Mike Filey recently sent me a copy of an editorial written in the Toronto Star of February 12, 1963 by the late Ron Haggart. For copyright reasons, I cannot reproduce the entire article here, only selectively quote from it, but it could have been written yesterday.
Haggart begins with a 1957 report from the Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board that argued Toronto could improve its streetcar service, possibly avoiding the need for so much subway construction, simply by using tools already at the City’s disposal to manage the streets:
- Enforce laws that prohibit obstruction of streetcar tracks.
- Let streetcars control the traffic signals.
- Enforce “no stopping” laws in curb lanes to keep them open for traffic flow.
- Limit or ban left turns from streetcar lanes.
The context for these recommendations was a report on subway priorities (Bloor was recommended over Queen), but planners argued that even if subway would come to Bloor eventually, changes should be made to improve streetcar service. Streetcars could get up to 12-13 miles/hour (19.2-20.8 km/hr) compared to the expected 15.75 mph (25.2 km/h) for the subway. (In those days, the line was projected to cost $200-million for the 12km stretch from Woodbine to Keele).
Streetcar priority would “necessarily involve some inconvenience to a number of ratepayers”, but would save the transit system (and those ratepayers) money. As Haggart observed:
Every politician knows that it is far easier, politically, to build a $200 million subway than it is to keep cars off the streetcar tracks.
He continued:
Present-day leaders in Toronto have continued to play with the expensive but politically popular solutions (subways) or the airy-fairy solutions (monorail) and have shied away from the solutions that are simpler (in the engineering sense) but which are more difficult (in the political sense).
W.E.P. Duncan, then General Manager of the TTC, had observed that the political decision makers come to their jobs in cars. Haggart goes on to cite the same sort of streetcar-vs-auto capacity numbers we hear today from the TTC. But politicians of the day thought that replacing streetcars with buses would fix everything. Not so, said Norman D. Wilson, a consultant to the TTC and father of the “wye” junction, who observed that three times the transit vehicles would be required, and the speed and convenience of transit would not be “one whit improved”.
Haggart concluded that the streetcars should be saved, but that:
Unfortunately, politicians prefer to be known as the father of the Gardiner Expressway … no one wants to be remembered as the Protector of the Streetcar.
Fifty years later, nothing has changed. Even a fully grade-separated LRT, the most advanced form a “streetcar” can take without simply morphing into a subway line, fails to gain support and advocacy from the very politicians who should defend it. It is simpler to plump for subways and ignore the expense.
Steve Munro 
Yet nobody campaigns on burying the 2km and change from just west of Victoria Park station to just north of Warden station.
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Steve there are very high capacity long articulated buses in service in various cities around the world – capacity as far as I can tell is around 180, versus 250 for the new streetcars in Toronto? Indeed perhaps if 250 was your target you could get those designed and manufactured.
Can you speak to these and why you would favour streetcars? I see tremendous advantages to these for current streetcar routes – they can reach the curb for passenger pick up, they do not need expensive and limiting rail tracks – and with comparable capacity, what’s not to like? There is also in-road conductive electricity available for the option of an electric fleet.
Steve: First off, the capacity figures cited for all types of vehicles (including streetcars) are often grossly exaggerated above what can reasonably achieved in a service that riders will consider attractive. Second, when long buses have to pull in to the curb, their ass ends usually wind up out in traffic. This both blocks following cars and makes for a less-than-accessible long step down to the pavement. A vehicle that stays out in traffic has an advantage over one that is constantly trying to get in and out of the flow. There is also a matter of passenger comfort which is much better on streetcars than on buses, especially for standees (of which there will be many at load factors you are talking of). And of course the streetcars can operate in tunnels where this is needed.
I cannot help observing that the construction of new LRT lines continues apace world-wide. Is there a massive conspiracy against buses? (It would almost be justified considering how streetcars were treated 50 years ago.)
When the streetcar system was “saved” 40 years ago, the level of service was roughly double what it is today. In the past almost two decades, the TTC has not increased peak service, even where there is demand, because they have no spare cars. As Toronto fills in with new downtown population both in high and mid-rise buildings, demand is going to rise on the streetcar routes, and even more service will be needed. We are better off with continued streetcar operation than converting to buses. When I start to see major European systems abandoning their streetcar/LRT systems, then I will believe that there really is an alternative.
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The more things change…..
Cheers, Moaz
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It’s a good thing nobody listened to Haggart. With no Bloor-Danforth-University subway, I’m sure we’d all be so much better off today. Toronto would probably look like Detroit.
Steve: That’s not what he was arguing, but I’m not going to belabour the point.
