The TTC Board met on April 28, 2015, with what looked on the surface like a light agenda. Maybe a 3:00 pm finish after a short two-hour meeting, but in fact the whole thing dragged on to 6:00. Although parts were tedious, there was comic relief (a classic put-down of Denzil Minnan-Wong on funding of Seniors’ Fares), and some actual discussion of policy. Among the items on the agenda covered in this wrap-up are:
- A request to Metrolinx re audit controls on Presto
- A discussion of Mobility Hubs notably at Danforth Station
- A presentation about TTC’s Procurement Process
- Council decisions regarding the TTC’s 2015 Budget
- A presentation about the quarterly Customer Satisfaction Survey
- A presentation about TTC service to the Pan Am Games
- The April 2015 CEO’s Report
- Lease of additional office space for TTC capital program staff
Separate articles posted earlier on this site deal with:
- Reduced off-peak fares for seniors
- Fare policy for TTC and regional travel
The ability of Presto to provide a complex set of fare options and deal properly with whatever cross-boundary fare sharing might be implemented is in some doubt by TTC board members, given the less than sterling rollout in Ottawa. Of particular concern is the question of how Metrolinx, an opaque provincial agency, will be audited to ensure that Presto fares are correctly calculated and allocated to participating agencies.
On the recommendation of the TTC’s Audit Committee, the board will request that the Metrolinx board provide details on both the collection of and accounting for fares, as well as a governance structure to oversee this process.
This issue started out as a request from Councillors Davis and McMahon whose wards include Main and Danforth stations, respectively, that the TTC support a Mobility Hub study for the Danforth Station area. Metrolinx has undertaken some studies, but it is unclear how these are prioritized or how local municipalities could bump locations up the list. The situation is not helped by the scattershot way in which Metrolinx identified candidate locations placing a dot on the map wherever a GO line wandered near any other transit operation whether this made sense or not.
Councillor/Commissioner Carroll pointed out that she has a potential site in her ward, the long-standing poor link between Oriole GO station and Leslie subway station, and asked whether the city and TTC should be reviewing the list of potential sites for studies to prioritize them for Metrolinx. Initially Chair Colle thought this was really a Metrolinx matter (yes, let’s just cede all planning to an agency that has no public accountability), but the sense of the meeting was that review and prioritization should fall to city agencies. The matter was sent off to staff.
This item had been deferred at previous meetings, and there were signs it might happen again, but the board decided to hear the presentation. The issue arises from concerns about bids the TTC receives on contracts: why are there so few bids at times, are bidders avoiding work on the TTC, is there a problem with the bid process that works against some potential bidder?
The presentation spent much time in a defensive mode telling the board how well organized it is and how the TTC has never lost a legal challenge to its process, in part because the process is defined and followed in all cases. After some time, the nub of the issue really emerged: the TTC is seen by many prospective bidders as having an overly complex bidding process and being a difficult organization to work for. Indeed, TTC management have been meeting with construction industry associations to simplify their processes. There is always a tug-of-war between having a bid process that is simple to work with and fast to process, and very tight controls that can ensure consistency but at the cost of complexity and delay. The TTC (and the City) swung very much to the latter in the wake of the Bellamy Inquiry into the MFP leasing scandal at the City, but this may also have reinforced excessively risk-averse behaviour and procedures.
The procurement process continues to evolve and this will be reported back to the board.
Council Decisions Regarding the 2015 Budget
On March 10, 2015, as part of its budget deliberations, Council approved two motions requesting reports from TTC management:
- “An organizational review of the Toronto Transit Commission, including staffing levels, with a focus on a more efficient, streamlined structure”
- “A detailed analysis of the reasons for the delay of the Automatic Train Control and options to accelerate the implementation of Automatic Train Control on both the Yonge-University-Spadina and Bloor-Danforth lines”
These were not the only motions respecting the TTC budget [the full set of motions is available in the Council records]. Both motions were moved at Executive Committee on March 2 by Councillor Jaye Robinson. In the case of the ATC report, this was amended at Council to specifically include both the YUS and BD subways.
At the TTC board meeting, an incredulous board, management and audience listened while Councillor Robinson harangued the board. Her tone suggested that the end of civilization as we know it would follow were her motions not acted on. With respect to ATC, her big concern was that residents of her ward could not board trains on the YUS to travel downtown. It was an extremely self-centred address unbefitting a member of the City’s Executive Committee, but sadly marking the general lack of civic politeness and poor awareness of issues that infested the Ford administration and continues into the Tory era at City Hall.
Members of the board were clearly astounded not just with the tone from the Chair of the Public Works & Infrastructure Committee, but that she would cherry-pick her own two motions out of the plethora of directions from Council related to the TTC for a special address at the board meeting. In response, Chair Colle and CEO Andy Byford pointed out that a thorough organizational review of the TTC has already been underway, and all growth in headcount is related to improvements in service, maintenance and capital projects. Moreover, extensive reports on project management for the Spadina extension and the resignalling contract (which includes ATC) were before the TTC on February 25, 2015. The requested additional funding for the Spadina project and a review of management issues have already been before Council at its meeting of March 31. The signalling contract changes did not require additional money from the City, and therefore this report has not gone to Council, but it is hardly a secret.
When the TTC does get around to reporting on ATC, they would do well to ensure that claims for added subway capacity reflect what realistically can be achieved, not the blue-sky claims of the early ATC reports when the TTC hoped to stuff every rider from York Region onto one subway line into downtown. Those claims date to a period when the Yonge line carried fewer riders than it does today, and when TTC management’s goal was to downplay any need for “relief” of subway capacity. Moreover, ATC was hyped for its capacity provisions to tap stimulus funding from other governments on what was basically a capital maintenance project – replacing the worn out signal system. Walking back these claims will be an important contribution to well-informed discussion about the needs and options for Toronto’s rapid transit system.
