Updated August 8, 2014 at 6:40 am: According to an article in today’s Toronto Star, TTC CEO Andy Byford is advocating a move to Proof-of-Payment (POP) fare collection on all streetcar routes effective January 1, 2015. He will also seek funding for service improvements including a return to the 2012 crowding standards, although this will only be applicable for off-peak service thanks to the shortage of vehicles.
Updated August 7, 2014 at 4:20 pm: The City’s Planning & Growth Management Committee has voted to defer the McNicoll Garage issue until 2015. More political point scoring by the Ford/Stintz faction in their waning hours.
Updated August 7, 2014 at 7:50 am: Information has been added about the bus and streetcar fleet sizes in 1990 before the recession that led to widespread service cuts. Service in 1990 was better on the streetcar network than it is today, and the bus fleet is barely back to 1990 levels in terms of scheduled capacity across the system.
Comments about system capacity that were originally in the post about service changes for August 31, 2014 will be moved to this thread.
Transit is “The Better Way”, or so we have been told by the politicians responsible for managing our transportation system. Road building simply won’t work — there is no room for more cars in many locations even if we could build more expressways — and transit is the answer.
Sounds great! Transit advocates like me should be cheering. With the election of those champions of infrastructure spending, Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals, to Queen’s Park and the imminent demise of the Escalade-loving Brothers Ford at City Hall, transit’s future should be assured.
If only it were that simple.
The Subway
Toronto has not opened a new rapid transit line since the Sheppard shuttle from Yonge to Don Mills in 2002, and even that did little for the network as a whole, especially for the critical links into the core area where capacity is at a premium.
Our next line, the Spadina Extension to Vaughan, will open in late 2016 if you believe the TTC’s website, or more likely early 2017. “At this time, the in-service date remains the fall of 2016 although the project is facing a serious scheduling challenge,” according to the July 2014 CEO’s Report.
The subway has a reasonably new fleet with brand new Toronto Rocket (“TR”) trains plying the Yonge line, and on Bloor a fleet of “T-1” trains built between 1995 and 2001.
Fleet size isn’t an issue. The TTC will have a surplus of TRs for the foreseeable future because they have ordered 10 extra trains for the Spadina extension, and a further 10 trains for service improvements. Meanwhile, the T-1 fleet is larger than the Bloor and Sheppard subways need between them because original fleet plans assumed that some of these trains would stay on the Yonge line. Now the TTC is scrambling to find locations to store all of the T-1 trains.
The problem for both subway routes is that there is only room for so many trains on the track thanks to a combination of the signal system and the terminal geometry. Headways (the space between trains) lower than the now-scheduled 140 seconds are possible, but challenging.
The signals keep trains from coming too close together. At busy stations like Bloor-Yonge with long stops for boarding, the next train can be kept waiting some distance from the station until its leader not only departs but runs far enough down the track for a clear signal to be given to occupy the platform.
At terminals, there are basic operating limits — how fast a train can move through switches without throwing passengers onto the floor, how long it takes a 6-car train to drive through and completely clear the crossover so that another movement can occur, how quickly the next train can be ready to move off. A 120 second headway is theoretically possible, but difficult to achieve, and even at 130 seconds there can be congestion with the slightest delay.
(A separate problem familiar to many riders is the long queues of trains stretching back from terminals especially at the end of peak periods. This is caused by trains arriving at the terminal faster than they leave, a side effect of the scheduled transition to off-peak service and an indication that, for that time period at least, there are too many trains trying to use a limited amount of track time.)
The TTC’s solution, touted for years, has been to convert to Automatic Train Control with a computer-based signal system that will allow trains to safely operate closer together on the mainline, and which could reduce terminal times. This system will not be in use on the Yonge line until 2019, and it is unclear when it might appear on Bloor-Danforth because this will also involve the purchase of a completely new fleet. (The T-1 trains are not ATC-capable at reasonable cost, and the older they get, the lest cost-effective an upgrade program becomes for their remaining lives.)
Until ATC is switched on, the TTC’s ability to run trains closer together will be limited, and with this, their ability to add capacity to the subway system where it is really needed.
This capacity problem was recognized in the late 1980s when TTC ridership was booming and the Yonge line was packed to the doors. Variations on what we now call the “Downtown Relief Line” were proposed to increase capacity into the core area, but this line was traded away in a political deal for the Sheppard Subway. The capacity crunch was effectively wiped away by the recession of the 1990s when the TTC system lost 20% of its ridership falling from 450m to 360m annual rides. Toronto passed the 450m mark long ago and the TTC projects 537m rides for 2014.
Without question, some additional capacity is possible on the proposed GO Transit “RER” network provided that GO becomes truly an urban operator with convenient stations well connected to feeder transit routes and with attractive fares for urban travel. If they persist with a model focussed on 905-based commuters, GO’s contribution to “relief” will at best be a lessening of demand that might otherwise feed into outer parts of the subway network.
Meanwhile, Councillors argue about more suburban subway lines and decry the need for additional capacity in the core area.
The Streetcar Network
For many years, the streetcar network languished both because it was seen as something for “downtown”, and because the population of areas it served was stagnant. The last new streetcar to roll onto Toronto streets dates from 1989, and the first of the “CLRVs” (Canadian Light Rail Vehicles) will hit its 40th birthday in 2017. New Flexities will replace the aging fleet, but not immediately as production deliveries only just began (this for an order placed before Rob Ford was Mayor) and they are temporarily halted by a strike at Bombardier.
Toronto last added a new streetcar route to its network in 1997, the 510 Spadina line (although there was a small connection on Queens Quay from Spadina to Bathurst that brought 509 Harbourfront CNE extension into existence in 2000). These additions were possible only because service cuts earlier in the decade had freed up cars from other lines.
In 1990, total peak streetcar service required 222 vehicles including some PCCs that were still in use. This did not include the Spadina route which was still operated with buses. No streetcar route has as many peak vehicles assigned today as in 1990, nearly a quarter-century ago.
By November 1997, the AM peak scheduled service required 178 cars (plus spares) out of a fleet of 252. In January 2014, the peak requirement had grown to 202 cars (out of 251) from an aging and less-reliable fleet. This number will rise slightly when track on Spadina south of King and on Queens Quay comes back into operation this fall, the first time in some years that the entire streetcar system will be served, on paper at least, with streetcars.
