On Sunday, June 19, 2016, the TTC eliminated several carstops on the central portion of the 504 King route with the alleged purpose of speeding up service. This is an idea that sounds good in theory – fewer stops means faster trips – but that’s not necessarily what happened.
The stops in question were located at:
- Victoria Street westbound
- York Street both ways
- Simcoe Street both ways
- Brant Street both ways
Another stop outside of the core that was removed was on Broadview north of Queen, northbound. This was originally created for the Don Mills night bus when it served Broadview, but had become a popular location for riders making the transfer from westbound Queen to northbound King cars without having to make a double-crossing of the intersection. That convenience is gone in the name of faster service.
Readers of this blog will know that a common thread through many of my service analyses is that some of the worst ongoing delays come from poor or non-existent transit priority including badly timed traffic signals or the lack of transit-only green time for turns. Other major delays arise when there is anything unusual such as utility construction with no corresponding change in traffic/parking regulations to retain as much of the street’s capacity as possible.
When the TTC floated the idea of eliminating minor stops at various locations, the idea sounded plausible. Did the change actually achieve anything?
Travel Times Between Jarvis and Bathurst
One way of looking at the situation is to examine travel times for June 2016 to see how they varied before and after the change. In the sets of charts below there are seven pages for each direction:
- Pages 1-5 give the individual travel times (points) and trend lines through these points for each week of the month, with each day’s data shown in a different colour.
- Pages 6-7 give the same view, but for weekend data on Saturdays and Sundays
Looking at the westbound data, the most obvious point is that the values are spread over a wide range and vary from day to day even at the same time period. Any improvement in overall numbers will have to be quite substantial just to be visible among the “noise” of hour-to-hour and day-by-day variations. Also fairly evident is that the data for pre- and post-elimination lie generally in the same area (more about this later). The weekend of June 11-12 has some of the highest numbers (yellow), but of the “post” days only June 25 lies convincingly below other Sundays. Eastbound data have similar patterns.
Another way to look at the numbers is to compare operating speeds along the route. The following charts show average speeds hour-by-hour through the day for the section of 504 King from Gerrard & Broadview to Shaw & King which brackets the affected area. Step through the charts page by page to see the evolution of streetcar speeds through the day. Note that the eastbound charts should be read right-to-left as that is the direction of travel.
All of the stop locations are visible as notches in the speed charts because these are places where transit vehicles slow and stop. The depth of the notch gives an indication of whether all cars stop, or only selected vehicles when there is a passenger to board or alight. The “pre” period (weekdays June 6-17) is in blue while the “post” period (June 20-30) is in orange.
For westbound service, the visible effects are:
- At Victoria, there is a slightly better speed mainly during the late afternoon when this stop doubles for Yonge Street.
- At York, there is little difference in speed because this is a signalled intersection and streetcars are often caught by a red light. Eliminating the stop without also implementing a green-extension transit priority capability achieves little.
- At Simcoe, there is some benefit during parts of the day. This location has a traffic signal but it also has transit priority to extend the green phase for King.
- At Brant, there are improvements primarily during the AM peak. What is quite striking is the slowdown in transit speeds after 10 pm between Spadina and Portland for the both the pre- and post- periods.
For eastbound service, the visible effects are:
- At Brant, there is some improvement, but unlike westbound, this is visible for much of the day. The late evening slowdown is mainly between Bathurst and Portland.
- At Spadina, although the pre/post times are the same, the effect of delays caused by 501 Queen cars turning north with no priority is evident in the slower speeds approaching Spadina from the west.
- At Simcoe, there is some change through the day, but the biggest effects are in the PM peak and early evening.
- At York, there is small improvement during some periods.
The data for the post period could be affected by the fact that many streetcar operators continued to serve the stops because people continued to wait at them. The TTC’s half-baked notices originally consisted of small sheets of paper, some of which disappeard within days of the change. A transit shelter is a powerful advertisement that this is a transit stop, and removals in the future should be co-ordinated with eliminating the “shelter”component of the street furniture. At the very least, large signs of the size typically used for subway shutdowns should be deployed on shelters at discontinued stops.
