41 thoughts on “Toronto Deserves Better Transit Service Now! Part 2: What Can Be Done”

1. My first comment is on express service. By reviewing the service summary, one will find that express service during peak hours only saves a few minutes of time on most trip. In terms of real conditions, express service just supplement local service. Most riders wouldn’t go out their way to wait for an express bus while a local bus creeps by. What is the TTC’s definition of express service? Is it suppose to be a fast and attractive service or just to supplement local service?

   Steve: One problem with “express” services looked at purely from a schedule point of view is that, as you say, the differences in running time can be small compared to local services. The new 195 Jane express bus, unlike the 35E is replaces, runs with limited stops over the entire route from Steeles to Bloor. Despite this, its running times (including recovery time at terminals) will be longer than the current scheduled time for the 35E.

   On the new schedule, the running times vary by up to 10 minutes from the local service over a round trip, or 5 minutes one way. It will be interesting to see what the actual behaviour is once the service is running because the scheduled times imply the trip is dominated by congestion and general road speed, not by stop service time. I will be comparing before and after operating information to review this issue.

   Second, if the city refuses to activate transit priority for the current streetcar lines, what will happen to the surface portion of the Eglinton LRT assuming it gets built? If the LRT trains are stuck behind red lights, that a good enough reason for most people to criticize LRT as a slow streetcar.

   Steve: The issue is a political one at Council. The Ford era brought a clear indication that transit priority was less important than under Miller, and there was nobody in a position to champion this. It will also be amusing to see whether the provincial agency, Metrolinx, takes on this issue.

   Third. How does the TTC decide that additional buses are needed for a particular route (or branch of a route)? If the TTC spent more resources on spreading buses out properly, wouldn’t more capacity be created without additional buses?

   Steve: Decisions to add service are based on riding counts plus feedback from divisions that operate each route. This is tempered by available headroom in the budget and that is why one of my recommendations is that we need to know, publicly, what backlog there is for improvements.

   Better spreading out vehicles does provide more capacity, but I am not sure that this will avoid many service increases. First off, that bunching must exist now almost all of the time on the same portion of a route to represent a reserve that can be counted on. Second, any savings are a one-time benefit — worth getting, but not reproducible for future years. Reliably spaced service (and its companion, an absence of short turns) is important more for making transit service attractive and credible as a preferred travel mode rather than one that is resented for not working far too often.

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2. Fare policy: As Presto is supposed to be in operation in 2015 the discussion of fare policy needs to get underway very soon. I agree with you that the current transfer policy would be virtually impossible to transfer to Presto and, like you, I prefer the time based fare

   Presumably the amount of time that a fare was valid could vary so that, for example, on weekdays it would be 2 hours and on weekends 3 or that once one had paid for x fares and the price paid reached the cost of a daily pass you would not be charged more. (Presumably this logic could also be applied to weekly and monthly passes – possibly with a ‘premium’ added so that if you bought your monthly pass ‘by the drink’ rather than by the ‘bottle’ you would only get ‘free travel’ after you spent the cost of a monthly pass plus x%).

   Steve: Although the Presto roll out will be in progress in 2015, it won’t be finished system-wide with the important addition of all of the bus routes in 2016. Yes, we should have had this debate already, but the Stintz Commission was not interested in meaty policy issues that could have financial implications, and the matter of timed fares only surfaced after Stintz decided to run for mayor. (She has since mused about zone fares showing yet another inconsistency in her position.) Realistically, we won’t be changing the fare structure for 2015, and so the goal should be to aim at 2016 and co-ordinate this with the bus roll out.

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3. It seems to me that there are a few obvious improvements to the bus system that can be made. Running more buses along and parallel to overcrowded subway routes, like along Avenue, Yonge, Mt Pleasant/Jarvis, Church and Bloor/Danforth would be a significant improvement. The same is true for bus routes that run parallel to overcrowded streetcar routes – e.g. creating a bus service that runs along Lake Shore Boulevard, Bremner, St. George/Beverley, Gerrard west of Parliament, and Dundas east of Broadview. Also the TTC needs to buy more articulated buses now, though obviously it should avoid cutting back service frequencies when it does this. Of course there is a limit to how much the surface system can be improved in Toronto, unlike the 905 which needs massive improvements, but this is the low hanging fruit.

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4. It occurs to me that the specification for headway variation (+-3min, IIRC) is wholly inappropriate, mainly because routes have differing headways. A rider’s expectation of the acceptable variation from headway (and, possibly, schedule), in minutes, will vary according to both the published schedule and, especially for short-headway routes, the headway. For example, if the headway is six minutes, a variation of more than, say, 50% of that six minutes might be considered by the rider as the limit of acceptability. But, if the published headway is, say, twenty minutes, the rider’s perception of an acceptable variation may well be a different amount (time and/or percentage) of the published headway.

   If goals for headway variation and reporting were set by percentage of the published headway, I suspect that we would have much a better metric for performance and reporting. I note that the percentage headway variation target might itself also vary somewhat according to the size of the published headway. This approach would also remove the possibility of a car being three minutes late on a three-minute headway showing as ‘on time.’ The approach would also automatically consider riders on short-headway routes being more concerned about headway and riders on long-headway routes being more concerned about adherence to schedule.

   I’ve little doubt that such a scheme of headway percentages as targets would be easy to calculate and then stipulate, and that it would provide a much clearer sense of what is actually happening on the line when reports are made. The problem, as I see it, is that such as scheme might also show up current deficiencies in service delivery.

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5. A very thorough summary!

   There are many opportunities for possible efficiency improvements which I think require the board to champion and fight for with council, and with the public, which they are not doing. This is not just for funds, but for the likes of transit vehicle priorities and traffic law enforcement.