Streetcar_Fleet_Scheduled_Service_1990, 1997 & 2014
To the degree that service was added between 1997 and 2014, many of the peak scheduled cars are “trippers” that go out for a specific journey, possibly not even a round trip, to cover demand on the busiest part of various routes. Such runs may use the less-reliable members of the fleet (or not go out at all) so that some work can be had from cars that might not be trusted for a full day’s operation.
Demand has grown on the streetcar system over two decades, especially on routes like King where there are whole new neighbourhoods that did not exist in 1997 with riders eager to travel by TTC to downtown, if only they could board the service.
Current plans call for the replacement of the CLRV/ALRV fleet with the new Flexities, but the TTC wishes to dispose of its least reliable cars (the ALRVs) as quickly as possible. This will require some juggling of the remaining CLRV fleet to replace lost ALRV capacity on 501 Queen and 504 King. The big problem, however, is that it will be several years before the growing Flexity fleet actually provides more capacity than the cars it replaces, and some routes will not see meaningful improvement until at least 2017.
The TTC has proposed a 60-car add-on to the current 204 Flexity order, but this is a “below the line” capital project with no funding. In a Rob Ford world, we will be lucky to see even the first 204, never mind a supplementary order.
Some streetcar capacity improvement will be possible through a combination of better line management especially avoidance of bunching which wastes time at stops and operates many cars well below capacity. More and better transit signal priority is also needed. A big improvement can come with all-door loading on the new streetcars, but this will benefit only the routes where they operate, and much will depend on the capacity and reliability of service provided.
“It will all be better with the new cars” is absolutely no excuse for failure to improve what we have today.
The Bus Network
The TTC faces a major problem with its bus network. Thanks to service cuts implemented by the Ford/Stintz regime, plus the cancellation of plans for more buses and a new garage, and compounded by reliability problems with the Hybrid bus fleet, the TTC has hit a wall on improving bus service.
First, it is important to understand the size and makeup of the fleet, and the capacity of service it can provide. Here is a table and a chart showing the makeup of the AM peak scheduled service from 2005 to 2014, and the relative capacity of those fleets.
Bus_Fleet_Scheduled_Service 1990, 1997 & 2005-2014
Bus_Fleet_Scheduled_Service_Ratio 2005-2014
The table shows the makeup of the scheduled bus service primarily from 2005-2014 with 1990 and 19977 as references back to the pre-accessible fleet.
In 1990, the fleet included 90 Orion III articulated buses, a number that had dwindled by 1997 thanks to poor manufacturing quality. I have not broken them out in the table because the TTC service summaries do not give a specific number in service on routes with mixed artic and standard bus operations. The striking comparison is that the peak scheduled vehicle count in 1990 was not reached again until 2014. Only the Wilson-to-Downsview and Sheppard subway extensions did not exist in 1990, and the Spadina bus had not yet been converted to streetcars.
The scheduled requirement has grown from 1216 buses in November 1997 to 1563 in March 2014, but this growth in vehicle count masks a change in vehicle capacity. Even without the more generous provisions of the Ridership Growth Strategy, the capacity of a bus for planning purposes is 10% lower with low-floor vehicles than with high-floor buses.
This is reflected in the lower half of the table where the raw vehicle counts are restated as “equivalent to 12m low floor buses”. The 1216 high-floors of 1997 equate to 1338 low floor buses, and so about one third of the growth in scheduled requirements comes from the reduced capacity of the low floor buses. The remainder is real growth. (For the purpose of this table, the articulated buses are counted as 1.5 standard low floor buses.)
Since 2005, the number of vehicles on the road during the peak period has grown by almost 20%, but their capacity is up only about 13%. The chart shows this in graphic format. Note the drops in 2011 and 2012 corresponding to the Ford-Stintz cutbacks.
Improvements in 2013 and 2014 came from a few sources:
- The budget process was less draconian and effectively gave the TTC a boost in subsidies. The amount was “flat lined” to previous years, but because the TTC had a “surplus” in 2012 and in 2013, getting the same subsidy (including the unspent surpluses) made for a real increase in funding relative to spending.
- Buses that had been ordered before Rob Ford became mayor continued to be delivered through 2012. A future order was a victim of the service cuts along with the McNicoll Garage that would have housed the vehicles. All orders now in the pipeline are simply to replace vehicles that will retire soon.
- The older Orion V and Nova buses have remained in service longer than planned to keep the total fleet numbers up. This has been a particular challenge in 2014 when the amount of City and Metrolinx construction work has required about double the number of “construction extras” on various routes. Contrary to popular belief, this is not all on the streetcar system.
The TTC has already stated that its spare ratio — the proportion of the fleet in excess of scheduled requirements — is lower than it should be, and they plan to reduce service requirements just to add to their maintenance pool. Some services that would normally be restored with the fall schedules — standby relief buses and school trippers — have been omitted because of a bus shortage. Other peak service improvements are on hold for the same reason.
McNicoll Garage was originally planned almost a decade ago, but it was removed from the TTC’s capital planning when Transit City was announced. The network of suburban LRT lines would so reduce the bus requirements that another garage was not needed. Rob Ford (aided and abetted by Dalton McGuinty and an unduly pliant City Council) cancelled Transit City, but also slashed fleet requirements through changes to the Service Standards. His hand-picked TTC Chair, Karen Stintz, went along with this “for the greater good” of the transit system.
We now see where that “greater good” has brought us.
The TTC has no net-new buses in the pipeline, nor any garage to store and maintain them even if they were ordered yesterday. Reliability of the current fleet is challenging, and yet the TTC’s focus has been on “good news” stories about cleaner subway stations, not about problems with the bus fleet.
The short-term bridge provided by a subsidy flat-line-that-wasn’t depends on a constant surplus, and the TTC is unlikely to show one for 2014. Older vehicles have been kept in service, but there is a limitation to how much of this is possible.
The hybrids are a special problem because their power systems have not performed as well or as reliably as originally hoped. In its original 2014 capital budget, TTC management proposed changing the target life of a bus to 12 from 18 years. This would have both accelerated the retirement of the hybrids, but also produced a bulge in capital spending that the city did not want to fund. The target life remains 18 years, but this issue does not go away just because the bean counters don’t like the look of the numbers.
Reporting on System Capacity and Reliability
Once upon a time, and a very long time ago it was, the TTC actually published information about the reliability of its fleet. This disappeared in a simplification of what we now call the CEO’s report during an era when the Commissioners did not want to trouble their little heads with a lot of operating details, and the reports have never returned.
