Updated November 30, 2014 at 6:20 am:
Car 4404 entered revenue service on 510 Spadina just before 6:00 am today. This also marks the introduction of Presto! on the Toronto surface network. Later today, 4400 should join 4404 in service, and by Wednesday, December 3, 4403 is expected to be on the street as well.
Delivery of additional Flexities from Bombardier has been slow because the TTC is insisting that quality control at the plant be improved, and they will not accept cars only to have them fail in Toronto during testing. The TTC is also working with Bombardier to get the production and delivery rate up to a higher level so that the conversion of routes to Flexity operation can get underway properly.
Meanwhile, as already announced by CEO Andy Byford, the coming 2015 budget will include money for renewal work on the ALRV fleet (the articulated streetcars used mainly on King and Queen) to extend their lives and retain their higher capacity during the transition to Flexity operation.
Original post November 12, 2014:
Car 4404, the second “production” low floor streetcar, has finally arrived in Toronto.
The TTC still does not have an updated delivery plan for Bombardier to supply the production run of cars. Meanwhile, 4401 and 4402 continue operating as training cars while 4400 and 4403 provide revenue service.
On a brighter note, Andy Byford recently wrote about changes in the fleet plan which will see ALRVs kept in service longer and more cars made available for service on King and Queen. The rollout plan may also be changed to advance the appearance of new low-floor cars on these routes.
Photo courtesy of Mike Filey:
Photos courtesy of Harold McMann. CLRV 4075 tows 4404 from the delivery ramp to the shops.
Steve Munro 
Great, 9 more and Spadina is converted correct?
I will be very interested to see the impact after the next three on Spadina. I am thinking that this will hopefully be close to the point where we start to get an idea whether the new cars will really provide the capacity to make a difference.
I must admit Steve, I am of the mind that given the sparse service on Queen, I would think it would be better to move more CLRVs to Queen, get the ALRVs to King, and then replace as many of the CLRVs still required for King as quickly as can be done with the new car.
Correct me if I do not understand, but are not the headways still quite a lot larger on Queen, and could it not support considerably more cars? On King, do they not run so thick that they are interfering with adjoining cars at lights etc? I would think at this juncture there would be a drive to place all operational ALRVs on King. In terms of making King operate well, would you not need to run ALRVs at current CLRV headway?, (crowding would then be tolerable?). Whereas the issue on Queen is not the major concern that the cars are so far apart that you are waiting forever, ie would it not be better to run the similar capacity with CLRVs that was run with ALRVs (ie cars about twice as often)?
Steve: You are preaching to the choir here. I have written about precisely this issue before. Yes, the headways on Queen are much wider than on King and there is lots of room for more cars on the 501 without causing traffic chaos. As for King, larger vehicles on the existing headway (the scheduled one, not in parades with big gaps, thank you) would improve capacity without adding to traffic problems.
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A driver told me last Thursday Nov. 6, that she had seen five of the new cars at Roncesvalles. What gives?
Steve: Four yes, but five is a stretch.
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Keeping the ALRV’s mitigates what you have been saying for so long and makes so much sense. A thorough refurbishment might well be in order, not just electric drive issues. Well done!
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Mayor Ford’s administration continues to deliver even in it’s dying days.
Steve: As usual taking credit for a program launched by David Miller that Ford tried to kill, but only delayed.
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With regard to the King route, and Liberty Village riders being unable to board vehicles that are already full…
Forgive me if you already made this suggestion, couldn’t they short-turn some King cars at the nearest loop west of Liberty Village? Did anyone consider building a loop at Liberty Village when that area was redeveloped? Weren’t short-turn sub-routes routinely used in past decades, in situations like this?
Is the Dufferin loop the closest loop? Because of the couple of hundred yards south on Dufferin would this require a few more vehicles?
Steve: Yes, Dufferin Loop is an obvious place to originate some empty trips eastbound, but they have to come westbound first to do this. The real problem is the combined headway of cars eastbound from Dundas West Station and Roncesvalles carhouse.
