I have created this post to hold a discussion on the nature of travel demand and service on Kingston Road.
This began in the comment thread on another item, and I have split this off as a separate topic.
Steve Munro
Transit & Politics
I have created this post to hold a discussion on the nature of travel demand and service on Kingston Road.
This began in the comment thread on another item, and I have split this off as a separate topic.
Steve Munro 
[This comment has been moved from the thread about the TTC’s Five Year Plan.]
A couple things I forgot to add to my comment yesterday.
Someone also mentioned Kingston Road and the need for continuous service along the street. A person mentioned that she works at Guildwood and Kingston but lives at Queen and Kingston. She stated that it took her 4 buses if she wanted to go that route. I noted that it would take 5 if she wanted to go to Port Union and Kingston road. Andy mentioned that things like that are looked every 6 weeks and they would for sure look into that.
I mentioned about fares by distance and eliminating transfers. I was told that it would be a loss leader for the TTC to do fares by distance and to have people pay a separate vehicle for every vehicle they got on.
Regarding strollers, it was mentioned that the TTC would be working on a new policy regarding the flip seats on buses and trains to indicate that they could be used for strollers.
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I agree, *something* should be done for Kingston Road. Looking at the map, I’m not sure if it makes sense to have the bus run from Kingston/Ellesmere all the way to Queen Street (or Victoria Park Stn for that matter), but the streetcar/bus/another bus cross-over isn’t working.
The 502/503 loop was, at one point, located around Birchmount/Kingston?
Steve: Yes, it was on the south side of the street, and now has a small housing development on it.
This would be a better loop (possibly short-turn) for the streetcar. I think if it were possible to get the streetcar up to Barkdene (St. Clair E/Kingston), then a new Kingston Road bus could leave Warden Station via St. Clair Avenue East/Kingston Road up to Ellesmere. That might be a better split of service (of course, that’s pretending that there is one user who isn’t headed for the subway at all times) meeting more trip demands. Bingham loop could be retained so that 24 Victoria Park buses go from Steeles to Kingston looping both ways in Victoria Park Station.
I spent some time working at sites in the ‘upper beach’ (Kingston/Southwood) and ‘bluffside’ (Birchcliff/Kingston) and was very frustrated by the transit service. It should be noted that the area from Birchmount to at least Southwood/Main Street, is one neighbourhood. Goods and services, businesses, schools and residents in this area travel along Kingston Road, as much as Queen, as much to the subway.
Steve, did you attend the ACAT meeting? I wanted to go, but fortunately it was located in one of the least accessible parts of the system. Next time they should host it in the elevator at Lawrence West station.
Steve: No, I didn’t as I was at an event elsewhere. The location is actually preferred by ACAT presumably because of facilities there and easy of sending a bunch of WT vehicles to one location. However, despite being widely advertised on the TTC, it is not an easy to reach location for the general public.
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You should really spend some time there and observe sir. First off the Kingston Rd bus was extended to Lawrence in the 90’s and was a dismal failure. Nobody wanted to ride from Lawrence to VP area so they got rid of the extension. Next, the transfer rate from 502/503 to the 12, even in RH (EB or WB) is really not that high, certainly not high enough to re-lay a streetcar track. There just aren’t enough people. You can see this if you get out there and observe for a while.
Right now the EB 12 loses most of its load by Warden (which in itself is strange because if it were me, I’d subway to Warden Stn and take a 69 down, but quite a lot of people actually go to VP Stn and take a 12 to get to the same place. The stops from Birchcliff to the Cliffside strip are very lightly used, there is a bit of local shopping traffic thru the Cliffside strip and then empty thru to St Clair/Barkdene/Brimley. The same handful of folk use the Brimley extension (same as they did starting in 84) but there is actually a fair amount of people who get on in the Cliffside area and ride the big circle up Brimley and get off at Kennedy Sub.
Finally, in my opinion you may see an LRT in 100 years but you will never see a streetcar extension to Birchmount again. Get out there and ride it. The people are just not there. Hang out, sit outside at the Panda Bay, or the Starbuck and just see what the people do between bus and streetcar. Panda Bay is better as it affords a better view of the full intersection at VP/KR and you can see how many people remain on the car turning into the loop.
