Day: August 20, 2021

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Service Reliability of 39/939 Finch East

This article continues my analysis of corridors where RapidTO “red lanes” have been installed or proposed to speed bus operations. Previous articles in the series are:

This article reviews travel times and headway reliability (the intervals between buses) primarily through the pandemic era to July 2021 with April 2018 data as a pre-pandemic reference.

The High Points

Finch Avenue East is a corridor with a considerable amount of service through the combination of several express and local branches. Service will improve on weekends starting in September with the reintroduction of express service, but that is beyond the scope of this analysis.

As on many routes, travel times fell in March 2020 with the onset of the pandemic shutdown, the drop in road traffic and a big drop in transit demand. Through March, the travel time pattern changed from a pre-pandemic character with traditional peaks to an almost flat travel time value all day long. This drop, corresponding to a condition with little interference from traffic, probably represents a “best case” of the improvement that a transit priority lane can bring to Finch Avenue East.

This effect was primarily on weekdays on Finch with a smaller drop on weekends. The AM peak completely disappeared, and the PM peak has only re-emerged in recent months.

Travel times are climbing through 2021 and are in some cases back to pre-pandemic values, although not during peak periods.

Speed profiles for the local and express services based on the second and third weeks of July 2021 differ somewhat, but not as much as on other routes. However, a speed profile indicates how fast buses are moving when they are moving, and a stopped bus only counts as a “zero” once regardless of how long it sits serving passengers or waiting for a traffic signal.

Average speeds for buses at some times and locations on Finch exceed the posted 50 kph speed limit. This is no surprise to anyone familiar with suburban traffic patterns. Whether this will persist as traffic volumes build remains to be seen.

As in many of these route analyses, the weak point is headway reliability. All the speed in the world is of little benefit if a bus does not show up reliably and regularly. This can be compounded by vehicle crowding when buses are running in packs rather than on an even spacing.

The article includes charts of headways (the time between buses) in the first week of July 2021, a period when conditions were about as favourable as we will see for weather and the level of demand. At several points on the route, both the local and express service headways can vary quite widely with large gaps and groups of buses travelling together.

The average headways are close to the scheduled values indicating that all of the scheduled trips were operated. The problem simply was that they were not reliably spaced. This problem exists during all operating periods and on weekends, not just weekdays.

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Have Your Say on the TTC’s Plan for Lawrence and Leslie Bus Services

Updated Aug 21/21 at 5:00 am: Link to survey corrected.

Updated Aug 22/21 at 12:05 pm: For some unknown technical reason, the survey closed sooner than it should have done. The TTC is working with their vendor to get this fixed.

Updated Aug 22/21 at 10:00 pm: The survey is available once again.

The TTC plans to restructure the 54 Lawrence East, 954 Lawrence East Express and 51 Leslie routes as part of the changes for introduction of Line 5 Crosstown late in 2022. They are conducting a survey of rider opinions on their proposals that is open until August 30.

Route 54 now operates between Eglinton Station and Orton Park / Starspray via Eglinton, Leslie and Lawrence. The proposed new route will begin at Science Centre Station (Don Mills & Eglinton) and will run north on Don Mills, then east on Lawrence. Note that there is a separate proposal as part of a Scarborough route reorganization to split off the Orton Park service as a separate route.

Route 954 now operates during peak periods express between Starspray Loop and Lawrence East Station. The proposed route will be extended to Science Centre Station over the same route as the local 54 Lawrence East service. There is no word on whether hours of service will be expanded beyond the peak period. Note also that after mid-2023 when the SRT shuts down, there will not be an RT service from Lawrence East Station to Kennedy Station, although plans are now underway in a separate study for reconfiguration of routes after the RT closes.

Route 51 Leslie now operates between Eglinton Station and Leslie/Steeles via Eglinton and Leslie. Route 56 Leaside now operates between Eglinton and Donlands Stations via Eglinton, Laird, Millwood and Donlands. The proposed route would combine 51 Leslie with 56 Leaside to provide one route from Donlands Station to Leslie/Steeles. (A peak period short turn would duplicate the existing Leaside via Brentcliffe service, and only about half of the 51 Leslie buses would run north of Eglinton.)

The combined effect of these changes would remove routes 51, 54 and 56 from Eglinton between Yonge Street and Don Mills (except for the short jog between Leslie and Laird by the combined 51 route). Only the 34 Eglinton bus would remain.

Also, service on Lawrence between Leslie and Don Mills would be provided only by the infrequent 162 Lawrence-Donway bus which does not directly serve the intersection at Don Mills.

For further info on the 2022 service plan, please see TTC 2022 Service Plan Consultation.