The quarterly customer satisfaction survey report includes data up to the end of 2014 from an ongoing survey process that began in 2012. Each quarter accumulates about 1,000 surveys, and these are conducted on a continuous basis so that they are not skewed by events near the date of a short survey, but rather represent longer-term trends.
Of particular note is that work trips, while substantial, are only 41% of the total. Also, Metropass users represent about one quarter of the surveyed riders, but we know from other stats that they represent far more rides. This has implications for Presto implementation because half of the riders use tickets and tokens, and a further 17% use cash. These will be the primary market for conversion to Presto in the short term so that the overhead of handling fare media and cash can be reduced.
While overall satisfaction remains at a score above 70%, there is considerable displeasure with quality-related issues:
Areas of lowest customer satisfaction include (≤60% for Q4 2014) [p. 8]:
• Frequency, ease of hearing, clarity and helpfulness of announcements about subway delays,
• Availability of subway station staff,
• The level of crowding inside the subway train, bus, and streetcar,
• The length of time a customer waited for the bus/streetcar,
• Maps and information inside the bus/streetcar
Another intriguing measure looks at “Pride in the TTC” which has declined for many groups of riders, regardless of how the population is subdivided, through 2014. This is especially true among riders who are better educated, full time workers with higher incomes. This should not be surprising as this group has more choices available in making travel plans and is less likely to shrug and accept service as a fact of live to be endured. Similarly, riders who use the TTC regularly rate the quality of service lower than those who ride occasionally, and their approval is trending downward. Riders whose trips are confined to the streetcar system rank service quality lower than those who use other modes.
This trend should be a wake-up call to the TTC which has spent too long on superficial improvements, or small scale tweaks of its operations, while (until quite recently) toeing the line of budgetary restraint and limited service improvements. Moreover, when asked about “value for money”:
“Customers tend to be less focused on fare reduction and more on timeliness and schedule frequency as the most effective ways to improve the perception of value for money.” [p. 14]
Wait time is an important issue for riders, and this speaks to problems with service reliability as well as quantity. The TTC knows that the cheapest form of additional capacity comes through regular spacing of vehicles and minimization of short-turns, but attempts to correct operational problems have been slow to appear on the streets.
“Opportunities for improvement” include key service-related issues:
Recent declines in several subway service areas indicate a need to focus efforts on improving all aspects of subway service, including:
• Reducing subway delays and crowding,
• Continuing to focus on quality and ease of hearing the announcements about subway delays.The gap in satisfaction between frequent and occasional riders is increasing; therefore, providing a reliable service is key. [p. 26]
How many times do Mayoral candidates and Councillors have to be told that service is what the TTC is selling, and that “lower fares” are not a key issue for riders? Too often debates about fares muddle together social goals (cost reduction for the disadvantaged) with a sense that fares are just another form of tax that must be reined in for all riders.
Transit Service to the Pan Am Games
The TTC has now published its overall plan to serve the Pan Am Games sites within Toronto. Much of the service will be provided by bus shuttles from various subway stations given that many venues are not on the rapid transit network.
The service will include two new, temporary routes:
- the 194 Aquatics Centre Rocket from Don Mills Station to UTSC, and
- an accessible 406 Venue Shuttle Downtown between St. George Station and other downtown sites.
For the Parapan Games, there will be two accessible shuttles:
- the 406 downtown shuttle described above, plus
- a 408 Venue Shuttle East linking sites at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus.
Details of the service levels to be operated have not been published, but the general scheme is to use a mix of scheduled service plus extras that can be deployed depending on the locations and times of events on a day-to-day basis.
During the Pan Am Games, the system will operate with Saturday schedules on Sundays to accommodate travel to venues early in the day, as well as higher demand than is usual on Sundays. On the one Panapan Sunday, a special schedule will be operated to provide early service to the venues requiring it.
Additional service will be provided on the 192 Airport Rocket (which will now have the UPX rail service as competition, assuming that wayfinding at the airport directs travellers with equal ease to both services), and on the 172 Cherry Bus serving the Athletes’ Village.
Anyone with an event ticket will be able to use it as a Day Pass. Special Weekly Passes will be available, as well as an electronic version of a Day Pass (details tba).
Some historical context makes interesting reading. Back in 2010, the TTC had great hopes that new transit lines would provide service to Pan Am Games venues:
The 2015 Pan American and Parapan American games will involve competitions in 40-to-50 sports at more than 50 venues throughout Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe from July 10 to July 26, 2015:
• many of the events within the City of Toronto will take place at existing facilities in downtown Toronto and Exhibition Place – locations which are already well-served by transit;
• a new Pan American Aquatics Centre and Canadian Sport Institute of Ontario facility will be constructed at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC), and improved transit facilities will be required to effectively serve this new sports complex;
• at this time, the TTC’s priorities remain the State-of-Good-Repair work required to upgrade, modernize, and increase the capacity of the Scarborough RT in advance of the Games, as well as proceeding with the priority Transit City light rail projects – such as the Sheppard East LRT line – which will also provide service to events in Scarborough;
• the planned Scarborough-Malvern LRT line would provide excellent direct service to the venues planned at UTSC, as well as providing excellent service to this expanding major educational institution, but the construction of this line is not included in Metrolinx’s near-term funding priorities;
• a new Athletes’ Village is planned for the West Don Lands area, which will be served by a new streetcar line planned for Cherry Street;
• based on the experience of other cities that have hosted major international sporting events such as the Pan American Games and the Olympics, it will likely be necessary for the TTC to temporarily expand its bus fleet and operator staffing to provide the capacity needed to serve some of the non-central event venues; this could be accomplished through various means such as advancing the timing of a future bus order, and then retiring older buses after the Games. [p. 1]
We all know what happened to the Transit City Network. The Cherry Street line will not, in fact, be open for the Games because, in part, it goes through the secure area of the Village, and because plans now call for it to come into service midway through 2016 when the permanent residents start moving into their condos. As for bus fleet planning, that was scuppered by cutbacks in service standards, purchase plans and garage expansions thanks to the Ford administration. York University was not listed as a venue in the 2010 report, and so the completion status of the Spadina extension was not then an issue, but at the time it was added, there was thought the subway would link to that Games site. Instead, it will be another suburban shuttle location.