Another issue could be that the time “saved” by skipping a stop was simply eaten up again when the streetcars caught up with the traffic in which they were travelling, particularly for stops that were not at a traffic signal that would penalize the act of stop service with a delay of one cycle. This would be somewhat like the impatient motorist who speeds ahead only to catch up with traffic sooner than those who get there by driving normally.
Finally, here are the link times for May and June 2016 broken down into individual weeks and half-hourly increments through the day. These show that there is little difference in the data for the last two weeks in June compared with the preceding period. Worth noting here is that the downturn in values for June Week 5 can be seasonal as there is typically a light traffic day before a long holiday weekend (Friday July 1 onward).
When data from July and August are available, I will update this article.
Steve Munro 
As a daily user of other street car lines, stop elimination is a small win in bigger package of what the TTC needs to do to provide adequate transit. The big and most important areas of adequate line management, transit priority, adequate proactive vehicle maintenance and enough spare capacity are where the TTC (and the city) fail.
Having unnecessary stops removed does marginally help as you have shown, my personal opinion on this is that the TTC should have been more aggressive in removing stops. As examples, on the Carlton route, I feel that the Elizabeth stops should have been removed (at least EB). On the Dundas route, Chesnut (at least WB), and Huron should have been removed. The St Clair line is hobbled too frequent stops at certain points on the line. I’m sure at least a couple stop be removed to speed up service.
LikeLiked by 1 person
As a data driven experiment – good for the TTC for trying it out. It validates that the number of stops is not the major factor in speeding up King. Try the next experiment – eliminate left turns for cars and or get them out of the streetcar lane and see how that does.
LikeLike
Taking the 504 during the evening rush eastbound I often find that the backup from Spadina often gets to Brant. Part of this is due to the 501 turning north there, as well as the Spadina & King being a bit of a disaster area.
Steve: Ah yes, thanks for picking up on the 501 turning north. I will pull together some before/after data from early May when that diversion started.
This update has been added to the article about 501 Queen construction effects.
LikeLike
The McCaul stop on Queen should be restored and the York and Simcoe stops removed.
Steve: Actually, I would argue that but for the fact that shelters have been installed, the “McCaul” stop should be at Simcoe at the traffic signal. This would make a better spacing between John and University both ways. As for York, yes I agree that stop should go. As with my comments about King, York Street does not have any transit priority, and streetcars can be caught there needlessly by just missing the end of the green.
LikeLike
Hmmm. So, the usual TTC excuse for poor service (blame the customers and/or ‘traffic) rather than poor (or non-existent) line management and lack of transit priority won’t work, again!
Steve: Wait for my article about the service on 514 Cherry!
LikeLike
If they cannot eliminate left turns, the city should look into trying to create a left turn lane out of the surrounding real estate. Ideally, city property first, then expropriating private property, and lastly reducing sidewalk space (the sidewalk space should be only a last resort).
Steve: Have you been on King Street recently? At the intersections in question, most buildings are 100 years old and all are built to the lot line. A left turn bay is out of the question.
LikeLike
Of course the now misleading shelters should be removed but I think you forget that the “shelter” part of these shelters is secondary to the (paid) advertising component. Shelters are erected by Astral and I suspect that removing prime advertising is unlikely to be a top priority for them and wonder who pays to have a shelter removed.
Steve: The advertising pillar is probably free-standing, or it could be replaced by one of the forms of add frame that Astral is already using. The cost of these removals should be treated as part of the cost of stop relocation/removal, but the TTC doesn’t give a damn about this sort of thing. “Not our job” would be the likely reply even though it obviously affects “customer satisfaction”.
LikeLike
The Bay & King intersection has “room” to the south to shift in a left turn lane. In addition, there is a tall building setback proposal that could make room available for left turns. May take decades, but it is a start. Some buildings may not allow for it, but some intersections could allow for it.
