A comment thread developed elsewhere on this site about “Transit Priority Signalling” and what, exactly, this means in Toronto, and more recently in York Region.
I will move the related comments to this post to keep them together.
Steve Munro
Transit & Politics
Steve Munro 
Steve,
Why did you not blog about the opening of VIVA on Hwy 7 from Bayview to Hwy 404?
Steve: I will repeat here what I said in my email to you. At great expense, a few km of busway have been created for service that operates roughly 8 times/hour peak, 4 times/hour off-peak. This is like building a subway line and running only one or two trains in it.
It is hard to believe, given York Region’s history of trimming service, that this is really a project to “grow” transit demand. Some ask why we should run half-empty buses, but it is only by providing service that nobody has to actually wait for that it becomes truly “rapid transit” The time saved on the BRT can easily be offset by the cost of a missed bus on an infrequent service.
In the regional context, Metrolinx talks about reducing traffic congestion. How this can be done with a service that has under 1k/hour capacity is hard to understand.
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I don’t want to go far away from the purpose of this post … I think your feedback and comments are valuable and that is why there was some hope for the comments on the VIVA “rapidways” (or the Mississauga BRT/transitway, the first phase of which will open this fall).
And yet I see why you wouldn’t be keen on the BRT especially with the elaborate and costly construction combined with the less than stellar service. I love the new infrastructure for infrastructure’s sake but it is the service that matters most.
This video illustrates one of the issues VIVA is going to have to deal with.
Steve: Ah yes. Transit “priority signals” that actually slow down transit service. Good to see that this isn’t just a Toronto phenomenon, but sad to see how something so simple can be botched by a basic detail like this.
Metrolinx is still caught in “infrastructure-building-mode” rather than “facilitating-service-oriented-growth-mode” and that is why there is too much focus on those local “please-the-municipal-government” projects. Consider how quickly Metrolinx reexamined the Queen St. “RT” in Brampton or the Hamilton “RT” when objections were raised. If Cambridge was in Metrolinx territory you can be confident that they would have a Cambridge “RT” by Friday (the Mayor raised his objections to the “Kitchener-Waterloo-LRT-Plus-Cambridge-BRT-lite” yesterday … after the LRT vehicle contract was signed).
That is also why those “logical” interchanges don’t get the investment they need. Kennedy subway station doesn’t have Presto despite having some GO service nearby. Milton Line trains don’t stop at Bloor GO station … I could go on and on.
Perhaps I should finish where I started, Steve, by saying that the 905/GTHA needs your observations and feedback too.
Cheers, Moaz
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8 buses per hour is a frequency of 7’30”. I wonder how the frequency compared to before the BRT was implemented? In my opinion, 7’30” isn’t bad at all (15′ is though).
Steve: 7’30” may not be bad, but just remember the flak TTC goes through asking for any kind of road priority for services far more frequent than this. YRT/VIVA’s system carries about 22m riders per year. This is only slightly above some individual bus and streetcar routes in Toronto. I cannot help feeling that the BRT is as much a construction and road widening project as it is a transit project.
YRT has a multi-year project to build BRT (the Metrolinx projects), but does not appear to have a plan to build ridership through service improvements leading rather than following demand.
This has an uncomfortable parallel in the arrangements for the Spadina subway extension where the Region will bear 1/3 of the capital cost north of Steeles, but none of the cost of operating the line which will come out of the TTC’s pocket (for which read Toronto taxpayers, or offsetting service cuts). The Richmond Hill extension is proportionately much more north of Steeles, but that’s 100% Metrolinx money for capital. Will York Rehion contribute anything to its operating cost?
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I think the question is whether the BRT right-of-way was an opportunity for the transit agency to reduce frequency. Or has frequency been unchanged or improved since before the right-of-way was implemented?
Steve: No. The services are operating at Viva’s policy headway maximum of 15 minutes.
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The signal delays shown in the video for the short stretch of VIVA Rapidway between Warden and Birchmount are a severe problem with traffic signals throughout York Region. Traffic engineers have decided that 18-24 seconds is ALWAYS needed to allow pedestrians to clear the intersection before lights can be changed. This is likely a good idea when pedestrians are present, but the majority of times throughout the region, traffic sits for no reason, pumping tons of carbon into the environment.
While there is a cost associated with having sensors to detect pedestrians and thus reduce the change time when none are present, that cost could be greatly mitigated through the use of software solutions. At the elaborate end, many main intersections in York Region have multiple cameras that could feed a machine vision system to determine the presence of pedestrians. At the simpler end, time of day patterns could easily be coded to reduce or eliminate the countdown. I personally cannot understand why the traffic lights on Leslie north of Elgin Mills need to start a 20 second count down at 11 PM at night when a car needs to exit the shopping complex – there is simply no one around on foot.
As for transit priority in York, VIVA’s signal priority can be triggered automatically when the bus is behind schedule or manually by the operator. However, the result of that trigger is to either extend an already green light by about 30 seconds OR bring forward a change to green by up to 30 seconds, but the pedestrian countdown still takes effect.