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Thanks for posting this. It does brings to mind the following apt phrase: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose! “
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The full editorial is available for free to those with a Toronto Public Library card. Start at the TPL site and sign in with your card and phone number. Then search for “Pages of the Past” and click the Toronto Star link. Click the itty-bitty “click here to search” link hidden just above the purple banner at the bottom, set the date to Feb 12, 1963 with the keyword “haggart”.
Steve: Thanks for this info. The Star wanted $50 to license the article.
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Well, politicians aren’t the only ones who at fault here. We, the ignorant and stupid voters who elect these people into office, must take our fair share of the blame. Unlike subways, which already exist in the city, LRTs are a concept that have to be explained to us. Because that would actually take more than a second to do we can’t be bothered to listen, as that’s way beyond our limited attention spans. We would much rather support the people with the best catch-phrases, as that’s the easiest thing to do and requires the least amount of effort on our part. Unfortunately,”subways vs streetcars!” “subways, subways, subways!” and “war on cars!” are far better catchphrases than any explanation of what LRTs are capable of. So that’s the way we vote.
Let’s be realistic here: had Karen Stintz and others not flip-flopped and if they had voted for LRTs, chances are they would have been voted out in the next election, and the LRTs would have been scrapped anyways. So what would be the point of doing so if they want to be re-elected? If they are to be condemned for flip-flopping, we must be condemned for encouraging their behaviour in the first place.
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Points 1 and 3 would suggest that shifting streetcar tracks to the curb lane, or the lane next to bike lanes, would have been something that should have been considered when the current track rebuilding phase began. Sadly, store owners put way too much weight on the belief that on street parking in front of a store is essential for success when there is no guarantee that the person parking in front of there store will actually go inside it.
Steve: Putting the tracks in the curb lane would create severe problems for turns at intersections. They are very tight by modern standards already, and would have to be even tighter for a curb-to-curb right turn. This is simply not an option.
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By this logic, converting some downtown bus routes to streetcars without any other changes to the right-of-way should, by itself, improve the mobility of the vehicle. I disagree in general – being fixed to the left lane is a disadvantage for streetcars, not an advantage. If a route sees improved performance resulting from conversion to streetcars, then it’s probably because of the improved capacity of the vehicles.
What you argue might be the case only sometimes, but not absolutely.
Steve: There are no frequent downtown bus routes on which we could perform this experiment, and so your proposal is to some extent moot. However, decades ago when the streetcars were replaced with buses on Bay, the buses could not make the running time of the streetcar service. On a much smaller scale, even the Mt. Pleasant bus that replaced the streetcar was unable to keep up with the streetcar schedule. The Junction bus had the same problem replacing the Dundas car.
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This seems to be exactly the problem we are seeing with King. The streetcars are horribly overcrowded, the new streetcars probably won’t provide enough additional capacity (judging from all the new condo developments on King St W), banning cars from using the streetcar lane in rush hour can’t be enforced, and the only solution is replacing or supplementing the King streetcar with a subway that runs underneath or parallel to King St, which would be the western phase of the downtown relief line, just as we did with Yonge and Bloor around 50 years ago.
Steve: There is a fundamental difference with the King car that is missed by a lot of people. The Bloor-Danforth streetcar got a lot of its load from buses feeding in at various points along the line, and these in turn fed the subway. The King car’s demand is almost entirely local, and a DRL west will make only a tiny dent, if at all, in demand along King Street itself. Yes, a station in Parkdale would be nice, but it won’t be in walking distance of most of the condos that have streetcar service, if not capacity, right outside their door. In any event, a DRL West is a very long time off, but the condos are filling up today.
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Well, the simple solution to that would be to preform a similar manoeuvre to what transport trucks do at intersections which is to make a right turn from a lane to the left of the curb lane; something which would require streetcar traffic signal priority. Basically, streetcars would make the “lane change” at the lights before the intersection with the right turn. However, the increased number of track diamonds this would require would become a headache for the track maintenance department.
Of course, we are talking about an idea which should have been studied 20+ years ago with enough public resistance against it to make it difficult at best to bring it up about 20 years from now when the planning for the next round of renewing the streetcar network infrastructure begins. Also, those in charge of snow removal in the city might get grumpy because they would lose their free “temporary” snow disposal sites when plowing the roads.
Steve: No, we are talking about an idea that would have required convoluted manoeuvres by streetcars wishing to turn at intersections. This is a classic of example of embroidering a proposal with fix after fix to get around the fact that it just won’t work for our four-lane streets and frequent junctions between lines.
As a simple example, do you honestly expect that sort of move by a King car every two minutes or better southbound on Broadview at Queen?