Steve: But Bay & King both ways is no left turn at all times. You don’t just add a turn lane because there’s a bit of room to do so. If anything we will be kicking ordinary traffic off of this stretch of King anyhow.
Tall building setback proposals are ruinous to streetscapes because they generate a “gapped tooth” feel. Many King Street intersections will always have structures to the sidewalk line. We do not need to plan to make downtown look more like suburban roadways, thank you. Get used to the four-lane streets and make the best of them. Our job is not to make motorists’ life easier.
LikeLike
Eliminate stops for added rider convenience. That ought to improve declining ridership! Another brilliant idea by people who don’t use transit.
LikeLike
To speed up King during rush hour, we need to start ticketing cars still in the intersection when the light turns red.
I often see streetcars stuck behind a green light an entire cycle because some clown decided to block the intersection.
We should bring London’s yellow box system to Toronto. Traffic would move so much better.
LikeLiked by 3 people
At many downtown intersections the “room” is actually used up by large utility vaults directly under the sidewalk. I believe they would have to at least be reconfigured, if not relocated, to allow for the heaviest vehicles to drive on top of them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I take the 504 west every morning and it actually “feels” worse to be honest.
Coming back eastbound in the evening, the queues backed up at Spadina are worse then ever.
LikeLike
No, I use the eastbound & westbound Elizabeth St. stops all the time (for appointments at TGH), and there are plenty of other passengers using it, too. Hardly an unnecessary stop. And I have difficulty walking. The Elizabeth stops are closer & less painful & more convenient than University or Bay.
Steve: They are also at a traffic signal which assist pedestrians crossing the street.
On the contrary, I advocate for NOT removing stops willy-nilly. A stop hardly affects travel time, yet adds immensely to the utility of the transit route. And further, why is everyone in such a rush that seconds count? Why cannot you leave the house a few minutes earlier?
Example – do you really want to destroy Roncesvalles Village by replacing the streetcar with a subway, the west leg of the relief line?
Steve: Which, BTW, would have at best one stop between Queen and Bloor such as the eastern leg will only have one between Queen and Danforth..
Meanwhile, others are looking for places to allow left turns on King Street. Remember, these streets were built a long time ago, some a century ago, some earlier than that. In those days, there were hardly any automobiles, horseless carriages, more likely just horse & buggy traffic. I do not see the need to cater to motorists at the expense of transit users particularly in the downtown area. If anything, post-war growth in auto traffic has caused major damage to Toronto, not just urban sprawl. People ought to do like I do – drive into Toronto from out-of-town, get a parking spot and use transit. And also use taxis.
Steve: I think that stop removal is the traffic equivalent of Councillors who think the City’s finances can be fixed simply by finding “efficiencies” that somehow will somehow solve a big problem by concentrating on “little things” that are presumed to not hurt many people (or at least many of their voters). Give up road space? Restrict auto use? Never!
LikeLike
This is unrelated to the streetcars on King, but it is related to stop removal – sometimes I wonder who plans the stops out at the TTC and using which logic?
I’ll give an example of two bus lines I used daily as a student and which I still use weekly – the 45 and 46 on Kipling Ave. There is a northbound stop on Kipling called Dundas St. West, just at the point where Dundas turns to go over Kipling and just across the point where the western “stub” of Bloor terminates at Kipling (Bloor St. “re-emerges” from Dundas on the eastern side of Kipling, from this rather confusing freeway-style intersection – I’m talking about Six Points if anyone didn’t get it yet). This is a well-used and necessary stop, all good. Believe it or not, it is actually the second stop after Kipling subway station where the bus starts from – the first is Viking Road, a totally nonsensical stop in the middle of what is basically the intersection’s “on-ramp” for Kipling Ave. I used to take this bus daily for many years, and I don’t if I’ve ever seen someone get on or off there more than 5 times total. Which is not strange, considering that next to this stop is a large empty lot. Yes, it shortens the walk to Bloor St. from the station, but not by much – it’s faster to just walk from the subway to Bloor than to wait for the bus and take the one stop. Yet this stop persists, for years.
