Toronto has elected a new mayor, John Tory, who will formally take office in December 2014. The ancien régime may be on its way out the door, but this is not the time for dancing in the streets with bonfires and blazing effigies.
Part of me secretly yearns for the first of many speeches in which a Tory administration bemoans the Ford legacy, just as Ford bemoaned the Miller years, but that leaves us focussed on retribution, not on progress. Toronto’s job now is to look forward and to undo the damage that four years of narrow-minded, simplistic policies brought us.
The very first question we — and I say “we” because the responsibility of citizens does not end the moment they cast a ballot — must answer is “what should Toronto be”. In this article, I will address only transit issues and their general political context and will leave other portfolios to commentators and activists in their respective fields. However, the question is the same for all.
The Importance of Listening
Throughout the campaign, Toronto heard endlessly about Tory’s plan. Right up to the last debate at CITY-TV where I was a member of the “expert panel”, Tory’s response to criticism was to cite his confidence in Toronto and belief that his plan would work. Wonderful sentiments, but one cannot dismiss alternate viewpoints with a wave of the hand and a Pollyanna-like belief in a bright future.
At some point in the campaign, Tory allowed that he must learn to “listen more”. That’s not just a question of being polite so that a speaker can make their point, but of recognizing the validity of alternate outlooks and absorbing the best of them into a broad-based policy. Tory wants a collegial atmosphere at City Hall, and that requires more than everyone singing his tunes and hanging a SmartTrack map in every office.
A vital first step lies in the creation of a new Executive and Standing Committees, and in the selection of new members for the TTC Board. Will Tory take the same route as Ford in favouring only the sycophants, the Councillors looking to share a new mayor’s power, or will the boards and committees represent the whole city geographically and politically?
The condition of transit requires serious debates about service quality, maintenance and the future role of the TTC network. These are not simple issues, and Council needs to be given honest advice and a broad menu of options, not simply a “stand pat” budget that pretends we can get by with flat-lined subsidies.
In August, the TTC Board passed a motion directing staff to include provision for various improvements as options in the 2015 budget. Does John Tory want to hear what it will cost to improve the TTC, or does he want that muzzled so his SmartTrack will stand alone as the only topic worthy of debate and funding?
Budget Committee meetings of the Ford era treated those who might ask “please, sir, we want some more” to open contempt — the sense that people who made time to come to City Hall for their paltry 3 minutes were slackers who should be out working. City Council owes Toronto a collective apology for this treatment and a commitment to do better. Yes, deputations are tedious to listen through, and a Council less dismissive of alternative voices might find a way to actually hear them.
If we begin from an attitude that people who want better services are somehow undeserving of attention, that they are special interest groups, and most importantly that they are somehow not representative of “taxpayers”, then the new administration will be no better than the old.
The Importance of Transit Service
“City Hall doesn’t listen to us” is a common complaint both downtown and in the far reaches of Etobicoke or Scarborough. When “downtowners” complain of poor transit service, they make common cause with riders all over the city. Yes, we have subways downtown, but much of the “old city” depends on surface routes for transport. There will never be a subway under Dufferin or St. Clair any more than there will ever be a subway under Lawrence or Islington.
Technology battles use up a lot of ink and web space, but regardless of who “wins”, much of the transit system remains unchanged.
Tory’s campaign was all about SmartTrack to the exclusion of almost all other transit issues. The gaping hole in his platform was any real mention of better service on the existing system, and he dismissed out of hand the TTC’s August suggestions (and rather conservative ones at that) of potential improvements. That’s a position of someone who has a blinkered view of city life and of the real needs, today, that should be addressed.
What we know so far is that Tory would look at express buses to solve some “squeaky wheel” problems like transit from Liberty Village, but duplicating existing services this way won’t make much difference for the vast majority of travellers. First off, most routes into downtown are already crowded with traffic, and an “express” bus would still make a slow, expensive journey. Second, many trips are not headed to the core area in the peak period, and these trips require better service on the grid of routes we already have.
Third, needless to say, is that the TTC claims to be unable to run more service until at best 2018-19. In other words, we might see more service just when the next election campaign heats up. That position was useful to Tory in downplaying Olivia Chow’s credibility, but it undermines his own. Any municipal agency’s job is to provide advice on what can be done and how to do it. If the city says “build me a subway”, then that’s the TTC’s job. If the city says “run better service”, it is not the TTC’s job to say “that’s impossible” especially when the statement is a flat out lie. Challenging, yes, but not impossible if the city will provide the resources.
A mayor’s job is to lead, to set goals for the city and, indeed, that’s what the whole SmartTrack campaign, flawed though it might be, is about. Tory stuck with his plan, but now is the time to see how transit overall can be made even better, how it can provide more than superficial improvements in the short term.
This will require using all of the resources the TTC has available today, and accelerating capital purchases that now languish in future years of the budget.
For more about what we can do to improve transit today, see my previous article on the subject.
The Simplistic Proposal for a Fare Freeze
Every politician, especially every new mayor, loves to give the voters something as a reward: a tax cut here, a free service there. Tory (like his two opponents) wants to freeze TTC fares. That would be a terrible decision, and could set the TTC back even further than it has been under the Ford years.
Fare freezes do nothing to improve service, and in fact they hobble service growth unless the freeze is matched by increased subsidy. Roughly speaking, such a move would cost at least $25-million, and that is revenue that is lost not just this year, but every future year because today’s fare becomes the base against which future increases grow.
It’s easy to say “people pay enough already”, but in fact many riders are quite capable of and willing to pay more if only their bus would show up with space for them to board. Yes, there are lower-income riders who deserve a break, but they should get one directly as a targeted subsidy.
An important fare change under discussion (and likely to be forced by the move to Presto) is the implementation of time-based fares as a replacement for transfers. The TTC estimates the cost of a 2-hour fare at $20m annually, but such a change will make travel cheaper for many riders who now make separate, short hop trips, but not with sufficient frequency to warrant buying a monthly pass.
Such a fare will also make regional integration much simpler because boundaries could disappear. Two hours’ riding is two hours’ worth regardless of the colour of the bus.
Why don’t we discuss this sort of forward looking fare structure but instead simply say “freeze the fares” as if it will solve everyone’s problems? The discussion and the subsidy debate will be right back on the table in 2016 and every year after that.