Something serious needs to be done about the pedestrian count down, especially with transit priority.
Steve: At some Toronto intersections, pedestrians must request a walk signal by pushing a button. This can be confusing because it is inconsistently applied, and people just assume they get a walk signal when the auto signal turns green. At other locations, there can be a countdown on the main street, but at the end of it, the signal just stays green because nothing was detected on the cross street. Not sure that either method is ideal, but there are ways to avoid loss of green time.
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Traffic signals in Ontario are very auto-centric. They cater to automobile. Left turn automobiles get priority against everybody and everything else. The so-called transit signals can be confused with automobile signal lights, unlike in Europe and other places. And why all the verbiage to explain what this traffic signal is for?
While an automobile can passively activate a side-street traffic signal, the pedestrian must actively press a button to do so. Worse if the button is located far from the crossing. You would be lucky to get to the button before the countdown signal goes to zero and there is no car sitting over its sensor.
Too bad we can’t have a passive system for pedestrians. Just stand at the crossing and activate. No can’t do that. Stray dogs, raccoons, deer, mice, snowflakes might activate unnecessarily if they land at such a crossing.
Steve: I have visions of a nocturnal band of masked bandits playing havoc with Toronto’s traffic.
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Kevin’s comment:
I have found this to be true throughout the world. I do not remember ever seeing a traffic signal in the car-free zones of any city that I have ever been in. Certainly there are none on the Toronto Islands.
Traffic signals seem to be due to cars. Certainly whenever a traffic signal is stopping me from going where I need to go the thought keeps running through my mind: “Right now, I am the victim of harassment by car drivers.”
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Steve, is it not better to have a bus stop just after the intersection than just before if you are going to have signal priority? And so many places the TTC bus stops exist both right before and right after the intersection delaying everyone because people are too lazy to cross the street. Is the TTC taking steps to remove such wasteful stops?
Steve: Actually, the reason for nearside and farside stops is to make transfers easier at large intersections. For example, a southbound nearside stop will be close to a westbound farside one. This also eliminates pedestrian traffic and passengers running against red lights to make a connection. That said, the question of stop placement often has little to do with how it might affect priority signalling, but more to do with the availability of space for a pullout (buses) or island (streetcar).
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Calvin, that is extremely selfish of you to say that no one on north of Elgin Mills walks at 11PM or later on Leslie St. Basically, there should be no pedestrian signals when and where you drive. For your information, I lived in Newmarket and often walked on Leslie St very late at night and Newmarket is way north of Elgin Mills.
So, if someone decided to walk late at night on an infrequently walked street at night; they can wait all night just to cross the street so that some extremely selfish people can save a few minutes?
Calvin, based on your comments, I am not surprised that every other day some pedestrian or cyclist is killed by a driver in the GTA.
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W. K. Lis raises a sore issue: Toronto traffic signals for the most part have serious deficiencies compared with signals in other jurisdictions.
(1) The sensors pick up only cars, rarely are they sensitive to bicycles and motorbikes. That’s because they work on detecting inductance via the change of frequency in an LRC circuit, which depends on having a lot of conducting metal above the detector coils. Mounting magnets on the vehicle doesn’t help, because it’s the current induced in sheet metal by an AC signal which does the trick. I think this is one of the reasons why cyclists so blatantly ignore traffic signals in Toronto. For motorcylists, it is extremely frustrating, with the only legal option at night being a right turn on red onto a major street when approaching from a minor street.
The only solution is to have pedestrian-type pushbuttons at the curb where cyclists and motorcyclists can access them without dismounting. They have them in Vienna.
(2) When you trigger a signal to cross a major street at a major/minor street intersection, the trigger begins a cycle with a full green duration for the main street before amber and then a green for the side (minor) street, even when the major street has been green for a long time. Very few intersections in my experience immediately respond with an amber for the major street in this situation.
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I was talking to a couple of Brampton Transit planners about their service, especially the ZUM. They operate a large number of “scheduled” extras that do not show on the public schedule. If they know certain trips, especially to York, are heavily loaded they will put 2 buses on the same run because that is when riders expect it. For trips back from York they sometimes send 1 of the buses out early because it is full and they can get the people moving faster. They will also move articulateds around to runs and lines that need them the most.
Brampton isn’t perfect but they are trying to run a useful service on a clock face schedule and the mayor supports transit.
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I regularly ride TTC, and occasionally take YRT/VIVA. There was a period when I was taking YRT on a regular basis as well, although it was before VIVA.
In my opinion, a 15-min service frequency is not bad at all, provided that the service is reliable, evenly spaced, and the vehicles are not crowded. A 15-min frequency means waiting for 7.5 min on average. TTC’s major routes have much higher design frequency; but I have been waiting for 15 min or more at a TTC stop on numerous occasions, and then had to squeeze myself into a sardine-packed bus or streetcar. The reason for that is irregular service / bunching.
There is no rule that building dedicated lanes is allowed only after the route reached a 3-min or a 5-min frequency. VIVA tries to compete with car-based trips. In that context, their strategy of building dedicated lanes and improving the service reliability and speed before increasing the frequency probably makes sense.