Even worse, there is no regular report showing the degree to which the published service actually operates, the latent demand for service that may go unmet, or a measure of service quality that does not perpetuate the TTC’s long-standing mythology that being within 3 minutes of schedule, 2/3 of the time, is good enough. What is reported is done at far too summary a level, too many averages over time and space with no sense of what service is really like on the street for a would-be rider.
The emerging problem with capacity on all of Toronto’s transit modes, and hence on all of its network, is not a state secret, and it is the sort of information that a Commission, not to mention its management, who were doing their job should routinely have available for debate and for policy direction.
For much of the current Council term, however, we have a Commission that wants to make the mayor’s threadbare tax-cutting policies look good, a Commission that cares about style — how clean are the buses — but not whether there are enough of them on the street or whether the service is well managed. The TTC is a stepping stone to higher office, as well as a place where Rob Ford could try to get even with the lefty, pro-transit policies of his predecessor. If the riders were screwed in the process, that really didn’t matter.
The problem here is a simple one: we claim that we must make transit better because it is the only viable alternative to increased use of private automobiles. However, the in-the-trenches policy is to squeeze transit as hard as possible because there must be “waste” and “gravy” just sitting there for the taking.
Buy more buses? Hell no! Be more “productive” with the ones we already own. Build more subway capacity downtown? Why would we do such a thing when there are suburbs waiting to be filled with half-empty subway lines? And streetcars? Let’s not even go there.
We have a Commission that does not want to know how bad its own system is or what the options might be to improve it, and a management that seems unwilling to tell them just how deep is the hole in which the transit system now finds itself. If there is a plan for how Toronto will get from 2014 to the balmy days of 2019 when finally we might see greater capacity on the system, it hasn’t been published or even hinted at by anyone at the TTC.
As for Queen’s Park, they have grand dreams of regional transit, but no money for local system improvements. That’s the city’s job, they say, and after all we give you all that gas tax revenue. The fact that this is a pittance compared with former provincial subsidies is lost on those who only want to tell us how much they will spend on new transit construction.
At Council, the word has been cut, cut, cut. The TTC has a huge unmet need for capital funding, and a definite need for better operating subsidies. The idea that somehow the system can be so efficient that every new rider travels without a net loss is a pipedream, especially when so many new riders are sought in areas where short, inexpensive trips are far from the norm. To get the excellent transit we claim we want to have in our world-class city, we need to pay for it.
What does Council have money for? Over $1-billion for a subway line in Scarborough to be raised through a new tax. Meanwhile, Toronto saves tens of millions by cutting service, and a few hundred millions by putting off vehicle purchases.
We bought the myth that transit spending could be cut, and we weren’t watching when critical decisions traded away the capacity for future growth.
Any new mayor, any new TTC Commissioner, should demand full information from TTC management about the state of the system and the options for making improvements now. The request should be without condition, no “can you get by with $100m”, but an open ended request for honest, forthright advice and policies that can rebuild the transit system.
Any new mayor, any new Council, should be prepared to dig deep to properly fund the restoration and improvement of the TTC network — all of it, not just a handful of pet subway lines whose primary function is to get votes, not to carry riders.
Get ready for lots of crowded riding because there is little Toronto can do to avoid it.
Steve Munro 
Although I agree that at some point, the city is going to have to make some large infrastructure investments to increase capacity, I don’t think the capacity situation is necessarily as grave as you make it sound. I think the TTC can squeeze out a few more percentage points of improvement in capacity without major investments.
Buses
The shortage of garage space doesn’t seem like a good reason not to order new buses. One of the advantages of buses is that they can drive anywhere in-town. Toronto’s neighbours have less politicized transit systems, so they likely have spare capacity in their garages that they can lend to Toronto for a few years. Some of those neighbouring transit systems might even have designed their garages to be easily expanded! There might be some union issues with the TTC using garages from Mississauga, North York, and GO Transit, but I imagine some deal could probably be worked out. The TTC might also be able to park extra buses in park and rides overnight or even park them at Leslie Barns until the new streetcars come it. The logistics of bringing buses into TTC garages in the morning for refueling, figuring out when to bring in buses to a proper garage for servicing, and figuring out where to park which buses might be hugely complicated, but it seems doable.
Steve: I am not sure that there are as many “spare” spaces out in the 905 as you may think. However, there is a more cogent point here — TTC operators have to get to and from the buses to take them into and out of service. Ideally, this should be somewhere close to their home base. As for park-and-rides, these lots would not even have servicing facilities for cleaning and fuelling buses, and there will be quite a logistics problem to ferry the vehicles to and fro. Ideally, this should be concentrated in one or two places so that the labour could be effeciently organized around this, rather than having a few buses scattered at many locations around the city.
All this said, I do agree that the lack of space is a poor excuse for not increasing the fleet.
If the TTC is able to convince the city to paint some more bus lanes (I mean “car pool” lanes) in the suburbs, they might be able to increase the turnaround for buses, freeing up buses for use elsewhere. There were rumours that the Province was planning on painting in a lot of bus lanes for the Pan Am games. It might be possible to makes those bus lanes permanent and deflect the blame for that onto the Province.
Steve: The lanes the province will paint will be for specific moves of vehicles between venues and the official centres such as the Atheletes’ Village in the West Don Lands. They will not generally correspond to regular bus routes. Some time might be freed up with reserved lanes of some flavour, but these have to be concentrated where there are actual problems with traffic delay that will not prove a huge political obstacle to the removal of road space for transit.
In two years time, the finishing of the Spadina extension will free up a ton of buses, assuming that the TTC is allowed to keep its bus lanes and BRT. The TTC currently uses a lot of buses to service the York University transit hub. Even if some of the stations are behind schedule in construction, the only important ones, in terms of freeing up bus capacity, are the York University and Downsview stations. And I think there’s some tolerances for schedule slippage because usually there’s a lot of slack at the end of the schedule when the track needs to undergo months of testing. And a couple of years after that, the Eglinton LRT will also free up a lot bus capacity as well.
Steve: The fleet plan that the TTC published as part of the 2014 budget shows a decrease in peak vehicle requirements of only 25 when the Spadina extension opens. The main reason for this is that the heavy routes are east-west, not north-south. They will drop their riders sooner (e.g. Finch West and Steeles West), but will still have substantial and probably increased demand west of the new subway line.
