Month: June 2023

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Construction on Broadview, Gerrard/Coxwell, Main Station and Queen East (June 2023 Update)

This article describes the transit services affected by various construction project in the east end and the changes that will take effect on Sunday, June 18, 2023. This is a follow-on to my original article, and some of the information there is out of date due to changes in the TTC’s plans.

Information and maps in this article are taken from a presentation to the TTC Board meeting of June 12, 2023.

Updated June 14, 2023: Information about the 304 King Night Bus added.

Construction projects affecting streetcar service are summarized in the map below. Some of this work is underway or completed already.

  • TTC overhead upgrades for Flexity streetcar operation with pantographs on King and Kingston Road was completed in the Spring. All routes in the system now operate with pans, although there are selected areas that have not been modified yet and operators must switch to trolley poles if cars run there.
  • Repairs to the Queen Street Don Bridge were completed a few weeks ago, and streetcars are now operating over the bridge, albeit only for carhouse moves and short turns.
  • Repairs at Main Station are underway and will continue through the summer.
  • The sewer work at Coxwell & Gerrard has completed, and work will now shift to track replacement.
  • Sewer work on Broadview is underway.

Changes Effective June 18, 2023

Here is a map showing the route configuration from June 18 to July 29, 2023.

The major service change is that there will be no north-south service on Broadview from Danforth to Gerrard due to track and road reconstruction. Work in this area includes:

  • Reconstruction and expansion of Broadview Station streetcar loop to accommodate two streetcars at a time on both the 504 King and 505 Dundas platforms. The first phase of this (June 18 to early July) will require Broadview to be closed to traffic from Erindale to Danforth for track replacement. Work will shift into the loop in a second phase to allow streets to re-open. The planned expansion of the loop has been deferred.
  • Track reconstruction between Gerrard and Danforth. The first phase (July 4 to early August) will run from Victor to Sparkhall with track storage between Gerrard and Victor. (See maps in the original article linked above.)

The affected routes are:

  • 504/505 Broadview/Parliament shuttle bus: This route will not operate and there will be no bus service on Broadview between Danforth and Gerrard and beyond to King & Parliament. This will be replaced by:
  • 72A Pape: This branch of the Pape bus now operates to Pape and Eastern Avenue, but it will be redirected and extended effective June 18 to operate west from Pape on Queen and King to loop as Parliament the way the 504/505 has been doing.
  • The 304 King Night Bus will operate to Pape Station via Queen, Carlaw, Riverdale and Pape.
  • Not shown on the map but also effective on June 18:
    • 100 Flemingdon Park: This route now operates to Broadview Station, but it will shift east to Pape Station effective June 18.
    • 8 Broadview, 62 Mortimer and 87 Cosburn will remain at Broadview Station, but looping arrangements have not been announced for the various stages of construction.

In the previous article, based on maps in a March 2023 presentation regarding Main Station, there was a new route “519” that would split off the west end of the 72B Pape to Union Station service. This proposal is not part of the June 18 package, and the 72B will continue to serve Union Station.

The 501B Queen shuttle bus will be modified to improve its westbound connection with the 501 Queen streetcars. Before June 18, the 501B loops north on Broadview to Gerrard, west to River and south to Queen. This loop will be changed so that buses run south on River only to Dundas, and then return east to Broadview and south to Queen. This will provide an overlap between the 501B and 501 services at Broadview in both directions.

The 501 and 505 streetcars will continue on the same diversions and schedules:

  • 501 Queen cars will operate via McCaul, Dundas and Broadview to bypass Ontario Line construction, and thence east to Neville Loop.
  • 505 Dundas cars will operate via Broadview, Queen and Kingston Road to Bingham Loop at Victoria Park.

The 506 streetcar diversion will be changed westbound:

  • 506 Carlton cars will operate eastbound from Gerrard and Broadview via Broadview and Queen to Woodbine Loop at Kingston Road.
  • Westbound 506 cars will change their route. Until June 17 it is (officially) via Queen, Broadview, Dundas and Parliament to the regular route at Gerrard. This will change on June 18 to run via Queen and Parliament to Gerrard. Many cars do this already.
  • The schedule for 506 Carlton has not been updated and is still short of running time. Many cars will likely continue to short turn at Broadview and return west rather than going east to Woodbine Loop.

