Month: June 2023

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Changes to Kingston Road, Dundas, Carlton and St. Clair Ave. W. Services (Revised)

The TTC will implement two route changes in July to address, in part, problems with service reliability on construction diversions.

Updated June 30, 2023: The location of Salsa on St. Clair has been corrected.

Updated July 1, 2023: The 506 Carlton cutback to Queen and Broadview has been added.

503 Kingston Road / 505 Dundas

Effective Tuesday, July 4, 2023 (July 3 is a holiday), service on Kingston Road to Bingham Loop (Victoria Park) will be revised on weekdays and Saturdays from 6am to 8pm, Sundays from 8am to 8pm:

  • 505 Dundas cars will turn back at Woodbine Loop in stead of running through to Bingham.
  • 503 Kingston Road buses will operate between Bingham Loop and York Street via King. Because these are “extras”, not scheduled buses, they will not appear on trip prediction apps.

After 8pm on all days, the 505 Dundas car will run through to Bingham Loop as it does now.

This change should relieve problems with tight running times that caused many short turns on 505 Dundas and wide gaps both on Kingston Road and on Dundas west of Lansdowne. (I will publish an analysis of 505 Dundas headways and reliability in early July.)

Effective Sunday, July 30, 2023, the 503 Kingston Road bus will operate between 6am and 1am (starting at 8am on Sundays) over its Bingham to York route.

Streetcars are expected to return in the fall, likely on Thanksgiving weekend. It is not yet clear whether the 503 streetcar will permanently replace the evening and weekend service formerly provided by the 22A Coxwell bus.

506 Carlton (Added July 1, 2023)

The 506 Carlton streetcar service will be cut back in the east end to Broadview rather than running east to Woodbine Loop. This will correct a problem with inadequate running time that caused many streetcars to short turn without getting to Woodbine Loop anyhow.

The map below shows the 506C bus diversion via Greenwood and Danforth around track construction at Coxwell and Lower Gerrard. This configuration will be in effect until mid-July when buses can again operate via Gerrard and Coxwell without diverting.

512 St. Clair

Effective Wednesday, July 5, 2023, the 512 St. Clair car will resume operation west to Gunns Loop. Construction at the GO Barrie corridor bridge west of Caledonia has been delayed allowing through service until August. The date when turnbacks at Lansdowne (Earlscourt Loop) will resume is not specified in the TTC announcement.

On the weekend of July 8-9, 2023, streetcar service will be suspended on at least part of the route (TBA) for the Salsa on St. Clair festival between Oakwood and St. Clair West Station.

Service on the temporarily extended 47 Lansdowne bus on St. Clair has been quite erratic. (Stay tuned for an analysis of this operation in coming days.)

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Metro Morning June 27/23

On June 27, I was one of several guests on CBC’s Metro Morning doing “where do we go from here” pieces about newly elected Olivia Chow’s challenges as Mayor of Toronto.

The item was not posted on the show’s website, and so here for those who missed it is my own recording.

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TTC 2024 Service Plan Consultation Round Two

The TTC is part way through production of its 2024 Service Plan as well as a 5-Year Service Plan and Customer Experience Action Plan. In Round Two, consultation will focus on plans for service changes triggered by major construction projects. Five pop-up sessions are planned at Flemingdon Park, Union Station, Liberty Village, Finch Terminal, and Pape Station between June 29 and July 12, 2023. Details are available here.

Also available on that page is a link to a survey seeking feedback on various proposals. Please note that my site is not an official TTC conduit for feedback, although it is no secret that many at the TTC do read articles and comments here. Any specific feedback for the TTC should be submitted through their own survey.

Round Three in August-September will present draft concepts for the 5-Year Plan and Customer Experience Action Plan, and these will be refined into final drafts for Round Four in October-November.

The remainder of this article presents an overview of the survey and proposals for construction-related service changes.

There are no proposals for new routes nor of overall service levels in this round. The election of Olivia Chow as Mayor will no doubt bring a review of existing services, but that is not in the scope of this round.