Streetcar
Ordering more streetcars in this political climate is difficult. And it might not even be a good idea because putting all our eggs in the same basket by buying all the same model of streetcar might cause problems. Although the Flexities are used around the world, the TTC version might have some undiscovered flaws, just like the ALRVs and hybrid buses. It might be possible to twist the politicians’ arms enough to get more buses though. The TTC can then run parts of their streetcar lines using buses, freeing up streetcar capacity. Perhaps the movement to POP will also allow for faster streetcar turnarounds, increasing streetcar capacity.
Steve: By the time we are actually ordering more cars, we should know if our Flexities have any “undiscovered flaws”. We don’t need mixed bus and streetcar operation as that is inevitably a mess for traffic and passengers, but some benefits will flow from faster loading times with POP. The real demand is to get the TTC to manage its service properly so that vehicles are evenly loaded.
Subway
Although you seem skeptical about ATC, I think it will really improve the real-world capacity of the subway. I find one of the biggest problems with the subways now is that there are constant 10 minute and 20 minute delays due to emergencies. Then, when the emergency lifts, you end up with three subways worth of people trying to cram into the first subway that comes by, causing new delays and making everyone miserable. With ATC, the TTC can finally install platform doors to reduce delays caused by fires and suicides. The TTC might even be able to cut corners and only install half-height platform gates. I saw some of those in Paris on one of their older lines, and it seemed like they just bolted them into the floor overnight for cheap. ATC will also eliminate a driver on the train, and the TTC can replace that driver with an on-board security officer, which should reduce the delays caused by passenger alarms.
Steve: I am skeptical about ATC only because I believe claims of the headway possible with it are overstated based on unreasonable expectations and on comparisons with other systems that have very different operating environments. As for emergencies, if you follow the TTC’s Ealerts, you will see that there are many that have nothing to do with passenger alarms of suicides, but with equipment failures. As for fires, they do not all start because of garbage blown on to the tracks from litterbugs on the platform. Again, this is a case of a benefit that might be obtained being overstated as a magic solution. It was instructive that a peer review of the TTC by an industry body (that is now headed by Andy Byford) made a very strong point that the TTC has operational problems that will undo much of the benefit of ATC because the service will not be reliable enough to regularly achieve a sustained trains/hour rate where it is badly needed. The report explicitly mention equipment reliability as a problem.
It’s possible that future transit developments might also change development patterns in the city, reducing the load on the subways. The all-day GO train service to Hamilton starting next year will make the cheaper, walkable downtown of Hamilton a viable alternative to Toronto downtown for some companies, especially for medical start-ups. All-day GO train service to Waterloo will make the cheaper, walkable downtown of Waterloo a viable alternative to Toronto for software start-ups. The Eglinton LRT might improve accessibility of midtown enough to push more development there as well.
Steve: The working population of downtown dwarfs that of other centres and it continues to grow. Even if places like Hamilton and Waterloo gain more employment, they will be drawing commuters primarily from the western GTHA, not having a big effect on downtown Toronto. The biggest change in downtown travel is coming with the growth of near-downtown population that contributes both to pedestrian/cycling commutes, and to rising demand on the streetcar system.
There’s also a possibility that the Pearson Express and Eglinton LRT might reduce the bottleneck at Bloor-Yonge or maybe even free up capacity on the Yonge line. I’m planning on running a rough simulation to see if that’s a possibility, but I just haven’t found the time yet.
Steve: The Pearson Express will operate with 4 trains an hour and a total capacity on the order of 1.5 subway trains, best case. It will charge an outrageous fare for any “commute” trip and will have zero effect on subway demand. Anyone coming from the Weston corridor to downtown would, in any event use the Spadina/University line already.
Other
There might be other ways of improving general system capacity as well, similar to Soknacki’s proposal about offering free service during certain times. For example, the city of Ottawa is pretty aggressive about forcing schools to stagger their start-times to reduce peak demand for bus service. The TTC could do something similar. Really, there’s no excuse for classes at U of T to start at 9. The TTC could impose a rule that student bus passes are only valid for schools that start their classes before 8:30 or after 9:30. The city and province could also be coerced into staggering their start times to reduce peak load as well.
In any case, even if capacity remains constrained for years, it’s annoying, but people will just deal with it. If you look at a city like LA, it has the same area as Toronto, and it has 50% more people than Toronto, but their transit system carries half as many riders as Toronto. LA still seems to survive pretty well. As traffic gets worse and worse, people will have to live closer to where they work, and Toronto will simply fragment into smaller cities. People in Scarborough will no longer be able to work in Mississauga. People in Etobicoke will no longer be able to swing by downtown to eat a fancy dinner. People in downtown won’t be able to go to big box stores in the suburbs to buy appliances. The efficiency of the city goes down. The economic benefits of specialization and of having everyone in one place disappear. It’s unfortunate. Ideally, the city would have enough political foresight to prevent these things from happening. But if they don’t, it’s not like the city suddenly stops working.
Steve: I invite you to tell the good folk in Scarborough that they don’t deserve a subway because they shouldn’t be trying to commute so far. We are years, decades, from this even being a generally accepted principle, let alone one we can advance as an alternative to addressing severe problems the system has today. And, of course, people who commute from Scarborough to Mississauga are not, generally speaking, transit users today anyhow, and convincing them of their folly would do nothing to reduce existing transit demand.
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Note ridership has been increasing at the rate of 2.5% to 3% for several consecutive years.
Steve: Sadly there are always people who think that there is more blood to be squeezed from the stone rather than facing the fact that “efficiency” is code for “service cut”. There are days I think we should just leave the Gardiner as two lanes each way, dodgem barriers and all, because with three lanes it is just not “efficient” enough.
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Funny you should mention that. I recall a comment from an Auto columnist in The Sun complaining about how the Gardiner had been reduced from 4 lanes to 3 lanes (according to him there were 4 lanes in some sections at one time, replaced by 3 wider lanes to the supposed detriment of commuters.
Now this is ironic because it is well known that narrow lanes lead to lower speeds, and wider lanes lead to higher speeds. One wonders if (assuming his column was based on fact and not bunkum) he was aware of this tradeoff.
The 2-Lane Gardiner is leading to reduced traffic volumes. The drivers may not see it but GO Train passengers are feeling it. The longer the 2-Lane Gardiner exists, the more people will self-select other transport options. Of course when it goes back to 3 lanes all the traffic will come rushing back. It would be absolutely amazing if the lanes under construction today became bus lanes instead of being “returned” to drivers.