The pseudo-503 Kingston Road service will continue to be provided by 504/501 buses running from Kingston Road & Queen to York & King. These buses are now scheduled as part of the 501 service and should appear on tracking apps. Current plans call for the 503 service from Bingham Loop to King & York to return as a bus at the end of July, and as a streetcar in the Fall.

Track reconstruction at Coxwell & Lower Gerrard will cause changes in three routes:

  • 22 Coxwell, which has been operating between Danforth and Queen with diversions enroute, will be suspended.
  • 31 Greenwood will operate from Coxwell Station (its current terminus during reconstruction of its home station for accessibility) to Woodbine Loop via Danforth, Greenwood and Queen. The routing at the south end via Eastern Avenue is not known as I write this.
  • 506C Carlton bus service will continue to run between Castle Frank and Victoria Park Stations, but it will divert via Greenwood, Danforth and Coxwell to Upper Gerrard in both directions. 506C buses will make on street stops at Coxwell & Danforth. They will not enter Coxwell Station.

There will be no service on Coxwell between Upper Gerrard and Queen. The normal 22, 31 and 506C routes will resume on July 30.

Reconstruction of Main Station continues through the summer. All of the bus changes with route interlines and extensions to Victoria Park Station will remain in effect.

The TTC has three key messages about the pending changes.

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Evolution of Bus Route Travel Times, 2020-2023, Part II

This article is the second half of a review of the change in travel times for a selection of major bus routes, many of which are part of the RapidTO “red lane” proposal, from 2020 to May 2023.

See also: Evolution of Bus Route Travel Times, 2020-2023, Part I

My purpose is to show the drop in travel times in March 2020 co-incident with the pandemic lockdown, and the gradual recovery over the past three years. The minimum times seen in 2020 establish what we would see in the absence of road traffic, not to mention a lower passenger demand, and probably show the best case for improvement with transit priority.

Depending on when I began to track various routes, there are cases when I have some pre-pandemic data from 2018 or 2019.

The situation varies from route to route and by time of day. In many cases, travel times have returned to pre-pandemic levels or higher, and some uptick is particularly notable in 2023. An important characteristic of these routes is that they do not serve the core area, but run in Toronto’s suburbs where bus ridership is strong and work-from-home had considerably less effect on demand than it does downtown.

Routes in this article include 86 Scarborough, 116 Morningside and 905 Eglinton East Express which already run on the Eglinton-Kingston-Morningside red lanes, as well as 39/939 Finch East, 54/954 Lawrence East and 25/925 Don Mills.

Note that the charts here track travel times, not service reliability. I will turn to that issue in future articles.

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Evolution of Bus Route Travel Times, 2020-2023, Part I

This post reviews travel times on bus routes, primarily those that either have or are planned to get RapidTO red lanes for all-day transit priority. This continues from earlier examinations of the effects of changing traffic conditions on travel times over the course of the pandemic.

These articles will be the last in which I will present data for multiple routes to track post-pandemic recovery of traffic levels. I will continue to collect data, but will publish updates only if a specific route is actively under discussion for RapidTO treatment.

This article deals with routes west of Yonge Street: Dufferin, Keele, Jane, Steeles West and Lawrence West. In Part II I will turn to routes east of Yonge.

Note that an analysis of 35/935 Jane is in a separate, more extensive pair of articles in light of the current review of that corridor for RapidTO red lanes.

The format of charts used here is different from previous articles which summarized data on a weekly or monthly basis, subdivided by hour of the day. As the number of data points grew, these charts were no longer workable. Here I have adopted the style used in, among other things, my tracking of travel times on King Street which include day-by-day data, but only for a single hour of the day on each chart.

The values shown are the 50th and 85th percentiles. The 50th is the median value within a set of points where half of the trips took longer, and half of them a shorter time. The 85th is a value which captures the higher values but discards outliers that might only represent one trip within a group.

For the most part, these charts cover the period from March 2020 to May 2023, with some additional data from earlier months where I have it. My purpose in collecting the data was to monitor travel time changes with reduced traffic congestion and stop service times of the pandemic era.