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In a Feb. 1966 article, titled “A lifetime’s planning” Norman D. Wilson was described as “The man who designed Metro’s subway system” in the lead paragraph – so his work went beyond the “wye”. In that article he suggested “metro should build two miles of subway every year and eventually ban cars downtown.”
There were also warnings about using transit for development purposes; and all sorts of other older articles have similar themes to resonate today, if not instill depression as so much time has passed as the icecaps melt.
We can’t even manage to repaint the streets beside the Bloor/Danforth to expand that crowded subway by shedding a bit of load onto bikes.
Steve: I mentioned the “wye” because it was such a controversial part of the BDU project.
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Steve, how about a permanent (24/7) right of way for streetcars? The western part of the Queen/King lines already have one on The Queensway and there is already an underground streetcar station at Yonge and Queen precisely for this. Most of it can be at street level. There is already a little bit of right of way on Fleet St for the Bathurst streetcars but the rest of the route can be horrible for the streetcars as there is no right of way. With Right of Way, drivers also benefit as they don’t have to stop just because the streetcar stops at a stop. Also to compensate the drivers, a line or two of the streetcars can be removed. They are talking about making King St streetcar only during rush hours but with a right of way, drivers will at least get one lane in each direction; so drivers should support it too. Will it not be difficult to operate the new streetcars without a right of way with drivers having to stop way behind the very long streetcar everytime the streetcar stops at a stop? Is there any likelihood of these right of ways being built on any of the existing streetcar routes?
Steve: Well, for starters, the King line does not have a right-of-way on The Queensway because it runs up Roncesvalles to Dundas West. The station at Yonge & Queen, aside from the fact that some of the space has been taken over for other uses, is small, and building a streetcar subway just to use it would be a very expensive proposition. Far better to ban cars from the central part of Queen and King streets at least during the daytime.
Remove “a line or two” or streetcars? You forget that the whole purpose of having transit service on College/Carlton, Dundas, Queen and King is to provide coverage, not long walks to transit. Quite bluntly, the motorists who are stuck behind the streetcars are the minority of travellers on those streets, and they can just sit there and wait. Rights-of-way are not going to happen on four-lane streets.
As for the new streetcars, well, we already have cars 75% of their length running on Queen and King (and at times on Bathurst), and we used to have two-car trains the same length as the new cars. The motorists will have to cope, poor darlings.
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In a Representative Democracy, leaders are supposed to be chosen for their wisdom and their decisions are supposed to be tempered by the research that they have the time to do because they are working full time on the issues of state. If Populist leaders are all we get, and they are going to flip flop based on the outcry from the loudest pressure group, we are in a sad state.
It may be that lightweights like Karen Stintz would in fact be thrown out at the next election if she did not follow the populist sentiment. However, a real leader sets the public agenda, instead of following it. He or she inspires enthusiasm in his/her followers so that they support the vision. Such a leader also knows that society is complex and that there are many important elements in a successful society.
Leaders should be elected for their overall vision, which would include popular items as well as unpopular ones that are good for our society as a whole, its growth and success. Populists are little use, and if that is what democracy is to deteriorate to, then we might as well abolish city government. We could govern just as well by all of us voting on our computers on the issues of the day. The problem with this approach, however, is that our city would die.
Steve: The “populist sentiment” is what “leaders” or “demagogues” make of it. People in Scarborough feel downtrodden and ignored about the subway/LRT debate because they have been told that is how they should feel. A leader who championed a network of LRT lines to be built in Scarborough before 2020 with strong examples from cities like Calgary, Paris, Berlin, Vienna (just for starters) could make LRT a “populist” imperative.
But everyone is afraid of Rob Ford, and allowed him to dictate what is “best” for Scarborough for his own crass political ends.
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I used to be more of a subway jock before I got to be a big reader of this website yet at the same time still more of one than you are, thus making me think I’m more pragmatic than the subways-are-the-answer-to-everything crowd that you’ve talked about here as well as those who want LRT everywhere but with all that seems to be happening with all the condos going up downtown, I just simply can’t for the life of me wonder if there just might be a need for another downtown subway. Maybe there is and maybe there isn’t but nobody knows where and when all this condo construction’s ever going to end and it just might be a good idea to at the absolute least to at least look extremely hard at it. To be perfectly honest with you, enough condo construction could conceivably be too much for the streetcar network.
Steve: I hate to break the news, but the streetcar network used to have twice as much service on it as it does today on most routes. We are nowhere near exhausting its capacity. The problem is that we are far too forgiving of other road users, and also, by not running enough service (because the TTC allowed the fleet to decline in the 1990s), transit does not present as strong a case for taking over roads as it could.
