Month: October 2017

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Sustainable Cities, Best Transit Systems and Crowded Vehicles

Toronto loves to pat itself on the back for being the best at just about anything, although understanding exactly what that means seems to matter less than just being somebody’s “number one”. A few recent events combine to provide a view of the city and its transit system from different perspectives.

  • The TTC receives the American Public Transit Association’s “Transit System of the Year” award for 2017. (See APTA 2017 Awards Program at pp. 10-11.)
  • Arcadis, a design and consultancy firm, has issued their 2017 Sustainable Cities Mobility Index in which Toronto ranks 54 out of 100 on a global ranking, 9 out of 23 for North America.
  • The Toronto Star, in an article by Ben Spurr, reveals that some TTC routes are crowded beyond the target level of TTC standards.

The APTA Award

The APTA award was announced with much fanfare by the TTC even before it was actually acknowledged on the APTA website. Every vehicle now sports a logo touting this win, and it is a matter of considerable pride for TTC management. Riders might be forgiven for wondering just what APTA was thinking given long-standing problems with overcrowding and irregular service. If Toronto is the best, what are the rest like?

In fact, APTA does not send out teams of mystery shoppers to gauge the quality of its member transit systems. Nominations are submitted by member agencies like the TTC and cite the basis on which they feel entitled to the prize, and these are judged by an APTA panel. In Toronto’s case, the win is for activities that, in the main, made up the Five Year Plan instituted by CEO Andy Byford in 2013, completion of activities already underway such as the Spadina-Vaughan extension and delivery of new subway cars, and reversal of the service cutbacks of the Ford era.

The list of achievements to date in the Five Year Plan is notable for the omission of improved quality of service as an explicit, measured goal. Yes, there has been a reduction in short turns, but this has not been accompanied by an improvement in service reliability. Bunching of at least pairs of vehicles is common, and the TTC’s stock answer is that “congestion” is responsible for this.

Line-by-line reports of service quality, long-promised by the TTC, have not been published since the first quarter of 2015. Even with such data, the metric is on time performance at terminals with a six-minute window to qualify for acceptable service. The result on most routes is that service can leave a terminus in pairs of vehicles and still be “on time”. Despite this generous standard, the system comes nowhere near the overall target.

Subway trains are crowded during peak periods to the point that passengers cannot board, and this cannot be fixed without additional subway capacity that is, for parts of the network, many years away.

This is the reality transit riders experience, and the APTA award and logos brought as much laughter as praise when they appeared.

Sustainable Cities

When BlogTO reported on the Arcadis Sustainable Cities rankings, it did so under the mistaken headline “New ranking trashes public transit in Toronto”. In fact, the rankings look at a much broader view of how cities compare to each other, and transit is only one part of the evaluation.

The review is of urban mobility generally, with transit being an important part, but also auto congestion, cycling and pedestrian facilities. The scoring comes from three “pillars” of sustainability with several sub-indices for specific aspects of city mobility. For those interested in the component scores, a visit to the detailed rankings shows info that is not available in the main report. (Click on various tabs to see the three pillars, and then the components of these. Scores are normalized so that top cities get 100, and the actual component score can be view by clicking on the bars of the charts.)

Toronto lies in the middle of the pack at 54th out of 100, but this masks the offsetting effect of different scores in the three component pillars.

An important point to bear in mind here is that for the purpose of the study, a “city” is defined as not as the metropolitan area, but as the city proper. In Toronto’s case this means the 416 alone, and in the case of some other cities, the area covered would be less even that what Toronto represents in its own region.

The topics under which cities were scored are summarized below (click to enlarge).

These components were weighted based on their importance within each group.

Under “People” (which deals mainly with mobility issues), Toronto ranks 65th with a score of 43.9%. The ranks and scores for sub-indices are:

  • Fatalities: 18th / 90.1%
  • Access to Transport Service (Bus and Metro stops per sq km): 64th / 10.8%
  • Modal Split: 54th / 36.5%
  • Rider Connectivity (WiFi): 67th / 32.8%
  • Upkeep of the Transit System: 67th (note that there were no data for 28 cities) / 66.7%
  • Wheelchair Access: 68th /55.9%
  • Uptake of Active Commuting: 84th / 7.9%
  • Transit Applications and Digital Capabilities: 73rd / 63.2%
  • Airport Passengers: 33rd / 53.3%
  • Hours of Metro Operation: 34th (in a group of 54) / 20%

Some of these numbers are a direct result of the scope of the review. For example, Toronto includes large suburban areas where route spacing is wider than downtown, and the stop density is lower. A “city” with a comparatively small suburban component would have a higher stop density. Similarly, the uptake of Active Transportation as a mode will be higher in a dense urban area than in the suburbs. By contrast, the percentage of passengers to the airport by transit is high. It could well be that the airport in question is on the Island, not Pearson Airport which is outside of the city proper. Moreover, even Pearson’s transit mode share for Toronto-based flyers is higher than for those in the 905 simply because there is better transit service available from Toronto (TTC and UPX).

Under “Planet” (which deals with environmental issues), Toronto does well at 32nd and a score of 62.5%. It is this comparatively high ranking that pulls up Toronto’s overall score and prevents it from falling to the lower tier of the global rankings.