There is basic math in the TTC budget large and complex as some of its details may be. The cost of running service is driven by two factors:
- Increases in the cost of labour and materials, and
- Increases in the amount of service provided.
There are “efficiencies” here and there such as a move to larger vehicles, but these are one-time savings once they are rolled into the system. If both service and the cost of providing it go up, so must the subsidy unless the difference comes from the farebox.
For as long as I can remember, the TTC has been saying “we should have regular, small increases in fares” because experience shows that at this scale, riders stay on the system. What we do not need is an artificial freeze followed by big changes when the budget pressure at the City becomes overwhelming. Toronto has been through this before, and it worked against the larger goal of getting more people onto the transit system.
Is there a Mayor, a Council, with the backbone to argue that short-term cuts and freezes don’t benefit the city and its transit riders in the long term?
The Technology Wars
Regular readers here will know that there are long discussions about what transit technology Toronto should embrace and where various lines might be built. I am not going to repeat that debate.
However, there are three hangovers from the election campaign:
- A decision has been made to build a subway in Scarborough, and there is strong pressure for more subways elsewhere.
- The regional rail network, call it GO RER or SmartTrack, will feature more prominently in transit planning that it has for decades.
- We might, maybe, someday, see progress on a Downtown Relief Line (whatever it is called).
In all three cases, major studies will be needed to finalize basic details such as alignments, engineering challenges, station locations and cost. These studies should not be short-circuited with political rhetoric, nor should they reach “directed” conclusions to support a favoured result.
Toronto needs to understand the costs, benefits and limitations of various options so that Council and our friends at Queen’s Park can see how everything might fit together. This is not a matter of nay-saying, or delay for its own sake, as Tory’s campaign would argue, but of really knowing what we might do, how much it will cost, and how well any projects will improve the network.
There is far more to planning and building a network than printing hundreds of thousands of campaign handouts with a map of one route on them.
What Is SmartTrack?
As the campaign wore on and challenges to SmartTrack grew, it became obvious that the original proposal needed work, and this was only grudgingly conceded late in the game. The line was not worked out for its engineering challenges even on a rough basis, and its designers even made the fundamental mistake of not visiting potential sites. When someone like me does this, the epithet is “armchair railfan” or “wannabe engineer” if not worse. When a campaign does it, then it’s “a professional opinion” carved on stone tablets (although sandstone may be the actual medium).
I won’t belabour that debate as the challenges in SmartTrack have been addressed elsewhere, but now is the time for many questions to be answered. Just a few:
- Is SmartTrack really a separate service, or is this simply a rebranded version of something GO was planning to run anyhow?
- Why the insistence on veering west on Eglinton with a difficult route under Mount Dennis when (a) SmartTrack could continue northwest on the rail corridor and (b) the Eglinton-Crosstown line could continue west as originally planned?
- At the proposed level of service, can SmartTrack actually benefit would-be riders at the “in town” stations proposed for this line, or would trains be full (just as GO is today) when they arrive?
- How will a Relief Line eventually fit into this mix?
Toronto is being asked to believe that one line on a map can solve almost every problem, and that is simply not credible. We need to move beyond the campaign and talk about how GO’s RER, Smart Track and other parts of the TTC will co-exist and what role each part will play.
Waterfront Transit
I cannot end this article without mentioning the waterfront. Two major transportation issues face Council on waterfront developments in the coming term:
- On the western waterfront, what will expansion of demand at the Island Airport do to the waterfront neighbourhoods, to the road and the transit systems serving that facility?
- On the eastern waterfront, we are about to build a small city of 50,000 residents and at least as many workers and students over the next two decades. This was supposed to be a “transit first” undertaking, but what is actually happening is that transit comes up last. We risk building on a scale that could dwarf Liberty Village but without good transit to move people in and out of the new developments.
Yes, the waterfront is “downtown”, that place so vilified in recent political discourse, but it is a signature project for Toronto, something with which we show the world how well we can build our new city. Failure here will be front and centre, part of the picture post card of Toronto. Our new mayor cannot allow this to founder.
Conclusion
After four years of cutbacks and budgets that strangle the TTC’s ability to grow, it is time for real improvement in Toronto’s transit system. Some of this will come with the usual megaprojects, but attention must be paid to the day-to-day work of providing better transit. That means more service, a commitment to maintenance and fleet expansion that will allow the TTC to attract more riders, not simply keep the minimum possible service on the streets.
John Tory has a chance to show what he can do for transit and for Toronto, to show real improvement before he stands for re-election in 2018. Please let his record be something more than cleaner stations and a pile of discarded maps.
Steve Munro 
I have seen the council results and the majority of the new councillors support the Scarborough subway as does the new mayor. This is a great day for Scarborough Transit and by extension for Toronto Transit. It is good to see Rob Ford win his council seat. I feel sad for Olivia Chow since she resigned her very well paid, very good benefits, high pension MP job to run for mayor but she can run for her MP seat back again in next year’s federal election only this time she will face a tougher opponent (Adam Vaughan) or perhaps she can run in an easier riding (so to speak). Doug Ford can now concentrate on running his business and so it works out for everyone in the end. Downtown folks will get their SmartTrack for some much needed Yonge subway relief and so it all works out in the end.
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An interesting night for Toronto. Transit consistently came up as the number one issue during the election and no person in the city can say they were not “aware” of Tory’s position or what he stood for so let’s see where this Smart Track/GO RER experiment goes.
I don’t think anybody could be against this plan in principle but the devil is in the details and let’s see how it gets rolled out (pun not intended).
Another comment I strongly agree with is your stance on small but consistent fare increases. Fare increases are a dirty word but they are absolutely necessary to maintain a strong system. GO/Metrolinx are an easy target and often leave a lot to be desired, but one thing they consistently do well is the predictable, yet small fare increase every March/April consisting of usually .35 to .55 cents with larger amounts reserved for those who live farther away from the core. In fact, the Liberals even state that this small, incremental increase allowed them to fund the change to 30 minute service on weekend Lakeshore trains.
At least the Ford years are now behind us and I’ll drink a pint of Guinness to that.
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So Steve, what’s your view on the TTC getting the expanded Flexity order that they have been asking for now that Tory has won?