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On September 8, the Star reported: It’s not clear when a third LRV will arrive in Toronto, said the TTC’s Brad Ross. But when it does, like all the new streetcars, it will have to log 600 kilometres of running time without failure before it is incorporated on a route.
Although it may be reasonable for the 3 prototypes, that sounds like an excessive amount of testing for a production car. But, assuming an average speed of 15 km/h, it would take 40 hours to log 600 km. So perhaps it will be in service in a week?
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Now if only the Transportation Services Department could give the TTC some better service in getting the transit priority signals actually working properly, and expanding them to give transit vehicles with forty to over hundred people aboard real priority instead of the single-occupant motor vehicles making left turns.
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How are the new streetcars being delivered to Toronto from Thunder Bay? Also where are they being stored until the Leslie Barn is completed?
Steve: They are delivered on flatcars to a siding at Hillcrest shops. In the short term, there is capacity among the existing carhouses, plus storage at Exhibition Loop that is being used on a temporary basis.
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The extent to the ALRV refurb will be interesting indeed, since the number of years the refurb will buy is in single digits, before considering the cost of Presto readers. Interesting too will be the deemed source of the needed funds, and the capacity of Hillcrest to perform the work given the already serious bus backlog.
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I take it you meant ‘from Bombardier’. I am aware of the strike, but it ended two months ago.
How does anyone get away with not providing accurate delivery dates in this day and age? It boggles the mind. This is just incompetence. If my company ever pulled that stunt on a client, no matter how complex the project or deliverable, they wouldn’t be a client any more.
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@ MarkE:
I hope the TTC keeps the ALRVs a little longer too. I made art of them as a six year old back when they started to appear around 1988. It was always a trademark image as a kid to watch CityPulse or Breakfast Television with the ALRVs constantly going by. And yes there are high floor streetcars out there with wheelchair lifts.
I have also had this funny fantasy if I had the money to buy two CLRVs and an ALRV or two and have this like CLRV/ALRV night club streetcar train wandering the streets with like glowy neon lights like some souped up little Honda or something. ; )
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@ MarkE:
I have ridden those vehicles and it takes about 5 minutes to load or unload a passenger using the lift. (I timed it twice.) Do you want to try that on King Street in the a.m. rush? They also take up a lot of space in the vehicle. Some cities use a small high platform to allow level access. I know this is done on the Shaker line in Cleveland, and in Buffalo and Memphis. The Buffalo one is the only one that works quickly. The other 2 are very time consuming and all use up a lot of space next to the car tracks which is ok on a right of way or wide street but not really possible in Toronto. Low floors are the way to go.
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A number of European cities have dealt with the accessibility problem by taking a two-section streetcar, like the ALRV, and adding a third (low-floor) section in the middle – much simpler to use than a wheelchair lift, and with the side benefit of increasing their capacity. Of course, that assumes that you’re starting with streetcars that are worth the investment.
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Hi Steve
Ford Nation citizen stated that “Mayor Ford’s administration continues to deliver even in it’s dying days.”
Here is something, little man, go back through Steve’s comments and see what your useless excuse of a mayor has really delivered – delays for the Sheppard and Finch LRT, cancellation costs for the Scarborough LRT, money pissed away in capital costs for the Scarborough subway, a hobbling of the TTC’s ability to expand bus services, delays in the deliveries of new streetcars, and the poisoning of the entire transit debate by suggesting that LRT’s are inferior and that anything less than a subway is a snub. Your “mayor” has lied through his teeth to you with regards to what LRT has accomplished here and in Europe. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Come back and debate transit when you actually have something informed to contribute.
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ALRV are my favorite vehicles. Steve, I have heard from various sources that previously ALRV’s were supposed to go out of service immediately after the new streetcars arrived. Could you expand on the issues the TTC has with them, and why are the ALRV’s never on the 509 and 510?
Steve: There is an issue with pushing a disabled ALRV out of the Bay Street tunnel.
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Leave transit planning, expansion and operation to the transit providers and transit experts. Leave finding transit funding to the politicians with their only input on transit design is to support the design that transit planners can best justify. Get back to a funding formula for TTC that provides a regular and predictable annual subsidy and then run the TTC as a business. TTC needs the incentive to be frugal and efficient within achieving established transit goals.