  • Greenhouse Gas Emissions: 67th / 60.3%
  • Provision of Green Space: 57th / 20.6%
  • Congestion and Delays: 51st / 56.3%
  • Bicycle Infrastructure: 26th / 65.4%
  • Air Pollution: 8th / 90.3%
  • Efforts to Lower Transport Emissions: 40th / 40%
  • Electric Vehicle Incentives: 34th (in a group of 62) / 100%

Almost none of these scores has anything to do with the transit system directly with an indirect effect only through the absence of good transit as an alternative in some parts of the city.As for “electric vehicle incentives”, this consists of a provincial giveaway to new vehicle buyers, not a widespread availability of the infrastructure needed to operate these vehicles. A significant part of Toronto’s good score is its low air pollution which has much more to do with changes in industrial activity in southern Ontario and the midwestern USA than it does with transit policy.

Under “Profit” (which deals with financial issues), Toronto ranks poorly at 86th and a score of 31.9%.

  • Commuting Travel Time: 60th / 45.2%
  • Economic Opportunity: 25th / 58.7%
  • Public Finance: 74th / 14.5%
  • Efficiency of Road Networks: 94th / 14.6%
  • Affordability of Public Transit: 85th / 34.7%
  • Utilization of the Transport System: 46th / 32.3%

Toronto’s low score here is clearly a combination of the relatively low level of public financial support and the low efficiency of the road network, something one must reasonably ask whether we should want to improve. Indeed, “efficiency” is measured as the maximum speed of the road network on the premise that higher speeds show that the roads can operate more safely. I am not sure this is a valid metric especially if one’s goal is to discourage rather than build travel by private auto.

Public financial support is measured against the operating budget, not capital, and Toronto ranks low on this score because so much of its revenue comes from the farebox. The affordability index measures the ratio of a monthly pass price to average monthly net earnings in the city, and Toronto has a high-priced Metropass compared to much of the rest of the world.

These scorings are not intended as an absolute measure, but as a way of providing a comparison across many cities. Toronto may do relatively well within the North American context, but it is still very much a car-oriented city compared to other parts of the world, and its fiscal policies are rules by keeping taxes down, not by constant improvements to transit service.

Overcrowded Routes

The Toronto Star article revealed that many TTC routes are overcrowded, although the degree to which this is so and the time of day when it occurs varies across the system. The following two files contain the raw data as provided by the TTC, and charts showing the percentages of overcrowding by time period.

Overcrowded routes 2017-10-25 Data

Overcrowded routes charts 2017-10-25

These data do not appear in published reports, but they should be part of the CEO’s Report to indicate the degree to which the system is falling short of the Board-approved Service Standards (see section 3.2, p. 10). The TTC, after all, prides itself on being a customer-focussed organization.

Where there is only a slight difference between the average load and the standard, one might be tempted to let things be. However, a critical factor not included in the data is the degree to which individual vehicle loads vary from the hourly averages. This is an aspect of service which can be quite sensitive to service quality and bunching, with the trailing vehicles running half empty while leaders of bunches are crammed. The difference between the “average” rider experience and the “typical” one can be quite substantial.

The standards are intended to allow for this effect in that there is “elbow room” to accommodate small variations in average loads. However, when service is erratic, this leeway is insufficient, and the crowding on lead vehicles, coupled with the extra wait endured for them to arrive, make for a less than ideal experience. Indeed, a route might have average loads within standards but typical riding experience of crowded, irregular service.

Finally, the TTC is fond of saying that it cannot run more service because it has no spare vehicles. This only applies to peak services, however, when the fleet is stretched thin. For off-peak services, the real issue is that the TTC is pinching pennies on service, operating considerably less of it this year than they had originally planned. That’s a political decision, one that says a lot about the kind of city we live in.

Summary

There are many factors by which a transit system and a city could be measured, and these will always come with a set of caveats, long footnotes to explain how the numbers work, and how to filter out the oddballs among them.

That said, there is an important place for seeing the transit system through the eyes of its riders and the city through the eyes of its residents. This is not necessarily the same as a more narrow view of attainment of management goals, or of reviews that only look at the tourist version of a city rather than its many neighbourhoods.

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Metrolinx Mulls Strategy (Largely in Private)

Correction: The original version of this article claimed that the Board was meeting in private today to discuss matters that will be on the agenda tomorrow. The Tweet from Metrolinx about today’s is a Stakeholder meeting, not a Board meeting. Thanks to Ben Spurr at the Star for catching this.

The Metrolinx Board will gather on Thursday, October 26 for what is described in the media release as its “annual strategy meeting”. Much of the agenda will be discussed in camera, and if the agency has a strategy, we won’t learn much about how the board members feel on the subject.

The meeting announcement tells us that the Board will discuss “transit expansion progress”. Maybe, but that hardly sounds like “strategy” with the Draft Regional Transit Plan already out to the public for comment. The draft ignores many issues, and the plan does not improve the regional modal split for transit beyond current levels. Moreover, the transit growth is disproportionately focused on Toronto’s core, but transit loses ground (not that it has much to start with) the further from the centre one gets.

Hard discussions about how road space will be used – transit, multi-occupancy vehicles, freight, cycling, pedestrians – need to happen at the regional level, not just on a few “transit streets” downtown. This is a debate both for the 905 and for Toronto’s suburbs where the combination of built form and transit density work against a strong transit market share.

In any event, the public agenda item is a small update on consultation, not a review of any significant policy issues, and it is scheduled for only 15 minutes.

About a month ago, I published a review of the draft plan, and plan to return to the subject in another article soon. My intent had been to make a “deep dive” into the draft, beyond its introductory chapter, but I quickly found how little of substance is actually there.

