The new, improved transit right-of-way on Queens Quay has been in operation for a few months, and it has had its share, and then some, of problems. These included confused motorists, pedestrians and cyclists who could not figure out the new lane arrangement and signals, more than a few autos stuck in the tunnel entrance at Bay Street, and a streetcar collision thanks to an open switch at the Spadina/Queens Quay Loop.
When the design for the new road was still on the drawing boards, a red flag went up for transit watchers with the number of traffic signals, some fairly closely spaced. The “old” Queens Quay’s signals had their problems, and just to get a semblance of “priority” the detectors for approaching streetcars were moved further and further away from the signals in the hope that they would be able to cycle to a transit green before the streetcar actually arrived.
The streetcars returned, but the signals were, at first, on a standard program with no provision for detecting transit vehicles, although this changed in mid-June with the installation of the new, permanent traffic controllers.
Has there been an improvement? This article reviews current and past operations of the 509 Harbourfront and 510 Spadina cars running on Queens Quay.
A Note About File Naming
In this article, as in my previous examination of service on Kingston Road, I have used a fictitious route number “519” which includes data from both routes operating on Queens Quay. This distinguishes files with the merged data from those for individual routes.
Filenames include numeric location identifiers:
- Three digit numbers such as “105” are keyed to direction (the first digit) and location (the next two digits).
- Five digit numbers refer to a route segment or “link” between two points. For example “20605” identifies the direction (“2” is eastbound or “down” in TTC parlance for the route), while “0605” indicates the pair of locations bounding the segment.
This scheme allows filenames to sort geographically in a library even though they include street names.
For a description of the process underlying this article, please see Methodology for Analysis of TTC’s Vehicle Tracking Data.
Running Time History Over The Route
For the purpose of this analysis, the “route” consists of the section from Bay Street to just east of the Exhibition Loop loading platform. Eliminating both ends of the line avoids difficulties with getting reliable data:
- GPS errors can result in “lost” cars within the Bay Street tunnel, and a measurement from the north end of the tunnel would not reliably include all vehicles.
- Layover times at Exhibition Loop can be extremely long, and terminal time should not be included in the travel time for comparative purposes.
519_10107_Bay_ExhibitionLoopEast_LinkHistory
519_20701_ExhibitionLoopEast_Bay_LinkHistory
These two sets of charts show the weekday running times for:
- February 2010: Mid-winter, pre-construction. This should be a “best case” without summer traffic conditions on Queens Quay.
- June 2011: Early summer, pre-construction.
- May to July 2015: Post-construction including the Pan-Am Games period in July.
The data are subdivided by half-hours throughout the day, and by weeks for the months shown. (Note that “Week 0” in May 2015 contains only the short week of Friday, May 1.)
For westbound trips, running times build gradually through the morning peak, stabilize through the day, and then fall back late at night. The standard deviation values (shown in dotted lines) stay at or below two minutes except when a delay caused a spike in values indicating that travel times over the route are quite predictable within a narrow band of values.
A striking factor is the degree to which running times are longer post-construction, especially from May until mid-June 2015 when the permanent traffic controllers were installed. Even after this, running times are 3-4 minutes longer than pre-construction values, a very substantial increase considering that the “old” values were only 12-15 minutes.
For eastbound trips, the pattern is similar, although the dip in running times following the activation of new signal controllers is most evident only in the morning periods, and late evening running times are highest in July.
Just to be sure what was going on, I also looked at individual portions of the route.
Bay to York
519_10102_Bay_York_LinkHistory
519_20201_York_Bay_LinkHistory
Travel times over this short segment are very consistent, and they have improved slightly eastbound thanks to the removal of the farside stop at York Street.
York to East of Spadina
519_10203_York_EofQueensQuayLoop_LinkHistory
519_20302_EofQueensQuayLoop_York_LinkHistory
Westbound service in this segment was about 50% slower with the new signals and right-of-way than it had been before this was implemented. There was a noticeable improvement in mid-June with the new, permanent signals and improved transit “priority”, but this was lost again in July. It is unclear whether this was caused by additional summertime/PanAm pedestrian traffic or by the slow order instituted by the TTC. Until we see this segment operating “off season”, it will not be clear what influences its behaviour.
Note that some of the spikes in the Standard Deviation values are caused by a combination of a small number of high values, typically caused by a delay. These pull up the averages slightly, but because the typical values are small, a few data points with very high values can skew the SD.