Steve: A major problem here is that “frugal” means different things to different people. To some, it means that the goal of running service we need places second to running service we can “afford”. Also, the term becomes incredibly elastic when someone wants a rapid transit line, especially for electoral purposes.
To put it more bluntly, we get about $160m in provincial gas tax each year, and this is divided between operating and capital budgets roughly 90/70. It’s not enough, but it’s “predictable”.
If we are to have “goals” for transit that are based on quality of service, speed of travel, affordability and the importance of supporting the economy by providing labour mobility, well, all of those cost more money than we have been willing to spend. It is pointless having a “goal” and issuing directives that contradict it at every turn.
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Out of curiosity Steve, any signs that the change to the old fleet retirement plan could be an indication that the Flexity order is going to be expanded? I mean, holding off the retirement of the old fleet until service rises to “match” that of a larger order would basically be the only quick transit capital spending win that Tory could pull off during his current term.
Steve: I think the two issues are independent of each other. There is already provision in the unfunded part of the capital budget that would see 60 more cars ordered bringing the system up to the combined capacity of the three yards. However, these cars would not start to arrive until at least 2019 by which time the ALRVs would be retired.
Where this affects Tory is that there will be a drop-dead date by which the TTC has to exercise the option to extend the contract. This date must have been pushed out from its original time because Bombardier has barely begun the current order.
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I should clarify what I’m getting at in that the TTC should do a little accounting trickery. In essence, the TTC would hold off retirement of the existing fleet until the equivalent number of Flexitys to the expanded order are on the property. Basically, the first 60 Flexitys become “new” cars while the expanded order takes over the replacement of the last CLRVs. That’s why I’m saying that Tory would benefit from it because those 60 Flexitys should be in the TTC’s hands before the end of his first term if he expands the order.
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Then put it in downtown and to those who demand that nothing less than a subway would do for Downtown Relief Line. The DRL will be built as a surface subway (SmartTrack) as it just doesn’t make sense to (in your own words) piss money away by burying it (sorry for the language Steve but I have not used any inappropriate word that you did not allow Ian Folkard to user).
What capital costs? No physical work has even begun on the Scarborough subway which the province tried to backtrack from the day after winning all seats in Scarborough on a subway promise with Wynne suggesting that the Scarborough subway was not written in stone and that she would work with whoever is elected in October and well, John Tory has been elected and so she will now work with Tory to deliver the Scarborough subway that Tory has promised. What about the money pissed away on the new streetcars? The new streetcar fleet alone costs as much as the proposed Scarborough subway and the TTC wants yet more.
Steve: At the risk of opening the whole can of worms of SmartTrack vs the DRL, these two lines serve different purposes. Sadly, there are too many people who want to find any excuse to delay if not defer indefinitely a DRL, but SmartTrack won’t do that. Indeed, the Scarborough subway, if loading projections are to believe, will accelerate the need for a DRL by overloading the Danforth subway and, hence, the Bloor-Yonge interchange. Conversely, if SmartTrack is supposed to relieve this, then the planned Scarborough subway demand will not materialize.
What is badly needed is a consolidated view of future demands and land development to put all of the competing plans on the same footing. Whether this will be allowed to happen in the rush to bless SmartTrack as the one and only “solution” remains to be seen, but it would be a shame if this happened. Too much of the debate has gone on faith about what technologies and routes might be appropriate, and we never see a proper comparison of them all.
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Regarding the delay with the Flexity’s, has Bombardier given any reason for the delay? Surely that’s the least one might ask.
Steve: The combined silence of both the TTC and Bombardier on this suggests that there may be negotiations underway re penalty payments for late delivery that could be compromised by discussions in the media. That’s the “glass half full” version. The “half empty” version is that they are covering each other’s butts. It’s worth noting that the subway car order was delayed too, although not for as long as the streetcars.
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Does anyone else find delivering 3-4 vehicles per month pitifully low/small? Is this just a capacity issue at the plant in TB? a skill issue? a funding issue?