   Priority lanes for King and Queen streetcars would speed the service (improvement) and either reduce vehicle requirements (cost saving) or increase frequency (improvement). Should the board not fight for this in front of council? Someone is fighting for reserved bike lanes on Richmond and Adelaide, but lights are out when it comes to transit.

   Express buses, whenever I see them, have rarely more than a few riders, who must pay double. Yet, because it is quicker, bus operating costs are lower. Would it not make sense to ENCOURAGE their use by charging normal fares, promote the service, fill the busses, all with little cost impact? It might even ease the crush at Yonge/Bloor a tad.

   Another money issue is that the TTC carries the bag for costs brought about by others. The waterfront imbroglio causes idling a small fleet of streetcars (over 2 years now), and replacing them with a similar fleet of busses, which could be used to good advantage elsewhere. Should not WT assume all costs for this (excluding track which was kaput), costs that would not have been incurred if WT had not started the project? Perhaps then they would have kept to a schedule. Let WT, instead of the TTC, explain to the taxpayer. Then the TTC could use those funds elsewhere to good effect.

   Assigning costs where they belong is fundamental to running a business.

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6. One thing I always wondered about the Fordiban hate for streetcars is that they never seemed to notice that a longer vehicle carries more people for the same number of drivers. A true “bean counter” should seek to maintain or reduce employee-hours per rider-kilometre, focusing on issues like absenteeism and retention (since time spent training new employees to replace non-retirement attrition is a loss to the system, though less so if it is caused by transfer). Councillors of the Ford bent are obsessed with absolute staff count rather than productivity – they count heads not beans and run to their favoured Sun columnist with the dire news.

   This sort of obsession leads to adverse consequences in organisations where internal functions are hived out to consultants to create an artificially low headcount as measured by direct employment while staffing costs increase (because consultants are paid and so are their agencies). Some of these consultants are ex-staff handed substantial sums to leave voluntarily only to resume their former tasks with a different company name on their paystub.

   While it’s still early days in the reintroduction of articulated buses I think it’s fair to say that there are several routes in the city that could use them if a goal of returning to RGS standards is to be achieved while moderating headcount increases, assuming yard space is available. But the first picture of bunched artics popped up on twitter yesterday so we clearly have a ways to go before we can unlock the potential of longer vehicles.

   Another concern would be that increased offpeak bus utilisation would create issues finding maintenance and cleaning windows. This could be mitigated by making some downtown night bus routes CLRV operated but this would then cause loss of accessible route status.

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7. Better transit? This weekend the subway announcement was that Line 1 was closed south of Bloor and in order to access Union Station, customers must get on the University Spadina line. So, now we have multiple names. Line 1, University Spadina Line, Yonge Line, Yonge University Spadina Line, Yellow Line. Last week, the lines were inconsistently referred to with their new numbers sometimes, sometimes with colours, and sometimes with old names. If you want better transit, then first and foremost stop wasting money on breaking something that was not broken and hence restore the original signage ASAP. Thank you!

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8. Steve said:

   Better green time for transit at traffic signals will be the bread-and-butter of priority schemes for the foreseeable future, especially on a system wide basis. The challenge will be to wrest priority from traffic engineers who see their job as moving traffic overall with transit getting the “trickle down” effect of better movement. Sometimes, but not always, a transit improvement benefits all road users.

   Unfortunately some of the real “low hanging fruit” is beyond TTC purview. Transit Priority, parking on and left turns on key routes. However as you have commented earlier traffic engineers say transit priority only really works where there is spare capacity at the intersection. I believe that if you see the goal of keeping all traffic moving equally well. Essentially, to make Transit priority work well on the most crowded routes, will mean that there will need to be a political/management view change in the traffic department. I think one of the problems, made worse by the Ford view that Streetcars were a problem, has been that it seems that the planners view transit vehicles as being no different (even though they have 50 times as many people) than any others. To make priority work well, along with technical changes, would require a change in performance evaluation and therefore cultural change, of the traffic management group. In essence if council would change it so the departments most important metric was movement of transit vehicles, light priority would favor TTC massively.

   This along with really irritating some car drivers would also push traffic to the TTC, as car drivers would note how the movements of these vehicles were favored. This would free space on the roads for movements, as long as the TTC has the capacity to move the people (a real issue resolved at peak only with retaining vehicles even as new ones come into service and finally ordering more). There are only very slight improvements to be made in Toronto in the short term, without making another group suffer a little. Logically the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few, holding 20 cars or 1 Streetcar, the Streetcar should win.

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9. Subway fanatics need to understand that there are LRTs in Hong Kong. Not just subways.

   And other cities deserves better transit too in GTHA. Mississauga needs their LRT just as much Toronto needs a relief line. Please be consistent.

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10. Thanks for your response my previous comments.

    Going slightly off topic. We all know the TTC has be phasing in articulated buses and claiming reduced short turns thus a better service. With a snow storm yesterday, an articulated bus wasn’t able to climb a hill just north at Dufferin and Eglinton. Most operator driving an artic seem to have requested a swap for a normal 40ft bus after the afternoon on Dufferin. Once the buses have been reduced, have the TTC discuss any emergency plans when articulated bus cannot operate? I suspect that they will handle it like the Queen car. Just leave a CLRV in place of an ALRV without additional service. That’s not the way for better transit.

    Steve: There has been no discussion of this just as there has never been any discussion of the Queen car running with CLRVs trying to pick up ALRV headway loads. I plan to review the operation of Bathurst and Dufferin to track the behaviour of the artic fleet and the line management, such as it is, that comes with the changeover. I fully expect things to be just as screwed up as they are today, and we will all have to bash the TTC over the head with their claims that fewer vehicles are more easily managed.

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11. Mark Dowling said:

    One thing I always wondered about the Fordiban hate for streetcars is that they never seemed to notice that a longer vehicle carries more people for the same number of drivers.