Steve: Too soon to say. First we have to see how Tory addresses the fiscal reality of the budget as a whole. SmartTrack fixes nothing in 2015, 2016 …
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I am deeply disheartened. I have no doubt the Scarborough subway boondoggle will come in at least 10% over budget (when has a public project of that magnitude ever come in under budget?) That will add hundreds of millions to the cost that Toronto will pay for it – and then we will pay tens of millions per year forevermore after to operate it.
I will retire in 20-odd years, and the map of Toronto’s transit system will differ from today’s only in the addition of the Eglinton LRT.
And nobody will talk about what a great city Toronto is anymore.
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Since John Tory is so gung-ho on prioritising SmartTrack to be finished in 7 years, hopefully Councillors will see the silliness of continuing with the Scarborough Subway proposal before then.
Steve: Until we see detailed engineering estimates for the subway, including the cost of whatever add-ons people may come up with (such as a station at Eglinton, or a route through STC rather than straight up McCowan), the debate at Council won’t really be a serious one. As far as subway supporters are concerned, it’s all a done deal and only a major change in the cost estimate will force rethinking of that. Even if the cost does go up, the most likely result would be to lop off the section north of STC as a “future extension” rather than abandoning the whole project.
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If I could ride 2 hours on one fare and it didn’t matter the colour of the bus…my prayers would have been answered.
Oh wait…I already can…unless I am making a connection via the TTC. Hell, I could get from Durham to Peel to Halton on one 2 hour fare … but not including the TTC.
Look, I’m already paying 2 fares to ride MiWay and the TTC subway downtown. Or sometimes I pay a little more and ride MiWay and the GO Train. Like many passengers, I don’t mind paying a little extra for the “privilege” of rapid transit, if it means I don’t have to pay 2 whole fares. So 2 hours on any bus, and a surcharge to use the subway or the GO train…works for me.
Of course it won’t work for everyone, and it doesn’t fit in the with the TTC’s more or less seamless transit system…but once we finally start having that debate on GTA fares, it will be good to see what people are really* willing to pay for transit.
Cheers, Moaz
*Of course, after 12 Metrolinx-sponsored “Fare Conversations” about “The Fare Move” and support from Civic Action and the TRBOT etc, the Kathleen Wynne Government will probably convene another “Fare Panel” (with Paul Bedford, Anne Golden etc)…and then they will come up with their own idea.
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@Subway finally coming to Scarborough:
If you’re not going to open your mind and learn something from this blog, the least you can do is refrain from using the comments section to state your willfully ignorant opinion.
As for taking a shot at Olivia Chow with your fake sympathy… Gosh, you’re just too smart for us folks around here!
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Nowhere in this long post do you ever address the role of the province. Steve, the city is now headed by a business man. Ya well he’s white and educated and straight and experienced and everything that’s attackable. If you are not clear on how this pisses Torontonians off, check Twitter. Archived. As much of a shift of all this, the shift from “rich white guy to rich white guy” tries to sell all this as a nothing.
Actually, at this point of my point, is it really pragmatic talking about the history of Toronto, as everybody wants to live in Toronto 40 years ago?
Steve: I was specifically addressing things Tory should do, not the province. It is far too easy to say “everything would be fixed if only Queen’s Park would pay more”, but that’s a quick route to inaction we have seen for a few decades. It is quite clear that Toronto, when it wants to, can belly up to the bar with more money as it did for the Scarborough Subway, and as Tory proposes with TIF for SmartTrack. Why can’t it do the same for the considerably smaller scale funding needed to improve transit service in general?
As for Twitter, I’m on it all the time and follow a lot of comments about where the city is going. Yes, the city is run by “white guys”, but they were elected even in wards where the population is overwhelmingly visible minorities. Just look at wards 1 and 2 in northern Etobicoke, for starters. The Ford vote was in the northwest and northeast suburbs while Tory’s was concentrated along the central north south corridor and along the lake. Chow carried three wards in the Parkdale and High Park area, and came a strong second in other wards in the old city. See the ward-by-ward results in The Globe and Mail.
There is no question from some of his remarks that Tory is out of touch with parts of Toronto. Could we have done better? Could Chow have run a better race? Was there another person not even on the ballot who would make a better mayor? Is that person a visible minority, or at least female? Should that be a precondition for being mayor? These are complex questions that don’t bring a simple answer. After all, we have a gay Premier, but that’s not why people voted Liberal. It’s just possible a majority thought Wynne led the best party even if she is white and lives in central Toronto.
The concept that “you don’t speak for me” is a difficult one to address because it is impossible for any councillor, any mayor, to be from all possible backgrounds. The question is how hard they try to understand their constituencies, and in the case of the mayor, to build a representative team that can speak with all of those voices.
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The SmartTrack proposed by John Tory will serve a vastly different route than the Scarborough subway promised by John Tory which is precisely why he has promised both. The Scarborough RT is aging and is more heavily crowded than the Yonge subway line during rush hours and so the priority has to be begin Scarborough subway construction ASAP. Once the Scarborough subway is complete, we may look at the Scarborough LRT that people from Downtown so desperately want to get built. The advantages of building the subway before the LRT is that we don’t need thousands of shuttle bus trips every single day for almost a decade. The Scarborough subway, Scarborough LRT, and SmartTrack all serve different routes and there is no reason why not to build all three starting first with the subway due to the above mentioned reasons. Scarborough, the largest borough in Canada, is vastly underserved by transit and all 3 projects are needed to bring it to the transit standards of the rest of the city. It is a disappointment that Tory wants to build LRT on Sheppard but the good news is that it is not his priority which means that the next mayor (2018 election) can switch Sheppard back to subway.
Steve, “Some Friendly Advice For The Mayor Elect”
Any friendly (or hostile) advice for the outgoing mayor? Any friendly (or hostile) advice for the losers (Olivia Chow and Doug Ford respectively)?
Steve: For Olivia Chow, I hope that she finds worthwhile ways to contribute to the future of Toronto. It’s good to read that already the Mayor-Elect has reached out to her on this account. As for Doug Ford, yes, he and his family have a following in Toronto, but it is based on the politics of division, of short-sighted, hateful attitudes and a profound dislike for much of what Toronto means. He cannot leave soon enough, and I hope that John Tory doesn’t find work for such patently incompetent hands.
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Fares should not be a political decision. The TTC needs to decide what they want to be. One cannot offer steakhouse quality at family restaurant prices. Fare increase or decrease should be left to market forces. It should not be used as social policy. The GST is very regressive and targets the poor. Does that mean we should lower the GST to 0% to help the poor out? Right now, the Government of Canada issues GST credits to offset the effect on the poor. There is nothing stopping Mr. Tory to issue a rebate to poor families in Toronto.