The dispersed locations of Games venues will prove a challenge for spectators travelling by transit who will easily face hour-long journeys to some locations.
This CEO’s rport includes data on the first quarter of 2015. The summary “scorecard” at the beginning shows many items with a “red” status including almost all of those related to service quality. After a very cold winter, this is not a surprise except that it shows that the transit system is not prepared for this type of weather. The problem extends well beyond the aging streetcar fleet’s reliability problems with frozen air lines.
Ridership is below budgeted levels, but this will be in part due to the extreme cold and in part to the March fare increase. Until “fair weather” data are available, it is difficult to tell whether this will be a shortfall through 2015, or merely a weather-related effect. On a year-over-year basis, ridership is up relative to 2014, but not as much as predicted in the budget. Fare revenue is down both because there is less riding, and because sales of Metropasses continued to grow diluting the average fare to $1.95 (0.9% lower than budget) through to the end of February. In March, after the fare increase, there has been a shift of more riders to discounted passes (VIP, Monthly Discount and Post-Secondary), and regular Adult pass sales are down about 5% relative to budget. Jacking up the Metropass fare multiple does not appear to have been quite the hoped for cash cow. At this point, CEO Andy Byford expects the budgetary variations to even out over the year.
Service reliability fell on all modes and lines except for the Sheppard Subway which is insulated from bad weather and has relatively new infrastructure. Data are reported only up to the end of February and so they represent the worst of the weather-related problems. How this turns around in future reports will be a key item to watch across all modes.
The report triggered a short discussion about whether the TTC has too many operators on staff with reference to an article in The Sun about surplus operators being sent home without work. The explanation for this is that the TTC had fewer retirements early in 2015 than expected, but due to the lead time for operator training, had staffed up in anticipation. The excess situation no longer applies.
Delivery of the new Toronto Rocket (TR) subway fleet had progressed to completing the replacement for all existing “H” class cars, and the trains now being delivered are the 10 added sets for the Spadina extension. By the end of 2015, a further 10 sets for future growth will arrive, although the TTC will not be able to operate them until the signal system is upgraded to permit closer headways in 2020. Meanwhile the subway will have a very large pool of spare equipment.
The new Flexity Streetcar order continues to be a concern for TTC management, but Bombardier claims that they will ramp up to one delivery every five working days. There was to be a meeting about the contract’s status between TTC and Bombardier on May 1, but nothing has been reported from that event. The TTC still hopes to have 30 new cars in service by yearend 2015. Car 4407 is now enroute to Toronto.
Work at Leslie Barns continues with completion of the connection track and overhead to Queen Street now underway. The TTC expects to begin moving into the new barns in mid 2015.
Leasing Additional Office Space
A report on the lease of office space for 100-120 staff assigned to capital projects triggered a discussion of rented space generally, and a question of whether Build Toronto has anything in the pipeline that would suit the TTC.
CEO Andy Byford replied that issue is not just space for small-scale project offices, but for a consolidation of the many staff scattered through multiple buildings (including the aging TTC headquarers at 1900 Yonge). The next candidate site will be at Yonge & Eglinton over the former bus bays which are now used as a staging area for construction of the Crosstown LRT tunnel.
Steve Munro 
Steve: A DRL/ST line at Dundas West will not “knock down” some streetcar routes for the very simple reason that a great deal of demand on the streetcar lines arises at local stops that will be nowhere near the rail corridor’s stations.
But the subway knocked down the Yonge St and Bloor St / Danforth Ave streetcar lines and these are streets where the demand is many times higher than a street like Roncesvalles or Broadview. A DRL under Pape will necessarily reduce demand on Broadview to a point where buses will suffice and likewise a subway going to Dundas West will result in many streetcar routes falling below the ridership threshold required to justify streetcar service.
Another disadvantage of the DRL is that it will result in the destruction of countless historic buildings and not only that but the DRL would result in massive intensification, further destroying history and completely changing the character of the communities that the DRL passes through.
Obviously a project of as big a scale as the DRL will have some unintended consequences some of which are as mentioned above.
Steve: Ok — for the geographically challenged among the readers: If there is a DRL west it will almost certainly not follow King or Queen to Roncesvalles and thence north to Dundas West. A DRL up Broadview is impractical. A DRL up Pape does not run under any existing streetcar lines. A DRL up Main only touches the outer end of the Carlton car.
Another important difference is that any DRL, like other “modern” subway proposals, will not have closely spaced stations such as we find on the original Bloor-Danforth subway. Drawing demand away from local routes requires that the subway stations be in decent walking distance. I look forward to an explanation of how a single subway station would “serve” all of Liberty Village, for example, especially if the station were on Queen.
Your remarks about historic buildings seem to counter your own apparently pro-DRL, anti-streetcar position. For the record, much of the historic Bloor and Yonge corridors survived the subway construction, and they are only now being threatened by the march of condos. We just lost the southwest corner of Bloor & Yonge, and the west side of Yonge opposite the Reference Library north of Bloor was only recently vacated for pending construction. Yonge Street in North Toronto is more or less intact in part because there is only one station (at Lawrence). On the Danforth, we are only beginning to see redevelopment, and even that has concentrated on old gas station and car lot sites that are quick, easy conversions.
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You can’t do anything about the people that don’t want to be informed. It’s like the US Christian fundamentalists who are protesting against gay marriage at the moment. Nothing you will say will change their minds, because it’s not a rational argument. It would be useful to compare which areas are underserved by LRT vs SSE. Every plan will have its flaws, but the goal is to build the least awful option.