    There’s a lot that they don’t notice, or choose to ignore when it doesn’t suit the ideology or when the opposite message has a better political spin. Scarborough LRT vs. subway: getting a transit line that does nearly the same thing for substantially less money (and at no cost to Toronto!) should be a no-brainer to a true fiscal conservative, but, hey, it’s not a subway.

    The Fords have cemented the definition of “gravy” as wasteful and inefficient spending. When making Sunday dinner one week earlier this winter, it occurred to me that real, literal gravy is actually the opposite of waste and inefficiency. You take the drippings from a meat you have already roasted, add some water from the vegetables that you have finished cooking, and then add some flour (and seasoning if desired). Gravy is actually a good example of efficiency — you are making things stretch farther and making something out of almost nothing.

    Steve: Hmmm … making something out of almost nothing … sounds like making a Mayor or Councillor out of a Ford.

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12. Better transit does not involve reopening already settled debates. Earlier today Olivia Chow promised to scrap the already approved Scarborough subway – a project already approved by ALL three levels of government. Let us build what has already been approved and if she wants something to debate out, then we can debate about projects which have NOT been approved by any level of government (a Downtown Relief Line or DRL to name just one example). Debating a DRL does not mean that it will be approved but things that have not been approved (like the DRL) is what we should debate. The Scarborough LRT was NEVER approved by the Federal Government and only for the Scarborough subway is there any federal money available (not for the Scarborough LRT and not for the DRL). If Toronto rejects the Scarborough subway money from the federal government, then that money will go to other towns and cities which want it and definitely we will NOT see even one cent of that money towards either the DRL or the Scarborough LRT.

    Olivia Chow says a 30 year very small property tax increase for the Scarborough subway is too much but it is not too much to have a very large 50 yr property tax increase for the many times more expensive Downtown Relief Line.

    Steve: Get your facts straight. The Feds didn’t have any money in the Scarborough LRT because they were never asked. They only had money in the Sheppard LRT project which is being held hostage by the Scarborough caucus at Queen’s Park, among other folk who dream of subways everywhere. Saying that the Feds never approved of the Scarborough LRT project is a flat out lie because it implies that they were asked and turned it down. The only reason they offered money for the subway was to try to show the Tory flag in Scarborough where the Liberals hold sway, and to give the impression of helping out our windbag of a mayor.

    As for Toronto’s money going elsewhere, well, no. The program from which it is supposed to be drawn is to be allocated per capita across the country. It is “Toronto money”, and we have chosen to spend a big chunk of what is coming our way on one subway line.

    We had an approved LRT plan which was tossed overboard when it suited various pols buy votes by telling hard-done-by Scarborough that they “deserved” a subway.

    As for the tax increase, it ramps up to 2.6% over three years. A 1% increase yields about $35m, and so the 2.6% will bring about $90m per year for the whole city. Most of this will be borne by residential taxpayers because Toronto is rebalancing commercial and residential taxes — 3/4 of the increase goes to homes, 1/4 to commercial property. Thus, Toronto homeowners will collectively pay roughly $67m per from 2016 onward so that Scarborough can feel loved.

    As for the DRL, yes it will cost more, but it is also a Metrolinx project and will have substantial provincial investment and it will benefit many more people including folks who live in Scarborough.

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13. This antiquated technology belongs only in museums. I declare that the Downtown Relief line should use the Broadview alignment so that it will knock out another streetcar line in addition to the east west lines Downtown.

    Steve: Strange how your reply to an article that talks a lot about bus service focuses on a totally impractical scheme to get rid of the Broadview streetcar.

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14. I don’t know why all these mayor candidates are only focusing on Scarborough transit … seriously, just announce that your number one transit policy will be to increase the number of buses during rush hour by 100-200 every year while you are in office … and slightly less for off-peak … and that 50% of the 100-200 new vehicles bought (starting 2 years in, to allow for ramp-up, would be for a premium express network, partnering with GO to get their higher quality buses with on-board wi-fi etc. and a premium price).

    Similar price, way more votes … way more effective at moving people and getting cars off the road.

    Steve: But we rarely have ribbon cutting ceremonies, let alone vote buying jamborees, for bus service.

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15. As usual, an excellent job of summarizing the issues and asking the necessary questions.

    On the topic of “more buses” I would again say that TTC should seriously consider leasing buses coming off the fleets of the 905 agencies because they generally maintain a 12 year life cycle compared to TTC’s 18 (which they are moving down to 15) years. Second, TTC could save some time and let the 905 agencies pick up TTC passengers on their routes that come into Toronto and run parallel to low-demand TTC routes.

    The other thing TTC should be doing is aiming for a real 1:1 replacement for 12m buses with 18m artic buses … not 1:1 on seats but 1:1 on actual buses. This would be a huge improvement to service and show clear interest in passenger comfort.

    On “more streetcars” I suppose we can hope for the funding to come up for the additional 60 streetcars. TTC still doesn’t seem to be talking about moving ALRVs as you proposed long ago. The 507 test was half-hearted but needs to be reconsidered. I still think that adding a 507 from Long Branch to Dundas West, and turning 504 and 501 streetcars back at Roncessvales and Humber (respectively) is a solution for improved frequent service.

    One line management, TTC needs to invest in this and recognize that this is a problem because it throws routes out of schedule and leads to unpredictable responses from passengers.