My hope would be that we could accelerate deployments.
Steve: Three per month was the originally contracted rate, although there is supposed to be provision in the contract to increase this (but to what level I don’t know). By comparison, delivery of the TR trainset started in 2009 and Bombardier has delivered 318 cars, roughly 60 per year, or nearly double the rate for the LFLRV contract (although the LFLRVs are more complex on a car-by-car basis than the TR cars).
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One hopes the penalty payments could perhaps be made in the form of extra Flexities…
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A couple of comments for Pete. How much extra will the Scarborough Subway cost? Right now it stands at $900 million (at a minimum) in city funds plus $650 million in money from the feds. Plus, there are around $80 million in Scarborough LRT design costs that have been walked away from. As for your comment about new streetcars, how many millions more riders will they carry than the Scarborough Subway? Right now, the downtown relief line has the riders (suburban ones at that) to justify its construction. The Scarborough Subway does not. Pete, please go back to Ford Nation.
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Yes, would it not be stunning if both were actually required, given the 14k peak subway ridership required an “adjusted” land use forecast, {ie including a large number of Markham riders in the first place}. I really hope that an honest modelling can be done again, and allow that to drive the choices. Please, do the modelling for a complete network, running the model with multiple options in play, ie Scarborough Subway in and out, SmartTrack in and out, Richmond Hill as frequent EMU or LRT in and out, impact of adjusted bus routes.
The base case now needs to include Crosstown, and existing subway, but that is it. Also we should seek to get the most resolved level of information as reasonably available or that could be made available. So use the transportation tomorrow survey, but also directly approach employers in terms of hours, locations and residential location of current employees, same for students at schools etc. This would allow you to form a decent model of what would happen with various options on bus networks as well.
We may discover that much load would go east to SmartTrack, or we may discover that it will have little impact on the Yonge subway, it may not have a large impact on the BDL extension, or it may actually reduce the existing ridership on Danforth enough that a need for increased capacity on Danforth will move decades out.
One of the issues that bothers me with some of the politically driven proposals is that they are actually routed away from the major destinations that would actually increase the ridership, and perhaps make the project less ridiculous. The location for the Scarborough subway extension being a classic case, why does it not align with employment in the area? Why does it not go through the priority neighborhoods?
Honest ridership projections (ie no tweaking land use projections) should be run on all projects, and permit a rank ordering of impact by cost, then what is the ridership that results for the projects that remain. Assuming that RER in Stouffville is built, I would be stunned if there was a residual ridership for the BDL extension beyond about 8 k.
How much will RER draw people there and off Yonge? Can we look at a serious modelling, and look at where the current and future riders are coming from for Yonge, and if RER in Stouffville will make a real impact.
I wish more people could get behind the simple ideas that travel time (including transfers), ridership routes would serve, impact on overall transit usage, impact on congestion, equitable access for those whom a car is not an option, and finally reasonable forecast of the impact on development should be what drives transit projects.
If we insist on going down the BS road of equity, many things need to be taken into account, including all spending in an area, not just transit spending. If most people in an area insist on driving, why would you measure only transit spending and ignore cost of roads (measure per person please)? Doubly so when comparing to an area where most people ride transit. How can you look only at spending where the person lives, not at the cost of the entire route to their destination? A Scarborough transit rider core bound consumes more of the downtown elites precious subway, than a core bound downtown elite person living in that small condo in Liberty Village, or someone near Roncesvalles or for that matter in Rosedale.
A driver from Brampton to the core, uses the 401, the 427 and the Gardiner, not just the 410. Do we only look at the 410 as a service to them and the Gardiner as strictly for those Downtown Elite?
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Keep in mind, that once the Metrolinx Flexity’s kick in (which purchased as an option on the TTC contract), they’ll be needing to deliver about 3 of these vehicles a month as well.
So six 30-metre vehicles a month. That’s about 180 metres of equipment a month. Length-wise, that’s the equivalent of 1.3 six-car subway trains a month. Which is faster than the subway trains have been delivered!