The condos are not going up all in one clump where they will be easy to serve with a subway, and that’s at least as important as the subways-are-not-the-answer-to-everything argument.
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Nick L suggested the idea of how wide turns could be made for curb-lane streetcar.
This is not unheard of, but doing so on a busy (or even just somewhat busy) street can be problematic. In Oslo, there is a curb lane to curb lane turn (from on Akersgata to Tollbugata) that is performed this way, but traffic on these streets is quite low compared to what would be needed here in Toronto. To see what this looks like, go to this page and do a search for the text “Accommodating minimum turning radius” to see five photos (four showing a tram and one showing a bus making the turn).
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@ David
The downtown should have received a new subway decades ago as part of the Network 2011 plan. Had that been built instead of the Sheppard stubway, there would be enough capacity available for when the SRT is upgraded. How they’ll get those extra passengers to squeeze onto the Yonge line is beyond me… it’s already more crowded that a tin of sardines.
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Subways are a waste of money. It’s too bad back in the 70s and 80s light rail and streetcars were treated as “second class rapid transit.” In the city of Karlsruhe, Germany, the streetcar line is dealing with 40000 pphpd during peak hours.
That’s more than Toronto subway (30000). Therefore subways are evil (**sheppard stubway**). Good for Calgary and Edmonton embracing light rail.
Steve: I’m not sure I agree with that 40K figure simply as a matter of basic arithmetic. A streetcar train can only be so long, and they can only run so many per hour. The link goes to a commentary piece that itself simply makes a statement without sourcing the data.
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It completely is. And while theoretically it’s just an engineering problem to solve, it’s one that requires you to start by saying “assume this impossible item exists” since the whole thing would first require the elimination of all on street parking along all streetcar routes with perfect enforcement.
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In fact, Norman D Wilson quit in protest over interference with the design of the east half of the wye (although it was in the end built the way he designed it). That was 1960, if I recall Archives’ documents correctly,
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One thing we didn’t have 50 years ago was camera based tolling technology. I’d like to see toll cameras on the front of street cars so that on busy routes like King, automobiles in front of streetcars would be tolled while behind would be free. Watch the right of way open up then! Ah but there’s still that political leadership void…
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I’ve said this last month and I’ll say this again:
What I find missing in these subway/LRT/BRT debates is perspective. For example, some advocates automatically propose building a subway to solve the problem of overcrowding and erratic service on the 501 Queen Streetcar. Some Queen-Subway advocates fail to identify both the cause for these problems, and all practical solutions to this problem.
Some people perceive overcrowding as a sign that the capacity that streetcars can possibly provide has been maxed out. However, overcrowding and erratic service have many other causes, including: not enough streetcars to provide the needed capacity, not enough capacity per vehicle, poor vehicle spacing, and/or excessive delays to transit service. Building a subway to solve these problems may work, but there are far more practical and cheaper solutions, such as:
increasing the fleet size, increasing the vehicle size, implementing better line management, and implementing better transit priority.
Let’s implement these tools first before even considering a subway. If we already have very frequent service with long vehicles with some degree of transit priority (such as some exclusivity in the right-of-way), then there’s a good case for a subway.
It’s like deciding what cutting tool to use to make a salad. One can use:
a)butter knife
b)steak knife
c)machete
d)chainsaw
For some reason, some people in this conversation will tend to d (chainsaw), because it’s the most powerful, even if it’s not the most practical. Little thought is given to the other three options because chainsaws are cool.
Steve: As a side-note, it has been amusing watching Queen Street with the 504 King diversion around the trackwork at Spadina. There are more King cars than Queen cars because the 504 has so much more frequent service, even with all the screwups downtown construction is causing.
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Also, I’m perfectly ok if a transit project incorporates some elements to appease the concerns of motorists, provided that the cost of doing so is not inordinately high. Sure, spend $millions more to widen the road for cars, but not $billions more to give motorists all the left-turn lanes they can possibly want.
Steve: And in the older parts of the city, where road allowances are only 66 feet, motorists have to accept that they are not on the 401.
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Re: Bob Patrick, Karlsruhe streetcars
I found an interesting article about that system on Jarret Walker’s blog.
In short: an interesting solution, but not necessarily applicable in every city.
I did not find capacity numbers there, but doubt that it could be 40,000 per hour or anything near that for a single line, given that the whole city’s population is only 300,000. Maybe, 40,000 is the total number of boardings per hour on the whole tram system? This is quite different from the single point capacity.