Steve: This raises two obvious questions. First, if BRT systems are to be part of a network that will reduce auto dependence, they will need far more than 8 vehicle/hour peak to make any dent in auto trips. Second, we seem prepared to spend quite a lot of money to provide a reserved lane for an infrequent service, but don’t want to invest money in better service on ordinary routes — either through better management or improved capacity.
I have listened to far too many rants from people about how money is “wasted” on streetcars and LRT to hear about the wonders of BRT capital projects that are not accompanied by high capacity service.
I understand the premise you are arguing about speed, but see little intent by YRT to make substantial improvements in service frequencies. Moreover, as discussed elsewhere, the “priority signalling” may actually thwart the benefit of the reserved lanes.
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Steve, just because Toronto is not making progress on it’s transit scene, it doesn’t mean that other parts of the province shouldn’t make either. It is not York Region’s fault that Torontonians can’t reach a consensus on whether to build LRT or subway or build a right of way or whatever. Yes, TTC routes carry more passengers than anywhere else in the country but that does not mean that others should not build until transit in Toronto has been improved.
VIVA rapidways is a great project, within budget, and ahead of schedule. It’s also beautifying the streets (planting trees, etc) and providing safe infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists. Viva buses also run on time and never come as many as seven buses in a row unlike the TTC (I have not even seen 2 VIVA buses running right behind each other). Even without the rapidways, the VIVA buses are on time due to very strict management with zero tolerance policies for buses leaving early, drivers leaving 100 people in an idling bus to go and get something from Tom Hortons or McDonald’s, etc.
Subway to Vaughan and Richmond Hill (and hopefully later Markham) is also a good idea as about 1.2 million people live there. VIVA rapidways are being built to be converted to LRT if the demand requires. vivaNext is a wonderful project connecting future TTC stations with GO stations, etc.
It is good to see BRT being built in Mississauga as well and Brampton, Oakville, Burlington, and Durham region are also set to get BRT. The vast majority of people in the GTHA live outside of Toronto, so we can’t just build in Toronto and ignore everyone else. I would like to see more BRTs, LRTs, and subways in Toronto. Even in Toronto, the vast majority of people live outside of Downtown so not everything like future subways should be Downtown. I personally would rather see subway expansion in Etobicoke, Scarborough, Richmond Hill before any Downtown Relief Lines. Hopefully LRT in Hamilton and Mississauga-Brampton and Kitchener-Waterloo will also get built ASAP. You see I support all good transit projects and not just the ones that benefit me.
Steve, I think that as someone said above; the whole region can benefit from your expertise and not just Toronto. We all come and ask you questions because we value your depth and breadth of knowledge when it comes to all things transit.
Steve: As I said in response to an earlier comment, my problem with the VIVA implementation is that the very thing that would be attacked in Toronto as “wasteful” — building an exclusive right of way for an infrequent service — is celebrated once we get north of Steeles Avenue. I say this in the context of the LRT/BRT/subway debates where Toronto pols seem happy to spend at least an extra billion to install a subway in place of a perfectly good LRT line. Meanwhile in York Region, the focus seems to be on construction, but I have not seen anything in the future plans to indicate a widespread improvement of service frequencies on Viva or any other part of the system.
Yes, I am happy to see transit improvements around southern Ontario, but we have a long history at Queen’s Park of spending billions on capital (because of the spinoff value in jobs and real-estate values), but penny-pinching on operations. Even GO limits its service growth based on keeping within its high farebox recovery ratio, not based on demand for service.
As the size of the region where people are promised “good” transit grows, so will the demand for better service, and yet planning for such service and funding it do not seem to be priorities even in Toronto.
If you think I am dissing VIVA, no I’m not against the idea of building “rapidways” or whatever brand name a local system comes up with. What I want to see, however, is an attempt to actually exploit the infrastructure to carry many more riders.
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As a frequent YRT/viva rider, I’ve been impressed with the viva service since it was introduced. According to the YRT’s literature, its ridership has grown year over year, and I can attest to the relative comfort of the vehicles. It is a more attractive ride. In my experience, the wait for a bus is almost always in the 5-10 minute range; 15 minutes is rare.
In the past, it could take 10-15 minutes just to get from Bayview to the 404; now, more often than not, viva buses keep pace with the lead car in each bunch of traffic, if not outpacing it. I imagine that speed ratio will only improve once people return from vacation and traffic intensifies.
The fleet has expanded once already, suggesting that the agency is growing to either anticipate future or match current ridership. They also have an order for 27 new buses to coincide with the expansion of the rapidways. That being said, I am making a fairly uninformed supposition; I have read nothing to indicate their plans for future service frequency. But the purchase of extra buses strikes me as a good omen.
Regarding the opening of the rapidway from Bayview to 404, I took it for a test ride and can confirm that even this short stretch of new lanes shortens the former length of the trip to Finch by 10 minutes. As well, the new streetscaping makes hwy 7 much more pleasant to walk along as a pedestrian (loud and plentiful trucks notwithstanding).