Other items on the Metrolinx agenda include:

In Private

Benefits Management and Realization (90 minutes)

The title might suggest a discussion of the knotty problem of actually capturing some of the value created by transit investments. I asked Metrolinx to explain just what this was about, and they replied:

Benefits management is a process to help us maximize project value as Metrolinx plans, builds, operates and connects transit projects in order to provide benefits to the region. [Email from Scott Money at Metrolinx, Oct. 23, 2017]

Why, exactly, this should be a matter of confidential discussion is a mystery. This is quite clearly an important part of transit network building, but it has been sidelined when political considerations take precedence over planning issues and “mobility hubs” are little more than enormous parking lots.

Board Governance (15 minutes)

Given recent discussions about political interference in transit decision-making, I cannot help wondering if the Board is aware of its irrelevance, real or perceived. The rare public meetings, the superficial level of debate, and the blizzard of press releases and photo ops from the Minister of Transportation’s office don’t help the situation one bit.

Much of the real debate appears to take place in committee meetings which are so private they are not even advertised and there are is no public record of them.

Metrolinx’ new CEO, Phil Verster, has spoken of the need for “transparency” at Metrolinx, but the problem begins above his level at the Board itself.

Regional Express Rail (60 minutes)

This includes two items: the procurement of a new network operator, and an update on the capital program. Metrolinx has disqualified the current operator, Bombardier, from bidding, a strange move that might raise more eyebrows if Bombardier were not so late on its LRV deliveries. As for the capital programs generally, the only part of this that belongs in a private session would be information on contract issues.

A preliminary discussion of risk issues (30 minutes)

Risk management is an important topic for any Board, and some aspects rightly belong in a private session. That this is “preliminary” and is included in a “strategy” meeting begs the question of what new risks the organization faces, including political fallout from the coming election.

2018/19 Budget Submission (30 minutes)

Unlike budgets at the City of Toronto and TTC, provincial budgets are dark secrets until the moment they are unveiled in the legislature. This puts the public debate of “strategy” for Metrolinx in a difficult position because any spending proposals could embarrass the government by showing what could be if funding were available, or if projects face financial difficulties that could upset spending or delivery plans. The budget could also include new revenue generating strategies including mandated contributions from so-called “municipal partners” or changes to fare schemes.

These are important issues, but we will never hear about them from Metrolinx because of the way Provincial budgets work.

In Public

I will update these sections if there is anything substantive presented at the meeting.

Regional Transportation Plan Update (15 minutes)

This is superficial review of public engagement and has nothing to do with actual content.

Hydrogen Fuel Technology Analysis/Evaluation (30 minutes)

The Minister of Transportation is hot to trot on hydrogen as an alternative fuel, and so of course, Metrolinx must be as well. This report is a review of the current status of the Hydrail project in Germany and an overview of the study work needed to assess its implications for Ontario and GO/RER.

GO/TTC Fare Discount (15 minutes)

This is simply a repeat of the information in the report about the planned co-fare with TTC that has already been dealt with at that agency and is now working its way to City Council.

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TTC Service Changes Effective Sunday, December 17, 2017

The December schedules bring the opening of the Spadina subway extension to Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Station and a major reorganization of bus routes along the subway corridor.

2017.12.17_Service_Changes

Bus routes will be reorganized to serve the subway stations, and in some cases services will be split at the subway corridor. The map below is taken from the TTC’s project page for the line.

Services north of Steeles Avenue that were formerly operated by the TTC on behalf of York Region under contract will now be run by their own transit agency. Fares on the subway have yet to be integrated with YRT, and so a TTC fare will apply to subway journeys while a local YRT fare will apply to the bus feeder network. This is the subject of ongoing discussion, and as usual the issue is who will pay to subsidize a lower co-fare between the two agencies.

The subway will continue the same hours of service it now provides, and the new first/last train times are shown in the table below.

The first train of the day inbound from Vaughan will be at about 5:50 am except on Sundays when service begins at 7:50.

The late night schedule is driven by the long-standing meet at Bloor-Yonge between outbound trains to Finch, Kennedy and Kipling stations at 1:54 am. The last inbound train from Vaughan will leave just after 1 am, and the last outbound train will arrive at about 2:30.

Service on the bus routes affected by the subway is generally at levels similar to what operates today with only a few exceptions.

York Region Transit will take over service north of Steeles Avenue now provided by the following routes:

  • 35 Jane
  • 105 Dufferin North
  • 107 Keele North
  • 165 Weston Road North

Route changes:

  • 35 Jane and 195 Jane Rocket: Extended to Pioneer Village Station (Steeles).
  • 36 Finch West: Route split at Finch West Station (Keele & Finch) during most operating periods. Peak service west of Keele Street improved. Service east of Keele will be reduced in many periods recognizing that many riders will not ride east of the station.
  • 41 Keele: Local service extended to Pioneer Village Station. Express service terminated at Finch West Station.
  • 60 Steeles West: Service reorganized to focus on Pioneer Village Station rather than York University.
  • 84 Sheppard West: Peak period Oakdale service extended to Pioneer Village Station. 84E express from Yonge to Sheppard West Station replaces 196B York University Rocket.
  • 106 Sentinel: Formerly named 106 York University. Extended to Pioneer Village Station.
  • 107 St. Regis: Formerly named 107 Keele North. York U service rerouted and extended to Pioneer Village Station.
  • 108 Driftwood: Formerly named 108 Downsview. Extended to Pioneer Village Station.
  • 117 Alness-Chesswood: Formerly named 117 Alness. Rerouted to better serve the area west of Dufferin Street.
  • 196 York U Rocket: Replaced by the subway extension.
  • 199 Finch Rocket: York U branch cut back to Finch West Station.

