The January 2015 schedules bring several changes, but no substantial additions to service due to the shortage of buses and streetcars. Notable among them are:
- The end of several construction projects, or at least their deferral until later in 2015.
- Increased running time on the 509 Harbourfront and 510 Spadina (Union) services to cope with conditions on Queens Quay, notably the absence of transit signal priority which will not be functional until the road assumes its final layout later in the year.
- Extension of some 510 Spadina King trips south to Queens Quay Loop.
- Introduction of articulated buses on the Finch West Humberwood service.
- Replacement of some 12m buses by artics on the 320 Yonge Night bus for Saturday late night and Sunday early morning service.
- Increase in the number of 504 King trippers operated by buses rather than streetcars, and the discontinuation of PM peak service on 508 Lake Shore.
Steve Munro 
Good to see that the artics are joining the 320 on a 1:1 basis, resisting budgetary temptation to cut one or two total vehicles. I have occasion to use the 300/320 for occasional Sunday pre-subway commuting and can attest to their significant patronage. While the larger buses should notionally have shorter dwell times owing to slow boarding of crowded vehicles, reports from other routes with artics seem to indicate that time pulling into/out of stops and slower door operation will cancel some of those gains.
LikeLike
So will we have 3 tiers of service on Spadina now?
I wonder what the rational is for that? King and Queens Quay are relatively close, it would make more sense to eliminate the King turnback and run all service to Queens Quay and Union instead, especially with all the condos in and around Queens Quay (Cityplace for example) along with events (Rogers Centre).
LikeLike
Only one new streetcar (4404) by January 4th? Couldn’t we get two, three, or four new streetcars in town, tested, and ready to go by then?
Steve: I would not count on its actually being in service by January 4. As for more, we await a plan from the TTC and Bombardier.
LikeLike
Well if push comes to shove Steve Halton County Railway Museum has some PCC’s, Witts, Toronto Railway Company Cars, even a Toronto and York Suburban Railway Car. I am sure even in their current states they could be made operational to meet current demand long before Bombardier clears more cars for service 🙂
LikeLike
Some questions!
Presumably the King buses are due to shortage of streetcars given that all streetcar routes are operating normally? Will the buses disappear as new cars are pressed into service?
Steve: In theory, yes. I am waiting for the agenda for the December TTC board meeting to be published in hopes that it will include an updated roll out plan. If they don’t have one to give out publicly by then, something is desperately wrong. The TTC has been playing rather coy on the whole issue of resumption of streetcar deliveries for far too long. Also, they need those buses for service on bus routes.
With new car deliveries, why are TTC required QC inspections and testing not done in Thunder Bay so cars can operate ‘out of the box’ on arrival in Toronto?
Steve: My understanding is that a new car must undergo a period of acceptance testing in Toronto, not just on a Bombardier test track. It is not possible to duplicate on street conditions at the plant. That said, I really must wonder whether a level of reliability in delivered cars will be reached that will allow a shortening of the acceptance period.
What is in store to improve King Street service?
Steve: All that has happened so far is the extension of running times to match actual conditions, and even with this, short turns and bunching are not uncommon. I am waiting to accumulate more King operating data to get a sense of how successful this change was. The city’s King Street study won’t be out until the spring, and I don’t know how wide or narrow the range of options that will be included might be. The problems are complex and require more than just tweaking parking and turning regulations in a few locations.
LikeLike
There is something fishy going on at Bombardier. They need to pull up their bootstraps and get to work ASAP on delivering cars AND making up for the delay by delivering future cars ahead of time.
LikeLike
So, the 508 is being cut back to only a morning rush hour service. Nice.
Also, I noticed something in the link you provided about construction at Roncesvalles. What construction is this?
Steve: Carhouse changes to accommodate the LFLRVs.
LikeLike
Glad to see the 510 being operated, during most times, equally between King, Queens Quay and Spadina, and Union. The 510 service south of King has been very hit-or-miss since Queens Quay opened, sometimes it seems like cars are going to/coming from Union every couple of minutes, at other times — amazingly enough mostly during the evening rush where there is massive demand from the Bremner-Fort York condo crowd — I’ve had to wait 15 or 20 minutes for a streetcar. It’s amazing to see the southbound Union cars lose three quarters or more of their passengers at Fort York and to see the crowded northbound platform fill up a virtually empty car (even an LFLRV – wow!) to crush load reliably from at least 4-7 PM.