Although there is no way to definitively prove this without actual implementation of red lanes, my premise is that conditions during the worst months of the pandemic show the most that is likely to be achieved by getting traffic out of the way. Additional changes such as traffic signal priority or selective elimination of stops is not specifically a red lane gain, but might be implemented concurrently. Those are beyond the scope of comparisons here.

As a general note, the onset of the pandemic travel restrictions in mid-March 2020 is quite clear in the data, as are other events such as changes in lockdown severity. Also quite clear is the effect of the mid-January 2022 and February 2023 snow storms, and on some routes, a lengthy return to then-normal travel times probably due to inadequate snow clearing.

Each set of charts is presented with data for the same period but opposite directions side by side. These charts can be quite different reflecting both geographic differences and loading patterns by direction. Charts are shown for the hours beginning at 8am (am peak), 1pm (midday), 5pm (pm peak), 8pm (early evening) and 10pm (late evening).

Where local and express routes operate together, the stats for the two services are shown separately, and a comparative set of charts shows the median values for each service.

In all cases, the Y-axis starts at 20 minutes, not zero, because data values are higher than 20 and this tactic gives charts more “elbow room”. In some cases the values drop to zero because there are no data for a specific date. This was particularly noticeable in November 2021 after the cyber attack on TTC systems.

Conclusions

  • Based on the drop in travel time in March 2020 and other subsequent covid-related changes in road traffic and transit demand, the potential for reduced travel times through transit priority varies considerably from route to route, by time and by direction. The amount of improvement through red lanes will not be uniform over each route.
  • Many trip times recovered to pre-pandemic levels or higher well before the city as a whole was “open”, and some times are now higher than they were three years ago. This accentuates the need for transit priority because longer trip times affect:
    • the cost of providing service (more buses to provide the same service),
    • frequency of service (the same buses running further apart), and
    • rider wait and travel times.
  • Express services, when they operate, offer a relatively small change in travel time versus the corresponding local services based on median travel times.
  • By analogy to the King Street pilot, the reduction in variability of travel times is at least as important in improving service reliability as any absolute reduction in the time required for trips.
  • Any proposal for transit priority should take these factors into account both for selective versus blanket implementation, and to ensure that the potential benefits are not oversold.

For those who want the details (and a lot of charts), read on.

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Promises, Promises: 2023 Edition

The Toronto Mayoral By-Election is just under a month away, and candidates pump out announcements daily, often with a transit spin. In this article I will look at the transit-related issues they are trying to address (or in some cases avoid).

All of this takes place in a strange world where the availability of money to pay for anything is suspect. Is a promise is even credible let alone affordable? Many of the platforms overlap, and so I will take related issues in groups rather than enumerating and critiquing each candidate’s platform.

A month ago, I wrote about what a transit platform should look like:

That sets out my philosophy of what I seek in a candidate, and the short version appears below. If you want the long version, click on the link above.

  • Service is key. Run as much as possible, everywhere, and run it well.
  • Build budgets based on what you want to see, not on what you think you can afford. Just getting by is not a recipe for recovery and growth. If the money doesn’t come, then look to “Plan B” but aim for “Plan A”.
  • Fares are a central part of our transit system, but the question is who should pay and how much. Strive for simplicity. Give discounts where they are truly needed. Make the transit system worth riding so that small, regular increases are acceptable.
  • Focus on ease of use among transit systems in the GTA, but do not equate “integration” with amalgamated governance.
  • Transit property: parking or housing?
  • Foster a culture of advocacy in management and on the TTC Board.
  • Beware of lines on maps. A “my map vs your map” debate focuses all effort on a handful of corridors while the rest of the network rots.
  • Plan for achievements in your current term and make sure they actually happen. Longer term is important, but the transit ship is sinking. You are running for office in 2023. Vague promises for the 2030s are cold comfort to voters who have heard it all before.

Full disclosure: I have always maintained an “open door” to anyone who wants to talk transit, and in this round I have been approached by both the Matlow and Chow campaigns for information and advice, as well as some media outlets. This I provided pro bono and without any “leakage” of who asked me what. No other candidates asked. How much of my input shows up in platforms is quite another matter. We shall see as the campaign unfolds.

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