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According to the last plan I saw, there was exactly one station present in the subway plan that is not present in the LRT plan, but several stations present in the LRT plan not present in the subway plan. So unless one considers there to be some cosmic importance to the corner of Lawrence and McCowan, the LRT plan provides much better higher-order transit coverage.
And, of course, the LRT plan doesn’t use up all higher-order transit funding for Scarborough for the next 30 years, so it potentially leaves the possibility of serving even more locations by high-quality LRT lines in the foreseeable future.
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Oh you mean like in the case of the underground portion of the Eglinton LRT where so many stations are closer than in the case of Yonge-University-Spadina and Bloor-Danforth lines? Why do we have completely unnecessary stations at places like Mount Pleasant? Can people not walk for 5 minutes a day or would it be the end of the world if they did?
Steve: Actually, without Mt. Pleasant Station, there would be a 2km gap from Yonge to Bayview including a steep hill west of Bayview. Walking from Mt. Pleasant to Yonge takes more than 5 minutes, and that’s on top of access time to the intersection. Full disclosure: I grew up there, so please don’t try to tell me about the neighbourhood.
Okay, fine but once the DRL opens, would you agree to a comprehensive ridership analysis to determine if any of the streetcar routes have had ridership reduced enough to be converted to buses? Or NO, we deserve both subway and streetcars no matter how low the ridership? I am not saying that this streetcar route should be eliminated or that streetcar should be eliminated but a careful ridership analysis be done to determine which streetcar routes should be killed (if any) as a result of the opening of the much anticipated and needed DRL.
Steve: I agree with you in theory, but what is happening in this discussion is that people are saying “the DRL west will be built, and it will be built along existing streetcar routes, and therefore streetcars are unnecessary” with a strong implication that even buying new cars for these lines today is a waste of money. In fact, a DRL West is at least two decades away, and it is far more likely that the rail corridor will morph into that function once GO figures out how to run frequent service. We don’t need a subway to duplicate a rail line.
Let us determine which mode of transportation is needed (subway, streetcar, or buses) based on facts and not based on our attachments, etc to the same. I fully expect a DRL to reduce overcrowding on the Yonge Line (and at the Yonge-Bloor station too), reduce trip times, result in the elimination of one or more obsolete streetcar routes (not obsolete now but once the DRL opens and as to which streetcar routes will be eliminated will depend on what route the DRL takes), etc. Elimination of the streetcars from certain routes (only if ridership numbers drop sufficiently enough as a result of the DRL) will also reduce gridlock as will improve traffic flow and make our streets safer for cyclists (countless cyclists get injured every year as a result of the streetcar tracks every year and there are a lot of cyclists in Downtown Toronto and this class of commuters is growing rapidly).
Steve: Now your argument is starting to show its true colours. First off, you see the elimination of streetcars as aiding cyclists. My attitude is that you can damn well get off of the tracks. The streetcar network is an essential part of the City’s plan to handle the growth in population in the “shoulder” portions of the core area, basically the “old city” which is served by that dense network. The DRL addresses a completely different travel pattern. When we talk about “gridlock”, we are talking about auto traffic which as a cyclist you should not be encouraging anyhow. Or are you really a motorist in disguise?
Five decades ago, when the Bloor subway opened, the TTC assumed that a direct route from Dundas West to Downtown via subway would eliminate demand on the King car, and they cut the scheduled peak service from 36 cars/hour to 15. That lasted exactly one month, and by the time the dust settled, they were back to 30 cars/hour. Demand on the route since then has built up along its length at places that are not served by a subway line, but the TTC has no spare cars to increase capacity.
You are arguing by starting with the conclusion you want and working backwards, precisely the tactic you imply that streetcar advocates use.
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RE: A Main Mobility Hub and Killer Transfers
The new Island Airport Tunnel with escalators and moving sidewalk supposedly measures 240 m.
The New Path Route from the ACC to Queens Quay measures about 250 m +.
The Path Route from Union Station to King measures approx. 300 m.
An elevated walkway with escalators from Main TTC to Main GO measures about 250 m.
The Kennedy transfer is not a killer. I was out there last week.
Our closest Eglinton Crosstown Station will be close to a 350 m walk, whereas the walk to the closest Eglinton bus stop is only a 250 m walk.
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Toronto missed out on opportunity to provide real relief to both the Yonge Line and Bloor Danforth line by failing to build the Eglinton line completely grade separated. Traffic from downtrodden Scarborough that could have gone Downtown via the LRT taken directly to the University/Spadina line will now continue to go via the Bloor Danforth line and then choking Yonge-Bloor station and the down the heavily crowded Yonge Line. Failure to grade separate Eglinton LRT completely has exacerbated the need to build the DRL which will now have to go into one of the streetcar corridors (unless it’s pushed east to Victoria Park but it will still threaten east-west streetcar routes).
Also demolish the Gardiner so that a DRL right of way can be provided without threatening any streetcar routes. I love the streetcar system and I don’t want to lose the few remaining routes that we have. I was also wondering about the possibility of adding tracks to the CPR crosstown route north of Dupont as a Bloor Relief Line. SmartTrack and RER are also some of the ways that DRL can be built without risking any of the streetcar routes.
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Exactly & by no means whatsoever am I an advocate for this SSE in its current form. But when I’m forced to compare it to the funded LRT plan I believe the benefits are far greater for Scarborough’s long term future.
The Sheppard LRT benefits some, inconveniences some & leaves many others with absolutely no reason [to] use [it]. It could just as effectively be built as a BRT within a larger local network down the road. Without integration into a large network & with the poor connection to the current network it shouldn’t be that hard to understand why it has minimal support out here. Bus routes will also now be closer to the major transit artery in Toronto & Smarttrack.