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The city is currently doing watermain replacement and combined sewer replacement on Dufferin Street, north of Queen Street West, between Peel and Dundas. When they built the Dufferin underpass, they laid a concrete foundation suitable for adding streetcar tracks on top of them in the future.
When Dufferin Street is repaved, will they be pouring a suitable concrete foundation for a future streetcar track connection between Dundas southward?
Steve: No.
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A lot of people seem to forget that we have 6 months of winter here. Anyone who has waited an interminable 15 or 20 minutes in freezing weather for the next (overcrowded) streetcar will understand the advantages of a fast, high-capacity subway line!
I’m also sick and tired of hearing how expensive subways are. Surely the biggest city in one of the wealthiest nations should be able to afford the best possible transit system.
The real problem with transit is twofold: political opportunism and public indifference.
Steve: “The next overcrowded streetcar” is a problem with the amount of service we run and how we manage what is on the streets. If we really cared about transit, we would run better streetcar and bus service rather than fighting over billions of dollars worth of subway lines. Most of Toronto will still be waiting for a streetcar or bus long after whatever is built in Scarborough is finished.
Rob Ford wanted to keep the tax increase to pay for the city’s share of the Scarborough subway to 1/5 of what will be needed, and that’s assuming that (a) the TTC’s cost estimate is reliable and (b) the Feds come in for a matching share. As long as people fall for the idea that we can have subways everywhere, but someone else will pay for them, we won’t address the basic issue of transit underfunding.
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Kevin’s comment:
Some hypocrisies never change. Example #1 is Rob Ford and his ilk on City Council wasting and blowing away an eye-popping mind-blowing $505 million on rebuilding the Gardiner Expressway. But, of course, that is a road that Rob Ford wants to drive his Cadillac SUV on, so forget about the price tag.
And also forget about everything Mr. Ford said about running the city more like a business. I would be willing to wager that Deco Labels (the business that made Rob Ford a multi-millionaire) would not make a $505 million investment without even looking at alternatives or doing basic cost/benefit analysis. Neither would any other private business that I know of.
Yet the EA for the Gardiner was dumped in the trash can and the $505 million was spent without seriously looking at alternatives.
So much for “respect the taxpayer” and “run government more like a business.”
Hypocrites!
Those people believe in government by soundbite and repeating over and over again short simplistic slogans until they become embedded in everyone’s brain. Things like “St. Clair Streetcar Fiasco.” Never mind the annoying facts that the problems were due to other utilities and not the streetcar.
Short simple slogans is something I can do too, so here is mine:
“$505 million Gardiner boondoggle for Rob Ford to drive his Cadillac SUV on.”
Steve: At the risk of defending the Ford position, I must point out that $505m is a gross cost, and we don’t know (thanks to no EA) what the net cost by comparison with some alternative scheme might have been. There would still be some sort of transportation corridor providing the function of the Gardiner, and it would come at some cost and disruption. Unless you plan to simply close the expressway and plant flowers on it, you will not avoid at least part of the cost.
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Peter, those buses have price tags that are rapidly approaching streetcar cost. For your dollar you get a vehicle that the FTA (in the USA) says will be retired in 12 years, the industry itself is fighting for an 8 year life span as they consider it a more realistic number. Streetcars have a life expectancy of 25 years.
‘Expensive’ streetcar tracks in a no-frills system can be built for $4 – $6 million dollars per mile, which is about double the cost of highway construction, but that highway will need resurfacing every 10 years at the cost of another $1 million per mile +/-. The streetcar track lasts 50 years.
Steve: Well, no, I don’t think you will achieve $4-6m/mile unless we are talking about track that requires minimal utility work to make provision for its presence and might not even be paved. Let’s not lowball streetcar costs and provide an easy target for critics.
The limitations of a streetcars track can be quite liberating, that track can be in the center of the street, side of the road, sidewalk, median, above or below the street. It’s impossible for a bus to do that without building an exclusive roadway, which once again puts your capital costs quite high, but the cost to revisit that road is high.
What’s not to like? The articulated bus is limited to it’s stated capacity, the streetcar can be delivered with the ability to pull trailer cars. With about 75% of all transit cost being labor, the ability to run entrain trumps any bus.
Lastly, I was just reading the ‘Antiplanner
comedyblog where he states streetcars must run on two minute headways but buses have more capacity because they can run on 22 second headways. Comical because with such a crush load during any rush hour, those 22 second buses could neither board or discharge passengers. One has to wonder about a guy and his blog dedicated to destroying rail transit, what an idea? Who is paying for this misinformation?Robert
metrojacksonville.com
Steve: Yes, it is possible to run a 22 second headway on a dedicated bus roadway, but without stops. When you come to a station, there must be a plaza arrangement so that, at a minimum, express buses can pass locals, and so that multiple vehicles can stop at once. The congestion of buses doing this sort of thing would be quite severe, and certainly not what one would design as a basic system. If things had reached that point, it would be time overdue to upgrade to, wait for it, LRT.