Steve: This is an example of how just drawing lines on a map does not always match actual travel patterns. It is conceivable at some future date with major redevelopment of Kingston Road that it might have a substantial local demand that would be better served by one through route. However, people in southern Scarborough want to get to the subway today, and the fragmented route structure serves this demand. Yes, there is a chicken-and-egg situation where one could argue that the route structure produces the observed demand, but I have not heard Councillors for the area banging on the TTC’s door to have the service restructured. Even the proposed Kingston Road LRT/BRT would go to the subway, not connect to Bingham Loop.
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Oh, I should add, before someone does, that the 12 route is crush loaded in the weekday AM and PM from KR to the subway, but it is the Neil McNeil kids. In the AM there are 3 to 4 SB runs you cannot get on and from the subway and in the PM, even with 3 NB Special School routes, there are 3 or 4 regular 12’s that you cannot get on NB at KR and this too is all the kids. There is also another school out by Chine Dr or Brimley that has somewhat the same affect on the route coming east.
I don’t think this can be blamed on the TTC. They cannot put a school run going south in the AM as you cannot legislate the kids to ONLY take this bus (TTC tried in the 90’s with a 12D short turn running from subway to Bingham but it did not last long). The kids will take whatever 12 bus comes and the same in the afternoon. I heard it is hard to change the school run times as the buses all turn into another route at the subway.
The same situation happens on the 92 South on the summer weekends. Fifty million people all want to go to Ashbridge and the lake from the subway so it is not unheard of at say Gerrard to wait over a half hour for a bus you can actually squeeze yourself in.
Sometimes 3 or 4 buses pass you. They run a better than ten minute service so I don’t think you can just add extra buses. In the mid afternoon everyone is already at the beach so these buses run 1/2 empty, then crammed again later in the day and then 1/2 empty. I don’t think there is any logical, economic way they can schedule these buses any differently. I know that the TTC gets a lot of resident complaints for this weekend stuff and also for the crammed 12 buses, but as I said, doubtful they could ever do anything about it. I don’t know if it’s even possible.
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Why not turn westbound 502 cars at Church, south to Richmond, north on Victoria and then east on Queen. It would still provide for a connection with the subway (one block west on Queen from Victoria), yet would get cars back onto Kingston Road easier. Or dedicate a car (or two) to turn back at Queen Street and only operate between Victoria Park Loop and Woodbine Loop?
Steve: Actually this is a not-uncommon short turn, and the 502s sneak out of Victoria Street without picking up anyone. A perfect example of a move that puts the operator back on time but screws up customer service by missing the important stops from University to Yonge eastbound. Why would you want the service to be scheduled to turn back from Victoria with the almost certain result that 502s would be short-turned further east and provide no useful service at all?
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Okay, then why not simply operate the 502 car between Woodbine Loop and Victoria Park Loop only? Make everyone transfer at Woodbine Loop to the 501 and use some of the cars saved from the reduced length of the 502 to improve service along the 501. It would create a local streetcar that is independent of any delays along Queen Street.
Or have it run up to Broadview station. Anything but send it directly downtown along Queen Street.
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Steve would it not be possible just to run cars from Bingham to Neville VIA Woodbine loop? By this I mean route cars through the loop and east along Queen? It would make for a great streetcar service in the beaches.
Steve: First off, this would require a new south to east curve from the loop onto Queen Street. Second, you presume that ridership on this section is local as opposed to being bound for points further west. If the TTC wanted to operate such a service today, they would do it with buses because the demand is not likely to be high.
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With the center medium on Kingston Road from Birchmount Road eastwards almost to the 401, one could imagine an light rapid transit easily going in along there. Most likely the auto-oriented people would rather see traffic lanes instead.
Myself, I would rather see some sort of LRT along Kingston Road going all the way to downtown, but with wider spaced stops than the current buses and streetcars at present. Maybe the current bus routes could be kept to provide local service and subway connections.
With the current administration, I don’t see it. Unless the price of petroleum goes very high up or its supply gets restricted.
Steve: The other problem is that once you reach the portion of Kingston Road that is only 4 lanes wide, let alone Queen Street, any hope of “LRT” service is slight. If there really is a high demand for this type of trip, the issue is with the fares and service on GO Lake Shore East.
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Kingston Rd. shows the problem that results when there is a street that cuts across the grid lines; unfortunately the lake makes it necessary. The majority of passengers seem to want to go in a mainly east west direction to the subway so the current system makes sense for them even if it looks ugly on a route map.
Weston Rd. is also a street that cuts across grid lines but its isolation is created by river valleys and rail lines. The fact that it takes a more direct route to he subway makes it an efficient, if non-grid line.