Night service will be provided to the York U ring road by 335 Jane, 341 Keele and 353 Steeles. The 336 Finch bus will not serve Finch West Station.

Holiday Period Service

The summary of the schedule changes linked at the top of this article includes a page outlining the service to be provided through the December-January holidays. The highlights are:

  • Service on many surface routes and on Line 2 Bloor-Danforth will operate with summer schedules from Monday, December 18 to Friday, January 5. Extra school trips will not operate.
  • Christmas and New Year’s Days will operate with Sunday service including the 8:00 am opening time for the subway.
  • New Year’s Eve service will be extended on many routes until roughly 4:00 am with extra service on the subway.
  • Regular service resume on Monday, January 8, 2018.

New Year’s Eve services include:

  • Service is expected to operate free after 7:00 pm as in past years, but the details have not yet been announced.
  • The last train meet at Bloor-Yonge for outbound service will occur at 3:37 am rather than the usual 1:54 am. The last trains on 4 Sheppard and 3 SRT will wait for the last trains on 1 Yonge and 2 Bloor-Danforth respectively.
  • 501 Queen will divert via Church, King and Spadina after 11:00 pm for festivities at City Hall.
  • 509 Harbourfront will have extra service every 9 minutes until 2:00 am and every 15 minutes thereafter.
  • 510/310 Spadina will have extra service every 6 minutes until 1:30 am, every 8 minutes until 3:00 and every 12 minutes thereafter.
  • Gap and standby buses will be provided downtown and at other locations to provide extra service as needed.
  • Contract service outside of Toronto on 52 Lawrence West, 129 McCowan North and 68 Warden will be extended to 4:00 am. Service on 160 Bathurst North, 17 Birchmount and 102 Markham Rd will end at the usual time.
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King Street Pilot Design Unveiled (Updated Oct. 30, 2017)

Updated October 30, 2017 at 10:00 pm: The City has announced the timing of various works to prepare King Street for the pilot implementation.

As various elements of the pilot appear, I will post photos here for those who are not regularly in the downtown area.

Updated October 25, 2017 at 10:50 am: The treatment of left turns from King at minor intersections, and of left turns onto King, has been clarified by the City. Also, my reference to a reduction in the number of taxi spaces in the banking district has been clarified.

The City of Toronto has released the design for new lane arrangements for the coming pilot of a transit and pedestrian oriented King Street that will go live in the second week of November.

The illustrations below are taken from a single long pdf on the City’s project website. Click for larger versions.

The pilot section of King to be modified runs from Bathurst to Jarvis. Between these bounds, through traffic will be discouraged by forcing motorists to turn off at regular intervals, and left turns will be banned.

The street will be broken into segments by intersections where all traffic except transit vehicles must turn off of King. Taxis are exempted from this rule between 10 pm and 5 am, but they must be bona fide, identifiable taxis, not Uber vehicles or private cars pretending to be.

  • Bathurst to Portland
  • Portland to Spadina
  • Spadina to Peter / Blue Jays Way
  • Peter to University
  • University to Yonge
  • Yonge to Church
  • Church to Jarvis

Vehicles wishing to access any segment of King will have to do so via the intersecting north-south streets, and through travel will be forced to divert to parallel roads.

At some locations it is now possible to make a left turn onto King from a north-south street (either a south to east or north to west turn). No ban on these turns is shown in the map, but they are not shown as possible ways to access King.

Some side streets such as Brant Street (other similar locations are Charlotte, Widmer, Duncan and Jordan, Victoria and Toronto Streets, and Leader Lane) can be accessed from King by left turns only during certain hours. It is unclear whether the hours of the ban will be extended or remain as is for the pilot.

Updated October 25: I asked the City to clarify these issues and they replied:

The map shows only new restrictions (all existing restrictions continue, and a note is being added to clarify).

Since we are making some signal changes, the left-turn prohibition is meant to apply to major (signalized) intersections. So some left turns, while being discouraged, are not prohibited. Of course, we will monitor and make adjustments as required if we start to see major impacts.

Similarly, we are not initially banning turns onto King Street, beyond existing restrictions, but these regulations could change over the course of the pilot project.

We fully expect that traffic patterns in the area will change significantly, and plan to respond accordingly. University Avenue is certainly one location that we’ll be watching closely.

[Email from David Kuperman, October 25, 2017]

At many locations, the transit stops will be moved “farside”, that is the streetcar will cross the intersection before stopping, and at these locations the sidewalk space will be widened out into what is now the curb lane to provide an expanded transit stop. The existing transit shelters will not be moved, but new ones will be installed at some of the relocated stops (the details are not yet published).

The farside stops will be protected from curb lane traffic with Jersey barriers that will be decorated for the pilot. Come the spring, a more attractive barrier such as planters might be used. The important point is that nothing will be “nailed down” and the configuration will be easy to change.