An important issue left over from the 2023 Budget process and the recent service cuts is the question of Service Standards. These are described as “Board Approved”, but in fact the 2023 changes were implemented by management as part of the budget with only retroactive consent from the Board. Moreover, the actual effect of the changes was withheld from the Board and Council until well after the budget was approved.

Transparency in budgets and service planning will be an important change looking ahead to 2024. With a new Mayor I hope to see a much improved process.

Continue reading →
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TTC Cancels RFP For New Subway Trains (Updated)

A Request for Proposals for new subway trains has been cancelled due to lack of funding. The following notice was sent to all vendors on Friday, June 23:

The Toronto Transit Commission issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) on October 13, 2022 for the procurement of New Subway Trains.

The RFP indicated that the TTC was in the process of actively pursuing additional funding from other orders of government (Provincial and Federal), and that contract award was subject to receiving full funding commitments by early 2023. As detailed in item 1.2.2 – Funding Status of Part 1 – Invitation and Submission Instructions of the RFP document: “Timelines associated with this RFP have been communicated to potential funding partners, and a request for confirmation of funding by early 2023 has been requested. In order to receive the NST deliveries in time for the legacy fleet replacement and to meet growth needs, the TTC has elected to commence the procurement at this time, however, contract award is subject to receiving full funding commitments.”

Unfortunately, the additional funding required has not been secured and as such, TTC is cancelling the RFP effective immediately, and the Bonfire Portal will be closed.

The TTC will continue to have discussions with the Provincial and Federal governments on funding requirements for New Subway Trains and evaluate the requirements for issuance of a future Request for Pre-Qualification and Request for Proposals in the future.

Where this leaves future projects for enhancement of Line 2 Bloor-Danforth, conversion to Automatic Train Control and provision of full service on the Scarborough Subway Extension is anyone’s guess.

This is a project which was initially delayed by CEO Rick Leary in favour of a fleet rebuild, then reactivated as his attitude to the worth of ATC warmed with the success of the Line 1 conversion, a project very much the work of his predecessor Andy Byford and his team. The focus on spending for new lines has left major state of good repair such as fleet renewal high and dry, and this RFP cancellation show where that shortsighted policy has brought us.

I have reached out to TTC Media Relations for comment. This post will be updated as more information becomes available.

Updated June 26, 2023 at 3:45 pm

The TTC replied to my query for comment with the following:

As the posting says (or should), the purchase of the cars is contingent on funding being secured.

That has not yet happened, although discussions are ongoing.

This was about being transparent with bidders and letting them know that once funding is secure, we would re-post.

It is worth noting that as recently as the TTC Board meeting of June 12, 2023, there was no mention in the public session that this action was imminent. Here are the relevant pages from the Major Projects Update.

Updated June 26, 2023 at 5:00 pm

How many trains will the Scarborough Subway Extension require?

The TTC owns 370 cars in the T1 fleet which operates Line 2. That is equivalent to 61 6-car trains plus four spare cars.

The scheduled AM peak round trip time on the existing Line 2 is 105 minutes. For the maximum service possible with the existing signal and train control system, one train every 140 seconds, requires 45 trains. That was the AM Peak scheduled service in January 2020 before the pandemic-related service cuts. One additional train was on standby as a “gap” train for a total of 46. Allowing for spares at 20%, this requires a fleet of about 55 trains leaving only 6 spare for expansion.

The Scarborough extension is only marginally longer than the Line 1 extension from Eglinton to Finch with similar station spacing. A one-way trip on that part of Line 1 takes about 12 minutes, or 24 for the round trip. By analogy, that would make the round trip on the extended Line 2 about 129 minutes, and would required 55 trains with nothing left over for extras. Including spares at 20% would require a fleet larger than the TTC now owns.

Alternately, if every second train short turns at Kennedy Station leaving a 280 second service (4’40”) to Sheppard East, the line could probably operate with 50 trains which just fits within what is available.