The largest impediment to the usefulness of the rapidways is the fact that comparatively few businesses and residences exist right next to the road; most “destinations”, such as they are, require a bit of hike from the nearest stop and are set back from the street by enormous parking lots. I rode the rapidway for a lark; a 10-minute walk from the bus to my job may not seem like much, there’s a local route that cuts my hike in half, which can seem like an eternity in the winter.
All that being said, I’m not an expert on YRT/viva’s numbers; all I know are the general facts of the agency’s ridership claims and fleet expansion, plus my experience as a rider. But a first glance, it seems to be an overall improvement over what existed before.
Steve: Thanks for the first hand observations. I think I have made my reasons for writing disparagingly about Viva clear elsewhere in the comment thread and won’t repeat myself here.
YRT’s 2014 Service Plan spends a lot of time trimming service on marginal routes with low ridership, but does not talk much about service improvements. There is a lot of info about projected growth in population and jobs in the five year plan, but no real sense of what this means for service levels. Moreover, there is no sense of a policy to pursue ridership by attracting ridership rather than just waiting for it to show up.
The question of transit service levels is one not just for York Region, but for the entire GTA and especially for Metrolinx which is far too focused on capital construction.
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Other than the added cost thank god for the Rouge Hill GO train to get across the lake-shore when i need to. As for when I need to get across the rest of the City I make sure I plan my day knowing there will be no time do anything else in my day.
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I needed to go to Major Mac and Bayview mid morning. As a person who really does like riding the bus, I thought maybe I could take the subway, VIVA and YRT. Subway to Finch seemed Ok. The VIVA Yonge bus ran fairly frequently. The YRT bus on Major Mac ran once an hour. I was not prepared to walk from Yonge to Bayview with my laptop and it seemed pointless to get a taxi. I drove.
I agree with Steve in this thread and elsewhere – attracting car drivers to transit requires service on the whole system. And as an ancillary point, I also agree that building expensive infrastructure and the running lousy service is a waste of money. As Steve has pointed out so many times, the BD subway relies on feeder buses. York VIVA Yonge is not going to get much feed from a bus that runs between once an hour and 20 minutes (rush peak.) People will drive.
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Toronto is undergoing massive transit expansion. The Spadina Subway Extension alone is significant. The getting new streetcars and Union Station expansion are some of the biggest improvements to the core we have seen in decades and the fully funded LRT projects on Sheppard and Finch are the first ever meaningful investment in improved transit in the 416 suburbs. On top of this, the Eglinton-Crosstown alone is the largest single project in Toronto’s history.
The debate underway is mostly (with the exception of the SRT) about the next phase of investment. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that for the first phase of expansion there is consensus and action.
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A few comments following my original post on the timing of pedestrian signal timing….
I mentioned two extremes (very complicated and very simple) for software solutions to the issue just for example. Steve added a couple of other solutions that are actually used around Toronto currently, and these could be better approaches to some situations where a long mandatory countdown is currently used.
Tom wrote:
Nice try, Tom. The context of the discussion was the Richmond Hill part of Leslie Street. Have you ever walked this recently, or ever?
Steve jumps in: Here is a link to the Google Maps view of the intersection.
Let me fill you in: Leslie Street is a four-lane roadway, with both additional left and right turn lanes at intersections south of Elgin Mills. About 450 metres north of Elgin Mills, the road narrows into a two-lane rural-type road with shoulders where it continues on north. Around 2005-6, a shopping complex was added on the northeast corner and an exit from this onto Leslie was added about 300 metres north of Elgin Mills. Traffic from the complex was controlled by a stop sign. A few years ago, a new high school was built on the west side of Leslie just north of this exit. Since there would be plenty of pedestrian traffic throughout the day, traffic lights replaced the stop sign.
To this day, very few people ever need to cross Leslie at this location outside of school hours, and outside of rush hours traffic is light and anyone needing to make this crossing (myself included) does not wait for the light to change. The stretch of road is very well lit at night as well, and I should also add that the northbound YRT stop at the shopping entrance/exit is NOT matched with a southbound stop on the other side. In fact, on the west side of Leslie at this location, there is a pathway no wider than half a sidewalk between the curb and a steep drop into a ditch.
Quite the opposite. If someone were actually needing to cross over Leslie late at night at this location, they could push the button and have a light in their favour within about 8 seconds (the 4 seconds for the yellow on Leslie, followed by the 4 seconds of all-red). Instead, they push the button and the pedestrian signals protecting the crosswalk over the plaza entrance starts its 20 second countdown. Then there is the 8 seconds for yellow and all-red phases, and they get their crossing signal 28 seconds later. What happens instead is that the pedestrian just crosses and takes about 15 seconds to do so against the light.
This example of an unnecessary countdown is just as inconvenient for pedestrians as it is for drivers (and transit users, for that matter). Worse, if one believes that crossing against the light is always dangerous (sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t), the countdown intended to keep pedestrians safe by giving them ample time to complete a crossing puts pedestrians needing to cross the other way in danger (and it is the other way were traffic can be moving at 60-70 km/h, not the traffic coming out of the shopping centre).