Sections of the curb lanes will be set aside for various purposes, and these are colour-coded in the diagrams below:

  • taxi zones (yellow)
  • accessible loading areas (pink)
  • passenger pick up/drop off/loading zones (blue)
  • public spaces such as seating, cafés or bicycle parking (green)

The most challenging points for traffic will be at the entries to the pilot area eastbound at Bathurst and westbound at Jarvis where through traffic will be forced to turn right or left. Bathurst is already the site of congestion eastbound, particularly in the morning peak, although the turns will be simpler with little westbound conflicting traffic.

Pedestrians will also be subject to new rules with dedicated right turn phases to allow cars to make their turns off of King at some locations. This will be a new experience for downtown where pedestrians travel in waves that give little quarter to competing traffic.

Although there are designated cab stands, considerable portions of the street will be given over to pedestrian areas that cabs could not access, notably west of Spadina in what is now the busiest part of the club district. By contrast, the north side of King in the Theatre District from Simcoe west to Widmer is designated as a zone for pick ups and drop offs.

Generally speaking, the curb lane is not maintained as a continuous route for traffic.

Enforcement will be key to making this work, and there is a very real chance, given past experience with City and Police priorities, that actively managing the pilot area will be a short-lived affair. Mayor Tory has talked about “Traffic Wardens” in the new year, and these will have to be out in force.

Bathurst to Brant

Through traffic will be banned both at Bathurst and at Portland.

The eastbound stop at Bathurst will be shifted farside so that stopped streetcars do not block traffic that is forced to turn north from the streetcar lane. This should work provided that the streetcars are not bunched and blocked from crossing to the carstop because it is already occupied. The westbound stop will remain in its current location.

Portland is another break for through traffic on King, and through east-west moves will not be allowed here. As at Bathurst, the eastbound carstop will be shifted farside.

Spadina to Widmer

Both Spadina Avenue and Peter Street are locations where through traffic is not allowed. Carstops here will be moved farside in both directions. The elimination of through traffic at Spadina should make turns by streetcars, when they are necessary, a lot simpler because there will be less competing traffic. The large volume of pedestrians here is another matter.

Note that on both sides of King, there are areas earmarked for improvements that will block through traffic in the curb lane.

John to University

This is the main Theatre District with four major venues:

  • TIFF at the northwest corner at John Street
  • The Princess of Wales just east of John Street on the north side
  • The Royal Alexandra east of Duncan Street on the north side
  • Roy Thomson Hall on the southwest corner at Simcoe Street

The north side curb lane is dedicated mostly for drop offs and pick ups, and this is an area already heavily used by tour buses coming to the theatres. They are not intended to park in the drop off areas. On the south side, there are extended areas reserved for pedestrian improvements that will prevent travel in this lane.

The carstops at John are both shifted to the farside of the intersection. This will place the westbound stop right in front of the TIFF Lightbox building, and this stop will almost certainly be taken out of service when the annual film festival is running (assuming there even is a King car). Left turns will not be allowed at John Street in either direction.

At Simcoe, the left turn is now a considerable delay for King cars when the theatres are busy, and this turn will be prohibited.

University Avenue is another break in the segments along King, and its carstops will be moved farside in both directions. Left turns from King, now a considerable source of delay eastbound, will be banned.

York to Victoria

There is no longer a carstop eastbound at York, although the relocated University stop eastbound will be a stone’s throw from the old York stop’s location.

At both Bay and at Yonge, the carstops will be shifted to the farside of the intersection. Use of the curb lane space as a streetcar loading zone will considerably expand the space available to transit riders at these locations where today (except for Bay eastbound) the nearside stops are constrained by narrow sidewalks and subway entrances.

Through traffic will be allowed at Bay, but not at Yonge where all traffic must turn.

The area between York and Bay which is now an extended cab stand on both sides of the street, and part of it will remain for this purpose, but a good chunk in each direction is dedicated to a pick up zone. This will provide space for commercial vehicles loading goods, as well as for taxi drop offs. The net result of the change is a reduction in taxi stand spaces on this section of King, although they are more elsewhere.

Victoria to Jarvis

Church Street will be another of the locations where non-transit vehicles are forced to turn, and the carstops will be moved farside in both directions. This will have an effect on short turns and diversions nominally headed to “Church Street” because there will no longer be an eastbound carstop there for them to use.

The curb lane in the area between the St. Lawrence Hall and St. James Cathedral and Park is largely given over to pedestrian improvements. This will have a significant effect for trucks that now use this area as parking during the Saturday market hours.

At Jarvis, as at Bathurst, all incoming traffic will be forced to turn. This presents a potential problem for westbound streetcars during periods when Jarvis southbound become impassible and traffic wishing to turn west to south will have no place to go.

This article will be updated as further information about the pilot’s design becomes available.

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TTC Service Changes Effective Sunday, November 26, 2017

The November 2017 schedules bring only minor changes, with one big exception: trains on Line 1 will begin operating to Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Station, albeit as “ghosts” for training and testing. Revenue service will begin, using the same schedules, on Sunday, December 17, 2017.

The revised subway schedule preserves existing headways, more or less, including the AM peak short turn at Glencairn which is not being extended further north. Service beyond Glencairn in the AM peak will operate every 4’42”. In the PM peak, it will operate every 2’36” with no short turn.

Queen streetcars return between Neville and Sunnyside with no diversions. A date for return of service at least to Humber has not yet been announced. Service beyond Humber to Long Branch is planned for mid 2018 due to ongoing road reconstruction on Lake Shore Boulevard. Please see my article on the Queen West projects for more details on the status of this work.

