The Metrolinx Board met on March 3 for its quarterly gathering. Although there were important issues on the agenda, the debate was as superficial as usual, and the message that “everything is just great” permeated the proceedings.
Things got off to a slow start. The meeting room is relentlessly beige, overlit and unadorned. Windows there are, but when we entered, they were already partly screened and the view, such as it is, simply looks across to rooms and the roof opposite. Not long into proceedings, a further set of screens blocking this view descended lest we be distracted from the worthies sitting at the board table. We might as well have been in the set of an existential play wondering if there actually was a world outside, not a fine, downtown historic building.
The first order of business was a goodbye to retiring director Nicholas Mutton, a genteel fellow who has headed up the Customer Service Committee. Sadly his reports are always pushed to the back of the agenda and are rushed for time, and his presentations rarely get beyond reading a few pages of a short PowerPoint.
Then we had a brief report from Bruce McCuaig, the Metrolinx President & CEO, reiterating events of note since the last board meeting in December. One might forgive the poor directors for being out of touch with recent news given that they meet so rarely and have so little to say. Surely they stay informed on Metrolinx activities and don’t need a recap beyond the most unusual events.
In the remainder of this article, I will discuss:
- Back-Charging Toronto for Metrolinx Work
- The Regional Express Rail (RER) Update
- The Regional Fare Integration Study
- The Study of the Pearson Airport Area
Back-Charging Toronto For Metrolinx Work
Chair Rob Prichard took advantage of the CEO’s report to ask about a story that had just broken – Metrolinx is billing the City of Toronto $95m for its share of works done as part of the Georgetown South project. This news had broken at Toronto’s Executive Committee, and according to The Star, the original demand from Metrolinx had been an eye-popping $170m.
The origin of this charge is a supposed cost-sharing agreement between Toronto and Metrolinx regarding payment for improvements to municipal infrastructure that occur during a Metrolinx project. Suppose, for example, that a grade separation provides an opportunity, or even a requirement, to replace a sewer. This may or may not be work the City was contemplating, but in any event, they get new infrastructure out of the deal, possibly upgraded in anticipation of future needs. Metrolinx will cover some of the cost because they triggered the project, but they expect some payment from the City as well. The problem, here, is that this charge came completely out of the blue for Councillors and one must ask why such a major cost has been hidden by City staff until now.
Metrolinx’ hands are not clean either. If there is a cost sharing agreement, it should be public and the implications of any new provincial announcement should be clear from the outset. It’s all very well for Queen’s Park to shower Toronto with transit gifts, but if there is a hidden requirement for us to help pay for them, that’s not fair or transparent. Equally, we know nothing of the degree to which similar demands will be made of other municipalities for works that projects such as the GO expansions, the LRT lines and the planned High Speed Rail corridor will trigger. Indeed, Toronto could be on the hook for a substantial bill for utility and road reconstruction along the Eglinton corridor, but there is nothing in the City’s capital budget to cover this future charge from Metrolinx.
McCuaig is usually quite smooth when dealing with the press and politicians – he’s been a mandarin around Queen’s Park for years and knows the form – but in the post meeting press scrum, he was positively glib and dismissive of Toronto’s concerns. That is not the posture someone in his position should be taking especially when this “agreement” is still under negotiation and its terms have obvious implications for all future provincial projects.
A particular annoyance for Toronto is the sense that we are asked to make a sizeable contribution to the high-end UPX project, an allegedly self-financing scheme to provide first class service to the airport. Nonsense, says McCuaig, the extra capacity in the Georgetown South corridor will serve other uses notably GO Transit. What he misses, of course, is that the project was launched specifically to make room for the UPX long before any of the proposed add-ons, notably future electrification and frequent all day service under the “RER” brand, were part of GO’s plans. As things are, the $455.5m ($2010) UPX project is likely cross-subsidized by shared works in the corridor that are charged to other accounts and keep the true cost of UPX as low as possible.
The optics are quite clear: Toronto has been asked to shell out a very substantial amount for corridor upgrades. At the very least, voters deserve an itemized list of what their $95m has purchased, as well as a projection of future charges for other Metrolinx projects.
This is the sort of topic the Metrolinx board should be discussing, but it’s not “good news” and is unlikely to appear on any public agenda, likely on the grounds of “confidential financial advice”. Bunk. If Queen’s Park’s $29-billion transportation plans have a hidden cost for municipalities, then they need to know this up front. When the Minister makes one of his endless photo ops, he needs to be open and honest about how much is expected of local taxpayers to make him and his government look good.
City Charges to Metrolinx
Also included in the report at Executive Committee was an update on the cost sharing for the Union Station rebuild and for the North West Path extension linking the station north to Wellington Street.
The City requested the following from Metrolinx:
- $15 million in respect of general cost escalation increases of $80 million
- $20 million in respect of the $40 million cost increase for the North West Path
The Province has rejected both requests and will not increase its current contributions to the Union Station project.
The unanswered questions here relate to the cost sharing agreement Toronto might have had with Queen’s Park. Was escalation included in the provincial contribution agreement? Were any additional costs a function of changing Metrolinx requirements, or simply down to unexpected site conditions or new scope of work from the City? Without this information, it is hard to know whether Queen’s Park has a strong case for rejecting higher contributions, or if the City has a good case to demand more.
GO Transit Capital Funding
A little-known part of the Metrolinx/GO capital plan is that all municipalities in the GTHA contribute funds to it each year with Toronto paying almost half of the total municipal share. For the remaining two years covered by the regulation, this amounts to $20m in each year for Toronto. The City does not wish to continue this arrangement, a scheme that in theory represents the benefit to Toronto of having GO carry people into downtown by train rather than having them drive. An obvious counter argument is that Toronto pays substantially from its own pocket to carry riders from the 905 without compensation.
Queen’s Park has agreed to suspend the 2015-16 payments, but that’s only buying time, not cancelling the charges.
At its December 2014 meeting, the RER Update spoke of four key elements in the RER work plan: a service concept, infrastructure needs, a phasing plan and an engagement plan. The presentation went on to describe a “service plan” in detail and stated:
Metrolinx anticipates that the recommended service concept will be completed in the first quarter of 2015 and will be released with the Province at that time. [Slide 8]
- The network map will change from the generic collection of GO Transit rail corridors to specific locations that will receive enhanced services both by time of day and frequency. This will inevitably create a “winners and losers” environment in which the promise of RER may turn out to be less than some regions might have expected.
- Physical constraints on service levels will have to be acknowledged and, with them, the limits on just how much can be provided in which area. Some constraints are hard: there is no room for more track in certain locations. Some are softer: implementation of better service requires co-operation from the host railway companies. Some require only a will to spend money: how much track and how big a fleet does GO want to operate.
- What could be practical for individual branches might not work when every service consolidates at Union Station, and capacity problems there will trigger a separate debate about upgrades.
- RER cannot work without good local transit services as feeder/distributor. The park-and-ride model completely fails outside of the traditional commuter pattern.
- Any decisions about infrastructure upgrades and service levels will trigger budgetary requirements both for capital construction, fleet expansion, and ongoing operating costs. We have all heard about the $29-billion pot of gold promised by Queen’s Park for transportation improvements, but we don’t know the projects for which this is earmarked or even if there is enough for all of the competing demands.