Steve: I went looking for it on Google Street view and it is amusing that the TTC stop sign is substantially covered by ivy (July 2015 view).
However, there used to be a southbound stop right across from the northbound stop at Dundas I first mentioned. It made sense (intersection of Kipling with Bloor on one side and Dundas at the other – I think the stop used to be called Bloor Street West – major intersection). I remember it being used – not massively, but used, almost every morning someone would get off there (not many would get on, since it made more sense to just walk to the subway southbound – although some people would, since Six Points is almost completely pedestrian-hostile if you desire to actually cross a street). A few years ago, this stop was eliminated. Now, this stop was in some respects “annoying” – the bus would take up a right-turning lane (into Bloor) to stop there, both backing up traffic behind it and getting stuck in traffic itself; right after the stop was a traffic light, so stopping there would often make the bus miss the green light. Most of the morning commuters (by that time the bus was made up of 90% percent people wanting to get to the subway) would be annoyed (myself included) when someone would push the stop button for that stop. Still, I don’t think that justified its total removal.
Steve: You mention that this stop was removed a few years ago. How long had it existed before then? I was looking at Google’s Street View history of this location and it does not show up in 2007, 2011 or any views since then.
The next (and last before Kipling Station) southbound stop at St. Albans road was retained – and it is almost equally ridiculous as the corresponding Viking Road stop. Not as much, as on one side there are fairly new condo developments – but still, nobody ever gets on there since the subway station entrance is literally steps away, and for the very few who get off there just for the condos’ sake, having to go to the subway station would not be such a great inconvenience. The removal of the Bloor stop however has been a major one. Both Bloor and Dundas are a major commercial area there, plus there has been a bunch of new residential development in between Bloor and Dundas east of Kipling Ave. (I live in one of them). The previous southbound stop (Tyre Ave.) is too far north and serves the residential streets farther up, not the Six Points intersection. The stop at St. Albans is already on the intersection’s “off-ramp” towards the subway, and getting from there to anywhere except the condos (whether the north side of Dundas, or to Bloor Street at all, or to the east side of Kipling) is a total nightmare for pedestrians (lots of jaywalking required over a wide multilane arterial road). On the other hand, the eliminated stop was right next to a set of crosswalks (the ONLY ones on the Six Points intersection!).
Result: when I go visit my parents (northbound), I take the bus. When I go home (southbound), I ask my dad to give me a ride.
Sorry for “diverting” the topic, but examples like this really make me wonder with how much care stop elimination (and planning in the first place) is done.
Steve: And this will all be thrown up in the air again with the reconfiguration of the Six Points back to a “flat” set of intersections.
LikeLike
My experience with the 504/514 Eastbound around Bathurst is that the streetcar is very frequently held up by cars turning left. What solutions are best for this problem? Can left turns at all major and minor intersections in the busy areas (say, between Shaw area and Yonge) be made illegal? Would this help the streetcars move faster?
Steve: Eliminating left turns, but getting rid of them all is a challenge. This location has no turn restrictions east or westbound, and even has an advanced green arrow for left turns. This is the kind of thing the King Street study now in progress is supposed to address.
LikeLike
Well, what’s new is old again…. Here’s an August 14, 2001 article from the Globe & Mail touting Toronto’s new “Don’t Get Caught in the Box” programme, where drivers caught in an intersection face a possible $40 fine or if they try to go forward on a yellow or try to make a “turn that causes gridlock” they risk a $140 fine and 3 demerit points. Apparently during their springtime blitz, police issued almost 1,500 tickets (and likely could have tripled that with more officers standing on street corners, I’m sure).
Then, we read a blogTO article from April 11, 2013, where TTC citizen board member Alan Heisey recommended raising the (still at that time $40) fine to something higher to dissuade drivers from blocking, in particular, the progress of TTC vehicles (generally streetcars).