2017.11.26_Service_Changes

The December 17, 2017 schedules will appear in a separate article. They include all of the surface route changes associated with opening the Vaughan subway extension, as well as plans for special schedules over the holiday period.

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Reconstruction of Queen & McCaul

The last of many track projects for the Queen route began on Monday, October 16, and has progressed at a blistering pace. By Wednesday, the old intersection had been removed and a new concrete foundation was poured. By Friday, assembly of the new intersection in the street was nearly complete.

Please see Reconstruction of The Queensway and Humber Loop for updates on that project.

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TTC Board Meeting October 16, 2017 (Updated)

The TTC Board will meet on October 16. Among items of interest on the agenda are:

Continue reading →

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SmartTrack Update: More Questions Than Answers (October 13 Update)

For the coming three evenings, October 10-12, the City of Toronto, Metrolinx and the TTC will host open houses to present and discuss plans for six new SmartTrack and two new GO Transit stations. Although material for all stations will be part of each event, stations “local” to each site will receive more emphasis than others.

Each meeting will run from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., with a presentation at 7 p.m.

  • Tuesday, October 10, Scarborough Civic Centre, 150 Borough Dr.
  • Wednesday, October 11, Riverdale Collegiate Institute, 1094 Gerrard St. E.
  • Thursday, October 12, New Horizons Tower, 1140 Bloor St. W. (new location)

Note: The location of the Oct. 12 meeting has been changed and it is now across the street from the originally announced site (which was Bloor Collegiate).

Updated October 11 at 10:30 pm: There continues to be confusion about just what “SmartTrack” service will look like, and this is not helped by the City’s presentation. Details can be found in the June 2016 Metrolinx report. For further info, see the update at the end of this article.

Updated October 13 at noon: Metrolinx has confirmed that the Barrie corridor trains will operate through to Union Station, not terminate at Spadina/Bathurst Station as I had originally thought. However, the operational details have not yet been worked out. For further discussion, scroll down to the section on the Spadina/Bathurst Station.

I attended a media briefing that covered the materials to be presented and the following article is based on that briefing which was conducted by City of Toronto staff. Illustrations here are taken from the deck for the media briefing which is available on the City of Toronto’s site. Resolution of some images is constrained by the quality of data in the deck.

[In the interest of full disclosure: A “Stakeholder Advisory Committee” (or SAC) has already been meeting on this, and I was invited to participate, but declined given my concern with a potential conflict between “advisory” and “journalist/commentator” roles. It is no secret that I believe SmartTrack is a deeply flawed concept. Its implementation is compromised by fitting a poorly-conceived election promise into a workable, operational scheme for the commuter rail network. Any “debate” is skewed by the need to pretend that this is anything beyond campaign literature.]

The intent of these three meetings is to conduct the first detailed conversation about these stations with the general public. Early designs appeared in the “Initial Business Case” for the stations, but these have been revised both for technical and for philosophical reasons. Specifically:

  • The City does not want to build traditional GO stations dominated by parking.
  • The interface between the new stations and the transit network (both rapid transit and surface routes) should be optimized.
  • Strong pedestrian and cycling connections are required.
  • Stations should be close to main streets.
  • Stations should support other City objectives such as the West Toronto Railpath and parallel projects such as the St. Clair/Weston study now in progress.
  • Transit-oriented development should be possible at stations.

This is a list that to a typical GO Transit proposal in the 905 would be unrecognizable. GO Transit’s plan ever since its creation has been to serve auto-based commuting first and foremost with ever larger parking structures that poison the land around stations. Local transit was something GO, and later Metrolinx, simply “didn’t do”, and the idea that Queen’s Park might fund strong local transit as a feeder to GO services has been limited to co-fare arrangements.

The situation within Toronto is very different, and there are connecting routes on the TTC that individually carry a substantial proportion of the daily ridership of the entire GO network. Moreover, if GO (or SmartTrack, whatever it is called) will be a real benefit to TTC riders, then the process of getting people to and from stations must not depend on parking lots that are full before the morning peak is even completed.

The new stations will go into existing built-up areas, not into fields with sites determined primarily by which well-connected developer owns nearby property. Residents will be consulted about how these stations will fit their neighbourhoods, how they will be accessed, and what might eventually become of the community and future development.

A big problem facing those who would present “SmartTrack” to the public beyond City Hall insiders and neighbourhood activists is that almost nobody knows what SmartTrack actually is. This is a direct result of Mayor Tory running on a design that could not be achieved, and which has evolved a great deal since he announced it in May 2014. In brief, it is three GO corridors (Stouffville, Lake Shore East and Kitchener) plus an Eglinton West LRT extension, but this differs greatly from what was promised in the election.

Service levels for SmartTrack are described as every 6-10 minutes peak, with off-peak trains every 15, but this does not necessarily match Metrolinx’ announced service plans for their GO RER network onto which SmartTrack is overlaid. The idea that there would be extra SmartTrack trains added to the GO service was killed off in 2016 in the evaluation of possible operating modes for the corridor.

Fares on “SmartTrack” are supposed to be “TTC fares”, but this is a moving target. Voters understood the term to mean free transfer onto and off of SmartTrack trains as part of their TTC fare, but with all the talk of regional fare integration, it is far from clear just what a “TTC fare” will be by the time SmartTrack is operating.

Even that date appears to be a moving target. City Staff referred to 2025 when GO RER would be fully up and running as the target date for “integration”, but Mayor Tory still speaks of being able to ride SmartTrack by 2021 while he is presumably still in office to cut the ribbon.