Cheers, Moaz
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There are a couple of questions here,
1. To what degree is this a sacrifice that employers (not having staff that has a car available) and employees are willing to make longer term. Thus to what degree would making this permanent hurt employment in the area. (There are some consultancies that require their employees to at least have access, and some jobs that really require cars, although I would be surprised if many of these were at the core).
2. To what degree can GO and the TTC actually fill this space with buses.
Generally I would be surprised if 1 lane of buses between the Gardiner and Lakeshore would not be a good thing in terms of improving transit and overall commuter flow from the west. I wonder if the same could be conceived of using some corridor from the northeast.
Steve: The bigger problem would be what to do with all of those buses when they reach a downtown terminal. Very frequent BRT on single lane works just fine until the buses have to stop and serve passengers, at which point far more space is needed.
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Very true. I suppose that will depend on the design of the proposed bus terminal at 45 Bay that Metrolinx is working on, and how much capacity is built in to that terminal and the GO Bus terminal on the north side of the tracks (which could be expanded, closed or left alone) … all depending on funding of course.
Cheers, Moaz
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However, the issue of picking up riders at various stops also requires a spot for a shelter, an area for the bus to pull off etc. The Gardiner, or Lakeshore, could be treated as an Express only area, where, the buses get on and off, but many of the current points of entry and exit do not support that well, and it would seem to reduce its effectiveness. Ideally you would have a roadside shelter and stop point where buses that were not in the bus lane could get close and transfer their passengers. Steve has a point, not just in the core, but along the way as you collect passengers. There is the option of using the lane as an Express only lane, where a bus would run its route, then go directly to the core, however, would that make reasonable use of the lane? I am sure people out at the south end of a Kipling express for instance would love it.
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How much of this is due to issues that would be contained in the below the line system maintenance costs that are currently tallied to be about 2.7 billion. If these expenditures were made as they will have to be anyway, would that make a substantial difference?
I personally have a hard time getting the volume initially claimed from ATC for other reasons, (both turn capacity, and well, I cannot see passengers alighting and boarding or stations clearing that fast).
Steve: Actually, the $2.7-billion is “above the line”, just not funded. There is a potload more “below the line” that is neither funded nor part of the approved capital plan.
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Sorry, unfunded maintenance. How much of this is part of the basic subway and surface transfer infrastructure, that is required to maintain basic reliability, as opposed to the vehicles themselves? I am referring to power provision, basic switching (as opposed to signals), track stability, bus bays, streetcar bays etc.
I have the sense that there has been a very substantial long term neglect that had started to be addressed under Miller, but Ford has reversed this entirely. Seems that the city has not really been a consistent steward of the system. Perhaps this is really where the tax for the Scarborough subway needs to go. Would an extra $100 -200 million per annum be enough actually gradually catch up (some day) on the basic repairs and improvements required to get what the city should from the existing system? Or would that merely be enough to slow down the rate at which we are falling behind?
How large is the gap in really long term required repairs when those below the line that are really required are included? Are we above $5 billion?
The issue I have is that this seems like a car owner not doing oil changes and basic maintenance. You can a save a little now, but you are really just creating a large bill later, and you are risking potential failure at any time. Also the bills for repair are larger than if maintenance had all been done along the way.
The minor failures also erode the capacity and reliability of the system along the way. Used to say that was “Penny wise and Pound Foolish”.
Steve: Scroll down to the last page of the 2014 Capital Budget for a list of the unfunded projects totalling about $2.5-billion. These are discussed in the body of the report starting on page 12. Additional projects not listed in the report (of which the largest examples are new lines such as the DRL and Yonge North extensions) appear in the budget details, but only with small amounts of money for studies, not for implementation. Sometimes this is because no serious work will be done on them within the 10-year planning scope of the budget, and sometimes because projects are pushed back beyond 10 years to reduce the apparent size of the budget deficit.
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Steve to what extent do you think that part of the issue is that planning and deficits need to be broadened into the context of regional planning, and perhaps a regional transit agency. The TTC and Metro made sense, when the old city became a relatively small portion of Toronto. Now again the city, former Metro, is only half of the region, and perhaps some of the issues need to be remapped into a larger context? Does the built form in Mississauga, Brampton and Markham, make this a non-starter?
Clearly the project of extending Yonge is regional in nature. I am of the mind even with a DRL in place, it is a questionable project (even LRT to Steeles/Yonge represent an issue for Yonge further south).
However, any costs associated to connecting the regions beyond Toronto need to be seen in at least a regional context. Has anyone done a destinations study for those potential riders in the area. How many are bound for the core, how many as far south as Eglinton, how many to the Sheppard /Yonge area and north? Obviously the same needs to be done with any network plan or extension.
Steve: Something Metrolinx should have been doing, but hasn’t (or has not published if they did), is just the sort of network demand modelling you mention. We need to know where people want to travel, and not just to the core area, if we are going to address regional congestion.
That said, I don’t think creating a regional agency will fix problems with the TTC and would likely make them much worse. It’s bad enough with the suburban councillors in the 414 wondering why we need to spend so much on transit, let alone hoping for sympathy from a wider region.
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Thanks for the link Steve, just focusing on the below the line projects for surface only:
These seem fairly clearly required, in my mind, on the low end of what is required at least in terms of vehicles.
Add to this the need to replace subway cars, and various other enhancement on the subway line, not to mention capacity enhancements of short line extension on Yonge that is fairly clearly required just to meet growth, and it is a very important part of maintaining a good state of operation.
Will not meeting these project result in notable overcrowding, and mean another big bang in spending will be required later? Would it not make more sense to start trying to meet more of the need in the shorter term?
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POP is in effect already on the Carlton-College streetcar! This afternoon about 4:30, I waited maybe 20 minutes for a westbound car at Jarvis. When one finally showed up, it was nearly empty, so I presume it must have short-turned from Parliament. I sat almost at the very back. By Yonge, it was totally packed. I watched people get on by the back doors, holding their transfers and Metropasses. At University, people attempting to get on at the front appeared to be waved to try the back door. Dozens could not get on.
This week, Toronto has been rated 10th best city in the world by one study and 4th best city in the world by The Economist. While waiting for the car to show up, we talked to perfect strangers, and when I was in the car, I had a conversation with the fellow sitting next to me. More like a small town than a big cold city! The other day a Toronto Star article was about Toronto putting itself down all the time, but without justification. It’s good to be humble.