The March report has some content carried over from December, but with changes. Notably the description of phasing now includes considerations of integration with the freight railways in the Hamilton, Brampton and Milton corridors, and management of floodplain issues for the Don River (Richmond Hill service).
The work plan component list has gained a fifth, distinct component: an electrification plan. This is an important change even though aspects of it may have already been present. Electrification is a network-wide activity that must be planned outside of the corridor-specific projects. Much of the infrastructure will be shared, and core upgrades such as the Union Station area are a prerequisite to any one line’s implementation.
The RER work also includes a “Business Case” analysis. Whether a positive “value” for each project will arise remains to be seen, and there is always the problem of deciding just what “value” any component might bring. All public works involve a tradeoff between the short and long term costs and their perceived benefits, but those benefits cannot always be expressed as a monetary value. It will be interesting to see how these analyses come out, and whether some pieces of RER simply fall off of the map. If the network remains intact, this will beg the question of why GO/RER expansion took so long if the business case is so strong. If the network frays, then the question turns to whether the weaker parts should remain with the stronger parts supporting them, if only for political reasons.
Four network-wide studies are underway: grade separations, electrification, rolling stock and future stations.
The March report contains a corridor-by-corridor review of current activity almost none of which has to do with RER per se, but with short term improvements to stations and increased services.
SmartTrack has its own short section, but Metrolinx and the City of Toronto are in early days on that work. The City’s target for a report on SmartTrack is fall 2015. Meanwhile, Metrolinx will incorporate SmartTrack in the development of service plans for the affected corridors. At this point, nobody is making definitive statements that could imply prejudgement of the outcome, but it is no secret that the Eglinton West branch of SmartTrack faces stiff questions of feasibility, cost and appropriateness as the major transportation link in that corridor.
As with so many planning exercises, both RER and SmartTrack have focused on capital costs and the engineering challenges of implementation. The unknown factor is the future cost of operation for various service scenarios, the expected ridership, and the effects on fare structure and subsidies. In a political context, simply building a line is the easy part – lots of construction, but with time limited effects on budgets, and photo-ops galore every time a hole is dug or a structure even partially completed. Operations are quite another matter, not to mention the debate over what might constitute appropriate levels of fares and subsidies.
Towards a Regional Fare Policy
A report on fare integration his finally surfaced at a board meeting, but it begs more questions than it answers. After a quick review of the balkanized fare structures across the GTHA, the report sets out the goals of the fare integration study:
Working with municipal transit providers:
- Global Practices review
- A Vision and Objectives for the GTHA Fare Policy
- Defining a range of potential fare policy options
- Refine the list of options to a preferred fare structure
Thirteen agencies worldwide are the source for the “Global” review, and three are highlighted. Notably, all three have some form of zonal or distance based fares (Montreal, London and Amsterdam). All use some form of smart card, although none uses Presto. This should tell an alert reader that the rest of the world gets on without Ontario technology quite well, thank you.
Notable by its absence here and in the following discussion is any mention of time-based fares – treatment of the single fare or token as a limited time pass – even though this scheme is common in the GTHA and was proposed by the TTC as recently as August 2014.
The “Vision” includes the intent of a common fare system that is “simple, harmonized and consistent” where fares “reflect the quality and value of the services provided”. For transit systems, the scheme should respect “the hierarchy of service needs, improve service and financial efficiencies, and improve competitiveness”.
Those words imply judgements about quality and value of services which are not defined. By the time we reach detailed objectives on page 13 of the presentation, simplicity and efficiency are watchwords. But we also find that a customer wants fares that reflect the quality of service and align cost to the service provided. “People [are] generally willing to pay for faster speed or higher amenity services.” This statement sets us on a path to justifying a major shift in the basis for transit fare design.
This move might be closer than we think with integration between Metrolinx, TTC and regional fare structures associated with the RER, SmartTrack, Spadina extension and Eglinton LRT projects. This statement prompted a question from the board asking, if TTC was to be the operator for the Eglinton line, what “integration” was necessary. Similarly, the Spadina extension reference turns out to mean integration of fares for the bus feeder networks with the subway, not a change in subway fares. The answers struck me as a tad evasive as if either there is an agenda to split fares apart for various components, or a simple incompetence by the report’s writers to acknowledge how fares work today.
Examples in place already include the co-fare between 905 systems and GO, and the Metropass sticker pilot for TTC riders at Main and Exhibition stations. Metrolinx refuses to release stats on the takeup of these stickers, and rumour has it that sales are dismal because the pass+sticker price is excessive. One might even say that it violates the principle of reflecting the value of service provided.
Next comes a discussion of regional fare structures with four basic structures:
- Flat fares defined as a single fare across the region
- Fare by mode with different fares for different service levels
- Fare by distance travelled
- Fare by zone, a granular version of fare by distance
Note that time-based fares are not even mentioned. This puts the “flat fare” in an unfortunate context of appearing to offer a single fare from Bowmanville to Niagara when the definition could be much more subtle including an overlay of zones and/or service classes.
This misrepresentation continues on slide 19 of the report where the following statements appear:
- Does not reflect the cost of value of long or short trips; local transit and rapid transit. Short trips subsidize longer trips.
- Longer and rapid transit trips have very poor alignment of fares to cost of services.
That of course is precisely how the TTC’s fare structure is organized. Considering that the subway is routinely claimed to at least break even while the surface system loses money, the statement above doesn’t align with reality. However, of course, new rapid transit lines will unquestionably operate at a loss (the Spadina extension is expected to cost Toronto $14m annually net of new fare revenue, presuming that fare structures are not changed). One might reasonably ask whether riders on the profitable part of a network should subsidize those who demand subways that cannot cover their operating costs (never mind the capital).
Having a single fare encourages longer trips to be taken on transit even though the longer the trip, the more attractive a car looks by comparison. An integrated subway-surface fare avoids distortions in the trip matrix caused by riders optimizing their cost even if they must take a longer route and trigger a requirement for improve parallel surface routes to the rapid transit network.
On slide 20, we learn that for fare by mode:
- Higher fares relate to faster service. Short trips still subsidize longer trips.
- There is a good alignment to cost for both local and rapid transit services.
- Fares are more complex for multi-mode trips, and fare gates are required where riders transfer between modes.
On slide 21, for fare by distance:
- Reflects fair value of the service provided with trip cost directly related to trip length.
- It is claimed that transfers do not add complexity.
- There would be a “good to fair” alignment to cost of service.
These statements imply that distance is a surrogate for “fair value” when elsewhere the metric would be, at least in part, speed with premium fares for faster services. On the complexity front, what is completely missed is the need to know where everyone’s trip ends, and this brings the “tap in, tap out” challenge that would severely delay passengers especially for boardings where fare collection and monitoring are done right at the doorway, not at the entrance to a platform. Even GO Transit recognizes that this is a problem with the Presto arrangement for a “standard trip” that will be billed for routine commuting patterns to avoid the need for a rider to tap out at destinations. This model does not work in a complex network serving a variety of travel needs and multiple types of service.