One might argue that with a new fleet and the benefits of Automatic Train Control, overall speed could be improved and with that the fleet needed for full service to Sheppard could be reduced. But that is moot if TTC maintains the existing fleet.

When the SSE was planned, it had a pocket track east of Kennedy Station, but this was cut to save money, then it was restored. I wonder if someone is counting trains, or just hedging their bets on service levels beyond the existing terminus?

In any event, a failure to buy new trains has the double effect that it will condemn Line 2 to manual operation with an aging signal system for the foreseeable future, and will prevent the operation of full service beyond Kennedy in peak periods unless the Bloor-Danforth line never returns to the pre-pandemic peak service level.

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Broadview Construction Update

With the reduced scope of track work planned at Broadview Station, there has been a change in the schedule of road closures. The City of Toronto issued a Construction Notice on June 9 stating that the sequence of events would now be:

  • July 4 to Early August: Track replacement from Gerrard to Sparkhall, plus the reconstruction of Montcrest Boulevard.
  • Mid August to Late September: Track replacement from Danforth to Sparkhall
    • The intersection of Danforth and Broadview will be done after the Taste of the Danforth event.
  • Late August/September: Track replacement on Broadview north of Danforth and on Erindale (this is the on-street portion of Broadview Station Loop).
  • Early October to Late November: Resurfacing of Broadview from Danforth to Gerrard.

The TTC’s construction project list shows streetcar service resuming in February 2024, but this might be out of date as there is no reason to delay this unless the project meets with unexpected problems. In any event, they hope to restore the 504/505 bus service on Broadview when conditions permit, and that would likely not be until after the track work is finished and there is enough space to fit buses onto the street.

Broadview will remain open to northbound traffic only from Gerrard with a single lane during the project. Local traffic will be allowed southbound until the street is blocked by construction in mid-July.

Here are photos of track welding on June 17, 2023. Rails are delivered by truck and joined into strings by a mobile arc welding unit. They will be pulled into place when after the trackbed has been excavated to expose the top of the steel ties installed here on the previous renewal. Thermite welds will be used to join the strings of rail when they are in place.

Lifting rail from the delivery trailer to the welding jig (orange)
A tight squeeze for the 504/505 bus
Rails are added to the strings by the welder
As each rail is added, the string is pulled south
The stockpile of finished rail strings
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Why I Voted For Olivia Chow

Yes, dear readers, I have cast my ballot. My yellow envelope with a mail in ballot is safely in the hands of Toronto’s elections office.

Full disclosure: I have advised, pro bono, on some transit policy proposals for both Josh Matlow and Olivia Chow, but have not determined which were eventually adopted, if any.

My vote went to Olivia Chow for several reasons.

First, thanks to the absence of ranked ballots, I cannot pick candidates secure in knowing that if they don’t attract enough votes, my choice will go to someone else to my political liking. This time out, the job is to ensure Toronto stands up to Doug Ford’s gang at Queen’s Park and rejects the Tory cabal on City Council. I only get one vote, and it goes to Olivia.

If there were ranked ballots, I would have picked Josh Matlow first because he has been in the trenches for years, has a detailed platform and shows he can stand up to the Tory crowd. Sometimes over the top, yes, and he has a reputation for “not playing well with others”. I will take that any day over the back room dealing of Tory and any in his camp who yearn for the job.

Ana Bailão presents herself as a centrist, but her campaign started off with the prince of darkness himself, Nick Kouvalis, a long-time associate of the Fords, and a pack of development industry supporters. When on Council, she supported Tory’s fiscal program, and I have no faith in a miraculous conversion.

Mitzie Hunter has a full platform, but not, as I have written in a platform review, one that is as “fully costed” as she would have us believe. Some revenue sources she touts are already spoken for, including for transit, and to present the money as if it’s just looking for a home is, as they say in parliamentary circles, misleading.

She also flip-flopped in the past on support for Transit City in order to ride the subway bandwagon to a seat at Queen’s Park. Her embrace of the “Scarborough deserves” trope might have some foundation, given how voters there have been played for support by pols for over a decade, but as Mayor of all the city, there is a need to see other districts that deserve attention too.