Meanwhile, London, England has designated “Red Routes” and charges £130 ($225 Canadian) per infraction if paid within 28 days or half that (£65 = $112.50 CAD) if paid either 14 or 21 days after the date specified on the notice. Certainly a motivation to drivers to make sure you can make it all the way through an intersection and not negatively impact cross traffic.
I don’t know what’s happened to this programme (I seem to remember seeing these intersections in a faded condition the last time I was in those areas of downtown, which was a while ago) but other than the Mayor’s big tow truck bonanza earlier this year, this issue of “traffic control” has faded into the background. My take is that Toronto would never actively do this, as the hue and cry of the drivers would knock down the doors of the local councillors, while the dozens or hundreds of voices of TTC riders trapped daily in buses and streetcars behind those inconsiderate drivers would fall on deaf ears.
Steve: A vital change that is needed with the help of Queen’s Park is a change in the Highway Traffic Act to allow non-police enforcement of traffic rules. This would allow the City and/or TTC to hire their own enforcement crews without the inevitable “we’re too busy fighting crime” problems in getting police to do this 52 weeks a year.
LikeLike
The headway could be improved if there were fewer (larger) cars to manage and to this end, Bombardier has once again failed to deliver on its still more watered down promises. Seriously, it’s time to abandon Bombardier and look for an alternate supplier even if it costs more. Bombardier has already delayed Waterloo-Kitchener LRT and I doubt Bombardier would also not force a huge delay for the Eglinton Crosstown and Finch West LRT.
Steve: Fewer cars means wider headways, and the TTC shows repeatedly that it can’t manage them either.
LikeLike
A better alternative would be fully automated cameras. With better camera technology, all that’s needed is a small camera (no flash necessary) and a wireless connection to send the pictures. Traffic-light mounted cameras are all over the place in Alberta now, for instance.
Steve: That will deal with some but not all types of controls needed. For example, aggressive towing requires people on the spot to keep lanes clear.
LikeLike
Certainly they are not using the same logic that YRT does, which can be just as questionable despite being applied differently.
Case in point, with the change from TTC contracted services north of Steeles on Victoria Park to a new YRT Route 24 that operates all the way down to Sheppard and west to Don Mills Station, YRT has installed its signs at all the TTC stops. However, there is one new “YRT Only” stop on the east side of VP one block south of Finch at Earnest Ave.
The TTC only has a southbound stop there, but someone at YRT thought there must be a high demand for people to board northbound on a bus they cannot leave until it crosses north of Steeles. The stop requires standing on the grass boulevard (see the Aug 2015 image in the link above), which I am sure will be a real nice place to stand in the winter with a snowbank present. Though, perhaps YRT will be sending a crew out to clear this snow.
LikeLike
No wonder 🙂 to be fair, these stops (more so the St. Albans Rd. then the Viking Rd. one covered by ivy) maybe had some sense to them before the second, smaller eastern entrance to Kipling Station opened … but it’s “amusing” that the TTC left the two stops made useless by this fact and killed one that was useful.
I took the 45/46 daily from 2002 to 2008 and I remember the stop being there all throughout this period. It’s hard to forget, since I remember the bus getting stuck in traffic there during the morning commute. I also took it on a weekly basis from 1998 to 2002 and I think the stop was there during that time as well, but I can’t really be sure. I didn’t live in Toronto from 2009-2015 and I noticed the stop was removed when I came back, so I’ve no idea when it was eliminated. It’s possible that my memory is a bit cloudy and that the stop was eliminated some time before I left. As I recall, there was no shelter like with the stop opposite to it, just a TTC stop sign on a lamp (or telephone/electrical) post.
“Flattening” Six Points is a very good idea, though work seems to be progressing at a snail’s pace. In the meantime, no one is doing anything to make it any more pedestrian or transit friendly, I suppose simply because “it’s gonna be demolished and redone soon” (soon meaning in 2 years).