JR has not increase fares for many years except when the consumption tax went up to 8%. Does that mean JR service has deterioated? No. In Hong Kong, there is a mechanism for the MTR fares to go up or down depending on the situation. A steady increase in fares will not be good for ridership. Has the TTC does everything it can do to create new revenues? Where are the shops and restaurants in the stations? How come there are no condo developments on top of stations?
Automation and efficiencies might also prevent fare hikes. Consider that a typical fossil fuel bus only gets 3MPG. There are technology in the pipeline that will allow 10MPGs soon. Electric motors on all bus wheels will allow 80ft buses in the future. All these things lower operational cost. It cannot be accounted in budget projections accurately.
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Good piece Steve. To your point about listening, now that the time has come to actually govern, he will need to learn to listen to sage counsel from experts in the areas of work. He ran a good campaign, and was clearly aware of what was required to win the campaign. However, governing well is an entirely different thing than campaigning well.
This would mean in the case of transit getting and following best advice from, transit planners, engineers and city planners. Good leadership is getting people to buy into what is really the best answer, and not doing simply what is popular. RER is very likely a critical part of an overall solution, but is unlikely to solve all issues.
Scarborough needs a rapid line to the core, however, it also needs good service to many other points, and a wide distribution of service across the area. Etobicoke needs the same thing. RER should address the service to the core, what about the rest?
Also, how about getting out ahead of a couple of issues, as you say Steve Waterfront East LRT, and service for the outer 416 on the Lakeshore line as well. 15 minute or better service to Guildwood and Mimico, might provide good local collection points for improved transit, and a rapid route to the core. I am not saying this is the answer, but a complete network review, with all options on the table is called for, and selling the solutions that come from a politics free review would be a display of real leadership and governance. This is what we should really be looking for on the transit file from the Mayor and council.
I would suspect to deliver on the promise of SmartTracks (in terms of having the maximum effect) he will need to find a way to have headway at or below 10 minutes at peak very early in its existence (likely eventually approaching 5-6 minutes), and 15 minutes or better all day.
I would be very surprised even with very frequent service in Stouffville and UPX whether this will resolve the overload condition at Yonge & Bloor, without also finding some way of diverting those other riders coming from central York region, thus it will need to be replicated on the Richmond Hill line. It will also likely mean at the very least finding a way of turning many more trains on Yonge, just to support growth in 416 ridership.
My real hope is that he will honor the perceived intent of his campaign, that is find real solutions, and that will mean taking advice from transit experts not political ones. It will mean looking at network design with an open mind, and keeping the politics out.
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The climate is changing far faster than we’re actually doing the more-correct things, or trying to do them, especially in the transport sector which still leads emissions growth.
Not having a Ford wrecking things is progress, as Fordwards was backwards, for sure. Yet we still have a great degree of denial of how private cars are NOT paying their ways, and while it’s harder to find real info on this at times, one older stat printed in the Globe citing a Vancouver analysis was that each car had an avoided cost of $2700 each year. So if we somehow got to having the same degree of user pay for the car as we do transit, yes, it wouldn’t matter so much if we did have a Scarborough subway extension and some other follies as there’d be a few more billions sloshing around – each year!
As we’ve seen a fair bit of what I think of as ‘caronic deniers’ re-elected, despite the apparent focus on transport issues, I’m still worried about things. Like how much of the Smart Track was really a direct adaptation of the provincial RER, and thus, since the province was likely going to pay for it, did it really matter if the TIF proposal of Mr. Tory was more “mathemagics” than reality. If the adaptation served to excise the Fords, it was worth it by provincial calculus, and absolutely there’s worth to that pov.
We did need some “roadicalism” – definitely provided by Mr. Goldkind and others – but we didn’t get the analysis/need out there, in part due to our media being beholden to the car revenue.
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Out of curiosity Steve, where would you think the “best” spot for the western terminus would be if SmartTrack were to continue along the Georgetown corridor? I’m tempted to say Bramalea GO Station, but the last kilometre will be a headache at best to pull off.
Steve: This is tricky because it depends on the competing demands for track space and time west of the junction with the York Sub where all of the CN freight traffic comes in. But certainly as a starting point, Bramalea (which is also mooted as a first leg of the RER electrification) makes sense. Frankly, I just wish that we could merge the two project names and stop pretending that they are separate programs.
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I don’t know if John Tory is just being gracious or if he is serious, there is an article in the Star about him wanting David Soknacki & Olivia Chow in his administration. That alone is cause for optimism.
Steve: I agree. The challenge for anyone brought “into the tent” is whether the policies of the Tory administration will embrace the range of people invited to be part of the team, or if their effective role will be to put a veneer of credibility on an otherwise conservative program.
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For Waterloo region is Dave Waworski who supports the ION LRT.
Then there is Eisenberger who supports the Hamilton LRT.
Plus Bonnie Crombie who also supports the Mississauga LRT.
We can still get the LRT from 407 down to Port Credit if the Brampton mayor and/or councilors don’t support the Main Street north portion of the LRT.
Hopefully, maybe we will see the Finch (line 6) & Sheppard East LRT (line 7) LRT lines go ahead and not be cancelled for a subway going only two stops.
At least we won’t see Line 5 going underground east of the Science centre or Aga Khan Museum (Don Mills Road/Ferrand Avenue).
By the way when will the rest of the new streetcars coming in now that the strike ended a long time ago?
Steve: See an earlier comment about further fixes from operation of the first cars being retrofitted to production cars in Thunder Bay. I am going to rattle the TTC’s cage on this again soon.
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Are you telling us that he is not qualified because he is white, or because he had success in business? I would note there was only one significant minority candidate, and she did not fail due to her race, but her failure to realize that she need to spin a tale, as Toronto is not really ready to hear solutions that are proposed by experts or what is do able.
To me Olivia’s campaign while I knew she would fall short the minute she tried to speak truth to the electorate, it did the huge favour of getting the best sage counsel out there. That she happens to be Asian or a woman was a moot point, she either chose not to lie, because it was not important enough to win, was too naive to lie and actually thought Toronto was ready to have a real transit debate, or ran an information campaign with the real goal of moving the debate on transit in Toronto back to its essential core (i.e. her election campaign was actually about public service?).