Finally at slide 22 we have zone fares:
- Good value to customers with trip cost indirectly related to trip length, although there are complexities for trips crossing through zones and areas that use buffer zones.
- Rapid transit services may bear a higher burden of costs, and zones could be more difficult to administer.
Again, the assumption is that trip length is a surrogate for its value to riders. The remark about rapid transit implies, albeit indirectly, that because these services would not have a premium fare, they could not as easily recoup their costs.
There is a thread running throughout this analysis that says “fast service should cost more, and people should pay for distance travelled”. In other words, an endorsement of GO’s existing fare policies with possibly a bit of tweaking, but no major changes.
I asked Metrolinx Chief Planning Officer Leslie Woo about the omission of time-based fares, especially odd considering that they are already here. She replied:
Thanks for raising that Steve, timed based could be a sub-option to the four base options. Let me pursue that. [Email of March 5, 2014]
Er … um … we have done a “global review”, but an option already used in our own back yard doesn’t even make it into the study?
Just to be certain, I checked with the TTC’s Deputy CEO Chris Upfold, and he confirmed that the ability to handle time-based fares is included in the TTC’s requirements for Presto functionality. In other words, it is hardly a secret that this is an option under active consideration by the largest transit operator in Ontario. The TTC is not some two-bus system whose plans can be nudged aside for the greater good.
The repeated reference to higher fares on faster services which are described as “rapid transit” begs the question of whether Metrolinx, in order to buttress its own GO fare structure, thinks that routes such as the existing subway system or even LRT/BRT services should operate at a premium fare. If such a premium were coupled to implementation of zones or distance-based fares, the effect on riders particularly in Toronto would be very severe. The political insensitivity of such a scheme is obvious: politicians have been seducing voters with faster, better subways that riders (even some who live outside of the 416) expect to operate at standard, flat TTC fares. New lines such as the Eglinton LRT are presumed to be part of the TTC flat fare system.
We might think of GO Transit’s never met goal regarding crowding of its trains. There are simply too many riders for GO to achieve its goal of seats for 80% of every peak passenger, and the results through 2013/14 sit at 62%. Imagine what might happen if we were to claim that the jam-packed Yonge subway is a premium service and passengers should pay more for the privilege of waiting while trains pass by full, and for extremely uncomfortable trips once they manage to board?
Does Metrolinx actually think that this sort of scheme has any hope of acceptance, or is this some sort of provincial fiat that will arrive one day with the claim that a faceless committee somewhere has decided, in private, that this is the “best” solution for fare integration? Modelling and discussion among “stakeholders”, whoever they may be, is supposed to lead to a report in summer 2015, possibly as early as the June board meeting.
The terms “arrogant” and “out-of-touch” do not begin to describe this. It is quite clear that Metrolinx is attempting to railroad through a massive change in the GTHA fare structure under the cover of “integration” with almost no public discussion or review.
Does this raise any eyebrows among board members? Not a one. They are too busy congratulating staff for their great work.
Transportation Study of the Pearson Airport Area
Pearson Airport and its surrounding area is the second largest concentration of jobs and commercial activity in the GTHA after downtown Toronto. Not only are the millions of airline passengers and tons of cargo, there are thousands of jobs both at the airport and in areas clustered around it. One of the goals of the Metrolinx Big Move plan was to improve “high-order transit connectivity … from all directions”, but there has been far too much focus on the UPX rail service set to open this spring. We also see SmartTrack whose focus, at least for the short term, is on trips originating to the southeast.
Transit trips to the airport area have a sadly low transit market share with the strongest showing among airport employees. Their origins do not align well with single, high-capacity transit links, and their peak travel time does not coincide with the traditional commuting pattern. This could actually be an advantage for transit planners in the sense that an offset peak could be served by vehicles that later took on a different function, but this will require more study. It will also require an acknowledgement that “commuting” starts earlier than the traditional office-oriented model with transit service to match.
The transit situation is not good, and it is clear that the airport area has been planned and operated around automobile access. The physical impediments to transit are compounded by the jurisdictional ones and by focus on the airport itself rather than its larger district.
Short term (1-2 year) improvements include various organizational and infrastructure changes to aid transit useability and operations, as well as service improvements for better links to the airport from regional hubs and improved access to employment areas.
My sense is that the local accesses will be far more important than the regional ones both because workers in the airport district tend to live in the reach of local rather than regional services, and because it is the longer trips where competition with private auto travel will be more difficult. A focus only on regional travel would be as if we tried to fix downtown congestion while ignoring everyone who lives south of the 401.
Better local transit will require better inter-agency co-ordination of services and fare structures.
The situation overall shows the challenges we face with the very terms “regional” and “local” because the district spans multiple political boundaries. This is a generic problem for the GTHA, but it is particularly obvious in a district like the airport.
These charts and notes are particularly interesting. Population at the airport will be stable for coming years while employment will grow by over 40%. There will be a substantial increase in the three types of trips to the district, but their distribution will be “similar to existing conditions”. This challenges a premise behind SmartTrack, namely that the airport district requires a high-capacity service from the southeast to boost its fortunes. If, however, workers originate more to the south and west of the airport, SmartTrack will not serve them.
The large increases must be tempered by projections of transit market share.
Relative to an 11% share in 2011, transit will move up to about 17%. However, growth in jobs will be far higher, and so on an absolute basis, the amount of auto-based commuting will continue to rise substantially by 2031. If the entire 120k increase in job-related commuting were to be by transit, the number of transit trips would have to rise from about 30k (11% of 280,000 jobs) to 150k, a five-fold increase in absolute transit demand. This does not include airport passengers.
That is a huge challenge, and the much more modest 17% share implies only about 68k transit trips into the airport district by 2031.
The study includes a long list of medium and long term options. Notable for its presence is the Eglinton LRT as an alternative to a rail (e.g. SmartTrack) option in that corridor. Discussion of this item noted that Metrolinx is working on the problem of threading an LRT line through the airport, although my understanding from years past is that a right-of-way for this had been protected. If that has fallen out of the plans, one must ask how and why considering that the need for some sort of transit link through the airport lands has been an obvious requirement for decades.
The full study is to be published on the Metrolinx site sometime in spring 2015.
Steve Munro 
Steve
I love how you turned the review of the Metrolinx board meeting into a review of the theater and performance.
As I noted before, your old website had a line saying “Transit, Politics, Reviews” but the “reviews” has been dropped. The opening paragraphs of this post suggest to me you should bring “reviews” back.
Cheers, Moaz
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On access to Pearson, one of the local hubs they ignored is Malton GO station. Of course it is not a hub today in that local buses do not enter the station and many GO buses serving Route 31 bypass it (as many also bypass Pearson). However, with the return of the daytime service out to Bramalea this summer and the arrival (or is it addition) of 10 daytime train trips (is that hourly service?) by the end of the year, the current circumstances will change.
On fare “integration” and the ignoring of time-based fares … well what can I say except this is disturbing. I recognize and appreciate the value proposition offered by the subway and GO trains but there is a limit to how much I’m going to be able to pay. I’d rather not see GO fares increase to cover the cost of “free” parking and GO connects ($1.95 for a door-to-door trip connection to/from Milton Station for the pilot project … $0.65 for the buses … which do you think requires the greater subsidy).