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About 6m per day. Isn’t that similar to the Crosstown tunnel-boring speed? I’m picturing a tunnel being built and simultaneously filled with new stored equipment.
Speaking of which, does anybody know when breakthrough at extraction shaft #1 (Eglinton West Station) is expected? The progress map on the Crosstown website has shown the first TBM only a short block away from the station for about a week now.
Steve: Metrolinx has already announced that the first TBM had reached Eglinton West and was waiting for the second to catch up before they will both be extracted. Here is twitter traffic:
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There has to be an opportunity for the TTC and Metrolinx to string together some of those Eglinton Crosstown LRVs to give the public an idea of how long those trains will actually be.
Unfortunately there isn’t really a place where they could do until the yard is built … or is there?
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: Originally, the first LRVs were to go to Sheppard East and the Conlins Road yard. With the status of Sheppard now unknown, it’s anyone’s guess.
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I have seen events (outside of Toronto, unfortunately) where there were free card purchase & activation for PRESTO. Do you know if or when they would do the same somewhere in Toronto? If not, I’ll just have to wait a year or so before I get my PRESTO card.
Steve: I haven’t heard anything about this, but will ask.
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That makes 5 Flexities in service for the Spadina Route by Wedneday?
Hopefully we can at least get back on schedule by end of next summer. Question is, Leslie Barns project isn’t even close to being done and it’s a disaster zone over there.
Steve: No, only 3. 4401 and 4402 still require retrofits to bring them to “production” status, and they are being used only for training. There’s no word yet on further deliveries.
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Now that the ALRVs will be overhauled, will the CLRVs begin retirement as the new Flexitys are being delivered and put into service?
Is the route order for new streetcars still the same?
Steve: I have repeatedly asked the TTC for an updated fleet plan, and I don’t think they will publish one until the budget for 2015 comes out. I suspect they were awaiting the outcome of the election to see whether this project would have support in the Mayor’s office.
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What’s with cars 4401 & 4402, are they going to be in service soon?
When will they return to Bombardier to get minor upgrades?
Steve: The TTC is concentrating on getting new cars out of Thunder Bay and is content to leave those two prototypes in Toronto for training, for now.
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On their Flexity webpage Bombardier says the following:
Is there something so radically different about the TTC LFLRVs that explains the slow delivery? It’s hard to imagine that a product with such a development history should be difficult to produce.
Steve: Almost none of those cars have been produced at the Thunder Bay plant, and the TTC has quality control issues, as I understand it. Remember that the TR subway cars also suffered from slow deliveries, although not as badly as the Flexities.
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Brampton Transit gave out free Presto cards for quite a while. I have not seen any figures, but from what I have seen of current bus boarding, I would say that the Presto penetration is over 75%. With some of the things I have heard about Presto on GO, I find myself wondering if Brampton Transit may have a higher penetration than even GO.
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I’ve heard that there are serious issues too.
We previously heard about screws falling off the bottom of the cars, but among other things I’ve heard of screws falling off other parts of the vehicle too. The person I spoke to had had customers hand them screws on at least two occasions recently.
Supposedly the reason only one Flexity is usually in service after 9pm is because the other one is in for maintenance. They used to do a lot of work on them overnight, but Bombardier is only willing to pay overtime for a certain period of time after the car is accepted by the TTC. I’ve been told there is enough work to keep them quite busy (enough that having a Bombardier tech on board at all times has proved useful since things have gone wrong on an almost daily basis).
All told, from what I’ve heard I can’t quite figure out why they’ve been accepted for service by the TTC (nor can I imagine what state the first prototype cars must have been)
Re: 4404, I was told that not too too long after the Bombardier strike concluded Bombardier wanted to ship it to Toronto incomplete to be touched up/finished off in Toronto. Presumably it was substantially complete, but there was still some work to be done and the car needed more testing. The TTC refused delivery until is was complete. It was implied to me that that may have something to do with contract penalties for late delivery, but I’m not 100% on that.
Re: The Presto machines, I was told that the machines were ready for the August 31 launch, but at the last minute it was discovered that the power feed specs had changed on board the cars. It sounded like that power feed was shared with other equipment, that it changed for the other equipment, and no one had told the Presto folks. That doesn’t explain the on street ones though, so I’m not 100% sure about that one.