Transit should not be about politics, but about networks and planning, not about who is the best salesperson, but about what is required. There was the makings of a real plan to serve the outer 416. The province needed to improve GO, and the TTC needed to concede they needed more capacity than Yonge could provide, but there was a plan to provide real transit to a much larger area of Toronto. I think she did a great service in pushing that, however, somehow, she did not get through. Unfortunately to get elected someone needs to play politics as a blood sport, where the electorate does not want to hear the truth.
I do not care about race, creed, colour, ethnic origin, sex, or sexual orientation and nor should anybody else, and this should apply equally to someone who happens to be a white hetero male. Unfortunately the voter wanted vision, and cared not a wit about reality, and Tory offered a vision.
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As a self professed LRT champion, why have you (Steve) failed to support LRT projects in Mississauga/Brampton, Durham, York Region, and Hamilton? Durham BRT and York Region BRT and Mississauga BRT Transitway should have been built as LRT. You might say that as a Torontonian, you mind Toronto’s business but you were quick to suggest an LRT in Vaughan in place of the subway.
Steve: “Failed to support” sounds as if I did not feel these were worthwhile projects. The situation varies from project to project.
If you were familiar with my previous writings, you will know that I have often said that the York VIVA network should have been conceived from the outset as LRT, and indeed that the northern extension of the subway beyond York U, or maybe Steeles, was the wrong way to go. That decision is long behind us, but I still believe that there will be a role for LRT in York sooner rather than later. The big problem for me is that VIVA has seemed more like a construction project than a transit project, like far too many transit schemes over the years in Ontario. The big issue in York in general is getting the modal share up to a level where there will be good political support for spending on service, not just on construction, and for travel that isn’t just going to Union Station. It’s worth noting that York struck a deal with Toronto that leaves responsibility for operating the Vaughan extension in Toronto’s hands, including any operating deficit. That does not sound to me like a municipality really committed to paying for transit it needs. This also begs the question of what the future arrangement for operating a Richmond Hill extension of the Yonge line might look like.
An important issue in the York Region context is whether the “right” way to get people to downtown Toronto is via the subway, wherever it ends, or via GO Transit. Remember that when the subway was conceived, GO service to the north was not as good as today, and plans for “RER” or anything like it were unknown. To me, the problem was that such a development was not included in the mix of options because, in common with so many Toronto subway projects, the aim was to justify a subway no matter what it cost or what alternatives might have been available. This is a long-standing problem going back decades.
The case for a Mississauga LRT is strong, and I am glad to see it progressing, as I am also happy to see lines in Ottawa and in Kitchener-Waterloo. However, these are not cities with which I am intimately familiar and I leave advocacy for their lines in the hands of locals who are better informed and have more credibility. It pains me to see a Metrolinx “Business Case Analysis” of the Dundas BRT in which we learn that peak service on its western leg would be half-hourly. Obviously this was the basis of the study, and with the infrastructure in place, more should be done. However, this shows just how badly some Metrolinx projects are all about building roads but not about running service on them.
Durham is quite another matter. I have yet to see any demand projections for their system that take us into LRT territory.
Considering that to some people, I don’t even have cred east of Victoria Park, it would hardly be appropriate for me to tell cities further away what they should be doing.
My area of political activity has always been Toronto, and I delve into the issues of nearby systems to the point where their plans and operations interact with those of this city. This isn’t a paying gig. Unlike Jarrett Walker, who is a professional consultant, I don’t have people flying me all over the world, and the work I do has always been a sideline to my professional activities that had nothing to do with transit. Now that I’m retired, I have more time, but even that gets parceled out among various interests.
Moreover, the topics I cover here and the debates I moderate go far beyond the issue of LRT advocacy into financial policy and service quality, among other things. It is simply not practical for me to do this for cities with which I don’t have a day-to-day connection. However, to the degree that debates in Toronto, with its much more developed network, are of interest to readers in other cities if only as cautionary tales about what works here or not, and why.
So if you’re so keen to see an LRT advocate for the GTA, why don’t you start a blog and recruit some writers? Be prepared to put up with the trolls who will think you’re an incompetent fool because you don’t like their pet projects (or politicians), but if you gain credibility, you will be heard and your opinion sought out by those who make decisions and influence opinions on a wider scale. You will lose many battles, but you will win enough to keep going. You might even get someone writing to ask when you are going to start covering other provinces while implying that you’re somehow inadequate for sticking to a few local systems.
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What I would like to see is for John Tory to set out to be a one-term mayor and get things done come hell or high water.
Institute a toll on the DVP and Gardiner (two separate tolls with a discounted joint toll) Then promise to use all the money to restore the elevated Gardiner and other road maintenance. And, PROVE it.
Restore the vehicle license charge, but make it reasonable say, $20 or $30 and again use this to repair all regular roads. And, prove it!
Institute a congestion toll for vehicles in the downtown. Say, below Bloor-Danforth.
Use this to improve transit AND roads. Say, 50/50.
Get legislation to allow police authorized tow trucks to immediately remove illegally parked vehicles _without_waiting for a PC to write a ticket and OK a tow. Applies to all transit routes.
This will bring things under control ASAP.
Make transit a priority on our streets. No left turns on streetcar routes. Transit priority signals. AND make sure they work!
Institute BIG increase in development charges when construction blocks streets excessively.
Make time-expired transfers mandatory for TTC like it or lump it. Do away with fare disputes due to stupid rules.
Consider making TTC free to seniors between hours. Say, 10 am to 2 pm and all day Sundays. Reduce Metropass for seniors. WAY too expensive.
This will be a good start.
Now, if people find these measures bring real relief to congestion and improve transit. They can re-elect John Tory.
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Rob Ford keeps saying he built a subway in Scarborough. OK I have some tokens, I would like to ride it. Where is it?
Steve: On the back of a napkin somewhere in Ford Nation.
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I have a hard time seeing this to be the case, as they are less than 2km apart. That would be the distance between stops on the proposed subway, or perhaps just as pertinent, the distance between say Eglinton and Lawrence on the Yonge subway. It is very hard to imagine two lines running in the same basic direction, to serve the same destination, in an area of this low a density. There are no serious proposals to run a subway the length of Queen east to west, as it is too close to the BDL, and yet this is about the same distance, in much higher density.