Through the Spadina & Queens Quay Intersection
519_10304_EofQueensQuayLoop_WofSpadina_LinkHistory
519_20403_WofSpadina_EofQueensQuayLoop_LinkHistory
Travel times through this intersection have been affected by various factors since the “new” Queens Quay opened:
- For many weeks, switches were manually operated (usually) by a pointman who spent his/her time running back and forth as needed. This practice was a factor in a streetcar collision where an operator entered an open switch that should have been closed by the pointman who was busy elsewhere.
- Some transit priority phases, notably those specific to movements that depend on the setting of a switch, do not work unless the track switches are energized. The workaround for this was to simply have the “priority” turn phase(s) appear periodically regardless of actual traffic.
- The final version of the traffic signal controller was only very recently installed. A slight improvement is evident in mid-June, but this is not as dramatic as further east on the route.
The intersection is still not operating as speedily in its “new” configuration as it did in the “old” version.
West of Spadina to south of Bathurst/Fleet
519_10405_WofSpadina_SofBathurstFleet_LinkHistory
519_20504_SofBathurstFleet_WofSpadina_LinkHistory
This segment operates consistently more slowly in the “new” configuration than it did in the “old” at all times of the day and in both directions.
Through the Bathurst / Fleet / Lake Shore Intersection
519_10506_SofBathurstFleet_WofBathurst_LinkHistory
519_20605_WofBathurst_SofBathurstFleet_LinkHistory
Westbound times for operation through this complex intersection are unchanged for the “pre” and “post” periods, but eastbound times are slightly higher suggesting that there has been some change in the signal operations made while the streetcar service was shut down.
West of Bathurst to Exhibition Loop
519_10607_WofBathurst_ExhibitionLoopEast_LinkHistory
519_20706_ExhibitionLoopEast_WofBathurst_LinkHistory
Westbound times on Fleet Street and into Exhibition Loop were slightly longer in summer 2015 than in the earlier periods, but not by much.
Eastbound times are also similar except during July 2015 when heavy demand and service for the Pan Am Games had a severe effect. This was caused by a combination of delays at Fort York Boulevard and at Bathurst Street as shown in the following detailed chart of operation on Tuesday July 14.
Through the late evening, and particularly when there were multiple cars approaching Bathurst Street eastbound, cars can be seen pulling up to the intersection slowly. This implies that the traffic signal was unable to provide enough green time for streetcars (both the frequent 509 Harbourfront and 511 Bathurst) services.
This is one of the issues that appears to be missed in “transit priority” signals: the need for signals to support unusual conditions of heavy transit traffic, not just the typical volumes that can be fitted into the auto traffic flow. (A related problem is the absence of “priority” for commonly used short turns and diversions, but that’s a subject for another article.)
Conclusion
While the new Queens Quay is beautiful to look at, and certainly an improvement over years of construction, the transit service and priority there are little improved, and in some cases worse than they were with the original setup. One could argue that a mixed use street like Queens Quay was never intended to provide “rapid transit”, but this shows how the best of intentions can actually make things worse.
Steve Munro 
Service on Queens Quay has really improved thanks to the POP.
PS: This comment posted with my brand new laptop bought through savings from POP.
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Indeed, at many times of day 3-4 of the cars are on siesta at Exhibition. With the usual 6 minute headway I usually experience at least 10-12 minutes, and it occurs a few times a week that I have to wait 20-30 minutes, and a few times I’ve had to wait 45, not even with an accident on route.
As for POP, an LFLRV I was on arrived at Union today, and there were fare inspectors waiting at the exit. I was one of the later people to get off, and just before I got off, a man who had gotten off first and darted back upon seeing the inspectors had gotten back on and was paying his fare at the fare vending machine, because he knew they were there. Incredible. I hope that they paid attention to the transfer’s timestamp being for that very minute and to the location on it being Union–however he could use to made-up excuse that there was a long line and he just got the transfer then after boarding at Queen’s Quay, and they’d have no way to know. Wonderful.
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You can use TransSee to tell which of the bunched streetcars are running ahead or behind schedule. Often they will be really scrambled.
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“…….at many times of day 3-4 of the cars are on siesta at Exhibition. ”
More evidence that lack on the street supervision results in this unacceptable service.
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This is not really a QQ thing but for the last few days the 504 westbound has been diverting down Church to turn back east at York.. The TTC have a Toronto police person at King and Church directing traffic and pedestrians to allow the streetcars to turn. I was surprised to see one there even at 6pm last night. Clearly (to me anyway) the TTC/City cannot change the transit priority signals to deal with special things like this and they have to resort to what must be rather expensive alternatives. Are transit priority signals so hard to reprogram, and why?
Steve: This is one of many examples where there should be a transit priority signal associated with the left turn and its electric switch. Frankly I do not understand why the TTC does not have far more priority signals for turns used for diversions, short turns, etc.