I am willing to pay a surcharge for “express regional” travel (basically, GO) if it is express and reliable. I am willing to pay 2 fares to travel via TTC because I have a direct, express connection to the subway … though again I’d rather just pay a small surcharge.
If Metrolinx doesn’t have “A Fare Conversation” with the public on fare policy soon they are going to be setting themselves up for future problems … including the possibility of more decision-making from the province.
On the issue of infrastructure costs, as I said at the meeting we have evolved into a polity that celebrates pounding for pennies, the elimination of thousands of dollars in “unnecessary” spending, and glosses over the spending of billions of dollars for political grandstanding. We also completely ignore (whether by choice or by design) the millions of dollars in necessary spending for infrastructure projects without which no megaproject could go forward.
I certainly think that the information should be more transparent, and hopefully someone like Josh Matlow will move a motion on this topic requesting that Metrolinx make public itemize lists of all they charge to cities for infrastructure projects. Of course to make any real change it will be necessary for all GTHA mayors and chairs to beat a path to the office of the Minister of Transport and demand this transparency.
On a slightly related note … who’s to say that a Metrolinx 3.0 board which actually had mayors and/or chairs (or their representatives) sitting at the chairs, would not have pushed for this kind of transparency far sooner.
Cheers, Moaz
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The problem here, is that the review is not actionable by the rest of us. Reading the review does not now allow me to attend the performance – did they commit it to video?
Steve: In due course there will be a video on the Metrolinx site. However, as they say at broadcasts live from the Met, nothing replaces the experience of being there in person.
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If I remember correctly from talking with Tory’s advisors during the election, the theory was that by building SmartTrack, it would encourage Torontonians to seek jobs in the Airport District (and in Markham), while also encouraging those employees to settle in parts of Toronto served by SmartTrack, which would drive up the share of riders coming from the SE. That’s not altogether unreasonable, but even Tory’s advisor nervously chuckled when it was pointed out that it might have the perverse incentive of encouraging (even more) jobs to move outside of the city.
Steve: Decisions on where to live and work take a very long time to percolate through the transportation system as changes are made. Not all home locations are equally attractive, and many families (however that might be defined) have multiple, dispersed jobs and other travel requirements such as schools. The idea that a one breadwinner family model will magically rearrange transit demand along a new line is wishful thinking. Moreover, it addresses a hypothetical future demand (and the underlying premise of the precedent ST studies that transit is needed to make land in Markham and especially around the airport more valuable through better access), when the primary requirement is for improved travel within the city.
It is important to recall how dismissive the ST backers were of locations like Don Mills as dead industrial areas that were not worth spending money on for better transit. I vaguely remember parts of the old city’s industrial areas being “dead” once upon a time too.
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Your comments are interesting, and I had similar thoughts whilst reading. I’ve been wrestling a lot with 2 key issues that you addressed above..
Tap in + Tap out
&
Fare Structure (especially by distance/mode).
and a more general question that I think is a theme in your blog, in adopting international practices here, and what could/would work, what could never, a hybrid, and our open-mindedness to new ideas.
NYC, London, Paris, Washington have had the tap-in/tap-out model for years on the subway networks (whether it be with fare cards, tickets, etc.) … I hear you with respect to customer inconvenience, but I am still not sure my position on this. GO passengers regularly do this with PRESTO locally (and I imagine YRT has to with their multi-zone structure). Maybe the problem is the volume of TTC users w.r.t. system capacity, which you’re right would harm operations, platform clearing, dwell times etc … Am I understand your concern correctly? There is some creativity we can do on the data end to correlate O-D via where you tap and time of day (per Chris Upfold comments), but nothing will beat the raw info. Again I’m undecided but I’m leaning towards the extra data for now as I don’t see it as big of a deal as some others … and if other places can do it/have it, why can’t we?
Steve: Tap in/out is used on subway systems as you mention, but the surface routes run on a flat fare basis. My first concern is that passenger service times on the surface would slow to a crawl. Second, we have a huge volume of surface to subway transfer moves that is now barrier free. London and Washington had different fare systems. Indeed, Washington was set up deliberately ignoring the surface network almost by analogy to GO and the TTC. It is a blatant misrepresentation to map such operations onto the TTC as if nothing would go amiss. As for the data, I love data as much as the next person, but moving people is the primary job, not filling data centres with so much information we could never hope to use it. Remember that over half of all TTC trips are made by pass holders, and at, say, 70 trips per month and a boarding:trip ratio of, say, 1.5, we are looking at:
3.9 million passes sold in 2014 x 70 trips/pass x 1.5 boardings/trip = 410 million boardings
If every link of a trip required a “tap out”, that would be 820 million taps, but that will double count situations such as a bus-to-subway transfer where tapping might not be required. That would depend on whether the subway was a separate fare class. A figure of 600 million would not be unreasonable.
The total number of Presto taps since day 1 of that system is 287 million. There is just a tiny difference in scale here, and most of those taps to date occur at locations that are relatively uncongested.
For Fare Structure, there are different forms of this, but my gut tells me they are looking at a fare by distance model or a flat fare by mode. There are versions of this in the same cities mentioned above, and e.g. in Washington (where I just got back from TRB), the same fare card can’t be used on the subway as on the bus network. NYC has different surface vs. rail prices, as does London. If the opposition is because we don’t have an extensive enough rail network, combined with surface operations for this to make sense in the next 10’ish years, then I am more in agreement, but I think it’s important for them to be studying all options.
If this is about social equity, some of the internal Mtlx assumptions are suggesting that it’s not the role of the transit operator to provided the equity piece, but that should be handled in the form of new/additional tax breaks/credits by higher levels of government (which we already do for other programs). The difficultly of tracking/doing this is taken care of via the Presto fare card. Again I am not yet decided on my position and it’s something I’m wrestling with. Prior to my conversation with a friend from Mtlx, I was firmly in the flat fare camp, but I am starting to get my head into the Economics and Value (i.e. speed/time), and am not really sure where I stand yet.
Always a lot to think about as I learn more about this 🙂
Steve: Metrolinx may be headed down the path of fare by distance, but if that is their agenda, and they claim to be consulting anyone outside of the confines of their own offices, why is the very fare option that is already in use or proposed for much of the GTHA not on the table? This is a bogus study that will come up with “conclusions” and false “agreement” among “stakeholders”.
As you say, other cities use that fare model, but they were set up that way, their networks were designed with separate segments offering different services at different fares, and there is longstanding acceptance that “that’s the way it has always been”. Meanwhile in Toronto, we deliberately moved to an integrated network and a flat fare as a basic part of our design that was hailed around the world. People in York Region want “subways” because they want a nice, cheap ride to downtown for one $2.80 token or a Metropass, not a $6 or more GO Transit fare.
I want to see subway champion Mitzie Hunter at a meeting in Scarborough to tell her constituents that their fare for riding the Scarborough Subway into downtown will be something like $6 at account for the extra distance and the “premium” service.
Metrolinx is utterly out of touch with the real world on this.