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W. K. Lis wrote:
This has been tried, with a good degree of success.
The details escape me, but I believe this was done in a neighbourhood in NYC. The situation in question involved a community of a certain religious background who believed it was wrong to ‘work’ on the Sabbath. Instead of driving to services, they would walk. The situation involved some intersections with extremely long waits for the signal timing, and the belief that actively pushing a button to get the light to change contradicted their ‘no work on the Sabbath’ belief.
The city installed a passive system to change the lights, which worked. Unfortunately, some people held such strong beliefs about not working on the Sabbath that they felt that their movement that triggers the passive system was ‘work’ and they started stopping to wait for the light where they would not trigger the sensor, and they were back to square one.
Steve: A simpler approach used in some other cities is to have the signals automatically cycle on the Sabbath without needing any detection system. In any event, there are many articles available from Google about passive detection of pedestrians at intersections.
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Funny, I always look around for a button when I am walking. It’s better to assume that I need to do this.
Actually, it is also a problem. I have seen this at the intersection of The Queensway and Kipling Avenue where northbound 44 Kipling buses have two stops. It’s nice, but I have seen it slow down both bus service and cars. And in others (i.e. Brown’s Line and Horner Avenue) it is ridiculous to have two stops – just use the one on the southwest corner as it can be used by both the 123 and 110 buses. It seems pointless sometimes to have two, or it creates a bigger issue in my opinion.
Steve: It is quite likely that the extra stops were added in response to requests from local Councillors reacting to complaints about pedestrian-hostile intersections. This is the sort of trade-off we see — it may slow down the bus (and the traffic) but may also be perceived as safer by pedestrians which, in turn, improves transit’s attractiveness.
There is a different type of example in my own part of the world at Queen and Broadview. There is a northbound stop on Broadview just above Queen that was installed for the Don Mills night bus. The buses could not serve the eastbound stop at Queen & Broadview and then make the left turn to go north. Hence the stop “around the corner”. However, this stop is used by the King car all day long and gets good traffic from transfer moves between westbound Queen cars and northbound King cars. It is also a more convenient stop for some in the neighbourhood including a nearby church. I use it fairly regularly in my travels. Whether this is a waste or a convenience depends on one’s view of transit’s goals.
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Highway 7 ought to be a much busier bus route than it currently is. Highway 7 between Bayview and Warden tends to suffer from chronic traffic congestion for a large part of the day, 7 days a week because of all the cars using it as an alternative to Highway 407 and all the cars exiting the 404 at Highway 7, and there are a large number of office parks and some new condominiums in this area. So this route ought to be seeing overcrowded articulated buses every 2 minutes in rush hour, except for the fact that the various north/south bus routes that cross Highway 7 have such lousy frequencies especially during off peak times. Also the extra fare for crossing Steeles and the ban on using YRT buses for trips within Toronto need to be removed to increase ridership. It would be far too simple, for instance to drastically increase frequency on YRT 90, get rid of the double fare and allow riders within Toronto to use it, and eliminate TTC 25 north of Sheppard.
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I don’t think there is any consensus or action on the first phase of expansion, and there’s still a good chance that nothing will be built apart from the Spadina expansion. Both Rob Ford and the conservative party have shown that they will not hesitate to kill a project they don’t like, even if its already in the middle of construction. If Rob Ford and/or the conservatives win the next elections, don’t be surprised if there is a big push to get those “big nasty streetcars” off of Finch and Sheppard for good. Even the Eglinton Crosstown Line is not immune, and I feel that if they win it may very well be put on hold for a number of years while they debate the merits of whether or not it should be converted into a full subway. And let’s not forget all of the other Transit City LRTs that have already been cancelled. There is still plenty of time for the politicians to cancel the remainder of that plan, and I strongly suspect that’s exactly what will end up happening.
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Why did Steve not blog about the VIVA busway that just opened? … probably for the same reason he hasn’t blogged a single article about the construction progress on the Spadina subway, but covers any stick of streetcar track reconstruction downtown, however minute.
It’s his blog and he can choose the topics he wants to discuss, but it’s obvious these other transit projects don’t interest him at all. What bothers me is that he tries to make excuses for this bias. He doesn’t have to — it’s his blog. Having said that, there’s a lot going on with the Kitchener LRT right now, and he hasn’t mentioned a word about that either. So, it has to be LRT and Toronto!
Steve: I write about Toronto because of the political context with which I am quite familiar. Commentary on other systems from that standpoint is outside my expertise and I prefer to leave that to others.
As for streetcar reconstruction, I cover this in great detail to document the fact that the TTC is NOT building the same old crap that fell apart almost as soon as the track gangs left the scene. We are nearing the end of a long project to make up for a few decades of bad (but ironically not cheap) construction.
The Harbourfront East project took a lot of flak about noise because the original line was built with “thunder track” a few years before the adoption of resilient roadbeds by the TTC, and this experience has affected perception of LRT schemes. I have made a point of documenting these projects in detail as the quality and techniques of construction continue to improve.