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Steve, many early comments concerned the relationship between reducing headway to increase capacity. If it is not too off-topic can I ask some questions about the Eglinton Crosstown’s headway?
[1] I thought I read that the Crosstown’s headway was to be 90 seconds. Presumably its control system will use 201x equipment and standards. Isn’t the Vancouver SkyTrain’s headway 90 seconds?
Steve: Metrolinx will be using the same system for train control on the Crosstown as Vancouver uses on Skytrain.
[2] Press reports seem to routinely assert that the maximum capacity of a Flexity Freedom LRT line is 10,000 or 15,000 passenger per peak hour direction. However, aren’t the station on the Crosstown long enough to accommodate trainsets of four cars?
Steve: Yes, the stations would be able to handle four-car trains. The next issue is what we take the capacity of a Flexity to be based on planning principles, not on crush loads that Bombardier loves to quote. One cannot operate service at crush capacity on a sustained basis over the peak period as this leads to Bloor-Yonge type conditions with overcrowded trains and long dwell times. I would be very surprised to see a sustained load of 200 per car, and even that assumes a lot of friendly standees. To put this in context, after we deduct about 60 seated passengers, the remaining 140 would have to share about 25m of useable car length (the Metrolinx cars are double ended and so have two cabs). If we can sustain 200/car (a value higher than the TTC is planning for), a 90 second headway gives us 40 cars/hour times 200 people, or 8,000 passengers with single units, or 16,000 with 2-car trains. What is obvious here is that we don’t have to presume such high packing density of riders, nor do we need anywhere near 90 second headways.
Frankly I get tired of people concocting scenarios in which a projected Eglinton demand grows without bound, and they then resort to “we need a subway”. That high demand will only occur in the central part of the route, and with LRT, we can have surface operation on the outer ends. That was the whole idea of Transit City and LRT in general — only build heroic infrastructure when it is absolutely necessary.
Longer trains would present a problem for surface, on street operation given the length of platforms and the number of passengers that would be served at major stops. At a much more generous 150/car, two-car trains on a two minute headway would carry 9,000 per hour with headroom to handle short-term crush loads above that average. That’s how service should be planned, not on the basis that the entire rush hour operates at one, constant demand level for two or three hours.
[3] Do you know what the maximum passenger capacity of the Crosstown would be, if it were employing full length trainsets, at its minimum headway? Would it be 60-75 percent that of the TTC’s heavy rail lines?
Steve: See the preceding discussion. Even if we assumed an average load of 150/car or 600/trainset, a 2 minute headway would give us 18,000 per hour with room to spare for surge loads. The subway now operates with a nominal capacity of roughly 28,000 per hour (25.7 trains/hour x 1,100 passengers/train).
[4] MetroLinx is buying close to 200 Flexity Freedom vehicles. Do you know if the Crosstown’s first year of service is planned to use single vehicles? Do you know how many of those 200 vehicles would be required for the Crosstown’s first year of fare service if it were operated at minimum headway, but with single vehicles — not trainsets?
Steve: Updated August 23 at 6:45pm to reflect the correct round-trip time for the line of 80 minutes rather than 120 used originally in this reply.
There is no guarantee they will actually buy all 200 — it’s an option, not a firm commitment, and the buildup of the fleet depends on how much more of Transit City is actually built. Some of those cars were going to be used on the SRT replacement line, for example. I don’t know what Metrolinx is planning, but it is fairly easy to estimate a fleet requirement.
In round numbers, the Crosstown is 19km long. If we assume an average speed of 20km/h (blended from a higher speed underground, and a lower one on the surface), that’s very close to a 1-hour one-way trip. It would not make sense to operate a minimum headway, but 2 hours’ worth of 90-second spacing is 80 trainsets of whatever length they would be running. This number goes down if we assume a higher speed for the surface portion of the line, but you get the general idea.The round trip time, taken from the Benefits Case Analysis by Metrolinx, is 80 minutes, or 4,800 seconds. On a 90 second headway, this translates to 53.3 trainsets plus 8 maintenance spares, say 62 in total. Metrolinx would have to run 3-car sets at 90-second headways to use up much of a 200-car order. However, it would not be practical to run a 90 second headway east to Kennedy, and so the total fleet requirement would be lower because some trains would short turn, probably at Don Mills or Laird. Conversely, with trains every 3 minutes, all trains could run through. That would require only 31 trainsets, or 93 cars if they are three-car trains.
[5] The Flexity Freedom vehicles the LRT uses are closely related to the Flexity Outlook vehicles that will replace the current streetcar fleet. They both cost about $ 6 million per vehicle? So, if running trainsets of four vehicles required another 200 vehicles, another $1.2 billion would be required. That would still be cheaper than building an additional line.
Steve: You are talking about a fleet of LRVs bigger than the entire streetcar system, and rivalling the fleet that will eventually serve the Yonge-University subway. The problem is that you assume all 200 are for Eglinton, but they are not. Next, there is the question of price. The $6m/car cost includes spare parts, maintenance training, warranties and inflation. Metrolinx quotes a lower unit cost, but without the extras. The actual difference between the TTC and Metrolinx cars works out to less than $500k when everything is balanced out.
[6] In theory the Crosstown could be run without drivers, if it were entirely underground, as Rob Ford wanted, or if its above ground portion were elevated — an idea opposed by Jennifer Keesmaat, Toronto’s Chief Planner. I am curious as to whether saving the wages of the drivers, by using driverless vehicles, would cancel out the increased capital costs of elevating the tracks — in a reasonable period of time. Is this a question you know how to answer?
Steve: Note: This reply has been amended with updated data on August 23 at 6:45 pm.
The premium for elevated structures vs at grade is on the order of $100m/km although this varies depending on how many stations the line would have. Almost certainly some stations now planned for the surface version would be dropped. Note that this premium would apply not just to the section from Leaside east to Kennedy, but to any future extension west to the airport. It is about 8km from Brentcliffe to Kennedy, and so maybe a premium of $700m (allowing for the fact that Don Mills and Kennedy Stations are already grade-separated).
Updated: The actual expected trip time for the Eglinton line is 40 minutes one way. In my original reply I used a figure of 60 minutes. The numbers cited below have been changed to reflect the short trip time.