At the briefing, many questions arose from the media, and the answer to almost all of them was “we don’t know yet”. It is clear that the Mayor’s plan has not proceeded beyond the half-baked stage, and many important details remain to be sorted out.

  • What is the status of Lawrence East Station and how does it fit with the recently announced review of this (and Kirby) stations by the Auditor General?
  • How will an expanded GO/ST presence at Lawrence East co-exist with the SRT which will operate until at least 2025, if not beyond to whenever the Scarborough Subway opens?
  • What are the arrangements for City/Province cost sharing on the stations, especially since Lawrence East was originally to be a GO station, but its future as such is unknown?
  • What will be the cost of the new stations once design reaches a level where the numbers are credible? The range of $700 million to $1.1 billion has not been updated since the matter was before Council.
  • Will all stations on the SmartTrack corridor honour ST fare arrangements regardless of whether this is a city-built station under the ST banner?
  • Why should GO riders who are not on the SmartTrack corridor pay regular GO fares, while those using the ST route have a “TTC fare” for their journey? The most obvious contrast in this case is between the existing Exhibition Station on the Lake Shore corridor and the proposed Liberty Village Station on the ST/Kitchener corridor, but there are many others.
  • What service levels will be provided, and how will they affect projected demand at the stations? Were previously published estimates based on more ST service than Metrolinx actually plans to  operate? How will constraints at Union affect the ability to through-route service between the Stouffville to the Weston/Kitchener corridors?
  • If the City wants more service than Metrolinx plans (assuming it would even fit on the available trackage), how much would Toronto have to pay Metrolinx to operate it?
  • Where are the residents and jobs that are expected to generate ST demand, and how convenient will access to the service actually be considering walking time, station geometry (stairs, tunnels, bridges, etc) and service frequency?

The stations under consideration are shown on the map below. A common question for all of these locations will be that of available capacity on the GO trains that will originate further out in the corridor. Without knowing the planned service design for “GO” trains and “SmartTrack” trains, it is unclear how often, if at all, there will be short-haul ST trains originating within Toronto as opposed to longer-haul GO trains from the 905. The availability of space on trains could affect the perceived service frequency if people cannot board at stations near Union (just as long-suffering riders of the King car complain about full streetcars).

Updated October 10, 2017 at 10:30 pm

After I posted this article, I realized that there was an important part missing, a commentary on the “consultation” process  itself.

A big problem with many attempts to seek public input is that the wrong question is posed, and factors are taken as given when they should be challenged. In the case of SmartTrack, the basic question is “why do we have SmartTrack at all”.

The original scheme was essentially a real estate ploy to make property in Markham and south of the Airport more valuable by linking both areas with a frequent rail service to downtown. Reverse commuters were a big potential market for this service. In the course of becoming part of the Tory election campaign, the focus turned inward, and SmartTrack became the line that would solve every transit problem. The claims about service frequency, fares and integration with other local and regional service were complete fantasies, but they gave the impression that Tory “had a plan” as distinct from the bumbling proposals of his opponent, Doug Ford, and the lackluster efforts of Olivia Chow. Tory even got professionals to declare his scheme a great idea, one giving it an “A+” on CBC’s Metro Morning, but this was for a version of SmartTrack that was unbuildable.

Now, over three years later, we are still faced with the myth that SmartTrack is a real plan, that it is anything more than what GO Transit would have done in the fullness of time. We are, in effect, being asked about the colour of tiles in stations when we should be asking whether the stations should even be built at all. There is no guarantee that service can be overlaid on GO’s existing plans to provide anywhere near what was promised in the campaign – a “surface subway”. Metrolinx has been quite firm on the subject, and going to the frequencies assumed by ST advocates would be well beyond the infrastructure we are likely to see on GO corridors.

The City will conduct its consultations, but the hard question – Why SmartTrack? – will never be asked.

For the October 11 update, please scroll to the end of the article.

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GO/TTC Co-Fares: A Glass Half Full

Today, October 6, 2017, the Government of Ontario announced that there would be a $1.50 co-fare between GO Transit and the TTC. This long-overdue change begins, but does not fully address, problems faced by transit riders who cross the City’s border and faced a full extra fare to ride on two separate transit systems.

Ontario is lowering the cost of commuting for people in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) by introducing a 50 per cent discount for PRESTO card users who transfer between GO Transit or the Union Pearson Express (UP Express) and the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), in both directions.

Premier Kathleen Wynne was at Union Station in Toronto today to announce that adult, senior and youth/student TTC riders will pay a TTC fare of just $1.50 when they use a PRESTO card to transfer to or from GO Transit or the UP Express. The discount will launch in January 2018, shortly after the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension will begin service to six new stations. For people whose regular commute includes GO/UP Express-TTC transfers, this step towards regional fare integration and more affordable transit options will save about $720 per year. [Ontario government press release]

For some types of trips, this is “good news”, but it is far from the panacea some, notably Mayor Tory, touts:

“Thanks to bold leadership at City Hall and Queen’s Park, we have found a way to give a discount to those who use a mix of our transit systems. Transit will now be more affordable for Toronto residents who ride a mix of the TTC, UP Express and GO Transit to get around the city. This agreement also moves us a step closer to make sure that SmartTrack will cost Toronto residents the same as the TTC. We need to make sure that the transit we are building and maintaining remains affordable.” [From the press release]

The primary beneficiaries of this change will be GO Transit commuters who can now use the TTC to and from a Toronto GO station (most likely Union) for the “city” end of their journeys. That $720/year saving translates to 240 round trips at $3 each. That’s 48 weeks’ worth of travel taking into account at least two weeks of vacation plus an equal number of statutory holidays.