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More evidence that lack on the street supervision results in this unacceptable service.
It might also be a sign of too much running time during certain portions of the day. I was down there on Sept. 10th and the service was reasonably spaced out but there was often two 509 and two 511 cars in there waiting out their time. It is very difficult to sit for long at Union and passengers get upset when the cars crawl along because they have too much time. There was a supervisor at Exhibition loop.
The traffic signal at QQ and Spadina is still giving white bars to southbound and westbound cars at the same time. I believe that there is a rule, written or not, that wb cars are only to use it for a right turn but I saw a rookie operator go straight through on one and get hit by a turning sb car. If they want it for right turns only then put in a green arrow like they do at Fleet and Bathurst.
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With regard to figuring out complicated wrinkles in how to run a system with traffic lights cleverly prioritized for transit vehicles — hasn’t Germany used clever priorization for half a century? Hasn’t that been long enough to iron out the wrinkles?
Steve: I was being ironic.
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I live in the St Lawrence neighbourhood — a couple of hundred meters north of where the Queen’s Quay East route will run, when and if it is built. I am glad it is delayed as its delay has delayed the completion of a thick curtain of condos that will block the view of the harbour from my building’s roof deck.
The route will also have its right of way along the south side of Queen’s Quay. Initially, I thought this short route would be mercifully free of stopping for traffic lights, But the developers plan to connect those condos to the street grid with new roads. This will add at least three traffic lights to this very short route.
Developers just finished digging the foundation for the westernmost condo south of Queen’s Quay. Personally, I think those condo owners should find the entry ramps to their underground parking north of the streetcar tracks. Make the developers bury those ramps, so they don’t interfere with the streetcar. I think the developers could be made to build an underground road to connect the underground garages of all the condos. They will be digging all the foundations over the next couple of years. Well this would be the best time to excavate a cut and cover roadway to access those underground garages. They would probably have to have a surface roadways, for delivery trucks. But this shouldn’t require adding three traffic lights. Those delivery trucks could be made to enter and exit east of the terminus of streetcar route, so the trucks didn’t impede streetcar traffic at all.
I stopped at the sales center for the condos. There is one developer for the whole strip, from Sherbourne Commons to the Parliament slip. Only a small fraction of the condo owners will be able to buy one of the expensive parking spots. There aren’t enough to go around.
Maybe the city should have just ruled out all parking in this neighbourhood. I wonder how long it will take to get to the point where condo owners will be told they can’t get a parking spot.
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I have to say it makes sense that the planning for this area, be designed around the notion, that the transit be able to move through easily. While I do not see how you could get away from some parking for the residents – at least a little of it, the area has to be developed so that transit takes extreme priority over the car, and the developer needs to make sure there is no disruption to transit – this area should really be the very model of transit oriented development.
Steve: A preliminary design for this area already exists and it has a lot of traffic lights. These deal not just with condos but with commercial properties, notably Redpath Sugar. As for an underground roadway, it’s a bit damp down there for starters, and ramp access takes up valuable space.
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The important thing – in my mind, is that the entrances/disruptions to transit be minimized. That could mean something built into, in front of, or behind the buildings – just on the developers land – not interfering with the public ROW. However, yes, keeping an underground space down there dry would be a challenge. It could also mean however, that the timing for any additional lights be entirely based on space within the transit cycle, where the lights for the entrances, are only green when there is no transit vehicle present or approaching.
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It is the opposite of too much running time for 509 Harbourfront — it is way too short. What supervisors do is put the line on headways from Exhibition Loop (normally 6 or 7 minute headways during the day) and then do change overs or use the SAC person for reliefs. Headways usually run until last car from the Ex. The same problem is on the 510 Spadina route, although it’s been there for years. The same system is used there, with 1 SAC person at Bloor Loop. Again headways are run here until the 317 Spadina service starts. Headways after 9 PM but before 317 service operate between Bloor Loop and northbound Bremner stop. Eventually these routes will see the “Route Improvements,” but not for awhile (506 Carlton is currently in “Route Improvement” mode this board period).
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So you expect that these buildings will not have underground parking? I’m a bit surprised — usually skyscraper construction projects do an enormous amount of work to build underground parking, but if ground conditions don’t allow it, then maybe they’ll have to do something else.
Steve: Sometimes the parking is built into the building podium. The new underground garage at Harbourfront Centre cost well over $100k per parking space because of construction conditions.
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Refresh my memory. What is a SAC? Someone to relieve operators needing lunch break etc?
Steve: “Service Assistance Crews”: these are spare operators used to make odd trips or partial trips to allow regular operators to get back on time independently of their vehicles.
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