I definitely agree with Richard in that the Queens Quay runs make a lot of sense compared to King, and I’m similarly confused, given the short distance between them and the often huge demand down here, why they don’t just eliminate King turnbacks from the schedule like they did from August 31 – October 12 and make Queens Quay and Spadina the sole turnback point. That way the disproportionately high demand on that tiny leg will be satisfied, while even the small number of passengers (from my observations) who’d want to take it all the way to/from Union can easily enough transfer between it and the 509. Still, 1/3 share for each King, Queens Quay, and Union is a huge gain down here compared to the often barren service we’ve seen with 2/3 King 1/3 Union, so kudos to the TTC for noticing the need to make such a small but important change relatively quickly after service resumed!
Steve: The TTC, when challenged on the quality of service south of King by the local Councillor, claimed that their ridership stats show they don’t need more service. The problem, of course, is that riding counts don’t show all the people who never managed to get on the vehicles. A particular problem remains with the traffic between the condos at Bremner to Union which can overwhelm the through service, and yet the TTC says they don’t need more. Folks can walk south to Queens Quay, but they should not have to. In the PM peak, I suspect many who would like to go from Union to Bremner take whatever shows up at Union first and just walk. After a few years of the 509 bus, the through trip wasn’t part of their normal commute anyhow.
LikeLike
What I heard is that the bus shortage problem is occuring pretty much every single division.. but some people say that the Arrow Road Division is having more problem than the other divisions.
Reddit link showing the problems on the Arrow Road division
Can you tell me more about ongoing bus shortage problems for the TTC, and when the problem will be solved? I frequently use 37 Islington bus, and 37 bus is affected by the bus shortage.. The schedule became more inconsistent and less reliable..
Steve: No I have no idea when this will be fixed because the follies of the Ford/Stintz era cannot even begin to be addressed until the new Council is in office, and I am willing to bet that John Tory for all his fine talk about transit won’t be very supportive of money for anything other than his pet project. I look forward to being proved wrong, but so far he has said nothing to convince me he understands the gravity of the situation. The real test will come in debates by the new Commission as they go through the operating and capital budgets, and the degree to which Andy Byford and company are open and honest about just how bad the situation really is.
Don’t forget, it was Team Tory who regarded the August proposals for more spending on surface ops as “irresponsible” at least in part because the ideas aligned more with Olivia Chow’s campaign than with Tory’s.
That Reddit thread should be required reading for all senior management and would-be members of the TTC.
LikeLike
Steve, made me wonder whether the previous notion I had that 200 additional buses were needed now, or even the ATU number of 250 is anywhere near adequate. Also the state of service, should be something the Mayor and council make a point of establishing. A couple of peak period rides per week to locations other than their own regular location might be a good start. Along with this, they should all make a commitment to use the TTC as their primary form of transportation.
This in my mind as the solution to congestion can only be found in reducing the number of vehicles on the road, and that requires greatly increased use of the alternative. Having council (entire council not just TTC board) know first hand the issues with using transit, would go a long ways to having them want to address it. This should include streetcar rides on Queen and King and bus rides on Lawrence, Finch West, Ossington etc. The TTC is a core city service, and council should be regular first hand witnesses to its effectiveness and quality.
Steve: I think that the vehicle shortage is quite severe through a combination of reliability issues, riding growth, and the artificial constraints on fleet size thanks to the Ford/Stintz era. 250 buses will only be a start.
LikeLike
I find it interesting that there is a bus shortage, with a shortage for storing broken down ones. Perhaps they need to find additional shops for rebuilding engines and transmissions, or even build their own.
You wonder how much of a shortage there is, when 5 buses come together the first 2 are packed, the third one is full and 4 and 5 are empty.
Steve: For years, the TTC has said that the cheapest capacity is right there on the streets in those convoys of buses, but they do little to adjust line management to exploit this.
LikeLike
The questions become:
1-How can this get fixed? This is where the mayor and council should be looking, and since this is where there is a well known issue, to me this should be the first issue in terms of new reporting.
2-How much capacity is there to be had here really? How much is wasted at peak, or do people wait for the next bus in what they know will be a parade (especially when they can see it) and board the bus behind, as they close up to near zero gap? If we are to say it is 10%, and the parade issue were completely fixed (hard to see how on some of those longer routes, without actually having buses hold) would that actually represent enough capacity given the current state of operations. Also to what degree are the parades strictly formed due to dispatch, and to what degree is it created due to the overloading on the route to begin with? (That is the bus that is actually hitting the highest point of peak on the route simply being slower than the buses behind).