    On Wheel Trans, I have a few questions:

    1. Will Wheel Trans be able to benefit from the call for more accessible taxis with the Toronto Taxi Permit?
    2. The number of “patient transfer” services has exploded in the past 3 years. Can these companies be leveraged to provide services for non ambulatory Wheel Trans users … Assuming that safety and care standards are improved and made consistent.
    3. Does TTC still run the community buses?
    4. Is there wisdom in merging the Community Bus and Wheel Trans services to encompass both functions (para transit and community access) as the population of Toronto ages (and there is an increased emphasis on aging-in-place)?
    5. How does the capital cost of a Wheel Transit “Friendly bus” low-floor cutaway compare to the old Econoline LF buses … or the El Dorado buses that MiWay is using … as compared to the cost of a 12m bus.

    And of course, the big question … since operator cost is the biggest piece of the operations pie, is there a chance TTC will consider a separate, lower pay structure for Wheel Trans/Community Bus operators? (I realize this is not going to be a popular option).

    Cheers, Moaz

    Steve: Re your questions:

    1. It is unclear what effect the accessible taxi policy will have on Wheel Trans. An obvious question is the difference between a WT rider who pays a standard TTC fare (the balance is made up by billing to WT by the taxi operator) and someone who has ambulatory problems but is not registered with Wheel Trans. A related question is why only WT-contracted taxis should get the subsidy that helps them pay for their vehicles. This is nowhere near being sorted out yet because the Council policy is so new.
    2. Patient transfers require medical attention. They do not belong in taxis whose drivers do not have the training, and whose vehicles are almost certainly not insured for that type of service.
    3. Yes. The 400 series of routes are Community Buses.
    4. The Community Buses operate with Wheel Trans vehicles and are intended for riders who are not necessarily registered with WT, and who are mobile enough to get to and from stops on the routes on their own. Not all communities have a cluster of services that suit a Community Bus, and the hours of service are limited (while provincial legislation requires full service for WT users).
    5. Based on a “below the line” capital budget project for 58 new WT buses at a cost of $22m, the per vehicle cost is about $380k. The Econoline vans were cheaper, but they provided worse service. A standard 12m bus costs about $780k. I don’t know what an El Dorado would cost fitted out for use as a WT van.

    As for pay, please explain to me why someone driving a WT van should be paid less? I am not sure, but this may already have been the subject of an arbitration.

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16. Apparently the latest big name candidate to enter the mayoral race indicated today on the radio that one of the biggest problems with the TTC was the cost to the riders.

    When the progressive candidate apes the opinions of Rob Ford circa 2011, I despair of anything real getting done on the transit file.

    Steve: Olivia Chow, like other candidates, is playing a “concern for the little guy” position. However, it was worth noting that in a video interview, she made the point that people are paying more for transit but getting less in service. This leaves open the possibility of linking fare increases with promises of better service. We shall see.

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17. No more debates about already settled issues

    Was it settled the first time before 2010 or was it settled the third time after Ford’s MoU was turfed by council?

    If the money wasting demagogues can re-open the issue whenever they want, so too can the fiscally responsible politicians who respect the taxpayer.

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18. Intra city transport itself is not really profitable even in Hong Kong. The only way a transportation company makes money is by long distance travel. Next year, the Shinkansen network will reach Hakodate in Hokkaido. This 200km extension has caused hundreds kilometer of local lines to be closed else where on the JR Hokkaido network. We have to ask ourselves, how many local routes are we willing to sacrifice for a few expensive new routes.

    This is true in Toronto too. By using metro technology everywhere, how many bus routes like the 167 or the 42A are not run frequently. Put another way, we might marvel at metros running. However, when the local service bus comes every 30 minutes as oppose to 20 because of lack of funding, will metros be so glamorous? Foreigners are always impressed by the express and Shinkansen in Japan. Once they get off, they will realize that some local trains run once every three hours.

    The TTC has been improving their hard product in the past few years. The problem is that new metro and trams are nice, but when it is crowded, any goodwill is quickly lost. Now the TTC needs to work on their soft product so that they can charge a premium price. Hopefully, with more money heading in to the TTC, they can make improvements without begging various levels of governments for money.

    The TTC also needs a loyalty program to build up a wider audience. The more people use the TTC, the bigger the voice for improvement. When a lot people use something, no government can refuse funding. Look at the people using the Champlain Bridge in Montreal, which government can say no to that request without losing the next election.

    Aeroplan is a good fit for the TTC. It is one of the most loyal loyalty program in Canada. Instead of flying just to maintain 100K status, taking the TTC will help to maintain status and distinction. The average rider taking the 36 or 199 to Finch and going downtown probably uses 20km of TTC each way every day. That’s 40km per day and 800km per month. In a year, that’s 9600 km. If 1km equals to 1 Aeroplan points, that would be the equivalent of a return YYZ to YVR flight. Not a bad way to maintain loyalty.

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19. Steve said:

    Patient transfers require medical attention. They do not belong in taxis whose drivers do not have the training, and whose vehicles are almost certainly not insured for that type of service.

    Moaz: oh, I wasn’t suggesting patient transfers use taxis, but rather whether or not they can be used as a supplement to Wheel Trans. I’ve had the opportunity to spend a lot of time at hospitals in Peel Region and noticed that even Peel Region has its own patient transfer service along with the existing regional TransHelp (which my parents use regularly).

    Steve said:

    As for pay, please explain to me why someone driving a WT van should be paid less? I am not sure, but this may already have been the subject of an arbitration.

    As a cost containment measure, and based on the idea that driving a Wheel Trans van takes less out of operators than controlling a 12m/18m bus or streetcar with as many as 150-200 passengers aboard. Of course it is not a popular choice to make … and I don’t think many agencies have separate pay scales. I seem to recall Jarrett Walker mentioning it had been done in Vancouver but I’m not sure about that.

    Cheers, Moaz

    Steve: Are you willing to take a pay cut because your employer needs to “contain costs”? Wheel Trans is expensive because it has a high ratio of infrastructure (vehicles including contract taxis) and staff time to rides. It can also be argued that WT has problems with the efficient use of its vehicle fleet, but I don’t know first hand whether that is true. The question of how effective its dispatching system is has been an issue for users of the service for years.