This is all second hand, so take the specifics with a grain of salt, but it’s not too encouraging for a design that Bombardier supposedly has experience in manufacturing. Sure it’s customized for Toronto, but why the heck are screws falling off of them for instance??
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Steve, why can’t we build an on street LRT line (say using bidirectional versions of these new streetcars) from Finch station to Richmond Hill bus terminal instead of building a subway to a low density area with few jobs? Many of your posters in the past have suggested that the Yonge subway only be extended to Steeles with LRT or BRT the rest of the way but I strongly object to the heavily overcrowded Yonge subway being extended to Steeles. Why should we extend it to Steeles? Just because it is Toronto until Steeles? Those people who think that the Yonge subway should be extended to Steeles just because Toronto goes until Steeles forget that Toronto also goes to Steeles east of Victoria Park but instead they seem to think that the northern boundary of Toronto in Scarborough is at Eglinton which is as far north as the subway goes in Scarborough.
Besides, if you can build an on surface LRT on sometimes narrow Eglinton Ave East in Scarborough, then you can build an on surface LRT on Yonge St from Finch to Richmond Hill bus terminal (Yonge St between those two terminals is quite wide). Scarborough has far higher density and far more jobs than Richmond Hill and so if you think that Scarborough subway is not justifiable, then surely extending the Yonge subway at all is completely unjustifiable. I am NOT advocating for a Scarborough subway but just that there is a much stronger case for a subway in Scarborough than for extending the Yonge subway further north (in fact, it should NEVER have gone north of Sheppard in the first place).
Steve: There are good reasons to take the subway to Steeles. For starters, this would allow a split terminal operation with some trains terminating at Finch and would allow headways on the YUS to be reduced (automatic train control is a pre-req, but would be in place before any extension will be finished). Next, this would allow the TTC to build an underground yard as once proposed by extending the three-track structure north from Finch tail tracks to Cummer Station. This will simplify operation of the line by allowing storage of more trains on the eastern leg. Finally, this would get all of the bus traffic off of Yonge.
LRT at the capacity needed to ferry riders down to Finch would be a challenge, especially for a surface route.
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So far we’ve seen four deliveries this year since the end of August. That works out to about one per month. With a total of 204 ordered that makes the final rollout occurring in 2031. Can’t wait!
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How about 11 m curves with single blade switches versus 18 m or more curves with double blade switches in most of the rest of the world. This puts quite a major problem in truck design.
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Perhaps the TTC should be incrementally upgrading all of their switches to double bladed as intersections are replaced so that future buys won’t have to deal with it. But like adding new curves to intersections, the excuse is it costs too much.
Steve: The cycle time for intersection replacements is about 30 years, and even double-blade switches won’t eliminate the tight radius curves.
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If the subway actually goes to Steeles, would not a much smaller LRT work. However, do we actually want to have that level of boarding from riders north of Steeles that would require more than an on street LRT? Currently there are what about 100k boardings and alightings at Finch Station? That infers that what about 3-4 full hours of capacity are used prior to the train pulling out of its northern most station.
I support the idea of going to Steeles for all the operational gains, and what is the forecasted number of buses per hour at peak on Yonge without the extension to Steeles? Something like 360? What is that 2-3 time the forecasted load for Eglinton?
Steve: You don’t build an LRT to go 2km. If there is to be a line north from Finch it obviously go north of Steeles. It would also be dealing with the substantial traffic off of the Steeles East and West buses and impose a needless transfer on their riders for a very short trip.
This is a much more complex problem than just running an LRT in place of the subway extension.
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Sorry, I was referring to subway to Steeles, and then LRT North of Steeles would be enough (and not TTC). Also would not a substantial LRT north of Steeles connecting to the subway actually represent a threat to the capacity of the subway further south?
Steve: Yes, anything connecting at the north end of the YUS is a problem, but the real issue is to provide parallel capacity to bleed off traffic now coming into Finch (including traffic originating inside the 416).
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