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The airport area seems to have lost a lot of jobs recently, the vacancy rate for office space in GTA West is now 14.4% and I have noticed improving traffic on Highway 401 recently (it seems to take an average of 45 minutes to drive east on 401 between 410 and 404 in afternoon rush hour, down from about 60 minutes a year ago). The weakness of the GTA economy, the decline in demand for Mississauga office space because of the revival of downtown Toronto, and failures of retailers like Target Canada (which had its office in Airport Corporate Centre) seems to be causing this. Nevertheless traffic congestion in the Pearson Airport area is still bad, and something needs to be done about transit access to this area. I assume that at some point the Eglinton LRT will be extended to the airport because the “SmartTrack” proposal obviously is not feasible or at the very least is prohibitively expensive.
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As you point out, many routes bypass Malton – and that’s because it’s a pain for buses to get in/out of the bus loop on the east side of the station. For a bus going down Airport Rd, it would add significantly to the runtime.
The next station on the line (Bramalea) is already a hub for GO and local buses (including Zum). It make more sense to capitalise on existing hubs, rather than creating new ones.
Of course, two-way all-day GO Train service on the Kitchener line would almost certainly cause changes to the GO Bus routes on that corridor – but that’s beyond the short-term.
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Interesting (though perhaps unsurprising) that there was no mention of the Sheppard and Finch LRTs. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Any sense as to the status of those projects? Surely we must be approaching a make or break point to start construction soon on Sheppard, if they hope to stick to their prior timelines.
Steve: No idea at all. I suspect that until the dust settles on the whole RER/SmartTrack/DRL debate, we won’t hear much about the LRT lines.
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People in Toronto are blessed with the fact that a Metropass allows for unlimited travel and flat fares that make long distance travel affordable. This is a choice that people have made and it will cost more in terms of subsidies. This is the same with health care, Canadians want to pay more taxes so that it is accessible by everyone.
Even with a fare by distance model, it will not make transit better. Someone living in Scarborough will pay more to travel to downtown. Outside of the 5 business days in a week to go to work, would they pay that higher price to travel to downtown during the weekends? What would business be at the beaches if no one can go there cheaply? Toronto is vibrant because people can move around.
Paying a surcharge to use new transit infrastructure should be accepted as long as new construction happens all the time. The federal government has not even release a budget yet due to falling oil prices. Don’t count of them for much support. The provincial government can use all the accounting gimmicks they want, but transit will cost money. The surcharge needs to be monitored carefully so that wasteful practices do not go unpunished.
As for the RER, it needs better planning. Looking at GO stations, most of them are no better than a shack with a parking lot attached to it. To be a proper commuter rail, it needs proper stations where bus stops exists and taxi stands are maintained. In addition, zoning needs to be changed. Having low density buildings around stations is not productive. Some of the stations need to have commercial space in them. So that one can drive to the station for grocery shopping while dropping off someone for a train ride. The RER will not succeed if it relies on people driving there to park their cars or picking up someone. It needs walk-in customers, which shopping centers generates.
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Anything north of Steeles should be in zone 2. It would be difficult to implement the zone fare on the subway but I think I’ve got a harebrained enough scheme:
Put in a third track at Steeles West (while the hole’s still there!!) that would only receive southbound trains from Vaughan. (The opposite of what exists at Henri Bourassa in Montreal) All passengers into the city would have to get off here and go through a fare barrier to reach the rest of the line or TTC buses, or could exit to the outside without paying an additional fare (or show a sticker). Ideally, it would be arranged that an island platform exists between the two southbound platforms with a fare gate running down the middle. That train would then go south to the next station empty to pick up passengers for its trip downtown. Passengers from Vaughan would wait for the trains terminating at Steeles to continue downtown.
Running northbound, you don’t have to change trains but have to pay a fare (or show a sticker) when you exit North of Steeles. No fare would be charged when you access the northbound platform north of Steeles but not at Steeles W. So trips within Vaughan would be one fare. Free access to the platform would be restricted by a one way turnstile.
When York Region Coughs up the subsidy to run the damn thing, you can remove the extra fare gates and use the third track to facilitate short turns at Steeles W.
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You mention a right of way has been protected for the LRT into the airport. Where exactly is this right of way and how would the LRT enter into the airport and where would the station be if it was to be built?
Steve: I don’t know. Back when the Eglinton LRT EA was underway, the GTAA wanted to hold off on specifics but claimed that they had been protecting a corridor into the airport from the south for a transit link.
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It’d be interesting to investigate a “personal” zone system…where you define a central position (by default it would be based on where you bought your card, but it could be changed online) and concentric circles out from that location with rising prices (2$ for zone 1, 3$ for zone 1+2, 4$ for zone 1+2+3, etc) – monthly passes at say (40×2$ for zone1, 40×3$ for zone 1+2, etc…).
When in monthly card operation, you would only need to tap out if you went further than your max-zone (using an override – (you’d pay the difference) in theory this wouldn’t happen often, not checking out gets you the max for that ride), and never need to tap in (except to get through a barrier).
In single purchase (or discount by number of rides/month) you’d have to setup a max number of zones, and you’d only have to tap out if you went outside your max zone (with an override), or if you wanted to stay in a zone less than your default max zone (with an override). All passes are good within a two hour time limit.
There might need to be some apps and stuff, and some “zone viewer” map equipment put at stations where it’s likely that you would be going further than a zone (most buses wouldn’t go far enough) only GO-trains and potentially the ends/middle of the subway.
This gets away from the issues that most zone systems have with people living on borders. It is also pretty easy to understand that every 15km you go from home (your house, or the centre of the city) you will have to pay more.
There is also the option for people to have multiple cards with centers in different locations – this wouldn’t save any money for long trips (as there is a built in discount for longer trips) – but it would save money if you had two locations where you made lots of short trips from (i.e.. kids with separated parents) which kinda also makes sense.
Steve: This sounds like a triumph of IT over simplicity, and I say that as an IT pro myself. The problem is that most people would have a hard time remembering exactly where their boundaries lay. I must reiterate that we’re not talking about simple travel patterns such as a GO commute where the bounds are clear, but very complex sets of journeys around the region. The idea that everyone will have a smart phone or equivalent to check their limits does not reflect the actual mix of transit users.
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Another factor that is coming up is the relocation of office and distribution centres from Mississauga and Brampton to Milton in an attempt to avoid congestion on the 401 through Mississauga.
There is a plan for 2 way all day service later this year. It won’t be frequent, but even hourly service will see some need to change routes.
Another factor is that if Metrolinx wants to encourage people to use GO as a mid-price, less convenient option (as compared to UPEx), they could do a BCA for adding a GO bus stop opposite Pearson at Viscount, or in future offering a GO shuttle bus connection via Malton Station.
Cheers, Moaz
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I question the assertion that “Airport Employees” live in Peel & Western Toronto vs. “Surrounding Area Employees” who live in Brampton & Mississauga. This makes no sense.
Steve: It will be interesting to see the complete study when it is published to learn the underpinning for this statement. A scatter chart of the two populations (assuming that there are underlying survey data) would be illuminating.