LikeLike
Clearly, YRT must be using the “put points on a map of a street I’ve never been to or ever seen a picture of” method to place its stops. You can’t deny its efficiency from the planner’s point of view.
Reminds of when a friend of mine (different town, different country) was having his street reconstructed: one day the workers showed up and starting digging a hole for a lamp post smack in the middle of the entrance to his driveway and front yard. “Why are you putting a post in the middle of my driveway? How am I supposed to get out?” the answer: “the plan here says there must be a post exactly every 50 meters.” Took 3 days of wrangling back and forth with the “superiors” to get them to move the post 3 m down the street.
LikeLike
We should be spending time in our lives; with our families, children and friends, not on transit. Your argument is an argument against any speeding up transit whatsoever, i.e., why have transit priority? Why cannot you leave the house a few minutes earlier? Why do line management? Why cannot you leave the house a few minutes earlier?
Red Herring- Greektown hasn’t been destroyed. For that matter, Danforth and Bloor have been pretty much the same for a very long time. It’s only in this housing boom that anything is changing, and at that, very slowly. The housing boom would do more damage to Roncy then a subway could possibly do. Again, the argument is why should have any rapid transit whatsoever. Now that I’m thinking about it, what area of Toronto has been damaged by a subway? I can’t think of any.
Steve: What you miss in talking about Bloor and Danforth is that they were built cut-and-cover, and a long strip of houses was demolished across the city to make this possible. In those days, the areas were considered to be run down, and demolition was the price of progress. Plans for the Queen subway would have taken a swath of buildings mainly on Queen West in what was also considered to be a down market neighbourhood.
The effect on Ronces would be (a) the almost certain demolition of buildings on the NE corner at Queen to accommodate the turning subway structure, upheaval for construction of a station likely at High Park Blvd., and (b) loss of close-spaced local transit stops, much as happened on Bloor and on Danforth. It took Danforth decades to recover from the loss of foot traffic that use of the streetcar line generated.
I doubt there ever will be a “DRL West”, but if there is, it will not be on Roncesvalles.
A subway makes for a faster trip, once you reach it, but that access can be a disincentive unless stops are close together as on the older part of the network.
LikeLike
Efficiency perhaps, but why apply this to a stop south of Steeles when there are plenty of examples of them NOT doing so in their own territory north of Steeles.
As for the post in the driveway story: the world is full of people who follow rules to the letter without any care or concern for the logic or philosophy that went into the rule in the first place, and do so to the point of violating that logic or philosophy for the sake of being true to the wording. Sigh.
LikeLike
James, speed of transit is not the only measure of the utility of a transit line or network. What good is a speedy line which few people can take advantage of? Case in point, the SSE will certainly speed up commutes for a lucky few, but it will be at the expense of many more if the LRT’s do not get built due to lack of funding if it all got used up by SSE. (Side note, a majority of Council voted to approve it, and polls show that a majority of Torontonians also approve. So, let democracy rule.)
Your examples of “unnecessary” stops will help a few people by mere seconds, yet inconvenience many others severely. If partially disabled people have to reach the Elizabeth doors at TGH from either Bay or University, how is that increasing the overall utility of the College streetcar?
So, why cannot you leave the house a few minutes earlier? Those extra seconds in the house are so precious, and then you become unbearably impatient at the delays in your commute?
Greektown is certainly a far less pleasant area to stroll than Roncesvalles Village, the subway does nothing at all to make it pleasanter. It is all heavy car traffic there. Hard to find parking. A long walk to get to transit. Maybe it is time to bring back the streetcars on Bloor and Danforth to supplement the subway?
Some transit needs to run fast and have few stops, like the GO trains, and other commuter transit. Other transit needs to be fine-grained with frequent stops, a line that serves the local populace and visitors to the area – a kind of transit that helps out pedestrians, too.