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Should BRT be considered in Toronto at all? Are there any routes where building BRT would make the most practical sense as opposed to LRT or subways? Or is it just a bad idea in general, and we should only focus on improving rail transit?
I noticed that both York and Peel Regions are developing BRT systems, and I was wondering if it might have a role to play in Toronto as well.
Steve: It is important to note that the BRT systems being developed are either on their own corridor in the middle of arterials with very wide rights-of-way. BRT requires a minimum of the space of three traffic lanes (assuming offset platforms rather like the Spadina streetcar), and more if there is going to be any mixed local/express operation. It is worth noting that there are gaps in the YRT network where roads pass through old towns with their narrow road allowances, and these will likely never be filled even though they may also be locations of severe congestion. The YRT system is intended to function is something of a “rapid transit” mode providing service between stations (and presumably nodes of demand) along the way, something that is possible when the “BRT” stays on major arterials.
There are certainly corridors in Toronto that could use express bus service, but whether the step up to BRT can be justified is another matter. BRT is used to consolidate demand from several feeder routes onto major shared areas with a common destination. We don’t have much of that in the Toronto network except where many routes converge on a major terminal, and even with this, many of the buses are providing local, not express service.
There is a BRT installed between Downsview Station and York University, but this is intended to be replaced by the subway extension. It is, for Toronto, an unusual case where there is a major terminal well beyond the end of the rapid transit network and this lends itself to an express, point-to-point link.
There is a comparable relationship between Scarborough Town Centre and Kennedy Station, but the demand between the points is well beyond what would be reasonable to carry with buses (although through routing feeders from STC to Kennedy would get rid of one of those pesky transfers).
A proposed quasi-BRT on Yonge north from Finch has been dropped because this will be replaced by the subway extension, some day. Again, this would be an express link to get the many buses from Steeles and Yonge down to Finch terminal, not to serve points in between.
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Double, triple, quadruple articulated buses are great – until you need to change lanes or turn.
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If I recall correctly Chicago’s Ashland Corridor BRT will be one of the narrowest examples of BRT built on North American roads. It should also be pointed out that the BRT is going to be combined with changes to the corridor that will probably see fewer traffic lanes … proving that while BRT has benefits it will still have an impact on other traffic.
That said … I still find myself wondering why we cannot operate BRT contra-flow to traffic, allowing shared centre platforms that don’t take up as much of the road.
Steve: I don’t think that’s impossible, but it would certainly preclude any “BRT lite” implementations because the bus roadway would have to be well segregated from the road lanes. There is also the question of operation at points where buses move from the BRT lanes to the general roadway. As you say with the Ashland example, there are other corridor changes happening at the same time.
There are many corridors in Toronto that would benefit from more express routes. I agree that upgrading those corridors to BRT is a bit more questionable. The pattern of development in Toronto hasn’t exactly created corridors that are dense and high demand in the east and the west although with infill happening that may change soon.
Which takes us back to the other, forgotten elements of the Ridership Growth Strategy and Transit City Bus Plan, which would have done a lot to increase the reliability, frequency and service quality of bus services along major corridors.
One example of consolidation that could happen with BRT would be changes to buses from the 905 agencies that come into the TTC stations. For example, the opening of the first section of VIVA rapidway next month could lead to fewer YRT buses running down to Finch Station. As for the Mississauga BRT/transitway (first phase to open this fall) there are some major pieces of infrastructure missing (Renforth Gateway, Bus lanes on 427, Kipling Gateway) and the 1-seat connection is still desirable.
I suppose that if buses brought passengers to the BRT which would take them to the subway (just as buses once brought people to the Bloor & Danforth streetcars which brought them to the B-D subway) and service consolidation between TTC and 905 agencies happened in the suburbs … then we could see demand for BRT growing at the fringes of the city.
Of course this would mean transfers and complaints of being treated as 2nd-class, leading to political pandering, etc etc and then once again transit history would repeat itself in Toronto.
Cheers, Moaz
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Steve wrote about BRT:
In the original presentations for the VIVA Rapidways, there was to be no separate lanes where Highway 7 passes under the 404. At the time, it occurred to me that there was enough room to add one lane, and the final plans that they are building to do have a single bus lane through the underpass.