Service quality is an issue that is independent of mode as my current series on the Lawrence East bus and previous articles on Dufferin and Finch West show. This is part of the overall fight against “TTC culture” that says “we can’t do anything about service because of the traffic”.
As for the BRT systems, the approaches seem to differ from one part of the GTA to another depending on how pro-transit the local councils actually are. I can only despair when I see the spending on VIVA compared to the level of service it provides and contrast this with the penny-pinching in Toronto. Reserved lanes are nice. Reserved lanes full of buses are even nicer. If I wanted to be really catty, I would ask where all the subway advocates are saying we should have built VIVA subway lines from day one just in case the capacity will be needed in the future.
The Spadina extension project has been covered extensively in other blogs. It is a big construction project, and one picture of a hole in the ground looks substantially like any other. You would argue, I am sure, that one piece of track looks more or less like any other too. I have a reason for writing about track, much less of one for writing about subway construction. The big issue for this extension is financial. When it opens, there will be a major increase in net transit operating costs for the TTC which York Region will not share. If this is accompanied by some sort of enhanced (read “cheaper”) cross border fare system with Presto, it will cost even more.
Nobody is talking about where the money will come from to pay for this, and that is the big issue on Spadina, indeed for all of The Big Move.
So, thanks for the cheap shot.
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This statement makes it sound like you are out of touch and have not been reading Steve’s columns and everyone else’s comments. A subway can serve a capacity of around 30,000 people per hour. Therefore, it costs double or triple the cost per km as an LRT line. Extensive studies of the population and employment destinations have shown that most transit lines in Scarborough will never get above 10,000 riders per hour, even if a faster subway service is provided thereby attracting more riders and attracting higher density development near its stations. Why would you spend double or triple the amount of money you need to provide transit service? You can spend 1/3 or 1/2 the amount and provide LRT to address the likely future capacity demands. Then you can use the money saved to build other LRT or subway lines – this is basic logic.
Further, the Yonge subway line south of Eglinton, is already servicing 30,000 people per hour while the Bloor-Danforth line in the core is up above 26 or 27,000. You obviously should be building more capacity (such as the “Downtown Relief Line”) where the capacity is currently exceeded and where the density of employment/population justifies such an expenditure. Further, adding more suburban rapid transit will add more riders to these already at-capacity lines near the core.
The only way we should be building subway lines both downtown and in the suburbs is if the governments are able to persuade the population to accept various taxes to cover such expenditures AND to cover the operational costs of such lines. Running subways where the demand is not really there means they end up losing money and then service has to get cut elsewhere. As a whole, a far great % of the costs of operating the TTC and other transit systems should come from the government through its general revenues, as in the case virtually everywhere else in the world, including the US.
Everyone should also keep in mind the options of building grade-separate LRT such as having it in elevated guideways (including down the middle of a road as they do in Vancouver) and in trenches and in hydro or rail right-of-ways (but only where these corridors will reach the true high-demand nodes.
Steve: A related issue in all this is the role of commuter rail into the 905. One reason for the allegedly higher demand on a Scarborough subway is that the model assigns trips to it that originate in the 905. If there were all-day service on, say, the Uxbridge subdivision (Stouffville corridor), this would change substantially. It is a sad example of how demand projections are “fixed” to suit the arguments at hand, and how we may waste local transit capital dollars to deal with demand that should be carried on the regional system.
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Are there any intersections in Toronto where both a far and near stop exist that may be there as a hold-over from an earlier era in route history and has simply not been removed for whatever reason?
For example, and only coincidentally, at Leslie and Elgin Mills, there is both a far and near side stop for westbound Elgin Mills 80 buses. However, prior to the beginning of July this summer, the Leslie 90 bus made a turn here and provided service along Elgin Mills. With service on the two roads split into two separate routes, the west-side westbound stop is no longer necessary (it also serves the rush hour-only route 83A, but so does the southbound stop on Leslie). The concrete and shelter are there and I suspect they will remain for quite some time.
When I first moved to Richmond Hill in 2000, there was a west-side westbound stop on 16th Avenue at Bayview, but it was not duplicated on the east-side. This sometimes made for frantic double-crossings for passengers needing to transfer from a westbound to a northbound bus (especially in the pre-YRT days when the Bayview route was operated by GO and the 16th route by Richmond Hill Transit). I am not familiar with the earlier history of the route on Bayview, but I always suspected the west-side stop on 16th was originally for a bus turning from Bayview.
Some time after YRT operations began, an east-side stop was added and duplicate stops remained. Only about three or four years ago was the west-side stop finally decomissioned. The concrete pad for the stop was actually removed a fairly short time after this.
Compare this to where I grew up on Cass Avenue in the Birchmount-Sheppard area. The Birchmount 17 route (and a Kennedy shuttle for a short period) used to loop on Cass and Amethyst. There were three stops along there: one on Cass just west of Birchmound, a second on Cass at Amethyst, and a third on Amethyst at Sheppard. The two-section sidewalk pad connecting the sidewalk to the curb remained at those stops for quite a few years after the bus service was gone.