For the surface-subway version of the line with roughly a
two-hour80 minute round trip, we can calculate the number of two-car trains for a 10k planned capacity thus: 10,000 passengers/hour / 300 passengers/train requires 33.3 trains/hour past a point or slightly better than a two minute headway. That’s probably as tightly as one can push things with surface operations through intersections, but this makes a worst case example for manpower costs. If the line hasa two-houran 80-minute round trip, then that’s66.644.5 trains on the line at peak.The actual number is almost certainly lower because I think the 20km/h average over the route is conservative considering that the line will run at considerable speed until it gets east of Don Mills, and will be underground when it crosses Kennedy.Assuming that off-peak service will be half of peak service (roughly analogous to subway operations), this means we will have 30 hours/week of, say,
6745 trains, plus 110 hours/week of, say,3322 trains. That gives us5,6403,770 train hours/week or about293k196k train hours/year. Taking an operator year as 1,920 hours (48 40-hour weeks allowing for vacation), this gives us roughly155102 operators. If we assume that their fully burdened cost (including benefits) is $100k/year, then that’s$15.5m/year$10.2m/year.Note again that I have been conservative in all of my estimates of LRT costs so that they err on the high side.It will take a very long time to pay off a $700m investment at that rate of savings. We have not included the cost of additional roving security staff to replace the operators, nor of additional maintenance staff to look after the automated system over a longer section of the line, nor the extra cost of station operations (escalator, elevator ops and maintenance), nor the future cost of building a grade-separated line to the airport.
Sorry for going on at length here, but I thought it was important to show that the labour component of train drivers is comparatively small change. If full grade separation is to be justified, it must be on other grounds.
[7] I read the discussion above about the pros and cons of having two levels of platforms at a theoretical Steeles Station. I didn’t really understand that portion of the discussion. Somehow extra platforms would counter the delay experienced by trains approaching the last station on a line, because the train will have to change tracks when it changes direction? Couldn’t this delay for passengers be eliminated if the switches and track exchange took place on track just beyond the station?
Steve: Yes. As others have pointed out, the stacked arrangement was a matter of local constraints that prevented side-by-side tracks. A far-side turnaround separates the alighting and boarding passenger streams and gives the same benefit without the extra station complexity.
[8] Am I understanding the issues correctly, that putting more vehicles in service, at the beginning of rush hour, or taking vehicles out of service, at the end of rush hour, if the yard(s) where vehicles are stored are at the last station on a line?
Steve: This gets tricky. Ideally, vehicles should be inserted from both ends of a line if it has bidirectional demand. There are also logistical issues with getting cars out of the yard, and this generally cannot occur at the short headways of mainline operations because of switching delays. The TTC faces a constraint at Wilson Yard because so much of the YUS service starts and ends its day at one point that they can’t get the trains onto and off of the line fast enough to be ready for the AM peak. When the SRT was going to be an LRT line, part of the Eglinton line’s fleet would be fed in from Conlins Road Carhouse on the Sheppard East line via the SRT, and this would balance out the service loading problem. Now, all of the trains have to come from Black Creek and return there at the end of service. Crappy design, but just one more side-effect of giving Scarborough “what it deserves”.
Thanks!
Steve: You’re welcome!
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Toronto, is now in an interesting position. Needs to improve service in many areas, and yet, improvements in some services and additional infrastructure risks making things worse in other areas.
The province and city now need to make sure it they are very sure footed, and avoid excess politics. The Crosstown, is a critical piece, but will likely increase load on Yonge. The bus network needs increased capacity, and the city needs improved service, but to the extent this increases traffic to the subway, especially Yonge line, this is a problem.
The next big steps need to enable growth in other services, not depend on spare capacity elsewhere. RER, most especially in Stouffville including stops at Steeles, Finch and Eglinton along with TTC fares, and a Don Mills Subway, are critical to enabling substantial further service, as they create space elsewhere to support further service.
Downtown, on the streetcar routes, especially King, is another spot for a most particular bent to action, as here most service seems local. Solving the large issues on King would improve service, lifestyle, and aid further growth in the shoulder areas. This without threatening to increase the load overly on the rest of the network.
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Steve the one expense that you did not calculate, obviously for mercy reasons was interest — however, I cannot resist. If you assume that Ontario can maintain the artificially low 10 year bond rate of 3.1% the interest cost alone on this money would be 21 million, meaning the increased costs on a annual basis would still be 7 million per annum, not to mention the increased costs of maintenance etc. due to the structures that would require painting, and inspection. This still not including the security staff etc, that you mentioned.
Steve: Since I wrote the original reply, I began thinking that I was far too generous about the speed of the proposed LRT line, and so I went back to the Metrolinx Benefits Case Analysis paper. The version that is being built is calculated to have a one-way trip time of 40 minutes, not 60 as I rather generously estimated, and so the labour cost of drivers should be cut by 1/3. This renders the “saving” from conversion to all-grade-separated even lower. I will go back and update my original comment to fix this.
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I really do hope Scarborough does get what it really deserves, which is much better more distributed rapid transit, not a single ill conceived politically driven subway, that will mean disaster for the subway west of there, and where load is there long before an alternate route has a chance to be built.
Scarborough would be much better served by building 2 LRTs and a couple of BRTs, with really good transfers than to build a single subway with very widely spaced stops. Especially if the entire length of the LRT was fully isolated from traffic.
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Steve in the highly unlikely eventuality that the Crosstown did find itself through some massive growth along Eglinton, somehow overloaded, would it not be reasonably possible to build a turn-around point at the ends of the underground section of the line, which would likely be the busiest segment, and turn alternating trains at this point, to have a close to 90 second headway there, and a 3 minute headway on the surface portion? Would this not mean you would then be able to raise that loading even higher, to something in the range of 20-24K per hour depending on station design and capacity, particular points of load and unload etc. This maintaining the 2/3 of subway even when that grows with new turn capacity and signals 36K.
Steve: Turnarounds have been planned already in the line.
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So in essence the 20-24k capacity is already feasible in the underground portion? Hence making it even harder to construct a reasonable scenario where Eglinton is overloaded, short of the TTC redesigning all of its routes to push load there?
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Steve to me the arguments surrounding the Crosstown and capacity reflect a general lack of appreciation of the flexibility of the mode. Generally the lack of local experience seems to have permitted this to become a political football that it certainly should not be. Argument should be about nature of implementation of LRT, not if LRT (except perhaps on Sheppard, where maybe it is overkill).