What is unclear from the plans, and construction through the underpass has only recently begun, is whether the bus lanes will remain segregated from other traffic or will have the ability to join other traffic. If segregated, this “gauntlet” section would need either with some signal control system, or through visual rules for buses to pass. If the ability to join other traffic through the underpass is provided, it may be up to the operators to determine whether to use the separate lane or join other traffic. Either way, at least having one lane will be better than having all buses to rejoin traffic.
Steve: My remark was in the context of countraflow lanes where, if buses were to rejoin traffic, it would be more than simply shifting to an adjacent lane — they would have to cross over their own opposing flow and have a merge area into the “local” traffic. This would be particularly troublesome for a BRT route where, because of right-of-way constraints, the BRT was discontinuous.
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Steve, That 22 second headway statement from Mr. O’Toole is, as you suspect, pure fantasy. If you could build multilane stations at every stop you would still get ‘bus bunching.’ This has been the experience of Los Angeles on the highly touted ‘Orange Line BRT,’ where bunching has conspired to keep the performance no where near what was promised.
The no frills build out for $4-$6 million a mile has been achieved by Memphis Tennessee. You are correct that the track needs to be shallow, more streetcar then LRT in nature. Utility relocation will jack up the price be it streetcar, LRT, BRT or highway construction, however over the life of the project, I believe rail is the less expensive option.
This is not to say rail is ALWAYS the best choice, each mode has its strengths and weaknesses, and opportunity can play a big role. Here in Jacksonville (I’m a planner) the St. Johns River, is a mile wide shipping channel that separates downtown from the Arlington Suburbs and ultimately the Jax. Beaches. We have an older 4 lane expressway that connects downtown with those beaches over a massive 160′ high (Matthews) bridge. Once on the east side of the St. Johns River, that 13 miles becomes 4 lanes of expressway with a two lane access road on either side, for a total of 8 lanes. This is turn key for Bus Rapid Transit, everything is in place for a fast, frequent, deluxe bus service, along a route already heavy with local city buses. It would cost FAR MORE to cross that river again with rail and blow a new right-of-way down the median or alongside the Arlington Expressway then it will for buses.
Map and illustrations
Note the blue route straight east (to the right) of downtown, this is a ready-made direct route for future BRT. In this case not continuing the BRT east of the Regency Square station may be a mistake.
The moral of the story is, the mode should fit the situation, but NEVER expect a bus to be a train.
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Kevin’s comment:
Steve! The complete picture?! Nuance?! Considering all the facts?!
Rob Ford and his ilk have clearly demonstrated that those are the attributes of losers. The way to win is with the 10 second sound bite. Mr. Ford’s sound bites (“St. Clair Streetcar Fiasco”) are not even true, yet brought him victory.
My sound bite has the advantage of being true. I can wave a piece of paper with the Toronto City Council resolution spending $505 million on rebuilding the Gardiner. Most of the voters neither know nor care about the difference between gross and net. That kind of detail is for losers.
I have come to the rather cynical conclusion that the only way to beat Rob Ford in next year’s election is to get our own collection of 10 second sound bites.
And also, I am now going to refer to him as “multi-millionaire Rob Ford.” Which is also true, and punctures his propaganda about being an ordinary guy. Last time I checked, most ordinary people were not multi-millionaires on the day of their birth.
“$505 million Gardiner boondoggle for multi-millionaire Rob Ford to drive his Cadillac SUV on.”
That’s the first of my 10-second sound bites. More to follow.
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RE: Articulated Buses
TTC has ordered 150 articulated buses which should enter service in early 2014. Some are already here for testing and training.
Articulated buses were introduced in London ( UK) in 2002.
The bendy buses were retired between 2009 and 2011 for various reasons.
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Thank-you for the article Steve. In your comments I was not aware that today’s bus routes can not keep up with the old street car times … interesting point. And in mixed traffic too.
In my travels I have watched Sao Paulo in the last decade adopt bus rapid transit while their subway system gets sorted out. BRT works. Bumper to bumper of triple articulated buses in their own right-of-way is quite a sight to see. Night and day they are full as traffic around them is at a crawl. And in Curitiba, they have exhausted their BRT system and are converting it to LRT. Another efficient use of funds. Our politicians need to take a trip outside of Toronto or travel on the internet to see how transit can be done efficiently and at a cost effective price. Cheers.
Steve: An important point about the BRT systems you cite is that they tend to run on wide arterials where there is lots of room left for that snarled traffic. When a city is willing to devote the space and resources to surface transit on that scale, yes BRT can certainly work within the limitations of bus technology. But here, the mere mention of taking road space away from cars is heresy, let alone running service at the level you see on those heavy-duty BRT systems.