To some degree some of this could be helped by a better signal priority system that was actually coordinated with the vehicle location system, and had data on the buses routes etc (ie one that worked to speed buses behind headway so they would have to stop at all at lights, and not those running well ahead buses). However, it has to start with basic dispatch. I think council, along with a good whack of funding for additional buses, should be demanding highly detailed dispatch headway reporting. This ideally should include distribution graphs of headway resolved to a minute or better. Somebody to be taking up this issue with great regularity with the TTC and senior management. But given growth, even if all this cheapest of capacity was found through far better route management better systems I would highly doubt it would catch ridership growth.
LikeLike
Stories of bus convoys are legion. A joke is they don’t like being lonely! Management is lacking big time. Schedules need to be strictly observed by Operators and there MUST be adequate supervision on the street. No departing ahead of schedule from terminals AND key points along the route. Not plus/minus 3 minutes. Buses can wait at transfer points where there are bus bays/turn lanes for time. There are plenty of reasons a bus can be late but there is NO excuse for running ahead of schedule. Period. The purpose of buses being on the street is to provide a transit service, not to wear the tires off.
LikeLike
I was taking the 510 yesterday and noticed that the frequency of cars has dropped off quite a bit during the evening rush hour (5:30pm) since the reintroduction of service to Union. Usually there’s barely any wait for a streetcar to show up along Spadina but yesterday the wait was ranging from every 7-10mins. Has the TTC already readjusted the schedule to reflect the new streetcars on this route? The large crowds at each stop along with the slow-overly cautious operators seems to be exacerbating the situation and I think it’s going to get a lot worse when more Flexities are entering into service. Do you have any info on why the frequency on Spadina has dropped off?
Steve: 7-10 minutes is definitely not the scheduled service. What did change in October was that in September (before Union extension), all service had been scheduled to run to Queens Quay, whereas in October, only one in three were sent to Union, with the other 2 turning at King. This caused quite a drop in service between King and Queens Quay. In January, this will change so that 2/3 of the cars will go to Queens Quay Loop and only 1/3 turn at King. Of course that’s the printed schedule which has little to do with reality.
On a slightly different note, do you plan to do any analysis on the 96/165 Wilson bus services? I regularly take this route to and from work and the service is so unreliable to the point that buses will be bunched together in 3s or 4s and leading to daily gaps of 20-30+ mins (according to the Rocketman app) during the afternoon rush hour. This might be an interesting study since there are so many branches of the routes and might be a good comparison study to the Dufferin bus.
Steve: Yes, that certainly would. I will include 96 Wilson in my next request for data to the TTC.
LikeLike
I am somewhat confused, how can they not be aware of the crowding that happens regularly on this line. Are there phantom cars running the line dead empty, so the averages work out?
Steve: I am not sure that the TTC understands how many people want to go from Spadina to Union in the AM peak. The service, even with the January 2015 schedules, is organized on the presumption that most people are travelling north, not south and east. A car running south to Queens Quay Loop is of no value to someone headed to Union, and headways to Union actually get wider in the January schedules.
LikeLike
So is the issue being driven by the TTC not having caught up with the degree of counter peak commuting.
Steve: Actually it is peak commuting — they are going to Union in the morning just like everyone else, but you would never know it from the service level.
LikeLike
Here I was thinking in terms of the riders heading to take the GO away from the Core to jobs elsewhere (in my mind easier to forgive in being taken unaware, as it goes somewhat against experience), but you are saying this is merely regular growth of flow to the core… i.e. not a change in basic pattern. Should they not have enough history to know how this demand pattern would grow?
Steve: Yup. People live downtown to be near jobs, not to commute outward. Jobs are in the core. Commute traffic points to core, not north on Spadina, although it has its own demand pattern too.
LikeLike
Kevin’s comment:
Horse cars! Bring on the horse cars!
🙂
LikeLike
Strange, the service summary for January says that artics aren’t running on the 36 on the weekends. Weekdays only to Humberwood, it looks like.
Steve: That’s what the summary I published based on the detailed service change notice says too.
LikeLike
Strange, I was sure in one of the service summaries, it said artics 7 days a week.
In any case, my bad!
LikeLike
Second week in a row no Artics on night bus for Sunday am 1:30-3:30
LikeLike