IMO the debate on what plan really benefits Scarborough is only between then SSE vs the SLRT.
Assuming SSE is still on McCowan route (not my preference & likely to change due to Smarttrack) here are some of my thoughts.
STOPS & LOCATIONS
INTEGRATION
ATTRACTIVENESS
EQUALITY
COST
Steve: Be careful to use “as spent dollars”. SSE is about $3.6b including inflation to completion, and that’s without extending it east to, say, Markham Road. You cannot cite a price for an option that is different from what you advocate building.
Now that 3 Billion is available these two options would provide much more value to the future of Scarborough:
1.) Build a complete LRT loop. Include:
– Malvern Extension
– Toronto ZOO/Rouge Park
– Scarborough-Malvern LRT
2.) If feasible within 3 billion range:
– Extend subway (2 stops) to ONLY Lawrence & STC as Smarttrack now goes to Sheppard
– Implement a BRT network throughout Scarborough
Both options are much more effective & fair.
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There seems to be a flaw in political discourse these days. The term (lack of) “consultation with the community” seems to get confused with “I wasn’t given a personal veto”.
Jeffrey Simpson had an excellent piece the other day about our transit paralysis. To broadly paraphrase, government’s job is to decide on our behalf. If we don’t like the general direction then we can throw the government out at the next election.
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The idea of the DRL coming south and essentially going underneath a removed Gardiner seems like a fairly attractive idea … if we are going to be ripping up the whole area anyways (to remove the Gardiner, to redo the mouth of the Don) it seems like a cut-cover with a stops at Pape, Carlaw, Cherry and south core would be a potentially attractive route – especially if it ended up saving a huge amount of tunneling money … if the station at Carlaw was designed with a parking tower it might be a more attractive way of getting downtown than taking a lowered Gardiner for people east of the Don (and mitigate the 10 minute slow down)…
Steve: Recognize that the lowered Gardiner will only be between Jarvis and Cherry. The other piece to disappear (in either of the two options) is the ramp structure landing at Logan and Lake Shore. Building a subway this far south places it in landfill in a location with a very high water table, and the stations at Pape and Carlaw would be well south of any significant population or employment.
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@Ed
As a cyclist, streetcars are wonderful to ride with. The tracks are not an issue unless you are not paying attention. Meanwhile, the streetcar moves in a predictable lane, never deviating, never swerving into your right of way, etc. Cycling with buses on the road is a nightmare, as you’re constantly leapfrogging one another. It’s far more dangerous. Plus, streetcars are an effective traffic calming device.
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If the DRL is to be built it should be designed to have a positive net present value so that the government will have the capacity to help transition the affected communities.
Steve: That is a nice sounding theory, but my concern is is in how “NPV” is calculated. For example, if we continue to value a few minutes’ delay to motorists who are a minority of all travel over the needs of the more numerous transit riders, then we have a big problem. What, for example, is the “value” of improving access to jobs and reducing commuting times for people in less well-off areas?
There are at least two versions of “NPV”: an impartial valuing of all components, or a political weighting. The latter tends to win out.
I am amazed at the lengths to which many commenters attempt to find ways to avoid building a subway through Thorncliffe Park. Talk to me about the NPV of a few other subways now on the books, and I might even believe that this is a valid argument.
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I agree with your concern, but I am reminded of a discussion we had in the past. To properly model for trip dynamics we need to respect trip origin/destination data and a proper value for time. The Main Street subway alignment with a modified LRT on Don Mills to connect to the southern subway would much better align itself with the true desired trip patters. By doing so communities can be designed to be much more attractive, this would create significantly higher growth potential and make for a more fair and equitable society.
Steve: “A fair and equitable society” is a very difficult thing to measure, especially when the phrase is so commonly used re transit plans on this blog to mean “my plan, not your plan”. I feel that it is too often a shorthand way of avoiding debate on the actual issues.
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Be careful with your implications. Just because you live there, doesn’t make you the only person who understands Scarborough. It’s ludicrous that I should have to do this, but …
I was born in Scarborough General. I moved to the west end of Toronto last summer. In the interim, I lived my entire life in Scarborough, split between Malvern, Morningside and Rouge Hill. I went to high school in the Warden and Eglinton area, requiring a daily commute by two buses, SRT, and subway. I did my undergrad at UTSC, including a work-study in which I studied local Scarborough history. From 2003 to 2014, I was working for a municipal agency directly with children and youth in priority neighbourhoods (Morningside, Malvern, Birchmount/Danforth and Markham/Lawrence, to be exact), mostly on early childhood literacy, but also on some other stuff including senior’s services. For the last couple of years, I’ve also been working with UTSC on the Scarborough Oral History Project.
I’m old enough to remember an “independent” Scarborough, prior to amalgamation. I lived there and was working in priority communities when Transit City was unveiled, and when Rob Ford was elected. I know and understand Scarborough very, very well. But I also know that even without all these things, I could still understand the issues at play. Scarborough is not a special snowflake that cannot be deciphered from the outside.
And, for what it’s worth, when Transit City was unveiled, I talked to a lot of people in the communities I was working in about it. It was my go-to small talk, because I was very excited about it. What I heard was mostly negative, but not one person complained about funding for lines. Not one person complained specifically about the transfer at Don Mills. Instead, what I heard was that they were going to be taking up lanes of traffic, obstructing right turns, and they should be subways instead. They didn’t want LRT lines, period.
Also, for what it’s worth, I have always fully supported building all the planned Scarborough LRT lines, and I think I have been very clear on that. So if a “post like [mine] illustrates clearly why Rob Ford was voted in [because of] minimal support from the rest of the City,” then you’re being willfully ignorant.