Steve: Another variation on this is local land use. The Coxwell bus stop northbound at Queen is quite a way south of the intersection. This is left over from days when there was a gas station here and a corner stop would put waiting passengers (and a shelter) in the way of traffic. The site was built on years ago, but the bus still stops, inconveniently, well south of Queen.
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It’s not a cheap shot — I’m just calling them as I see them. I’ve seen so many articles here on Cherry St. track reconstruction, I actually developed a constant craving for them — black cherries, sweet cherries, sour cherries, you name it. My toy PCC streetcar was dented from flying cherry pits.
As I said, you have the right to exclusively write about what interests YOU transit-wise, and nothing more. This isn’t a transit news source like Transit Toronto, but it wouldn’t hurt to broaden your transit horizons a bit instead of rehashing the same old tiring LRT vs. subway tirade ad infinitum.
Steve: Cherry Street’s article has a total of two updates, and the line is significant because it is new and, eventually, will connect the eastern waterfront into the downtown streetcar system. Other articles in which Cherry is mentioned have to do with the overall redevelopment of the waterfront which is probably the most important activity downtown for decades.
As for LRT vs subways, it is a vital debate, but it isn’t the only thing I write about as any reader of this site can see. You really are making your comment through a very selective view of my interests.
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The stop “around the corner” from the subway station is set up differently at different subway stations.
At Royal York Station, there is a southbound stop at the south-west corner for southbound buses. There are no northbound stop for northbound buses.
At Jane Station, there is a northbound stop on Jane Street, EXCEPT during extended rush hours.
At Dundas West Station, there are no stops at all for vehicles coming out of the station (excluding the Blue Night stops). I wish there was a streetcar stop at the south-east corner of Bloor & Dundas (except during rush hour).
Steve: Similarly the southbound stops on Broadview and on Main at Danforth to not operate during peak periods. The intent is to stop passengers who have just missed a streetcar from racing through traffic across the street from the station to the carstop. In the process, it’s a major pain in the ass for those of us for whom this is our “local” stop. The worst times are weekends when the occasional unfamiliar operator sails by on a Saturday or Sunday thinking the stop is not in service.
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I agree this could be the issue for the two Queensway stops on Kipling Avenue, but the two Brown’s Line stops for Horner Ave. are a waste in my opinion. Horner Ave. is not that busy a road to catch, although there is a TD Bank and a Rexall Pharmacy on the northeast side both of which may benefit from having a stop on the north side.
And Steve please keep up the good work with your blog. We may not always see eye to eye on every point, but I have learned a great deal from your blog and you are well informed about what you write about. And that, to me, is important.
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That’s why the highest paid Mayor did a 180 on the Hurontario LRT? Look, I grew up in Brampton, and take Zum to go back and visit friends, but let’s call a spade a spade, Brampton treats transit just like any other city – poorly. And, people still look down on bus service as beneath them. You’re right, it isn’t perfect and has miles to go on improving service and getting people out of cars. It might execute it *a bit* better but, by no means, is it the gold standard.
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NYC started with this after they refused to push the button but they wanted to eliminate unnecessary cycles so they then went to the pedestrian detectors. When they jay walked to avoid the detectors they went back to continuous cycles between sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. Every hotel in Israel has one elevator that runs all night and day on the Sabbath stopping at every floor. You soon learn not to take this one if you are in a hurry.
Steve: You don’t have to go to Israel to encounter Shabbat elevators. Some Toronto buildings have them too.
The major problems with YRT is that aside from the condominiums the residential density is too low, the major roads are too far apart, and the density is probably too high where there are condominiums. This gives the double problem of not enough passengers to warrant a decent bus service in most areas and traffic overload near major intersections near the 404 and 407. Thank the OMB for many of those problems.
Until the province decides to subsidize transit why should residents of Toronto provide a larger subsidy than they already do so you can have a cheaper fare. Right now they are subsidizing out of city riders for about 1/3 of their fare. If you want a subsidy, cry to the province or York region. Rob Ford doesn’t want to subsidize his own citizens so he certainly won’t do it for others. If you choose to live in York be prepared for the consequences.
No one is forcing you to read his blog and you can always start your own to talk about whatever interests you. I have read many of the other transit blogs and they get a comment every month or 2. You don’t have to agree with Steve but you have to admit that he creates more useful discussion than all other blogs combined.
Like all good intentions by Steve to keep the topics limited to the single topic this one also seems to have gone astray. Sorry.
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I used to work in the area and can tell you what’s still going on (it’s been about a year, but here goes):
1. A subway is being built across the street from a cemetery. Plenty of room for future development!
2. Some lanes have been closed between Jane and Interchange Way, same with Steeles.
3. Once service starts every other train will travel to the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.
4. Did I miss anything else? Oh, wait, one of the stations has a new name, which Steve covered, and the name was just a political play, and not anything to do with normal naming convention.