Brad Bradford I know from his days on the TTC Board, and we would speak regularly about coming items on the agenda. But he rarely delivered advocacy and settled into accepting the management line, something that desperately needs to be changed at that organization. It is not the Board’s function to direct day-to-day decisions, but the Board should set policy and demand accountability.

As a candidate, Bradford has embraced the safety issue and speaks as someone right of Tory, not as someone I could imagine being even moderately right of centre. He also embraces the strong mayor powers to get things done. That path is both undemocratic and an opportunity for very bad, unchecked decisions.

Mark Saunders is Doug Ford’s candidate, and on that basis alone, cannot be trusted. Moreover, he is known both for substantially dismantling the machinery of police traffic enforcement, for his blind eye on a major serial killer case that wrecked his credibility with the gay community, and for a paid advisory role to Ford on the Ontario Place privatization. He is unworthy of consideration.

Returning to Olivia Chow, I believe that criticism of her detailed platform as rather thin is valid, but I am willing to believe there is room for improvement. A major problem with the past decade and more at Council is that policy debates begin with the tax increase (or lack of it), rather than with determining what we actually need and what has top priority. Departments and agencies were given budget targets, and they generally do not present a “Plan B” for what might be done with more money.

That brings at best “business as usual” plans, or trimming in the name of “efficiency” often without revealing the actual effect of budget cuts. The sham of the 2023 TTC budget process was disgusting. Details of service changes that were already designed in January were withheld from the TTC Board and Council until long after any alternate policy might have been adopted. We might not be able to afford all of the service we want, but we should know what is really on the chopping block, and what the cost of alternatives might be.

Simply having an open, frank discussion will put council and citizens in a much better position both to know what is possible, and to defend calls for better funding and new revenue streams. That is a path I hope Chow will follow, and with Matlow as a trusted ally on Council.

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A Few Decades of TTC Stats (Updated)

This post is intended as historical background to debates on ridership, fleet and mileage trends, together with breakdowns of Operating and Capital Subsidies. The data here come from TTC Annual Reports and Financial Statements.

Updated with charts of various factors compared to the Consumer Price Index, and with a chart of surface vehicle average speed.

Ridership, Fares and Revenue/Cost Ratio

TTC’s ridership enjoyed a long continuous climb after the recession of the early 1990s until about 2015 when the annual trip count hit a plateau and then declined. After a slight uptick in 2019, the pandemic hit and ridership plummeted bottoming out in 2021.

Over the period from 1986 to 2022, the basic adult fare climbed at a steady pace in spite of fare freezes from time to time. The dotted line in the middle chart is a linear trend line which lies quite neatly along the fare values. Note that the basic adult fare is not the same as the average fare, and that discount schemes including passes and time-based transfers can blunt the effect of a fare increase for some riders.

The Revenue/Cost Ratio comes up often in debates, but the value is often misquoted. That is not hard to do as the value has bounced around ever since the initial “Davis formula” of the early 1970s. In that period, the agreement was that TTC’s self-generated revenue (fares and other income such as parking lots and news stand rents) would pay 2/3 of the total, while the remaining 1/3 would be split between the City and the Province. In practice, this never quite worked for a few reasons:

  • The Province rarely agreed on what constituted an expense they should subsidize, and in practice their percentage of the total “wobbled” around the 1/6 level from year-to-year.
  • Both the Province and City could effectively dictate the total TTC spending by pegging their contributions. If the Province was feeling stingy, the only option the City had to beef up TTC support was to break from the agreed formula.

The early 1990s recession was followed by the arrival of Premier Mike Harris who slashed transit subsidies. This drove up the R/C ratio until the City began investing more money in operating subsidies. The value has bounced around in the 70-75% range for about a decade, but was allowed to fall somewhat in 2018 and 2019. From 2020 onward, the ridership losses drove the R/C ratio below 30% for a time.