    Sure, if we pay the staff less, we will save money, but the same can be said of many parts of the transit system and of city services in general. At the other end of the scale, you might want to consider the taxi industry where the effective hourly rate can be less than the minimum wage, and yet people still complain about high taxi fares.

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20. I see the commenter above making that same repeated line “respect the taxpayer”. There is something really mean hearted about tag line that I can’t describe. I would love to see more low income, disabled and marginalized peoples in this city living in dignity and at a better standard of living, but maybe I am just crazy or something.

    In response to some of the above commenters about the new articulated buses and especially the new streetcars, I am of course more than exicted. The beauty of these new LRVs is that they are modular with a bogie-bridge design, so in the case of our new LRVs there are three bogie sections and two bridge sections, but some LRVs out there have even four bogie sections and three bridge sections, so really the potential to have even longer LRVs in the future is there, not to mention perhaps bringing back some multiple unit streetcar service someday like what we once had on the Bloor Danforth streetcar line and Queen back in the 1960s.

    I have also seen articulated buses with say three sections and two articulations with still just one driver. There are also electric trolley articulated buses out there in Seattle and Vancouver. But now I see more electric battery powered vehicles out there with e bikes, the Chevrolet volt and now especially the Tesla cars. Could electric battery powered buses and streetcars be too far off either? I heard somewhere of some company that designed a train locomotive powered by just electric batteries. One can only imagine the potential in just another thirty years. The future can indeed be rather exciting! : )

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21. Reply to Steven who said

    “Most riders wouldn’t go out their way to wait for an express bus while a local bus creeps by.”

    I would, every time. Pretty much every single time. Unless there are no express buses coming (as per NextBus, RocketMan, etc.) for a very long amount of time. The day the TTC made the 95E a true express bus (express from Markham Road instead of Don Mills) was a great day.

    Reply to MarkE who wrote:

    “Express buses, whenever I see them, have rarely more than a few riders, who must pay double. Yet, because it is quicker, bus operating costs are lower. Would it not make sense to ENCOURAGE their use by charging normal fares, promote the service, fill the busses, all with little cost impact? It might even ease the crush at Yonge/Bloor a tad.”

    Are we talking about the same thing when we talk about express buses? Express buses like the 95E, 116E, 190 or 199 Rocket do not cost more. I think you are talking about the ‘premium’ downtown express routes – those do have an added cost, although I’m not sure quite why? Maybe Steve can explain that? (I don’t know anything about their passenger loads – they run nowhere near anywhere I currently go on transit.) Just wanted some clarification on that.

    Steve: I think MarkE refers to the 14x series of Downtown Express buses that operate at a premium fare from Mt. Pleasant, Avenue Road, The Beach, Don Mills and Humber Bay. I see these buses occasionally if I am in the right place at the right time. Some have decent loads, others are rather poorly used.

    The TTC always omits these from their route performance stats raising obvious suspicions about their value as a use of scarce resources. The Humber Bay route has been “on trial” for a few years since its inception and has never done well, but it enjoys political protection. At the very least, for fairness, the TTC Board should insist that the ridership numbers for these routes be made public so that they can be evaluated alongside other services.

    An obvious related question is the oft-heard suggestion that some of these could be used to offload the subway if they were made regular fare operations. I would caution that this presumes there is sufficient demand in each corridor of traffic bound for the core area, and that there is capacity in the core to handle all of the resulting bus traffic on the downtown loop they use.

    In any event, the review of possible ways to relieve subway demand now underway includes parallel bus services as one of many options.

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22. I used to take the Mount Pleasant Express several years ago. It was a great route to work and well worth the double fare to me. To get a seat in the morning I had to pick an early bus – the next one that got me to work before my start time was standing only. At night there were fewer buses and much less demand – seats for all. These buses came along Adelaide Street and stuck to the curb lane. As the curb lane was a gridlock (right turn to the Gardiner) lane the bus was always 20 minutes to half hour behind schedule. Once one was (eventually) aboard it was a quick trip to points up to Yonge & Eglinton. I understood at the time, and from subsequent information provided by you Steve, that these buses were subsidised beyond the level of most buses. They were never full and passengers only went from starting point to end point with no return traffic. There was no intra route on/off. (Same problem you have identified with the 192 Airport Express.)

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23. Jordan Scott Kerim says:
    March 13, 2014 at 11:55 pm

    “I have also seen articulated buses with say three sections and two articulations with still just one driver. There are also electric trolley articulated buses out there in Seattle and Vancouver. But now I see more electric battery powered vehicles out there with e bikes, the Chevrolet volt and now especially the Tesla cars. Could electric battery powered buses and streetcars be too far off either? I heard somewhere of some company that designed a train locomotive powered by just electric batteries. One can only imagine the potential in just another thirty years. The future can indeed be rather exciting!”

    The three section articulated buses I have seen and ridden are always trolley buses. This is because with electric motors you can power more than one set of wheels which you need to do with 4 sets of axles. It is very difficult to do this with diesel power unless you use diesel-electric like locomotives which allows for electric traction motors but makes for expensive transmissions.

    I think battery powered buses, subways or LRTs, except for short sections, are still a long way off as there has not been the necessary increase in battery storage capacity to provide for regular operation all day. The big problem will probably turn out to be heating and air conditioning loads. These are very high in extreme heat or cold.

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24. North America has short-changed public transit in comparison with the rest of the world. It continues to this day, with other N.A. governments “stealing” funds from transit projects for other “important” projects, such as highways.

    See the PDF on Chicago’s problems, titled “The Public Transportation Network in Northeastern Illinois: An Analysis of Existing Conditions”.