While Scarborough may be the largest borough in the country, it would be important to base transit on what the destinations of riders and residents are. I think a serious network analysis of demand in the area needs to be done, and then build what makes sense. Yes the RT is massively overloaded, however, its capacity is still only 4k. I would suggest that a start at double that would make sense, and then leave room for 50-60% again would make sense. LRT in a closed corridor would still be above that.
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The alignments are only 2 km away from each other. You’d have to be pretty thick to not realise that the two parallel lines might compete with each other for long-haul regional commuters.
Anyways, there’s a report written as recently as last year by the TTC suggesting that the 2031 peak ridership won’t even reach the standard threshold of 10,000 pphpd required to justify a subway. I don’t know where everyone got the idea that the Scarborough corridor had the projected ridership to justify a subway.
Steve: After that report was written, the land use model was “adjusted” and the result was higher ridership to justify a subway. However, Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat mentioned during debate that a lot of the new riders came from north of Scarborough. These are precisely the folks for whom SmartTrack/RER will be a godsend, and they will never show up on the subway line.
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How does not qualify to enjoy BRT status? What does that amount to a service of 100 people per hour? I can see some small logic in having a lane available, but all this type of service would do is undermine the case for transit in the area?
I am all for reserving space for transit ROWs where they will be useful for future projects, however, reserve and build are not the same thing. This only makes sense in that the bus will now go by pissed drivers, and make good time to its destination, and one hopes full buses that will rapidly become one every couple of minutes.
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Who is Dave Waworski? Elmer Fudd’s cousin?
The Chair of Waterloo Region is Ken Seiling, who has just been re-elected very comfortably. The incoming Mayor of the City of Waterloo is Dave Jaworsky. Both are strong supporters of the LRT. Based on these and other results of yesterday’s election, I estimate the chance of a cancellation at this point to be indistinguishable from zero.
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What’s going to happen is as the existing SRT ages further past its expiry date and the situation becomes increasingly dire, the Scarborough Subway will be bumped up on the priority list. This will oust other previously prioritised projects like the East Bayfront LRT, the DRL, or Transit City phase 2 to sometime near the end of the century.
Steve: Actually, bumping up the subway will be rather difficult because it has to be designed and built, and at best a year might be shaved off by cutting corners on the Transit Project Assessment, the quickie EA to which transit schemes are subject.
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That itself should have been a good enough case to start the Scarborough LRT right away. Olivia Chow may have said “4 years faster”, but she should have said “We need this extra 4 years for safety reasons”.
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If it gets that bad, they would do a rush implementation of the East arm of SmartTrack using GO equipment with train frequency increasing as quickly as track upgrades permit.
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I don’t think that Tory could have become a top level executive at multibillion dollar corporations, leader of a major provincial party, become a top level talk show host, won the mayoralty of a BIG CITY, etc without listening to people.
Steve: Actually, this is an observation Tory has made of himself during the campaign and I wanted to reinforce it.
Ok so the candidate that we don’t like, his support (no matter how high it is) “is based on the politics of division, of short-sighted, hateful attitudes and a profound dislike for much of what Toronto means.” The same can be said of Olivia Chow (only she does it with a smile and better PR), why do you think she finished third place?
Steve: I don’t agree with your evaluation of Chow. The Ford’s have practiced the politics of division, preying on the idea that downtown has everything to shore up their suburban support. What is ironic here is the idea that “downtown shouldn’t be telling us [insert name of suburb here] what to do” when the Fords are perfectly happy dictating what “downtown” should expect.
Do you really think that Doug Ford or Rob Ford are hoping for Tory to find them work? They own $100 million dollar PLUS company and they create jobs for thousands of others rather than live on handouts from John Tory hoping that he would give them a job. I can guarantee you that out of Rob, Doug, and Olivia Chow, Olivia is the only one which might accept an appointment by John Tory out of his sympathy (Olivia is also the only one without work, the Ford brothers have their super successful business, and Rob Ford also won his council seat in a landslide in spite of not being able to campaign due to ongoing cancer treatment). “Such patently incompetent hands”? Well, those hands are apparently competent enough to run a $100 million dollar PLUS company. Also over the last many years, you have called the Ford brothers countless names. Who do you think is running “politics of division, of short-sighted, hateful attitudes and a profound dislike”? The Ford brothers or yourself?
Steve: My comment was based on media reports that Tory would be looking to bring all of his opponents inside his tent, somehow, to contribute what they might. As for name calling, when the Fords do it, the audience is in the hundreds of thousands if not millions, with profound effect. I should be so lucky to have such a reach.
Do you have any respect for democracy? The third place candidate (Olivia Chow) who finished far below Ford, you want to be part of the governance of Toronto even though the voters made clear that they want nothing of her and yet for Doug Ford, who finished a strong second and way ahead of Olivia Chow you state, “I hope that John Tory doesn’t find work for such patently incompetent hands.”
Steve, I have great respect for your expertise on transit; your hatred of Ford family is excessive and unwarranted. You can’t even stand Mike Ford who at just 20 yrs of age comes with a clean slate and is the youngest official elected yesterday. Mike Ford who won in a landslide yesterday will run for Council in 4 yrs, Rob Ford for mayor, while Doug Ford runs for the leader of the PC party (if he fails at that, then you will have at least 3 Fords at City Hall in 4 yrs with a major political clout).
Steve: I have lots of respect for democracy. Chow came third, but she has the support of 23% of the city and that’s nothing to be sneezed at. It’s worth noting that Tory came first or second in all but two wards in the city, and that 2/3 of the voters did not support Doug Ford.
The Ford years were all about ignoring and isolating the very parts of the city where Chow did particularly well — first or second place — in the vote. Yes, Mike Ford won in a landslide, one that required him to change his name legally to trade on the “Ford” brand. If Tory makes a decent job of his mayoralty, the Fords won’t have anything to use as an attack similar to the way they went after Miller, and whoever challenges Tory will fail. If Doug Ford runs for, much less wins, the leadership of the PCs, they will be doomed to opposition for a few decades. And, yes, I have great distaste for the Fords who have a sense of entitlement, a clear idea that rules are for everyone else, and a thuggish attitude to those who would criticize them.