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I can’t speak to London or Paris, but for New York and Washington these descriptions aren’t quite right.
New York has for a very long time checked fares (whether old-fashioned tokens or current Metrocards) only when entering the subway. In fact some stations have exit-only vertical turnstiles similar to those used at TTC automatic exits. If one is now required to swipe one’s Metrocard when exiting the subway, I can say for sure that it’s a recent change, within the past year or so, and I see no mention of it on the agency’s web site.
In Washington DC, the preferred (both by the agency and by regular riders) fare medium is the SmarTrip tap-to-read smart card. That card works for both Metro (heavy rail) and bus, and is the only way to get discounted rail-to-bus or bus-to-bus transfers. It is also still possible to use, and even to buy, the old magnetic-stripe Metro tickets, which work only on the Metro, but since those add a surcharge to the rail fare and don’t work at all on buses, regular riders don’t use them much.
It is correct, though, that the Washington Metro requires (as it always has) tap-out or swipe-out when exiting the Metro. Unlike New York’s subway, the Metro fare varies by distance and by time of day, so the fare isn’t actually charged to the card until you leave the system.
So far as I know, Washington doesn’t require tap-out from buses, only from the Metro.
Steve: This is a good example of how “experience” from other cities must be taken with a grain of salt to ensure that we are making an apples-to-apples comparison in mapping other systems to the GTHA network.
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Not sure why it would be any more complicated from an IT perspective than a regular zone system…the way you calculate zone is based on the distance from where you set your centre and where you are now…the only time you need to know that is if you are being checked by a fare inspector (with their handheld GPS enabled units)…
Steve: No, I’m not talking about IT complexity but user complexity and access.
Smartphone usage in Canada is >75%
Steve: Not all people have phones with the ability to host apps. I challenge the 75% figure you cite. It may be that the ratio of cell phones to Canadians is 75%, but I don’t think this is true for smart phones. I see too many phones that do not have browser capability.
…the vast majority of people are doing the same trip every day of the week, and when you are doing other longer or more complicated trips you could always check before you leave, or maybe have simple GPS devices that you can scan and it tells you how far you are from where your centre is…
It also solves the “Toronto is the centre of the universe” issue with a typical zone system. Hamiltonians will not like that one bit…
Anyways, I’m not saying it’s a fully thought out plan, or that it’s been done anywhere else…or that it couldn’t be simplified…only that it should be investigated…
All of these schemes have to also solve the backend financial situation as well (who gets the money that was collected, in what percentage)…in this system most people would pick their centre as the midpoint between their two main destinations…so potentially money could be distributed based on the distribution of people’s zones.
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Thanks. I also found it interesting that the recent Airport study presented at the Metrolinx board meeting identified Humber College as one of the regional hubs. Since the Finch LRT will be terminating there, maybe they might be more serious about connecting it to the airport.
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Toronto should have to pay for the building and operation of the RER as it serves jobs in Toronto. Also yesterday I read in the paper that Toronto mayor John Tory and TTC Chair Josh Colle were saying that due to huge cost overruns and delays, TTC may have to open the Spadina subway extension to only York University first. This is outrageous and we want our money back along with full interest and compensation for construction related pollution and other headaches like traffic delays, noise, etc. They also suggested that York region will have to share the cost overruns but this is outrageous – since this project is being overseen by the TTC, how can York Region be made to pay for TTC screw-ups? If YRT were overseeing the project, we would not expect Toronto to pay for any screw-ups on our part that would result in cost overruns.
Steve: I wish you good luck on that one. The line will sit closed before Toronto will bail you out. It would be suicidal for any Toronto Councillor, much less the Mayor, to support spending more Toronto money on that white elephant of a subway. The only reason it goes north of Steeles is lobbying/arm-twisting by the former MPP and Finance Minister. As things stand, it will cost Toronto $14m net of new fare revenue to subsidize York Region riders because we will pay 100% of the operating cost. Outrageous, yes.
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There is no need to use a tap in and out system. RFID technology already exists to track movements. There are RFID readers that can read multiple tags at the same time. When those readers are installed on bus doors and station entrances, people do not even have to take cards out of their wallets to pay their fare. As long as it is linked to an active account, it will be like walking through a door.
Right now, companies can drop RFID tags into boxes. Pile up these boxes on a pallet, as soon as the forklift pushes it out of the warehouse doors, the system will know that x number of boxes have left. Once the pallet gets to Purolator, they can take the pallet apart and separate the shipments. Obviously, it is not a perfect system, but we need to think beyond IC cards. 50 people walking through a door is much faster than 50 people tapping their cards on a tram.
Steve: And this technology has been around for quite a while.
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To follow-up on previous comments as well as Colin Olford’s question, any future information you can provide about the status of Finch and Sheppard would be deeply appreciated by your dedicated readership.
It is unacceptable that projects halt when the political leadership loses interest, no matter how much need there may be. We need to hold Metrolinx and others to account.
Alright, I’ve made my point. Now I’ll take a break from commenting on those two lines 🙂
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One problem I have with with RFID and to a lesser extent with tap out is that data exists as to your whereabouts and travel patterns. You can kiss any privacy goodbye as that data will inevitably be shared. As soon as the TTC gets into the data game I’m sure interest in that data will start trickling in. Granted there is some constructive use for the data, TTC planning etc, but its 3rd party uses I don’t feel comfortable with.
Steve: There are already services that use cell phone data to track movements and speeds of traffic. The data are rendered anonymous, but there is already a far greater privacy exposure on all of the GPS-enabled cell phones than with what might come from transit passes.
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Just caught this in a re-read
Some experience from another city to be taken as a grain of salt:
As far as I know the STM does not have a zone fare and the whole island is under one zone. AMT does have zone fares, including three on the island proper. When I was a kid, they would accept two STCUM (as it was known) tickets on the AMT Deux-Montagnes line to travel between certain destinations on the island. Then they introduced, a combined fare “TRAM” (train and bus) for each of the zones on the island of Montreal. Essentially for a slightly more expensive AMT ticket (depending on zone, I think zone 1 was 50¢ more) you get a transfer to an STCUM bus or the subway. Don’t remember the savings on the monthly TRAM pass. TRAM tickets could be bought or a TRAM pass. At least that’s the way it worked when I left the city (~2009).
Steve: Yes, Montreal is an example of a city with “zones” as a side effect of amalgamating many local operations into one system while preserving their fares and revenues. The problem is that Metrolinx seems predisposed to zones and distance because that’s the way their own fares work today, and they play down the alternatives and the implications of changing to them.
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$3.50 for a ride, + $.25 for moving between designated zones within the city, + $.25 for using transit during rush hour, + $.25 for using the subway (a premium service), + $.25 for changing to a surface route, +$.10 a km, +$.25 for each half hour of use, +$.50 for re-boarding after getting a coffee in the station, +$.25 for not selecting the most efficient route as per official smartphone app, +$.25 for bringing a laptop bag, +$.25 for using a seat and not standing, +$.25 using your cellphone while on transit, +$.25 for using a streetcar (a premium service), +$10 for not tapping out, +$.75 for bad weather transit congestion. Total cost $25, for commuting, one-way – or some other arbitrary number our new shinny algorithm randomly spits out (thanks for being tracked!)