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Grade separating Eglinton would not provide relief for Yonge but would rather overload it at Eglinton and Yonge Station. The University Subway is actually getting to the point where it is seriously loaded and would not be able to take any of the Danforth passengers who would switch to Eglinton to take a convoluted route downtown. Also it would not really take any passengers off Yonge which is severely loaded by the time it gets to Eglinton.
The point of a Downtown Relief Line is to divert passengers away from Yonge and the inner end of Danforth AND provide a fast route for suburban riders from Scarborough and eastern North York with an alternative route downtown. If you put it too far east it is not attracting enough riders. The line has to be built at least to Don Mills and Eglinton so it would serve the dense neighbourhoods of Flemingdon Park and Thorncliffe Park plus all the new development that would go into that intersection.
The DRL will not threaten any streetcar routes because it will most likely not be built under any single street for very long. Putting it under the Gardiner takes it too far south to connect with Yonge University in any way that would allow for an easy transfer and would defeat its purpose. (Not so) SmartTrack is too far east to provide any major benefit in lieu of a DRL would and Union Station would not have the platform capacity to handle the traffic.
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So your argument is that by building 8.2km underground from Laird to Kennedy on Eglinton, Toronto could avoid building 6.0km underground from Pape/Danforth to Yonge/King?
You could build a DRL under Lakeshore without demolishing the Gardiner. I’m not sure why you’d want to built it there, but you could do it. The DRL isn’t going to kill any existing streetcar routes.
This is the jointly operated CN/CP North Toronto subdivision, and the primary east-west freight route in Toronto. When freight expansion plans are taken into consideration, you couldn’t fit two new tracks on the route, platforms for stations would be even worse, you’d have to run HRT trains instead of LRT trains, and ignoring transfer stations, Islington has the highest usage (40,230), which would put it tenth on the YUS line. All in all, it’s not the best idea, even if CN/CP were to allow it.
The DRL doesn’t risk streetcar routes, just gives capacity relief to them. SmartTrack is pie in the sky, and RER serves another set of demands.
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I think to be comparable, you need to include the Sheppard LRT, the Malvern LRT and/or possibly a SRT conversion. Two of the three would give a similar price tag and all three would give you a solid start to decent network.
Stops & Locations
You’ve given the number of stops and a qualitative description of the route, but you didn’t define your judgement parameters. Is it a combination of improving “priority areas” and people within a given distance or better within a given travel time? Also, you can’t fault the SLRT option for the lack of supporting bus routes. This is something that could be improved independently.
Integration
What value do you put on a transfer? Is it so high that people will not use the ECLRT for more northern destinations?
Attractiveness
This seems to be a rehashing of your previous two points. What about a subway vs LRT spurs slightly higher quality development?
Equality
I’m not sure how “most are busing it in that missing transfer” relates to equality. With regards to Sheppard, you’re saying current service is better than having faster, more frequent service for a part of your trip?
Cost
I’m not sure where you stand with this section. The cost needs to be compared to the above factors, not the requirement of a complete network.
3.6 Billion Option 1: LRT Loop
This is basically, what I stated above to build the Transit City plan for Scarborough. It’s what I use as the LRT alternative to the SSE.
3.6 Billion Option 2: SSE to STC + BRT
Using a straight per km estimate, you’d have around $800M for your BRT network. It’s $25-50M per km for busway plus $1M per bus, so you’d be able to build a network of 15-30km with 50 buses (90-180 second headways). This would be roughly one block in every direction from STC (Sheppard, Ellesmere, Lawrence, Midland, McCowan, Markham) or BRT between Fairview Mall and STC on Sheppard and Ellesmere/York Mills.
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Well if I had to advocate any LRT line it would be a complete Eglinton line to UTSC before a Sheppard stub to UTSC. It would have the best coverage of Scarborough out of any routes and no transfer.
But yes, if it’s a subway Markham Rd for sure, now that Smart track is in play.
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Which is kinda the major problem here??? One poorly funded political plan is just as bad as the next crazy political plan. So round & round we go this is our reality. Going nowhere fast or efficient.
Although these plans which often miss the mark are a by-product of the bigger problem we face in that no political party is willing to properly fund transit expansion to make it truly effective, fair and efficient.
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Seriously?!?
Let’s try a small thought-experiment…
A DRL that connects to the BD line at Main would do a nice job of shifting a number of people off of BD and therefore out of the Bloor-Yonge interchange, provided they live east of Coxwell station. I say Coxwell, as it is likely that those who would board a Woodbine would likely find the trip faster to back-track one stop to Main, and it is possible the same could be said for those at Coxwell, so I’ll give this idea the benefit of the doubt.
At the same time, an LRT service down Don Mills to the BD line, likely at Donlands or Pape, would bring a new source of passengers onto the BD line to head west to Yonge. Furthermore, these “new” passengers are currently passing through Bloor-Yonge by staying on a train coming from the north, so now they will replace much of the hoard of people moving through the station that the DRL was built to eliminate.
Yea, that would “much better align itself with the true desired trip patterns”.
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I disagree with this statement on two levels. First, most of the value in NPV is not to the government. We don’t collect any tax income on people’s travel time. We do collect the portion related to not needing to build or maintain as many roads. However, you can have a positive NPV and still have a negative on government revenues (mostly because operational costs are rarely included). Second, a project doesn’t need any specific NPV to have appropriate government funding assigned to mitigating transitions. That mitigation needs its own NPV evalution to see if it’s the best use of available social funding.
I dislike this phrase as well because it doesn’t actually provide for the higher communal good. For example, the most equitable state would be no public transit and no public roads. Everyone is equally forced to walk everywhere. Progressive taxing is seen as fair, but definitely is not equitable.
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As an immigrant, I too have experienced a lot of racism from Aboriginal/native people who feel that we are trespassing on their land and stealing their jobs. I respect native people for being the first people in Canada but that does not give them the right to act in a racist manner towards other people. I also think that we should all be equal under the law and so native people should not be exempt from paying taxes especially since they are eligible for more benefits than non-native Canadians.