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Just for fun, I want to take a crack at figuring the realistic capacity of BRT in Toronto, so that everyone can shred me to pieces over it. The only way to learn is by making mistakes right? So please correct me where I’m wrong.
I am going to assume that it would be two lanes wide. It’d be next to impossible to convince motorists to accept that, let alone BRT that is 3-4 lanes wide. I think that’s a realistic restriction. Next I’m going to assume that articulated buses will be used, which I’m under the impression have a capacity of about 80 passengers. Also, I’ll assume that the BRT routes would be set up similarly to LRT: in the middle of the road with traffic signal priority. My understanding is that the minimum headway in such a setup would need to be roughly 4 minutes, or 15 vehicles per hour, in order to prevent bunching.
Based on that, my very rough estimate would be: 80 passengers x 15 vehicles per hour, per direction = 1,200 passengers per hour per direction of travel. That’s far below the capacity of LRT.
Now, I’ve been told by YRT that their stations are specially designed to be large enough to handle 2 buses at once. This may be a wild guess on my part, but I’m under the impression that this means they plan on running buses together in pairs when needed. If this could be done with articulated buses, it could in theory double the capacity of a 2-lane BRT to 2,400 passenger per hour, per direction of travel. That’s still nowhere near the capacity of LRT, though it would certainly be an improvement. In YRT’s case I’m guessing the capacity would be quite a bit lower, as it looks to me that the bus lanes are not continuous and only start and stop where’s there’s room.
So I’m guessing that in ideal conditions a 2-lane BRT could have a theoretical maximum capacity of around 2,400 pphpd. Is that a realistic take? Or am I way off?
Steve: The BRT may only be two lanes wide, but you will need at least one more lane for platform space at stops (and that assumes staggered platforms). TTC’s bunching vs headway mythology goes down to 2 minutes, and so you could get twice as many buses per hour, but there will be issues at traffic signals with a 2 minute headway in each direction. Cycle times required for cross-street traffic will marshall any service into a multiple of the cycle. This is less of a problem with farside stops provided that approaching transit vehicles always have a green signal. In practice, they don’t get one because serving the previous stop on the line puts them out of sync with the traffic “wave” on which the green cycle is based. This can lead to a lot of double-stopping.
This would give you 2,400 pphpd for single buses at 30/hour. However, you can’t assume that pairs will just run, in effect, as trains down the street. The moment you come off of the right-of-way, you will have problems. Also you won’t be able to run in tunnels.
Finally, the success of your design will depend a lot on whether you are running a line-haul service with few stops, or providing a more local service with a substantial proportion of your service stopping. The absence of passing lanes will make operation of express services almost impossible and you could wind up with the “local” buses still running in the adjacent mixed traffic.
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The Orange Line in LA is a victim of political horse trading with the Gold Line LRT. The planners wanted to make the Gold Line BRT and the Orange Line LRT. They knew what the figures were, and they made sound recommendations based on said figures. But the locals along the Orange Line were opposed to LRT in a similar vein to what we see in Toronto.
Meanwhile (here’s the ironic kicker), the suburban area down the highway from LA was furious about being treated as second-class citizens by getting BRT instead of LRT.
These two controversies were happening at the same time. Enter politicians. They have a pot of money available for one BRT and one LRT. So political approval for the Orange Line was conditional on it not being LRT while political approval for Gold Line was conditional on it not being BRT. Match made in political heaven, but the planners were, of course, horrified – they knew this wouldn’t end well. Sure enough, it hasn’t ended well.
The result is that you have the Gold Line costing a fortune to operate per rider due to low ridership, while the Orange Line service quality is badly compromised by the inability of BRT to meet the demand in that corridor, and very likely having a higher cost per rider due to the high staffing costs compared to LRT.
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Yes, there are going to be several narrow sections of Ashland where there is only going to be one lane of traffic for non bus traffic. I’m not sure how they are going to work it and there could be a lot of push back from people all along the corridor if it delays them. The city also made the genius move of privatizing the street meters, so in some areas it is not possible to remove the street parking for BRT.
There are also a couple of choke points on Ashland due to the overhead railway tracks where Ashland is already narrow. The Cortland stop will be interesting choke point to see how they fix the already congested intersection.
There is more information here.
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A ‘realistic capacity’ for BRT in Toronto can be experienced every weekday from September to May in all of its splendor on the 196 York U Rocket. In theory, there are 30 buses/hour and direction 12 hours a day, from 7 AM to 7 PM. In practice, the “service reliability” is one of the worst on the system. Perhaps if Steve has the time, he can request CIS data for the route and sort through the gory details.
Steve: A great suggestion!
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