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Look at what China is building. India is also building 100% grade separated metro and monorail in many cities. If Canada wants to stay competitive, then we have to build too without Downtowners hating Scarborough’s Transit plans and Scarborough hating Downtown’s Transit plans i.e. we have to build everywhere. India in particular is building largely elevated metro and monorail systems with tunneling where necessary.
Elevating where tunneling is expensive/unnecessary is a good lesson that can be learnt from India’s metro systems and should be applied to the Eglinton LRT to 100% grade separate it. Otherwise don’t complain when your jobs are shipped to India and China as Canada’s competitiveness will decline with poor infrastructure.
Steve: The debate about full grade separation on Eglinton is amusing on a few counts, not least is the contrast between those who would elevate the section now planned at grade, and those who attack the LRT tunnel as a case of massive overbuilding for the projected demand. The debate is worth having, but claiming that the export of jobs to Asia will be determined by whether we elevate the Eglinton line is an extreme overstatement. Indeed, If we want to go down that path, I would argue that we have already shipped thousands of jobs overseas thanks to the gridlock on building anything because it would cost too much.
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All good points Steve.
Regarding time-based transfers: such system has many advantages, but there is one potential caveat. Unexpected transit delays can provoke a dispute between a rider whose time window has just expired, and a driver or ticket inspector.
If the rider is normally able to complete a routine trip within the 2-hour limit on a single fare, he or she may be very reluctant to pay the second fare in a situation when the trip cannot be completed within that limit due to a transit delay. Moreover, if the rider is still on a proof-of-payment vehicle at the moment the 2-hour window ends, it may be difficult to submit the payment. On the other hand, a ticket inspector or a driver on a bus /streetcar may not be aware of a delay on subway, or vice versa.
Steve: This is a valid point as far as it goes, but it speaks to the need for a robust way to establish that an exception is due. Time based fares are not exactly unique to the GTA, nor are they particularly new.
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Yesterday, Torontonians elected a new mayor – John Tory, CFRB talk show host and former Ontario MPP. When he’s sworn in as mayor of Toronto – along with new and re-elected councillors – he’ll waste no time getting to work.
By this time, track construction on Bathurst Street will be completed, and streetcar operation resumes on the “511 Bathurst” route, which has been using shuttle buses since Thanksgiving weekend (precisely October 12th). This is the last TTC track construction project scheduled for this year. There will be more TTC projects to come in the following years – LRTs along suburban arterials (Sheppard East and Finch West) and the Bloor-Danforth subway extension, and currently construction on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT is in progress.
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One place where I think Tory has potential for transit is in importing an attitude of “don’t tell me why it can’t be done; tell me what we need to do to get it done.” I heard him say this, or some variant thereof, a number of times on the campaign trail. This is the kind of attitude that needs to be more prevalent on the TTC, where there are numerous issues where it is recognized that [x] is a problem but that there is nothing that can be done about it. Perhaps first on the list would be schedule / headway adherence issues and bunching on surface routes (another thing that he raised on more than one occasion while campaigning), but others including streetcars having to stop at facing point switches; ineffective, broken or unactivated transit priority signals; and streetcars getting blocked by a single left-turning vehicle or a single parked car because the turn and parking prohibitions only last until 9 AM.
Tory campaigned on finding efficiencies, which raised red flags amongst progressives because of the history of the last four years. But this could be a good thing for transit riders if it is done as per the actual definition of the word (i.e., doing the same thing with fewer resources or doing more with the same resources, rather than simply a euphemism for choosing what services to slash). Addressing bunching would free up wasted capacity and would be a free capacity increase and an actual improvement for riders. Speeding up vehicle trips means a faster trip for riders, but it also might mean that you can squeeze more out of the fleet in some cases. When the TTC recently announced that they could squeeze a couple more rush hour trips per hour by slightly adjusting their “back-of-house” operating procedures and policies, it seems to have received a very positive reaction (coupled with “why didn’t this happen years ago?”).
Steve: While I agree that Tory has talked about improving road operations, I suspect he will find this is harder to achieve than simply saying “make it so”. It is easy, for example, to extend rush hour parking and turn restrictions but this only affects the hours of the changes. Only certain locations currently suffer from losing capacity at, say, 6:00 pm, and this is not a panacea. Also, obviously, this would do nothing for problems in the existing peak periods. There is also the small matter of enforcement without which all the bylaws and signs in the world are meaningless. Enforcement means not just the private cars, but also the commercial vehicles that treat public roads as their own personal parking lots regardless of posted restrictions.
Service reliability is certainly an issue, and the TTC needs to address this. Some problems are due to bad scheduling (unrealistic running times), but also there are both internal practices and external factors such as construction projects and special events for which no provision is made even when they are known of months in advance. Finally, the attractiveness of transit service does not depend just on a few peak hours on weekdays, but on the off peak and weekend hours when conditions on some routes can get very bad. Imagine owning a car that only worked reliably four hours a day, five days a week.
The subway is a particular case of a disparity between advertised and actual capacity. Terminal operation changes certainly can improve reliability by making it easier to maintain headways, but even this does not eliminate the delays caused by overcrowding or by the inevitable equipment failures, passenger illnesses, “smoke at track level” alarms, etc. As discussed here previously, the overall metrics of service reliability mask a host of problems, and there are no published stats showing whether various types of delay are rising or falling in their contribution to reliability and effective capacity.
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Question Steve, if he is in fact bringing in Chow and Soknacki, could not some of this be to buy some credibility, and hold doors open for him to also adopt more of their plans, or rather the plans that were recommended to them by experts.
RER is required, and seems to be what he promised for the most part, and I love the term SmartTrack for its wonderful vagueness. He has allowed some sense there may be some detail work required in order to make it really work. I would suggest that he may get some high level advice, that will improve his lines, for instance, doubling up in the west and following some advice in routing may get RER to Bramalea, and LRT in Eglinton. To quote his platform, the last and most telling line from his site.
This is to be expected, and I would argue, that the western alignment, is an aspect that may change. Somehow, I expect LRT and RER in the west. I am just trying to figure out how he will address the east. RER here makes sense, but he needs to feed riders to it, and make it not appear to be too radical a shift in position. LRT and much improved bus service make sense, especially in that they could be in place even as the province completes RER work. This type of flexibility may actually allow 15 billion in the GTA to go a long way to solving its transit and congestion crisis. Getting matching funds from the Feds and maintaining their flexibility would likely allow a real solution, especially if we allow “some aspects may change”, and bend those changes to best expert advice for an overall network, not political gain.
