.
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Every so often, someone makes an allusion to a report written a few decades ago, suggesting that the average speed of traffic on Bay Street had dropped after Streetcar service was abandoned. Do you know where I can access this report?
Steve: The info I have (and recently quoted) was from the Bay bus and streetcar schedules of the day (I have a large archive of such things). I believe that there was a reference to this in an old annual report of the TTC from the period, but I don’t have a copy of that one (moral of that story, never ever lend historic documents). If anyone knows where this info sits in some sort of city or TTC report, please let us all know.
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@Mimmo Briganti:
This may be a rather simplistic way to solve the capacity problem on the Eglinton corridor, and there are more complicated issues I’ve forgotten, but perhaps another parallel LRT line can be planned on Lawrence. This increases the network and travel options, and the catchment area for Eglinton can be shared by the Lawrence LRT, without incorporating the operating costs of subway stations (for at grade LRT stations anyways).
I’m not sure what would happen to the Lawrence route near Leslie/Bridle Path area, however. I’d definitely have to have a look at Lawrence West myself.
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You should have posted this today. November 7 is the 38th anniversary of the TTC’s decision to reverse its policy of eliminating streetcar service.
In the 1960s, city planners and transit bureaucrats could hold the conceit that they were applying hard-headed logic to their decision-making, and that those protesting their decisions were speaking from a place of emotion, not reason. Today, the world is flipped upside down, and emotion seems to matter much more than reason in all areas of public life. Statistics and logic are held in suspicion by default.
Your numbers make a solid case for streetcars to anyone who cares to think about such things carefully, but to influence the incoming city council and TTC, we’re going to need to use more rhetoric and emotion and less math.
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