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In AM/PM RH nearly all of the 502/503 (yes, some transfer to NS buses to get to subway but not a lot) so nearly everybody on the cars go west to Broadview or further.
Midday – same deal – a bit more N/S transfers but you still do not see any people get off at Queen to go either direction.
Evening – same deal with the buses. I don’t think I have seen anyone get on at Coxwell subway and do the loop-de-loop all the way to Bingham, or the reverse.
On the shoulders of the PM rush, the first handful of 22A buses take pretty big loads of people stranded at KR and Queen (or Coxwell) by short turning EB streetcars.
22A is a short route, about 8 minutes from Coxwell sub to Queen and then 10 more to get to Bingham so to do Bingham-Neville would be the same. As Steve pointed out nobody really goes that way.
The big pain is people wanting to go from Neville to points on KR east of VP. You either walk up huge hill, or take 4 vehicles – 501 to 64, up to 22A or 502, then transfer to the 12. This is not TTC’s fault, rather geography.
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This is what I’ve come to be in favour of for the time being. There just doesn’t seem to be any real likelihood of getting an acceptable service out of a route running downtown and I’m definitely not going to support abandoning the Kingston Road track.
Steve: Considering that the track is about to be completely replaced, that is unlikely. However, the demand on the east end of both routes is oriented west on Queen. There is no point in having a Beach Shuttle if it will connect with a “501 Woodbine” car that spends a lot of its time short turning at Russell Carhouse or at Broadview. You would create the east end equivalent of the Long Branch car when much of the Queen service turned back at Sunnyside.
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I’m one of those weirdos who would like a continuous service at least from Queen to Warden – mainly because I live at Queen & Lee and have friends who live at Kingston Rd & Warden, and it’s a royal pain to get out to see them. I do recognize that the TTC doesn’t serve at my whim. 😉 Still, given the CRAZY number of cars that routinely seem to come through the Beaches to & from Scarborough, it seems like surely there’d be some demand?
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If I recall correctly, the TTC did make an attempt to extend the 143 Beach Express from Neville to Kingston Road and Birchmount. They were able to do this because the buses were running this way anyway to get to and from Birchmount Garage. However, the residents on Fallingbrook (I believe) objected because, though they had buses on their street, they didn’t want people in those buses looking in on them as they passed.
This would be a limited service (inbound in the morning and outbound in the afternoon; not useful to those making the trip in reverse during these times), but it would provide something that currently is not there now, and would do so with no increase to the TTC’s costs, would it not?
Steve: I suppose, but you presume that the residents of Kingston Road want access to a premium fare service as opposed to a quicker, regular fare ride to downtown.
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As someone who lives in the Cliffside area half the time, I have to say it is a royal pain getting anywhere (specifically downtown) via public transit from this location. This is because of the way the subway is laid out – to get to the subway directly, you have to head north, despite the fact that downtown is obviously south. If I take the 12, I have to either go up to Kennedy Station which is at Eglinton, or down Kingston Rd, and all the way back up past Danforth to get to Victoria Park station.
Two things would solve this:
1. The dreaded extension of the 502, which everyone seems to dislike.
2. An express bus that runs directly along Danforth to Victoria Park Station.
The 20 Cliffside goes along Danforth until Birchmount, but then has to cut through residential streets to get to Kennedy, as Kennedy does not intersect with Danforth Avenue. Furthermore, the 20 goes to Main St. Station, not Victoria Park. As such, there is absolutely no bus that services the Kingston/Danforth intersection that can quickly transport (or help transport) customers downtown.
On a side note, Kingston Rd is easily wide enough to support a BRT line at this location, specifically because the strip malls that line either side of the road could provide road expansion if absolutely needed.
Steve: There was a proposal for a Kingston Road BRT some years ago running west via Danforth to Victoria Park Station. The project fell out of favour due to shifting political allegiances at City Hall. This is an example of a project that should have some momentum, if only to be on the table as one of many potential transit improvements so that it remains in the public view. However, the current administration’s focus on subways, and the more general concentration on regional projects and funding have pushed schemes like this into the background.
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I think any service improvements that can be had with no marginal cost increases should be considered even if the arrangement is suboptimal. More effective use of deadheading vehicles can improve service just as better headway management can.
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With regard to the 322/22 Coxwell service, I think this is truly the most useful of the options. I *am* going to/from the subway to enter/leave the area.