Note that “revenue” includes miscellaneous income such as parking fees and subway shop rentals which account for about 5% of the total. Therefore the proportion from fares is about 5% lower than the R/C value shown in the chart.

Updated: A chart showing the Adult Fare vs the Consumer Price Index has been added below. It is quite clear that the rate of increase of fares (the slope of the orange line) has been running ahead of the CPI (the slope of the blue line) for several decades.

Continue reading →
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Tunnels And Track But No Trains

At the TTC Board meeting on June 12, 2023, key reports presented the current and future challenges our transit system faces:

This article reviews the Major Projects Update and more generally the TTC’s Capital Program and funding shortfall. In future articles, I will turn to the Operating Budget, subsidies and the changing environment for transit in 2024 and beyond.

A related report from a past meeting presents the entire Capital Plan, not just the “major projects”, and I have consolidated information from it to provide a complete view.

TTC Capital Plans are presented with three separate timelines:

  • The current year,
  • A ten year window, and
  • Fifteen years and beyond.

The fifteen year view is comparatively recent, but it was a vital addition to the transit outlook. Until this version was introduced, a growing list of needed projects simply did not exist in the published TTC plans nor, more importantly, in the minds of Councillors and financial planners at all three levels of government. Magically, the ten year view always managed to fit within money the City had available from its own revenues or provincial and federal commitments.

That fifteen year view was a huge shock to the City, but it was no secret to anyone who looked through the budget and found gaping holes. This situation was a financial convenience to make future City capital needs appear smaller than they actually were. Funding problems were “fixed” year after year by failing to acknowledge key projects, or by pushing them beyond the City’s ten year capital planning window.

Doug Ford arrived on the scene with his subway plans and billions in provincial spending, but much of this was for projects that were not already part of the City’s plans, or at least not at the scale the City contemplated. The province gave the impression of taking a load off of Toronto, but much of the planned provincial spending was never in Toronto’s plans to start with.

Then came the pandemic and severe doubts about the sustainability of the City’s spending.

For his part, former Mayor Tory’s SmartTrack brand was still on the books, even if it was a shadow of its original plan. Despite going over budget, it lives on as five new GO stations thanks to an infusion of $226 million by the provincial government.

At the TTC, CEO Rick Leary was initially distrustful of Automatic Train Control and the new Line 2 fleet it would require. For a time, the projects to resignal the Bloor-Danforth line, buy a new fleet and build a carhouse at Kipling were put on hold. The TTC would make do through another decade with “life extended” trains which would be at least 40 years old by their retirement. Leary has since changed his tune, but this brought the cost of ATC, new trains and, possibly, the carhouse back onto the table.

The situation is complicated by the Scarborough Subway Extension which would require more trains to provide full peak service to Sheppard than the existing fleet. Half of the peak service would short turn at Kennedy to fit the service within the existing Line 2 fleet.

The already-expensive extension does not include ATC signalling because Metrolinx does not know whether the TTC will have an ATC-capable fleet by the opening date. Only the construction delays due to Ford’s intervention in the project give the TTC enough time, and then only barely, to bring Line 2 up to modern standards.

Another related issue is the emerging demand for Platform Edge Doors (PEDs) for which ATC is a pre-requisite. Without new trains and signals, there will be no PEDs on Line 2.

Toronto is in the unhappy position that we are building miles of tunnels, but may not have trains to run in them when they are finished. The self-contained Ontario Line has a fleet, and the Crosstown has its LRVs, but the subway extensions and planned service improvements are another matter. Moreover, if the Line 2 fleet’s life is pushed out to 40 years, there is no guarantee it will provide reliable service.