Steve: By embracing other candidates, yes Tory buys credibility with the proviso that it not just be for show. It also disarms potential critics, at least in the short term, especially if they are seen to make headway on issues they have raised in the campaign, and be contributing to the city’s betterment, not just occupying a seat “inside the tent”.
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At the same time, I am happy the Ford Nation will not be heading up the city. And I think that John Tory will be more open to listen. But at the end of the day we need to get things done – I am getting sick of the talking. We need actions, and we need them now.
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A “rush” implementation of SmartTrack would start to take effect 2 years+ from now at the earliest. The limiting factor is 2 years to train a mainline train operator, even if Metrolinx and Bombardier agreed to start hiring before Council passed the necessary financial commitments. The hiring pipeline is currently fully committed to the requirements of GO and UPX. This assumes that track capacity and rolling stock could be obtained inside that timeframe, and incremental capacity would likely to be marginal within Tory’s first mayoralty.
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I hope that he also goes through asking the serious question about creating efficiency, in terms of adding just a little more in the way of resources in order to create a disproportionately large increase in service. These resources not always being TTC vehicles and drivers.
To your point about left turns blocking a streetcar, where a small amount of enforcement might actually make a substantial difference, if the Toronto Police service, had a higher level of enforcement for these, and other transit critical issues. Continued higher level of enforcement would likely create more of a habit amongst drivers of adhering to the rules. Tow those commercial vehicles that block streets along critical transit routes, and once this has been done enough times, they will simply not block the streets.
Provide the resources for a new vehicle tracking system, and signal control system with the capability of interacting, and provide the data to both permit and implement conditional transit priority, so that vehicles running too far ahead of headway do not get priority and those that are falling behind or need help in or before a trouble area get it.
Steve: The new tracking system is already in the works and funded through the capital budget, but it will be a few years before we see implementation. As for conditional priority, the problem here is to decide what “condition” you are using. We have talked a lot here about the distinction between “on schedule” and “on headway”. Also there are cases such as a downstream level of congestion that make holding vehicles upstream a bad idea. Then there are diversions where the idea of “on time” at a point is meaningless, but priority is vital because the vehicle is probably having to use extra time, and the “schedule” for extras that are not part of the official timetable. This is not as straightforward a problem as it might seem.
Finally, nothing will substitute for an organizational ethic that strives to provide reliable service without assuming it will magically occur if only we can write the perfect schedule, built the perfect traffic control system, and banish ShredIt from the streets. I cannot help repeating that service is cocked up at times when none, repeat, none of the “usual” problems exists.
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I would absolutely agree, and this too must be part of the mayor’s and council’s charge to the TTC. Insist on not accepting “can’t” and rather insist on what is required.
As to signal priority as I noted, “heading into a trouble area” and managing this will require a sophisticated approach, active management and a system that allows dynamic changes (ie overriding the defaults on priority when appropriate) and not just looking at situations and saying gee the King car isn’t working well today, that’s too bad (where Toronto Traffic is actively involved and supportive as well). It will also mean a constant can-do involvement with enforcement where they are actively dispatched to the scene/area of trouble. The excuses need to be removed (some of which will be in the form of critical resources) and performance demanded.
There should be no excuse for instance for service to not be dispatched on headway. The metrics for service delivery in my mind also need to be changed, so that we can readily see what service is within 1, 3, and 5 minutes of headway. I would like to see the TTC publish headway distribution graphs, and they should be clear what they can do, in order to make these much tighter. They should show headway at multiple points along a line including both both ends, and a couple of intermediate points.
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I had no personal feelings with regards to the Fords, nor had they offered me personal offense, and yet I found myself developing a strong distaste based on their transit policy alone. It is hard not to develop a distaste for someone who insists on policies that are manifestly bad for transit, and will result in a long term disaster for the city. If you stay focused on transit alone, using the notion of “deserve” instead of serving demand, you will perforce create a massive issue, and for someone who see transit as important, this is likely to create a reasoned dislike. He seemed to refuse to provide service where there is a real demand.
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Perhaps after some quiet negotiations with the Province & Metrolinx, SmartTrack ends up being the working brand name for the “Big U” as the first step of the RER network project. SmartTrack certainly sounds better than “Big U” anyways.
Perhaps this will be the begining of the climbdown from the Eglinton West stretch (which will please Ford Nation and residents of Richview and Mount Dennis but disappoint the newly elected Mayor of Mississauga) and refocusing on the RER and service out to Mississauga (Malton GO) and Bramalea. More importantly, this doesn’t have to happen in 2 years. GO used to run a few daytime trains out to Bramalea which they stopped for the Georgetown South project, but they could start running hourly (or even half-hourly) service in 2015 if they can work out track time arrangements with the freight railways.
Running a half-hourly service on the Kitchener line out to Brampton would do a lot for GO Transit and Metrolinx. It could help them understand and adjust to the challenges faced in bringing more daytime service to Union Station and the Union Station Railway Corridor. It could help them remind them public that GO service exists as an alternative to the UPEx (aside from the existing GO buses, a new GO shuttle bus from Malton GO station to Pearson would be a nice offering). More importantly, it could help GO & Metrolinx (and the province) show the public that their commitment to building infrastructure is now going to pay off with more and better transit services … something that, essentially, we have been waiting for since the Big Move was first announced.
Cheers, Moaz
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It might seem hard to believe but there are people who drive in from Markham and park their cars at Scarborough Town Centre so they can save the difference between the GO train and TTC fares. If SmartTrack really ends up with a regular TTC fare it should be very popular with Markham riders.
Steve: Without question, and that will have a big effect on demand on the Scarborough Subway. However, the subway boosters want to see projected loads as high as possible to justify their project.
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There is also the issue of frequency. RER in this corridor would bring a massive increase in frequency. One of the current advantages of subway over GO to this area. If you miss the 5:20 GO, 6:00 pm is a long wait. If you might have slightly late night and miss the 6:00 you are looking at 6:30, and worse after that. If service at or better than 15 minutes, the impact of missing a single train would be so much less of a concern. I know for myself, I cannot handle just hanging out, without enough time to actually do anything, other than stew. Knowing there might be a real risk of that in your employment would likely make you look to more time flexible transit as a matter of course. Especially, if the fare favours the more flexible mode, and the difference more than covers the cost of the drive.
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