To put this into context, the annual cost of commuting by GO from Oakville to Union is about $3,400. Someone who now uses TTC for their city trip (say from Union to Queen’s Park) would pay $1,440 in TTC fares at $3 each making a total of $4,840 for both systems. The new discount will save about 15%. Conversely someone who now walks from Union has the TTC option at a lower marginal cost than before.

This is a good deal, as far as it goes, for GO Transit riders, but the story is much different for other travellers.

Cross-boundary Travel on Local Bus Systems

Riders from Mississauga, Brampton, York Region and Durham Region transit systems will still pay two fares to cross the boundary to or from Toronto.

This will apply to riders entering the new Spadina subway extension, even if they travel to stops north of Steeles Avenue or to York University, now served directly by YRT buses.

Metropass Users

The discount only applies to riders who pay the full TTC adult fare via Presto ($3.00). Passholders will not receive any discount. This is a benefit to those who use GO a lot, and the TTC less so.

  • Cost of a monthly pass (on discount program): $134
  • Cost of 40 co-fare trips at $1.50 each: $60
  • Cost of 20 full fare trips at $3.00 each: $60
  • Total cost: $120

If the number of TTC-only trips goes up, say to 25, the combined cost ($135) would exceed the value of a Metropass.

Students and Seniors

This group of riders already travels at a reduced fare of $2.05 if they are using Presto. The discount to a $1.50 co-fare does not represent as much of a saving to them as it does to “adult” riders. This will also be true for any new group to whom reduced fares are offered such as ODSP recipients.

TTC-GO Trips Within Toronto

For riders who now attempt to make trips using both services inside Toronto, the co-fare will represent a discount over their current pricing. However, the high cost of travelling by GO will remain a large barrier to people who might move from an all-TTC route to a TTC-GO route.

For example, the monthly cost of travel using Presto from Agincourt to Union Station is $223.25 (based on 40 trips/month). Assuming that a rider will save $60 per month on TTC fares, this would still be an increase of over $160/month to commute from Scarborough to downtown via TTC and GO. That is not exactly the “equal to TTC fare” goal of John Tory’s SmartTrack, and it is unclear just who will step up to pay the subsidy needed to make it so.

Moreover, someone who is already a frequent TTC rider is also likely a passholder, and it may not be worth their while to trade in the capped price of a Metropass to “enjoy” the co-fare available on GO.

Because of inconsistencies in GO fares, the situation at Mimico is different because the monthly GO cost is only $177.70. Even so, this remains a substantial premium over a pure TTC fare, and  puts this option well beyond the means of many TTC riders.

Finally, many GO stations in Toronto are difficult to reach by transit or have only limited service. This is another barrier to “integrated” travel on GO and the TTC.

This co-fare and its subsidy are a beginning, but only a small one, toward the dual goals of reducing cross-border fare premiums and making GO more affordable within Toronto. A small cake and a few balloons may be an appropriate celebration, but hold the champagne.

 

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Navigating the TTC’s Ten Year Capital Plan 2018-27

Recently I wrote a piece for the Torontoist site “TTC Budget Woes Deepen” to give an overview of the major issues facing the TTC and the City of Toronto as it goes into the annual round of budget talks facing a huge mound of transit spending.

This article is rather long, and is intended to go into more detail for readers who want to know how the budget works, and how the various reports and tables fit together.

There are three documents containing the initial version of the ten year plan:

Some of the information is not presented in the same format in each report, and this can be confusing even to a veteran budget reader. There are valid reasons for this, in some cases, because different information is excerpted to tell different parts of the overall story. Where this happens, I will try to sort out the numbers.

A major problem with the TTC’s budget and plan is the ever-growing list of “unfunded” projects. There are now at least five groups:

  • Projects that are officially in the “base budget” but for which no funding has been identified ($2.273 billion)
  • New projects that are not in the base, but which are shown in the chart of funding sources as a contribution to the shortfall ($1.05 billion).
  • Changes in scope of existing projects for which there is no funding ($128 million).
  • Additional projects that do not exist in any of the lists ($2.216 billion).
  • Projects listed in the detailed budget, but with spending planned (if it is shown at all) beyond the 2018-2027 plan’s window.

This backlog represents almost as much as the “funded” portion of the budget, and the absence of clear information on the need for, timing and priority of these projects is a huge gap in the information presented to the Commission and to Council. Changes in the timing of any of these projects and/or the need to move them into “funded” status will have a domino effect through the entire TTC and City budgets by bringing costs into years where funding is not now available.

This list does not include any major rapid transit projects such as the Scarborough Subway (SSE), the Relief Line (RL), SmartTrack (a City project separate from the TTC’s budget) or the LRT expansions on the Waterfront West or Eglinton East (once part of the Scarborough “package”). Only the SSE has “funding” in the sense that resources from three governments are earmarked to build it, but this project could still run aground if the costs at 30% design come in higher than the current estimate.

Note: In various places in this article, I quote the TTC’s responses to questions about details of the budget. These were supplied by Brad Ross, Executive Director of Corporate Communications, from TTC staff. Thanks to Brad for this.

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