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Regarding public transit in/out of Pearson “International” Airport, for passengers, it is completely abysmal. I am not commenting on transit for workers in the airport study area, as the only experience I have is working many years on the boundary of the area, I almost always drove by car.
I live in Caledon, in the Bolton area, where GO services are always awful, never mind trying to commute on a daily basis. (Back in the good old days, which I remember, Bolton had regular passenger train service.) I am thinking, “Would it not be reasonable to try to save $200 by taking transit instead of using Park ‘N Fly?” Foolish me!
Except that, GO does not provide a direct service from Bolton to Pearson. I checked the GO site, and found that I would have to leave Bolton Friday morning to catch a plane Monday afternoon. I have a print-screen, in case you don’t believe me.
So, that means I have to drive to Toronto and park my car either at my sister’s house or at a friend’s, and then take the TTC to the airport. Actually, the TTC is not entirely bad. It’s just plain bad.
Last January, returning to Canada, and walking several kilometers from the plane through customs and out (I’m walking-disabled), I had parked my car where I only needed to catch the Lawrence West bus. Except that, I couldn’t find where the bus loaded.
Ever notice the signs that greet arrivals at various airports? Some places the emphasis is on the train station (Paris, Stockholm), other places the metro (Heathrow), other places the LRT (Boston), other places it is auto rental (Los Angeles, Chicago). At Pearson, the signs all point to airport limos, taxis and parking shuttles.
I had to ask where the TTC stop is. Apparently, it was at post number such-and-such, and I had difficulty finding it. More enquiries, turns out the post was a way out from the building. I stood in the wind-swept bus “shelter” for nearly 45 minutes. Looking at my fellow passengers, a few were with luggage, but it appeared that most were workers in the airport, and, at minimum wage. Finally the Airport Rocket express to Kipling arrived. Wrong bus! Never mind, I decided to take it. The bus was an Orion fitted with luggage racks. The driver was kind and friendly. The bus itself was awful, swaying all over so hard, nearly tossing me out of my seat, and very noisy. A white knuckle ride. The TTC ought to get rid of all their Orions, this is the worst bus ever manufactured. No, I didn’t feel like a second-class passenger, it was more like third-class.
I am thinking that the Pearson airport authority, whoever they are, has the say in what public transit can access the airport facility. For example, the “auto parking fee” to be charged to UPX passengers.
Would Metrolinx willfully avoid servicing the airport? Or would they?
Well, most GO service from Bolton goes to this Malton GO station!
Therefore, it isn’t just the airport that you can’t reach from Bolton GO, you can’t connect to any local transit, either! OR the Yorkdale GO bus which goes up Airport Road carefully avoiding the airport or Malton GO station or the Derry Road GO bus!
I know that there are jurisdictional problems at the airport, as well.
I love flying out of Buffalo, but I’ve never had the chance to fly out of Billy Bishop (Toronto Islands). But, these airports do not connect well to flights to Europe, so I’m stuck using Pearson.
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While I’ve got Montreal in mind, Malton is like a bizarro Dorval station. Both are kind of close to the airport but definitely not walkable and both have VIA and commuter service. There were even grumblings in Montreal to institute a UPX-like service. However Dorval turned into an important bus hub and there is a frequent shuttle to the airport.
While the appetite for a shuttle is probably deemed diminished by the province with the arrival of UPX, (shame since UPX is so pricy) I think a easy first step for GO would be to make the branch of the 34 that serves the Airport also stop at Malton, and time some trips to the arrival of GO/VIA (yes our national carrier has a stop there) trains and the Bolton bus. More frequent service on the 34 couldn’t hurt either. Add a branch of the 58 (TTC) and extension of the 12 (MiWay) and you’ve got a little hub in the making.
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If they are not going to open the line all the way to Vaughan Corporate Centre, then the whole project must be abandoned (let us start filling in the tunnels today starting from Downsview). It is not fair to York Region taxpayers to use York Region money to start building it promising the line to York Region and then build only in Toronto. TTC screwed up with extensive delays and cost overruns and why should York Region pay for it? As to the losing deal Toronto struck, blame your ex-Mayor David Miller.
Steve: York Region is only paying for the portion of the line north of Steeles, and only 1/3 of that. In case you have not noticed, the line is already substantially built to Vaughan Centre, and to say that the TTC “build only in Toronto” is a fabrication. York Region contracted with the TTC to build the line, and has representation on the steering committee for the project. If there is a problem with cost overruns, York was at the table and had plenty of chance to ask what was going on.
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This is a historical artifact from what GO service used to be as opposed to what it’s trying to become. Bus stops and surrounding zoning are issues of the community, not GO. Changing the park-and-ride model would be under Metrolinx purview.
Figure 7-12shows the UPX layout and Figure 7-15 shows the TTC LRT layout with the station being at Terminal 1. Basically, it’s up Renforth Dr. to Silver Dart Dr. then along Airport Rd. into Terminal 1. You’d need to take the APM to get to Terminal 3.
Steve: That looks like a bus route. I believe something more direct was once contemplated for the LRT link.
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I wonder if the concern about privacy (always important, even though as Steve says GPS-enabled phones that ‘leak’ info are FAR worse for privacy) will trump being able to make the system better, more agile in changing conditions and allow users to make better decisions.
Being able to know, for planning purposes, the trips taken majority of the ‘typical’ (or frequent) pass riders would be hugely invaluable, but I would suggest that more granularity would be important: It’s fine and good to know when the next vehicle or two is supposed to arrive, but if the vehicle (and the one after it) is full and cannot take on enough passengers (eg. you) then that information is not so much useful (you weren’t able to complete on the info provided), but quite the opposite because you ended up making a travel decision that ended up working against you (you lost time waiting for that vehicle, and could not board, and now you have to reset your travel decision having foreclosed on other options that might have actually worked out).
Presto can already charge you for you ‘usual’ trip (eg. persist some notion of the typical route you take), taking that information and combining it with the state of the routes, stations, and stops of interest is not that much more involved. Perhaps one day elevator and escalator service will be similarly accessible so that a rider using a wheelchair or some other mobility assist would be able to know — from a single pane of glass rather than two or more sources (some of which don’t seem to be online currently) — the status of their typical or proposed route and also be able to change plans ‘in flight’.
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Moaz: I’m not terribly sure what would make a better hub, Malton GO station, Pearson Airport or the future Renforth Gateway. I could certainly see an extension of the Bolton bus down to Pearson Airport as one of those low hanging fruit for GO to examine. I figured a shuttle would be easier for GO because it would only require one bus, maybe 2 at the most, and the inconvenience of taking the shuttle to Malton would balance against the lower cost.
MiWay MiLocal buses go into Pearson but the MiExpress 107 (which uses the transitway) runs past the Viscount Garage. And then there is Brampton, which has its Airport Express bus and is planning on introducing an Airport Road Züm bus. I doubt that bus will stop at Malton GO but if it comes down to the future Renforth Gateway it means a 2-trip connection to the subway (via the MiExpress 109) at no extra cost, as well as having the potential for a future connection to the Eglinton Crosstown extension.