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25. Jordan Scott Kerim said:

    I see the commenter above making that same repeated line “respect the taxpayer”. There is something really mean hearted about tag line that I can’t describe. I would love to see more low income, disabled and marginalized peoples in this city living in dignity and at a better standard of living, but maybe I am just crazy or something.

    If you’re referring to my comments, I was asking a series of questions, not making a statement. If I believed in “respect the taxpayer” type statements I would be clear and unequivocal.

    My questions is about what can be done to improve Wheel Trans and community bus service. Operator cost savings are one avenue but not necessarily the only one.

    Steve:

    Are you willing to take a pay cut because your employer needs to “contain costs”? Wheel Trans is expensive because it has a high ratio of infrastructure (vehicles including contract taxis) and staff time to rides. It can also be argued that WT has problems with the efficient use of its vehicle fleet, but I don’t know first hand whether that is true. The question of how effective its dispatching system is has been an issue for users of the service for years.

    It’s been done … There are many examples of employees receiving real or nominal wage cuts in order to save costs. It may not be the best approach but it is better than an unsustainable service.

    I certainly hope that if other efficiencies can be found that can improve service, including improving the dispatching system, that TTC would implement these.

    Steve: “Unsustainable” is a handy term one uses when avoiding the issue of whether staff should be paid less. The same argument could be made for lots of jobs, but it does not address the basic question of what a job or service is worth. The term could just as easily be applied to Toronto Councillors being unwilling to impose the taxes needed to properly fund city operations.

    Pay cuts are not a sustainable way to deal with funding problems. Eventually the saving from lower pay (presuming there is no change in underlying issues such as quality of work or the ability to attract staff) catches up with you, and you have to cut pay again to make a “sustainable” saving.

    Robert Wightman said:

    The three section articulated buses I have seen and ridden are always trolley buses. This is because with electric motors you can power more than one set of wheels which you need to do with 4 sets of axles. It is very difficult to do this with diesel power unless you use diesel-electric like locomotives which allows for electric traction motors but makes for expensive transmissions.

    As I recall there are diesel-powred double articulated buses in Curitiba, Bogota and Mexico City’s BRT systems.

    Cheers, Moaz

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26. Moaz says;

    “As I recall there are diesel-powred double articulated buses in Curitiba, Bogota and Mexico City’s BRT systems.”

    I didn’t say there weren’t any, just that I had not seen any. If you are running on any sort of grade or want decent acceleration then you need to have more than 1 powered axle. With low floor buses the only easy way to do this is to use hub mounted AC motors. With high floor buses you can run an axle farther forward to power an other axle. Are any of these buses low floor on routes with hills?

    Steve: Not to mention snow?

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27. This belongs to the museum said:

    “This antiquated technology belongs only in museums. I declare that the Downtown Relief line should use the Broadview alignment so that it will knock out another streetcar line in addition to the east west lines Downtown”

    The only potential upside to this would be freeing up streetcars to provide service elsewhere. Cars and roads in general do well because of flexibility not capacity. I would suggest that it would make considerably more sense to say close King street from Roncesvalles to Parliament to all private cars other than same block traffic, ban lefts, remove all parking in the same area on King and make it a Streetcar only roadway, with complete light priority. This would allow us to see how Transit could address commuting issues within the downtown. You could then run streetcars on a less than 2 minute headway, or even a 90 second headway. Really have some fun, and let the bus use the ROW at peak as well, and you might as well have created a local subway line. Now I realize before Steve comments that this is as likely to be politically feasible as the Swan boats he sometimes likes to refer to, however, purely in terms of moving people the reason streetcars persist is each is like 3 buses.

    Steve: Do you not understand it is the manifest right of every motorist to untrammeled access to a free and unimpeded pavement with only green lights, yea even unto the horizon, before them? And free parking?

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28. With regard to TTC Rider’s comment about confusing subway numbers/names, I would suggest the YUS line be split into two lines, since to most users, it is two lines. Those who ‘go round the loop’ simply pass from one line to another. Names and numbers should be the obvious – 1=Yonge, 2=Spadina, 3=Bloor and 4=Sheppard, dropping all reference to University. Colors should be used also. TTC may well operate YUS as one line but to the public it is two. And suddenly Toronto is a city with four lines, not three.

    Steve: You have just given Toronto and North York a new subway line! Scarborough will want equity any day now!

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29. I will support a Downtown Relief Line (DRL) on the condition that it go through Dundas. Dundas street serves the busiest areas of Toronto. There are three different malls at Yonge and Dundas including the Eaton Centre (Canada’s busiest mall) and Atrium on Bay as well as the one on the north east corner with cinemas, dining, shopping, and more (the name of this mall I don’t recall). Then there is the Yonge Dunds square (Canada’s busiest square). There is also Ryerson University with 40,000 full time students and tens of thousands of more part time students and also nearly 5000 staff and Ryerson would be well served by a Dundas subway. There is also Toronto Western Hospital – one of the largest and busiest hospitals in Canada. There are more condos going up in and around Yonge Dundas square such as the Dundas Square Project. Yonge Dundas is Canada’s busiest pedestrian intersection (and it is pedestrians who take the subway and NOT so much drivers). Yonge Dundas has the highest density in Canada. One of the busiest parks in Toronto (Trinity Bellwoods Park) is also on Dundas. Those who want a subway through King have absolutely no argument other than that they like to go to TIFF or something for a few days in September. Even Queen is a much better choice than King but for a south of Queen street alignment for the DRL, please pay it yourself as I am not interested in wasting my money in putting an extremely expensive subway where it is not needed. Why do you think Queen street streetcars are 2 cars long while King St ones are one car long. The answer is simple: there is not enough ridership on King except perhaps during rush hours while Queen St streetcar needs to be 2 cars long all day long. Those who want a subway on King do it for their own selfish reasons. I am happy with either Dundas or Queen as those routes have much higher all day ridership than King.