Steve: I have deleted some text here because I do not want to turn this thread into a discussion of the relative behaviours and expectations of First Nations and other residents of this land.
With regards to fare discounts for seniors, I think everybody (except homeless people) should be subject to the same fare (policy) and the answer lies (as some of your readers have already pointed out) in refundable tax credits based on income, wealth, necessary expenses (necessary expenses do not include luxurious expenses), and other relevant financial information. I strongly believe in that homeless people should be allowed to ride for free since many of them are also too mentally ill to be filing their tax returns (this applies to only a small proportion of homeless people but we should look after society’s most vulnerable and the poorest of the poor). Also one homeless man froze to death at a TTC stop (possibly because no driver would not let him on without a fare that he likely did not have) on a bitterly cold night last winter and so drivers/collectors should be given the discretion to judge whether or not someone is homeless and saving lives is more important than a few people abusing the system for which their should be serious criminal charges and not just a fine. To be sure many people will falsely claim to be homeless if there were free transit for homeless people (as many panhandlers already do to abuse people’s kindness and generosity) but that should be treated as fraud with serious jail time (undercover officers can follow/investigate the persons claiming to be homeless).
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The issue would be look at the existing bus routes, and where they go.
Steve: Where bus routes go does not necessarily follow optimum routes for origin-destintation patterns overall, merely for those the TTC chooses to serve well. As a case in point, I offer Scarborough Town Centre which acts as a “black hole” attracting every nearby route on the assumption that the primary travel demand is to the RT and hence to the subway. Trips following other patterns are served more by accident than by design. Transit usage follows the bus routes because riders have no other choice.
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While I agree with this, if we are starting with issue of desired location, we can begin to get some proxy by looking at loading etc. A detailed understanding of where people worked etc would clearly be better, but the buses out of this area are well loaded, and do connect with subway that allows people to spread across the city. I am hard pressed to believe that Jon has better data than those trips, except on the broadest survey accumulations.
I am hard pressed to believe that there is a better feasible design than linking through to the core, an east west LRT and an east west subway, that would be easily achieved for this area. The alignment he suggests that the bulk of these trips are headed where? We are sending them to Main to go where? The Main street subway alignment better serves what area that has a real density and/or a large concentration of trips or routes that exceeds those reasonably available here where?
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Please explain how you know the true desired trip patter(n)s? Do you plan to have the Don Mill LRT divert east to get to Main Station and the DRL? It seems O.K. to force a transfer from bus to LRT to subway and a longer ride for people living in Thorncliffe and Flemingdon Parks in order to save a transfer for those living near Main Station which already has a subway, a GO station and a street car line plus several bus lines. For those living in Crescent Town and points east along the Danforth Subway there is no benefit. They still need to make a transfer to get on the DRL only it would be at Main instead of Pape. Unless the time and convenience of those living in the development and Main and Danforth is worth a lot more than those living in Thorncliffe and Flemingdon Parks I fail to see how your plan is more attractive and makes for a more fair and equitable society. Please explain you position in detail so the rest of us can understand it.
I forgot that CN has trackage rights over it. Now that the Leaside spur is gone do they operate anything along it?
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Free rides are back on Spadina tomorrow morning (been doing a lot of walking lately to Spadina station but no more from tomorrow). Very excited.
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After major disappointment by Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath, Patrick Brown will deliver on transit and other files.
Steve: I am not holding my breath. The last Tory to deliver on transit was Bill Davis, and even he botched part of it by confusing technology development with investment in transit.
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When will the first new streetcar run on Bathurst? When (if ever) will 4401 and 4402 be retrofitted to enter service? What’s the status on 4407 and 4408? When will all streetcar routes become POP?
Steve: First off, I wish you would use a consistent name for your comments. So far, you have submitted three under different names, but with the same email and from the same IP address.
Bathurst is not scheduled to get new cars until after Spadina and Harbourfront are done, but this could change if the TTC starts getting faster deliveries and wants to “show the flag” on another route.
4407 left Thunder Bay on April 20, almost 3 weeks ago. It was spotted on St. Clair today.
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CN has not operated on the North Toronto Sub since 1969.
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Kevin’s comment:
Based on his track record of supporting the Hamilton LRT? Oh wait… not so much…
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CN’s trackage rights ended at Leaside Yard and went with the spur. It was a remnant from the days of the Canadian Northern when they had their main maintenance facilities there.
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My model assumes that the travelers are rational and value their time according to market rates. By providing the traveler with a direct route to service their primary destination they are better able to get the greatest value out of their trip. The downtown subway from Main to St Andrews should be predicated on reducing friction costs, such as unnecessary transfers, and routes that are not direct to destination.
I disagree with your thought experiment because when you are considering the effect of greater choice for a more direct time saving route your results would require us to assume that the traveler is either irrational or that they value their time at or below the poverty level, both of which I believe are incorrect.
Steve: However, you are still building a longer subway over to Main, and without the option of serving areas further north with this line. Your analysis cherry picks which costs and benefits you choose to include, and which riders are the target market.
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The government’s fiduciary duty is to increase the health and prosperity of society. The value gained by the government is not taxation revenue as you state, but by the optimal utilization of time by society. By not wasting time in transit society is better able to invest its efforts in productive endeavors that would create associated economic activity that then can be taxed. As such the government needs to consider all costs related to its activities. If the government uses the full cost accounting and an accurate measure of those costs it will be much better able to deliver its goals, and provide more efficient and effective services. Within an environment of limited resources an NPV analysis that best identifies the true potential of a project is the best way to decide which project should be selected.
Steve: However, that’s not how governments work in practice. Politicians are very good about ignoring or at least minimizing future costs, not to mention looking at projects in isolation from each other rather than as integrated packages. As long as the goal is “lower taxes”, this means all sorts of fiscal gerrymandering to limit short term costs at the expense of long term ones.