The point regarding a continuous Kingston is network-based, in theory for me: Eglinton West, Lawrence East, Finch, etc; are enormously lengthy routes, the purpose of which is to (eventually) feed into the system.
A great strength of the TTC is that it doesn’t have (many) routes ‘tailored’ to a given destination, their interactions with the subway are (largely) logical. Therefore, people would potentially take advantage of using a continuous route (Kingston) to access points along the route, or connections elsewhere.
It’s not as though there is a Lawrence West to Kipling Station route.
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right, but wrong.
Yes the plan was to go from Birchmount Garage to Midland & Kr, down KR, down Courcellette, and then east on Queen to Neville to downtown and yes no extra cost to TTC and yes, people of KR DID want to pay extra fare. Fallingbrook residents did not care. Adrian Heaps lived on Courcellette and brought this extension proposal to the attention of the public school principal (Fallingbrook PS). Heap’s’s kid went to this school at the time. There is already a problem with narrow street and curbside parking and cars stopping for kid drop off, so Adrian convinced [the school council and school principal that this bus extension would be a danger to the kids and some kid may die(no kidding, this was right out of Adrian’s mouth) School principal immediately got on the phone to Brian Ashton who then immediately registered objection with TTC at City Hall.
Ashton came back to the principal and said he put in an objection so strong there would NEVER EVER be a bus on wither Fallingbrook or Courcellette.
Steve could Ashton have really done this? One councillor?
Steve: Yes, that sort of thing happens, particularly considering that Ashton was probably on the TTC at the time (he was chair from 2000-2002).
Where you are right, James, is that Fallingbrook residents complain almost nightly about the out of service buses. Almost all of the PM out of service 143’s drop at Neville and then drive east on Queen and north on either Blantyre or Courcellette to Kingston to get back to the garage faster. Buses are supposed to go west on Queen to Hambly, follow the 64 bus route up to KR and then go to garage. The off-route Fallingbrook shortcut saves the drivers 10-15 minutes easy. Every couple of weeks there is a TTC inspector parked at the top of Fallingbrook pulling over the bus drivers who use this shortcut.
I don’t know if this is a bad thing or not. Steve, do drivers get in trouble for running off-route?
Steve: In theory, yes. This is an example of the problem the TTC has in getting official practices respected at street level.
The folks on Blantyre will be thrilled that due to road construction starting June 23, the Coxwell bus will run during all service hours via east on Kingston Road, south on Blantyre, west on Queen.
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As Steve pointed out, there are better options for downtown trips. Simply put, I doubt there is any desire for direct service downtown by any form of surface transportation (other than Lakeshore East rail service) once you get past Cliffside Village at best. As a result, the closest to LRT service downtown you could ever hope for is an extension of the 502 to Midland Ave. where the road layout allows for a loop with minimal expropriation. However, that’s a “wishes are fishes” sort of idea.
The thing that I’ve been wondering about Kingston Road transit service is what happened to the Kingston Road BRT project? Is it still on the books awaiting funding or was it a silent victim of the “war on transit” mentality of the current administration?
Steve: See my reply to an earlier comment in this thread.
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You mentioned a few times about the 502/503 cars not reaching Victoria Park because of a short-turn at the Woodbine loop. Because today was the last day of streetcar service between Queen and the Bingham loop until December, I decided to take the trip eastbound from Queen & Yonge. The car seemed to be on schedule but at 14:47 Transit Control decided to short-turn the car at the Woodbine Loop forcing 9 passengers to disembark. Another person was already waiting on the platform. We waited 21 minutes for the next car even though the TTC.ca schedule showed a 16-minute frequency. In addition to the short-turned car, I saw other cars going westbound including a car coming from the Bingham Loop. That is, I didn’t see a westbound gap. But there sure was an eastbound gap on Kingston Rd.
I think the TTC should poach cars from busier routes to fill gaps on infrequent routes. I got caught by a short turn on my first trip in several years on Kingston Road.
I filed a complaint on the TTC website for what it’s worth.
Steve: The 502 Downtowner car probably illustrates some of the worst habits of TTC line management such as short turning a car before it serves the unique mileage (eg Kingston Road itself) or before it gets to its main source of riders (eg westbound at Church returning east from Victoria). The headway is irregular, and without Nextbus you would never know when to actually expect a car.
This sort of thing will be a real test of Andy Byford’s desire to improve service. He talks a good line at public meetings, but there’s a long way to go on the street.
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