    Steve: I am leaving this comment exactly as it it arrived. Let’s just say I don’t agree with the premise. When we reach the point that we’re having an “I deserve a subway” here argument within downtown, never mind with other parts of Toronto, things really are getting out of hand.

    For the record, the all day ridership on the downtown streetcar lines is:

    504 King + 508 Lake Shore: 57,300
    501 Queen:                 43,500
    505 Dundas:                31,900
    
    Source: TTC 2012 Stats

    And so, no, Dundas and Queen do not have higher ridership than King, and I doubt you could presume that the Queen riders would all trek up to Dundas just to catch the subway, especially as Dundas wanders further and further north in the west end.

    It may have escaped your notice but there are huge demands on King other than TIFF. That argument is on a par with some of the bilge coming out of Scarborough subway advocates. King serves a large and growing population along its length as well as major business/job centres.

    As for the use of the artics on Queen, yes they are bigger, but they run far less often and so the actual capacity of service provided is lower.

    The rest of your claims about density on Dundas are bogus too, not to mention that some of the sites you cite do not generate much peak period traffic, the sort of thing needed to justify a subway in the first place.

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30. “Steve:

    Do you not understand it is the manifest right of every motorist to untrammeled access to a free and unimpeded pavement with only green lights, yea even unto the horizon, before them? And free parking?”

    +1

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31. Mark says:
    March 17, 2014 at 10:30 am

    “I will support a Downtown Relief Line (DRL) on the condition that it go through Dundas. [Steve snips here … it almost pains me to not reprint the drivel in the full comment which is available not far back in this thread.] Those who want a subway through King have absolutely no argument other than that they like to go to TIFF or something for a few days in September.”

    I don’t know what rock you crawled out from under but you have obviously never watched the loading on King St. in the a.m. rush and have never been in the financial district in the rush hour. As Steve says King carries a lot more than Dundas and the demand will increase as more development enters, especially near the Don River. Even saying that most will not ride the DRL but rather the King car or the Queens Quay East line if it ever gets built. Much of the new office development is going south of the railway corridor, a far cry from Dundas.

    To mention Trinity Bellwoods Park is just mind boggling. How many people even know where it is let alone take transit to it. If I remember it correctly it goes down to Queen St. so an alignment along Queen would serve it, if there were any need for rapid transit to it. You are so obviously looking at off peak demand for which there is plenty of spare capacity rather looking at the peak demand, especially the a.m. peak. Ryerson does not have much of a demand before 9:00 a.m.

    Your argument is so full of factual errors that you obviously don’t care about facts as your mind is already made up.

    Steve: The comment is so funny it could almost be a downtowner’s satire of the Scarborough subway booster comments.

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32. Re: running more service:

    I recently came across an interesting document posted on Transit Toronto in December. It’s a 50-year-old service summary, typewritten, from January 1964 (predating the Bloor–Danforth subway).

    And here is the map that (almost) would have been from the same period.

    It is eye-opening to see how many routes in the central part of the city (basically Zone 1) had service at astoundingly low headways, particularly in rush hour but even in the late evening as well. A few of note:

    – There was a streetcar running in each direction on Queen, between the Don and Kingston Road, every 40 to 45 seconds during rush hour. Every 80 to 90 seconds on Kingston Road.
    – Service ran every 50 seconds on King through downtown (including Bathurst cars).
    – There was a car every minute on St. Clair.
    – A few routes that are a ghost of their former selves, with 1964 peak hour headways: Avenue Road (every 2 to 2.5 minutes), Forest Hill (6 minutes), Rosedale (3.5 minutes), Annette (now Dupont) 2.5 minutes.
    – There was a bus or trolley bus feeding the subway from north Yonge every 40 seconds, and when added to buses from Eglinton east and west, a bus entering the terminal every 13 seconds in the morning.
    – Lots of routes running every 10 minutes or better all the way to close of service on weekday evenings.

    I’m sure some of the reductions were inevitable following the opening of Bloor–Danforth (and, to some extent, the Spadina extension), but it is still remarkable to imagine how different it would have felt to be a transit rider 50 years ago with service operating at those headways — basically show up and board, including for transfers.

    Steve: I have written about this and included similar info (from service summaries that I have, some originals) from the pre-BD era and even the latter part of the 60s and early 70s in the talk I gave for City Planning about the latent capacity of the streetcar system last year. There are also a few posts on this site with comparisons.

    One can debate the chicken-and-egg relationship between declining service and ridership effects of demographic changes in the old city, but the TTC has a lot to answer for in driving ridership away with service cuts and doing little to win it back again.

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33. Robert Wightman said:

    Are any of these buses low floor on routes with hills?

    Curitiba and Mexico City are high floor buses with platforms, and I believe that neither city has hills. I cannot remember offhand about Bogota.

    Cheers, Moaz

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34. Steve:

    504 King + 508 Lake Shore: 57,300
    501 Queen:                 43,500
    505 Dundas:                31,900

    Once again, you have twisted the data/analysis to suppose your pet subway project. Not only does there have to be a Downtown Relief Line but it has to go through the route that is most convenient to you. Why do you put the King and Lakeshore numbers together and represent them as if they were from King alone. Queen seems a reasonable compromise between King and Dundas in that it is half way through.

    Steve: The TTC publishes them as a consolidated count because Lake Shore cars (a handful of trips in the AM and PM peak) run via King Street. I am not twisting anything. If you had bothered to look at the riding counts on the TTC site, you would know this.

    And it is not “my pet subway project”, it has been on the books for years and would have been built but for the misplaced enthusiasm of various suburbs and the naivete of downtown pols who thought that growth in the core could be stopped if we just didn’t build any more transit there.