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I believe Steve is absolutely right when he said,
A properly designed downtown subway should be designed to allow for a more optimal utilization of the existing feeder system. Most people now do not want to be on the Danforth Line but the system forces them on it. Given a choice people traveling to the core would prefer a direct route.
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What I have put forward is a general framework to help direct the conversation. The principles of what I have to say are what are important at this point as they allow the modeling process to find significantly greater value for any potential downtown subway alignment.
Steve: But underlying your argument is the presumption that a Pape/Thorncliffe/Eglinton alignment is not optimal. This is related to the oft repeated (by some commentators) misrepresentations of relative densities and demand patterns. If people from Scarborough really want to get downtown as directly as possible, then they really should not be on the Danforth subway at all, never mind a short hop to Main Station. No matter what it’s called, service on the commuter rail network should be scooping some of this demand, especially the part that originates far from the existing subway and would benefit the most from a faster direct route.
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Could you please elucidate the principles of your general framework because it seems that most of us are too stupid to follow them. Exactly how is a DRL through Main Station with a Don Mills LRT to God knows where better than running the DRL through Pape to Don Mills and Eglinton.
But there are also people who are not travelling to the core. While a Grid system may not be the best at getting people to the core it is the best at providing transport between areas outside of the core. I used to live at Lawrence and Warden and worked at Harbord and Ossington. A subway line that went downtown would not have been as efficient as the BD line. When I was in University I made one simple transfer at St, George to get to College and St. George for my classes. A grid system may force people to make more transfers than a radial system but it also provides more and better service for a larger number of riders. Studies have shown that systems that have higher patronage also have more transfers.
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I know you tried to stem this debate Steve, but I find this comment very narrow minded and felt the need to comment here. If any group is deserving of discounted TTC fares it should be our first nations community. Toronto could be a leader with such a gesture. From experience living and working with the Naskapi and Innu in Northern Quebec I can tell you that the ‘benefits’ most first nations receive are meager at best. I sincerely doubt their living conditions in Ontario would be any better. A discounted or free fare would both be a symbolic gesture and a financial help to many of these communities.
Steve: I would argue that this is a case of benefits based on some characteristic other than actual social need. A free fare in Toronto is not going to do any good for someone living in Northern Quebec. If a first nations member is living in Toronto and their socioeconomic situation justifies special subsidies, so be it, possibly even on a different basis (eligibility criteria) from for other communities. But just as not all seniors should get reduced fares, not all first nations members live in a situation that justifies special treatment.
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Thorncliffe and Flemmington neighborhoods are major trip generators. It would be hard to justify a DRL route that travels from downtown to north-east, but somehow misses those two areas.
Furthermore, a DRL that continues up Don Mills will be approximately halfway between the Yonge line and the eastern SmartTrack branch. That should be optimal for the downtown-bound trips.
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What track record are you talking about? Hamilton LRT is not a federal issue and Patrick Brown is in the federal Parliament and not the Provincial Parliament. It’s okay if Patrick Brown does not support Hamilton LRT as long as he is honest about it unlike the Liberals who repeatedly falsely promise things including but not limited to the Hamilton LRT and the evidence for which are the links below.
900CHML CBC
And so Kevin you think the Liberals will do a better job on transit? Based on the Liberal “track record of supporting the Hamilton LRT? Oh wait… not so much…”
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Yes, and as has already been discussed at length, in order to make Toronto work we need to support a lot more destinations than just the core. The congestion choking Toronto roadways and highways is not core bound – each of the 401/427/QEW has more capacity than the Gardiner, and yet each is as choked. The DVP is more crowded, while having more capacity north of Eglinton. A grid provides for a much closer to neutral system, and if properly laid out, most trips can be made well with only a couple of transfers, and if these are between very high frequency services, the time lost in so doing is very small. The EC-LRT will serve many trips beyond those merely transferring to go to the core, however a link is important in creating a more effective service, the and transfer points need to be able to take the load. The issue in Toronto, is that a relatively small portion of the network – YUS – especially Yonge – south of Bloor is overloaded, and this threatens the service on its entire length, and eventually through back-ups into key stations service along the BDL (shortly Yonge, not long after St. George and Spadina).
The subway to Don Mills and Eglinton represents both a capacity increase into the core, and more importantly a grid enhancement, both by linking EC-LRT and the Lawrence bus routes, tying in away from Yonge. It will also provide an anchor point for a Don MIlls LRT to help complete the start of an LRT grid. Transit needs to be fast efficient and reliable to get used, ideally more time reliable than auto – which can be done in a city as congested as Toronto.
Jon, you mentioned support [for] destinations that people are trying to reach. Well in reality in a city like Toronto they are well scattered, and that means supporting a highly flexible, transfer driven system. Those transfers just need to be good, and between high frequency routes, so they do not represent a burden. Spadina, Main, Scarborough RT, represent the type of transfers to be avoided. St. George and Bloor/Yonge would be good, if not so overloaded.
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Yes, and frankly this too is part of building a transit system that will come closer to being destination neutral. The rail stations need to be well served by local (TTC etc) transit, so that it is as easy to get a bus to GO as it is subway, and the fares need make sense. If we can support something on the order of 10 minute GO service on Lakeshore and Stouffville, along with GO as a real destination properly served by frequent bus (not just by massive parking lots and occasional bus) the core bound load from the outer reaches of Scarborough should not have to be on subway but instead on a faster more direct service. However, LRT in Sheppard serving the Agincourt Station, BRT in Gatineau serving Kennedy GO, along with 10 minute RER would go a long ways to creating this sort of network, along Stouffville, need a similar type of service to Lakeshore stations – both TTC and GO. Markham Rd (or thereabouts) BRT anyone.
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