Award of the contract for new subway cars has already been delayed into 2024 and costs rise thanks to inflation while we await a funding decision. The Major Projects Report notes that:

  • Delays in securing the required funding for the procurement of new trains will result in declining reliability, longer wait times between trains, increased crowding, and higher maintenance costs. The TTC is actively engaged with its Federal and Provincial partners.
  • The operation of new trains is interdependent with the planned resignalling on Line 2 (ATC). All T1 trains on Line 2 need to be replaced with new subway trains to operationalize ATC on Line 2. As a result, any delay in the funding decision for the procurement of the new trains will have an impact on the ATC requirements as well as the cost and schedule for both projects.
  • Recent increases in escalation will potentially result in an increase in overall cost. The TTC will continue to monitor producer’s price indices, update escalation projections and identify potential offsets to the greatest extent possible.
  • Award Contract in 2024, subject to partner funding. Should the partner funding be delayed or not available, the TTC will commence planning for the T1 Life Extension Overhaul (LEO) program to ensure service continuity.

Meanwhile, on Line 1 Yonge-University, the fleet is in its youth, but more trains are needed to increase service and to provide for the Richmond Hill extension. A new maintenance facility will be required to hold the larger fleet, and it will most likely be built north of the new extension. There has been no word on whether York Region will contribute to any of the cost their subway extension will add to the TTC’s budget woes.

The Major Projects Report notes:

This program includes the accommodation of train storage and maintenance requirements, and other infrastructure enhancements, to expand capacity and improve circulation on Line 1, reduce overcrowding, increase the frequency of trains and reduce travel times, which will result in improved customer service.

[…]

Train Maintenance and Storage Facility (TMSF), which includes:

  • Storage for 34 trains, including a test track, and access track to the site;
  • Carhouse with five Bays for Preventative and Corrective Maintenance to support daily service;
  • Operations and Infrastructure (O&I) facility to support maintenance activities (small shop building, outdoor and indoor storage tracks for work cars, material storage, and staging area);
  • Ancillary facilities (Traction Power Substation (TPSS), Hostler platform).

More service adds to the electrical draw and in turn that will trigger upgrades to the subway’s power distribution system.

Without going into the many details, this illustrates how subway planning is not simply a question of drawing lines on a map and cutting ribbons when the tunnel boring machines arrive.

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TTC Service Changes Effective June 18, 2023

Several changes will affect TTC routes on June 18. Notable among these is the formal restoration of more frequent weekend subway service, the Broadview construction project, various adjustments to improve route operations, and seasonal changes.

A consolidated table showing current and new service designs is in the spreadsheet linked below.

2023.06.18 Service Changes V2.2

Updated June 15, 2023 at 1:00pm:

  • Route numbers for 104 Faywood, 121 Esplanade-River and 165 Weston Road North corrected.
  • Route of Broadview/Gerrard loop for 121 added.
  • Route of 100 Flemingdon Park on Pape clarified.
  • Route of 203 High Park South clarified.

Updated June 15, 2023 at 10:30pm:

  • Change to partly articulated bus operation on 36A Finch West corrected to refer to the portion of the route between Yonge and Finch W Stn.

Updated June 16, 2023 at 2:00pm:

  • Route maps for streetcar service changes added.
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Broadview Station Loop Expansion Deferred

The planned expansion of Broadview Station Loop to allow two streetcars to occupy the 505 Dundas loading bay at a time has been deferred to an unspecified later date.

At the TTC Board meeting on June 12, CEO Rick Leary said that there would be a new operating procedure at the loop where streetcars would not lay over, although just how this will be achieved is difficult to understand. A common requirement at terminals is for operators to have a short “nature break”, and this is really not something that can be eliminated by managerial fiat.

A related problem is that schedules generally have excessive running time to avoid the need for short turns. If cars do not take layovers at terminals they will make even slower trips across their routes than they do today. On King and Dundas, they have the option of putting all of the layover time at their western terminals.

The TTC has an astounding ability to make streetcar service slower and less reliable, and this has become so ingrained it is hard to see any improvement in the near future.

Operational details of the change have yet to be announced, and in any event we will not see the effect until 2024 when streetcars finally return to Broadview Station.

Track work at the station planned for June 2023 will now address the on-street track on Broadview and Erindale while the loop will wait for another day when and if it is expanded.