    Steve:

    “Dundas wanders further and further north in the west end.”

    And why is that a problem? The subway will go up to meet Dundas at Bloor anyways and so might as well follow Dundas all along.

    Steve: Where it will be useless to people living on Queen Street. QED.

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35. DRL Supporter says:
    March 18, 2014 at 12:33 pm

    Steve:

    504 King + 508 Lake Shore: 57,300
    501 Queen: 43,500
    505 Dundas: 31,900

    Once again, you have twisted the data/analysis to suppose your pet subway project. Not only does there have to be a Downtown Relief Line but it has to go through the route that is most convenient to you. Why do you put the King and Lakeshore numbers together and represent them as if they were from King alone. Queen seems a reasonable compromise between King and Dundas in that it is half way through.

    My question is why didn’t Steve include the passengers from 502 and 503? these would add to the numbers on Queen and King respectively. This is another 7500 passenger per day. Assuming 2/3 Queen and 1/3 King this would put King at 58,800 passengers per day. What needs to be compared is the number of passengers in the corridor, not the number on the vehicle’s roll sign. For ridership on Eglinton between Yonge and Laird do you just count the 34 or do you also include riders on 51, 54 and 56?

    Once again you demonstrate that you are someone whose mind is made and who doesn’t want to be confused by facts when the do not support your point of view.

    Perhaps we should run the DRL down Bay Street south of Rosedale and quadruple track Yonge north of there. We could have express and locals like New York does. This makes a slight bit more sense, very slight, than running the DRL on Dundas.

    Steve: You are not the first to suggest a Bay Street subway, although there is a high rise tower located more or less in the way of a potential connection route from Yonge to the top of Bay Street. Rumour has it that this was deliberately approved years ago to forestall just such a scheme (or any idea of linking Bay Street itself to Yonge as part of a one-way pair).

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36. Steve:

    You are not the first to suggest a Bay Street subway, although there is a high rise tower located more or less in the way of a potential connection route from Yonge to the top of Bay Street. Rumour has it that this was deliberately approved years ago to forestall just such a scheme (or any idea of linking Bay Street itself to Yonge as part of a one-way pair).

    I guess I did not have my tongue planted deeply enough in my cheek. I was suggesting this PLAN as a way to satisfy all those who want totally impractical ideas in one horrendously expensive impossible to build plan.

    Steve: Ah yes, but Toronto specializes in such plans, and many readers will take you serious. We don’t do animated tongue gifs here.

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37. The 508 cars carry such a small fraction of King ridership, it probably does not much matter if they are rolled in with King or not. While a 508 can get packed, it’s because the CLRVs ahead of it are too packed to accommodate more riders.

    Some people look at the 508 destination sign and step back onto the curb in clear puzzlement. Others board, and find themselves having to double back from the Glendale and Queensway stop, because they slept or i-podded through the “this car will be turning onto The Queensway and travelling to Long Branch” announcement.

    Speaking of highly speculative plans, I came up with one that’s not quite as complicated as four-tracking Yonge. Keep the existing Yonge line as is up to Eglinton and terminate it there. Take the north Yonge line, give it a transfer at Eglinton, and then run it south as a semi-express to downtown, yes via Bay. I would love to use Lower Bay as the transfer station, but yeah that’s not going to be easy, to say the least. At least this arrangement allows local travel on the old Yonge line, while speeding the trip for riders going up to the northern stations.

    Steve: Er, I hate to point this out, but lower Bay station is (a) oriented east-west, not north south and (b) is entirely west of Bay Street. You have also failed to mention where you would put your express tracks for the North Yonge service between Eglinton and, roughly, Rosedale.

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38. Olivia Chow wants to increase peak hour transit service by 10%. She says this will cost $15 million annually and money can be found in the existing budget.

    She doesn’t mention that this will essentially bring us back to where we were in 2010 before the Ford/Stintz cutbacks.

    Getting buses back from shuttle duty will help with enhanced peak service but the real need is for more buses, a lowered spare+maintenance ratio, and better line management.

    I also find it interesting that Chow is promoting the Scarborough LRT as an “Overground” line (as opposed to a “Scarborough Overground” network of LRT and rail lines), using a quote from the Mayor of London about the transformational nature of the Overground.

    While her data and analysis seem pretty sensible (as compared to “Subways × 3…end it!”) I think she should be more ambitious.

    Cheers, Moaz

    Steve: I wish people would use terms for what they are commonly understood to mean. The photo on Chow’s transit page is of the Seattle LRT line.

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39. Steve:

    Er, I hate to point this out, but lower Bay station is (a) oriented east-west, not north south and (b) is entirely west of Bay Street. You have also failed to mention where you would put your express tracks for the North Yonge service between Eglinton and, roughly, Rosedale.

    But Steve, every dreamer knows that Toronto’s 75′ long subway cars are capable making the same curve radius as street cars. The route would come down under Yonge make the sharp right hand turn into lower Bay, don’t worry about building foundations that might be in the road, they can be moved with only minor damage to the building. Upon exiting Bay station there would be another sharp turn to go down Bay St. Since these cars can make miraculous turns they could go west unde Adelaide or Wellington without hitting any buildings or other infrastructure.

    I am sorry that I ressurected this idea from the trash bins of time, even as a joke. Perhaps you should publish as a pdf a map of downtown Toronto showing the location and depths of all underground structures and a set of curve and station templates to the same scale for all the would be designers to play with be for they release their weird ideas.

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40. Robert Wightman wrote:

    “…down under Yonge make the sharp right hand turn into lower Bay…”

    If I open my window, I’ll probably be able to hear the splashing sound, as the trains cross the underground river just south of the Yorkville Library.

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