What else did you want covered that hasn’t already been listed? Do you want to know how York University and its student population feels? or the AMC? Steve takes the time to write about transit issues and has taught a lot of us about transit in this region. It’s only natural to focus on Toronto where most people in this region live and where transit seems to be the most politicized and unfinished. If you’ve got a problem, start your own damn transit website and blog about whatever you want.
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Actually, I figured the reason was that Steve just wanted some Tiny Tom Donuts, and thankfully not a cronut burger, and to enjoy some time at the C.N.E.
I don’t understand why some here are seemingly agitated over Steve’s lack of coverage over the opening of the first part of the highway 7 rapidway. While it is noteworthy to some extent, I’d think he would be more interested in waiting 6 months to a year to see what VIVA actually does with it and what lessons Toronto can learn from it rather than focus on a ribbon cutting ceremony.
Steve: Precisely. And, no, I was not at the CNE.
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In light of some recent comments, I’d just like to express my own appreciation and thanks for what Steve does. I will refrain from complaining that he hasn’t been here in Waterloo surveying the proposed LRT route or monitoring the bus service in front of my office. I for one very much appreciate the streetcar track construction photos. I consider myself reasonably well informed about transit but I’ve learned a lot from reading here. I’m not upset that I haven’t learned other stuff that isn’t on this site.
So again, thank you very much, Steve, for providing this forum.
Steve: You’re welcome.
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Sorting out stops at Brown’s Line and Horner won’t make any difference to the operation of the TTC. The south side stop is necessary for the 110A. The north side stop, which is considerably more popular on the 123, means easier access to the school/library/rec centre which is just north off Horner. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a 123 that had to stop at both stops, so who cares?
Near and far side stops are a bigger deal at, for example, Don Mills for the Finch East buses. Back when I was riding the route regularly, express buses were just 39 variants, and it was pretty common for a bus to stop at both the near and far side stop. On the other hand, pedestrians are a pretty minor consideration to all the drivers who use this intersection; personally, I was always very careful if I needed to cross (in any direction).
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While on the subject of intersections with near and far side stops, I am puzzled how a stop wound up on Davisville on both sides of Mt. Pleasant. Do you remember if this was from the days of the Mt. Pleasant car? Was there a loop there?
Steve: No loop. I will leave this question to Robert Wightman who grew up about a block from that intersection and might know more.
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Since people have been mentioning traffic signal peculiarities, I’d like to throw in the reality I’ve been noticing in recent months that the all-red phase is disappearing at some intersections in downtown Toronto. As a pedestrian, I LOVE this! It’s an interesting shift in traffic planning, because they’re adjusting the technology to match existing human behaviour instead expecting human behaviour to adjust to the technology. It is extremely common practice for pedestrians, at intersections where it is known no advance left exists, to watch the perpendicular direction change signals and then start crossing once the perpendicular signal is red; they do not wait for their signal to turn green. I think this elimination of the all-red phase is a smart move that makes a more pedestrian-oriented environment, however minor it may seem on the surface (sometimes it’s the little things!). Hats off to the transportation/planning staff behind this.
Steve: I’m not sure this is necessarily pro-pedestrian because the all-red phase could be seen as giving those who start out early (typically the pedestrians) a few seconds’ edge over autos.
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She only did a 180 on the part up Main St. but partly because there is a lot of objections from the people who live near the street and the businesses. There is still a lot of clout from that small section of Brampton. To support it would have cost her a lot of support. She supports LRT south of Shoppers World but wants the route north looked at again.
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Moaz: that explains the ZUM buses with the word “BACKUP” printed on the side … guess BT wants to make it clear they are responsive to changes on the road.
Moaz: Mississauga also has a number of 2 stop situations at intersections like Dundas/Dixie and Dundas/Cawthra. Kipling/Queensway is a massive intersection too. As for Brown’s Line & Horner, it is a more ‘urban’ scaled intersection but I’m guessing traffic speeds (and perhaps trucks) are a factor there.
Moaz: true enough … this particular post was meant to be a stub to organize a few comments.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: [bows graciously]
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Your comments about the York BRT Steve, is so right on. It appears more of a very expensive paving job, not helping transit or cars. Actually, for cars, well you’ve got those right hand/through lane combo’s. In other words, you could wait 2, 3, 4, 5 green light cycles, just because there’s always someone crossing the road, while one car is trying to turn right. And there is this 1/3 green light time lost, travelling farther to your destination for cars, U-Turns big trucks can’t do with ease.
This whole plan, is ruining transportation, while no one wins, except those big consultant firms. Next time, just take the same money, and give it to feed the poor, since transit wasn’t really helped all that much. Yet York Staff let the whole thing happen for no real benefits. I bet you no studies were done for “the effect on traffic and business”. YORK GRIDLOCK this is the only results. Why would they simply include 2+ cars with the buses?
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Jonathan says:Was there a loop there?
The only loops in the area for the Mt. Pleasant car were at Eglinton and St. Clair. In terms of why there are stops on both sides, it might be a remnant from when the area was industrialized.
Steve: The industrial area was down at Merton Street, now a forest of condos. Davisville was and is residential.
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