Cheers, Moaz
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The airport and surrounding lands may be part of the municipality of Mississauga, but it’s clearly a regional hub that people from many municipalities need to reach. It would make sense for the airport and its surrounding lands (say, roughly Tomken-Steeles-Martin Grove-Eglinton) to be deemed region-neutral, where any transit agency can assign routes to pick up and drop off passengers without incurring any sort of fare penalty.
The various transit systems would still struggle to coordinate schedules with one another, but at least the artificial boundary would be removed. Individual agencies could offer passengers a one-fare, one-seat ride instead of forcing a costly transfer, resulting in higher ridership over time.
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Ah yes, you are correct, Figure 7-16 shows the schematic connection to the TTC network. It wouldn’t be far different from Figure 7-15. The southeast corner is the logical location for divergence from Eglinton Ave West. There is a wide grass boulevard on the west side of Renforth, and it’s all airport land north of there to Airport Rd. I’m sure they could thread the needle for a more direct route after Silver Dart Dr., but it gives an impression of the general idea.
From working in the UK, people are willing to exchange privacy for security and convenience. Between 2009 and 2013, the ratio of people per camera fell from 14:1 to 11:1. In one non-scientific study in NYC, 31% of people asked give up their fingerprints in exchange for a cookie and 43% gave the last 4 digits of their Social Security Number.
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In what way are the trips of passholders more important then other riders?
I wonder whether an ‘agile’ transit system is worth it for riders. Aside from accessibility, which I agree is a valid concern, I personally don’t see much benefit in being able to re-route myself on the fly. To me a better commute or faster commute should not have me frantically checking to see whether my current route is the best one given the conditions. This is something I try to gauge for myself.
It has been my experience that when you have a given distance to travel, the time it takes is not so much dependent on route, but simply on distance and that to a reasonable approximation there is an effective average speed throughout Toronto. If you pick one route to avoid one condition (e.g. traffic), you risk another (e.g. worse schedule). Over a certain range of complexity and length involved in a commute, these tend to cancel each other out, if not on the day, then over time. You can be happy to shave 10 minutes one day, but that doesn’t mean you can leave the house any earlier on a day-to-day basis.
I would prefer more frequency either on the route itself via more routes. I guess this is the rationale behind the ‘Frequent Service’ concept over schedules on many routes. I can deal with a long travel time. I don’t like leaving 30 minutes early because my bus only comes every 30 minutes (Could they put more service on the 310???) and I may miss the one I need to grab my connection. In the many times I’ve been late in life it has often been by the amount I had waited for the bus (or slept in!)
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At this point, not all of the buses are accessible, not all of the streetcars are accessible, not all of the subway stations are accessible, never mind the fact that not all of the entrances to the subway stations are accessible either. If we are truly aiming to have a fully accessible (for some value of accessible) transit system, then I would suggest that the ability for riders to reroute on the fly — not so much during normal times, but especially in exceptional times (eg. major failures, accidents, etc) — remains very important particularly for those requiring accessible travel options.
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What is the obsession with having to wait and open an entire line all at once. Setting aside York Region Taxpayer’s false belief that opening the subway initially to Steeles is abandoning the rest of the line, why are we NOT opening new lines in stages, where it is practical.
By “practical”, I mean that interim terminal stations that will have transfer facilities to buses or other lines make sense. A terminal station that would need substantial transfer facilities only for the period while it is a temporary terminal does not.
The station at Steeles is a good location for an initial opening in order to get some of the line’s benefits sooner, as would a few locations on the Crosstown line.
Steve: The problem is that Steeles West Station (aka Pioneer Village) is not finished, but that is where there is a bus interchange and terminal crossover. There are major, but as yet unpublished, problems with this contract.
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Moaz: It used to be that TTC buses stopped under the 427 and all passengers were required to disembark or pay an extra fare to continue to Pearson or Malton. The zone boundary was then shifted to include Pearson. Fare boundaries only really apply for the TTC since Mississauga and Brampton have a transfer agreement (though unfortunately they do not accept each other’s fare media). Service expansion around the Pearson Airport area should certainly be considered by Metrolinx as part of their Big Move Priority #2.
And frankly I’ve said it for a while … If TTC would allow MiWay to pick up passengers in Markland Woods etc it would be great for passengers who wouldn’t have to wait for the slow TTC buses … and if TTC isn’t able to introduce the proposed Lawrence West/22nd Airport Rocket then let Mississauga run buses to Eglinton West until the Crosstown is extended to Renforth and the Airport.
Cheers, Moaz
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Is there no money in the province’s transit appropriation for rail relocation? Or any appetite for an independent measure of this sort.
Steve: Rail relocation presumes that there is a place to which corridors could be shifted. This is not simple, cheap or without huge effects in the neighbourhoods where lines would shift. We are decades beyond the point where the 905 was all farmland.
And, no, there is no money in the budget for this sort of thing. They don’t even have enough to fund all of the work planned for the existing network.
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Steve: the debate was as superficial as usual
Steve: The meeting room is relentlessly beige, overlit and unadorned. Windows there are, but when we entered, they were already partly screened and the view, such as it is, simply looks across to rooms and the roof opposite. Not long into proceedings, a further set of screens blocking this view descended lest we be distracted from the worthies sitting at the board table. We might as well have been in the set of an existential play wondering if there actually was a world outside, not a fine, downtown historic building.
Now, who is focusing on the superficial stuff LOL? Steve or Metrolinx? In any event Steve you seem to always have complaints about Metrolinx but don’t forget that it is a Liberal created agency and all its board members have been hand picked by the Liberals. If you really had a problem with Metrolinx, then instead of whining online now you could have had your complaints heard by voting against the Liberals (a vote for an NDP was of course a vote for the Liberals).
Steve: You seem to have missed my whole point here. The setting was a metaphor for an agency whose board operates in a vacuum away from the real world, and which has “debate” for show, not for substance. It’s all about “good news”, a problem that infects political agencies.
As for not voting Liberal or NDP, the Tories are barely worth my consideration. There was a time when there were “Progressive” Conservatives, but no more. I will put up with the Liberals/NDP failings.
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The problem in a nutshell, in my mind, is that transit in a city like Toronto is an essential public service, and must not [be] of the lifeline variety. The fact that it cannot be discussed in a direct, factual manner is a very serious issue. The basic need, capacity requirements and planning needs to be done in advance of the politics, and keeping things focused on good news only shows how politically oriented the process has become. Oddly in this scenario the approach is like a tell tale on a sail, yes it is only a tiny piece of cloth, but it speaks volumes to the way the wind is blowing, and whether you are sailing a course of convenience, or one that will actually get you to the required harbour.
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There isn’t even money in Texas for the Texas program. They have the fund constitutionally, but there isn’t a law that forces the government to pay into it. As such, 10 years on they have $0 of the $2B they wanted. Furthermore, most freight rail has been moved outside the core area, and only emergency detours and local service remain.
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It’s not like Metrolinx was conjured out of thin air. The same governing structure existings under both the NDP and Conservatives. When the choice is between bad and worse, I’ll go with bad, whether it’s the Liberals or Metrolinx.
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