Rather than looking for opportunities to argue that Eglinton might be under capacity, the argument should really be about where we can add capacity into the core, and add ROWs that allow transit to be more isolated from traffic. Even bus can offer a fast reliable ride and carry a good number of riders when isolated from traffic. I think the region needs to be looking at creating space for these ROWs now, in order to make sure there is room for them later {even build a large median on roads if that is where it will make most sense}.
Also in my mind one of the most central political and planning issues in this election should be the proper implementation of Transit Priority at lights, and the roll-out of rapid transit in Rexdale and Scarborough – not as subway. The only subway link that should be in serious discussion should be the Don Mills to Ex line, and perhaps there could be a reasoned debate about equipment, (LRT, longer version of LRT, EMU and traditional subway) on this line, and stop spacing etc. However, this is where the large capacity is really required. No other subway extension north on Yonge, or east on Danforth should really be on the table until this one is well underway, and sure to complete first.
Large improvements in surface transit are required, and the creation of ROWs where they make sense now is important. Where they do not make sense yet, but likely will, they should be added as part of the plan, and road and traffic planning need be done in light of their future existence. Of course this is even more of an issue beyond the 416, where there is more flexibility. However, looking at what is being done at the waterfront; one wonders if such a solution might make sense in other areas as well.
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Steve said:”It will take a very long time to pay off a $700m investment at that rate of savings”
The one reason that might justify this type of expenditure, would be the inability to get transit priority in Toronto, to really favour transit. To me this is really a management issue, but the ongoing failure to address this raises basic questions to management priorities and what needs to be done in order to fix it.
Steve: And so we spend millions getting transit out of the way of Rob Ford’s Escalade. An unbelievably stupid way to perform “benefits case analysis”.
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Yup, let us just hope for 2 things:
1. The next mayor will have some desire to fix things.
2. The City can actually get its act together to ensure that the 700 million is spent where it would really help, instead of being used on stupid fixes.
You made the comment with regards to Spadina, that the transit vehicle detection sensors may or may not still work there, as they had not been used in such a long period. While I appreciate that transit cannot get an untrammelled green (cross traffic does need a chance), it should be better than it is.
The platforms/islands should be able to act as a pedestrian island to shorten lights for pedestrians. The lack of any real transit priority on Spadina is frankly farcical. The waits for transit should be minimal, and the lights should be anticipating the streetcars’ presence. The recent issues on St Clair speak further to this issue.
I tend to believe that the city will already have to spend considerably in the capital area, in order to offset the steady refusal to look at transit priority in a more meaningful way.
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Be honest Steve, I am quite sure that you would be willing to make some sacrifices in order to get transit out the way of Rob Ford’s Escalade for a brief period, as long as he was in it and headed out of town for a very extended sojourn (i.e. multiple terms of office).
Having said that it does almost seem the alternatives are undermined at a city management level. An administration dedicated to making the city work, and do so cost effectively, would be looking for tweaks to get more from city buses and streetcars other than just raising the loading standard. The most obvious would seem to be to facilitate an increase in trips possible by any single vehicle.
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Steve, with regards to TSP has the TTC ever gone the extra mile in pushing, and simply asked to take control over the signals on a few routes. The notable ones I would have thought would be Spadina, St Clair and King. I would think that the TTC would likely skew the lights more strongly in favour of transit, and they would be able to see the impact on both transit and traffic. I would note, that by and large cars have choice of route, so cars and employ different routes, including along streetcar lines to cross King or Spadina, so that they can cross with those highly frequent streetcars.
I am sure such an approach would raise howls at council, but this seems a topic that the TTC needs to be more forceful on, in order to maintain its own service.
Steve: The traffic control system is one entity, not something that can be parcelled out to different agencies. The issue is to get Council support for more strongly pro-transit measures.
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Malcolm, trying to shorten the greens crossing Spadina to make it a two-stage pedestrian crossing is a bad idea. Bad because pedestrians may make up the majority of the traffic at Dundas, and possibly Queen and College as well, and should be able to cross without wasting a lot more time than the traffic on Spadina can possibly gain. And bad because the island platforms are undersized for the ridership of the Spadina car, never mind trying to crowd another twenty or fifty pedestrians in there.
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Something has to be done in terms of making sure that there is better flow for the streetcars, and if the pedestrians are holding because of a streetcar induced green, there should be some space on the island, at the least in the direction that the streetcar is picking up from. A streetcar should not have to spend more times waiting on lights than loading and unloading. It seems at times the lights here are timed to ensure that the street car gets every possible red.
In my mind the purpose of the island in this case would be purely in the case of a streetcar induced change in signal.
Steve: You are talking hypotheticals without making reference to the actual geometry of the intersection. Space for islands is limited by (a) the fact there are streetcar tracks unlike the wide intersections at University Avenue with its boulevard, and (b) curves at the intersections cut through areas where islands might otherwise be constructed.
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Yes, you are correct. Making space at Dundas for instance, might be accomplished by something that motorists (and likely residents) would despise, the elimination of the left turn, and the reclamation of that lane. It would however, result in a very awkward vehicle flow given the set-up of cross streets for Spadina. A desired left turn from Spadina North to Dundas west for instance would likely essentially have to be a right on Darcy a right on Huron and a right on Dundas, which would not go over well with the local residents.
I would hope drivers would plan their trips with the awareness of a paucity of left turns off of Spadina, if shortening the pedestrian signal and a widening of islands is required to allow flow. Of course, this approach will not work at Richmond, as there are no current turns, and would have to be looked at in detail intersection by intersection.
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More to the point, I think that “Pedestrians have two-stage crossing” implementations are evil and shows that pedestrians are the bottom of the barrel. Maybe you can justify this where there are few pedestrians in a suburban or rural location, but I don’t think it’s justified on University, never mind Spadina.
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As has been said many times the design and width of the street and the speed with which pedestrians walk cannot be changed. Have you ever stood at Dundas and Spadina and watched the number of pedestrians that cross the street? They would take up all of the island and the track right of way. It would be impossible for passengers to get on and off the platform. The median of University Avenue appears to be between 6 to 10 m wide. The street car platforms are about 2 m. There is no room for them to stand.
The minimum green times are dictated by pedestrians, not cars on Spadina. Do you want to replace the “war on cars” with a “war on pedestrians?” Advanced greens for street car turns and better street car phases at Front and Lakeshore like a street car only phase before the left turns from Spadina as well as during the straight through that exists now is about all that is possible aside from tweaking the sequence of lights a bit.
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