I was talking tonight with a fellow who works in transit about the size of vehicles. We are both residents in the Bolton area. PMCL used to supply buses through Bolton to Toronto on a busy schedule 7 days a week. Then GO took over and cut back service to the point where it was almost pointless to consider taking a GO bus. Oh, yes, we used to have passenger trains here before GO took over that & cancelled it. GO uses giant luxury coaches that run not that often, and there are only a handful of passengers on each. These coaches cost somewhere in the $millions each. They must use a lot of fuel, too. Some smart accountant (?) must figure that they save a bundle on labour costs this way. So, what if GO ran mini-van buses every 10-15 minutes instead? And routes to where people actually want to go to. Suddenly the service level will go way up, and people will start using the service once they find out about the utility. Same with the new Flexity streetcars. Do all the streetcars need to be so huge? Apparently the TTC thinks that a bigger streetcar allows them to run less streetcars, therefore increased headway, and decreased utility to passengers. Sure, same number of passengers moved in an hour, but less utility.
So, James, I would not worry so much about the number of stops, but rather, the frequency of transit vehicles.
Speaking of public transit in Bolton, I mentioned to this same fellow about the idea of an LRT from Bolton to Pearson Airport. From there one could connect to TTC or Mississauga Transit. He thought that it was a super idea & said to make sure to mention this on this blog. Everybody in this area seems to love the idea, so let’s move on it!
Steve: Just for clarity, the TTC’s scheme to cut back on vehicle counts with a 1:1 replacement on capacity basis has been abandoned because there is a backlog of demand that needs to be addressed. The exact replacement ratio varies from route to route, and further improvements are intended as part of the 60-car add-on order, if that is ever placed. All this said, if the tax hawks at City Hall have their way, service improvements will be hard to come by.
LikeLike
When the question is Why cannot you leave the house a few minutes earlier?, the answer is not likely to be We should be spending time in our lives; with our families, children and friends, not on transit.
My nearest streetcar stop (Lake Shore at 39th) was removed without consultation. It means I take the streetcar less, since it’s another few minutes to walk back to the loop (which means I’ll miss the streetcar if it pulls out) or a few more minutes to 37th, which means I’ll miss the streetcar as it goes by. Coming home, I get to walk along the TTC tracks and hope not to get hit by a streetcar pulling out — at least that’s the short way to get where I want to go.
The removal of the stop at 39th saved basically no one any time, since maybe half the people still on the car got off there, and now they have a longer walk. A woman who regularly used 39th complained about safety issues having to use a more distant stop. (Request stop does not apply to streetcars.) And we get more chance to get run over by cars at the Brown’s Line/Lake Shore ramps, where the signs say PEDESTRIANS WAIT FOR GAP instead of MOTORISTS YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS. Makes me feel the TTC is really looking for my business, oh yes.
LikeLike
@Ed, from my memory the request stop service does apply to streetcars. Or at least driver’s discretion, which would be unfortunate….
LikeLike
Coming in a bit late on this but I definitely miss the Simcoe stop, particularly during the evening rush. The streetcar is often stuck there anyway at a red light, or in congestion just east of Simcoe before University. (This is likely to be a bigger problem with the longer Flexities; they will probably have to wait at Simcoe or block the intersection.) I find it hard to believe *anyone’s* ride is faster, and mine’s definitely slower, as is the ride for those who walked from Simcoe to the subway when congestion was bad. *Very* frustrating to be waiting at Simcoe then waiting again across Simcoe.
The west bound stop is less of a loss as it was often impossible to get on there during the morning rush due to streetcars filling up at University.
It’s also too bad there doesn’t seem to be driver discretion. One really hot day with heavy congestion (in the streetcar and on the road) people were begging to get off at Brant (as walking was way faster) and the driver refused.
LikeLike
The TTC’s official bumpf says:
Note it says “bus”. I believe that when the program was extended to all customers, there was an explicit proviso that the program doesn’t apply to streetcars. This makes sense because cars might try to dodge around a streetcar that’s stopped, but not at a stop.
Anyway, coverage of the program extension in 2011 included this:
LikeLike