This morning, after a ceremony at Leslie Barns, car 4604 entered service on 504 King. It is running as an extra and is not visible to tracking apps, but can be located with a vehicle-specific search such as this on Transsee.ca. As I write this just after 3pm on November 17, the car is headed back to Leslie Barns.
The second car of the new set, 4605, is in Russell Carhouse. The remaining vehicles in the 60-car order will be delivered from now through 2025.
The real question remains what the TTC will do with these cars. Of the 204 they already own, the peak service has rested at about 140 cars for a few years. In February 2020, pre-pandemic, it was about 160. This is not just a question of construction projects and bus replacements, but of the TTC’s operating budget and staffing levels which prevent full fleet utilization of any mode on the system.
Lacking in TTC budget information, especially notable at a time when Mayor Chow calls for open dialog and transparency, is a clear statement of how much service the TTC can actually operate at various funding levels.
It is convenient for management to point to system ridership at about 80% of pre-covid numbers, but this does not account for the unequal level of recovery through the week. Weekends are already a time of strong demand, and Sundays are running above pre-covid levels.
Weekdays might, on average, be lower than historical numbers, but a well-known issue is that Tuesday through Thursday are the busiest days when more people come to work. On average, weekdays might be below early 2020 levels, but the TTC does not report how this demand is spread by day, and complaints of crowding are common.
Openness in budget and service planning might aid the debate, but so far proposals have been more “business as usual” with an asterisk beside possible improvements due to budget constraint. The freshly minted TTC Board has yet to demand a wider range of options, the costs they would entail, and an analysis of the TTC’s ability to actually field more service.
The 2024 Service Plan is part of the TTC Board’s November 22 agenda, and I will report on it in a few days (it’s a thick agenda this month).
Two new cars with more to follow are welcome, but they will simply add to the 30% of the streetcar fleet that sit idle every day, far more than should be needed for maintenance spares. It is the classic budget problem: money for new capital purchases, but no money to operate them.
Links:
Steve Munro 
Now replace the single-point track switches to be able to use the new streetcars at speed, instead of stop-n-go. Should be continuing to old tech because while they were fine for PCC streetcars, the new streetcars need better double-point track switches. Just like we replaced coal to heat our homes.
Steve: I have to repeat and repeat myself here: the stop-and-go operation arose from unreliable electronics controlling the switches. It does not matter how many blades they have, if the control system does not work, they will still stop at the switch to verify its position. A related issue a control system that sets the switch before a car reaches it, not until it’s right on top of the point(s) with an operator hoping it will stay in/ move to the correct position.
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Hi Steve,
You mentioned towards the end that we have money for capital purchases but not to operate them. But I feel that we don’t have money even for Capital expenses.
I always hear that we don’t have enough money to buy new subway cars for line 2. Isn’t that a capital expense? Or is it a case that new streetcars sounds better than new subway cars? Isn’t that the exact opposite of the Streetcar problem – we have enough yards and staff if we were to say replace the existing Line 2 subway fleet, but we don’t have money to buy them?
Steve: The streetcar order has been in the works for some time, and there was money available when they were ordered. However, there was a period when the TTC downplayed buying a new Line 2 subway fleet or replacing the old signals with ATC, preferring instead to plan for a life extension program. By the time they changed their minds, there was no money for new cars.
A new fleet was part of Andy Byford’s unpublished Line 2 Renewal plan, but that was sidelined by Rick Leary until fairly recently. A really bad call, but it kept the funding requirement for cars, signals and maintenance facility upgrades off of the City’s projected needs (probably to suit John Tory’s underplaying of the City’s financial problems) just when Leary should have been beating the drum for more money.
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As we are, again, talking of switches, I recommend everyone should read this Report coming to the TTC Board next week and look forward to your meeting report in due course.
Though it mainly deals with overhead, it also talks of switches.
It is a damning litany of screw-ups and lack of ‘management’.
Steve: I will be reviewing this in detail, but it is also worth watching the management presentation in the video of the Audit and Risk Management Committee where the report was first discussed. Management talked a lot about all the work they were doing over some years to improve procedures and controls, but this did not align with the Auditor General’s findings based on a review of 2022 (i.e. recent) activity.
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Hi Steve,
Thank you for this! You’re awesome!
Would you consider adding a hyperlink to the text “TTC Board”, & adding text & a hyperlink to the TTC’s “Get involved” page?
FYI only in case that helps get more people informed & involved, or at least watching the meeting on youtube, & maybe making written submissions and/or verbal deputations (in future if not this time)?
I’ve had trouble finding the links before. Had an easier time finding them just now using my cel phone, surprisingly.
(I haven’t gotten involved in TTC meetings before myself beyond any petitions via TTCriders etc.)
TTC Board mtgs listed here which if one scrolls down, inserts the following hyperlink with the text “Get Involved”.
I know some people are paying more attention to the BudgetTO consultations that are on right now. And maybe haven’t realized the TTC 2024 service plan is going to a board mtg already(?).
Thank you for all you’ve done already!
Best wishes, Alison
Steve: I am working on an article about the 2024 service plan, and will be munching through the rather fat agenda over coming days. Depending on what’s on the agenda, sometimes I do a preview, other times just a wrap-up.
Thanks for reading!
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The first five of these new cars just replace the two “flood” cars and three cars out of service for a long time with major damage. There are also two-three at Harvey Shops for 8-year body overhauls (has it been that long already?) at any time so the first half-dozen of this order just gets the usable fleet back to 204.
Steve: Considering that a combination of budget limits and construction projects has kept the peak service to about 140 cars for a few years, whether it’s 200 or 204 makes little difference.
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I am having to wait 30 minutes for streetcars both during regular daytime and rush hours. This is unacceptable and it’s also why most riders are upset. When you have a two hour grace period which is taken up by waiting 30 minutes, there goes your free 2 hour transfer. Whomever is doing the scheduling, isn’t riding the rocket. TTC, you used to be known as the better way. Now it’s only the Bitter Way! Fix it!
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Are you hiring more operators to actually operate the new vehicles?
Do you have a place to store the new vehicles?
Steve: You took the words right out of my mouth!
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It’s annoying that some transit influencers keep pushing the idea that double [blade] switches will solve everything. They must know the TTC streetcars used to fly over single bladed switches prior to the derailment.
Shows how much the TTC cares about its streetcar network, that it won’t bother to upgrade the electronics for its switches. Surely it’s not that expensive?
Steve: There is something of a Catch 22 here. The distrust of electric switches is so deeply ingrained in operating procedure and risk aversion, that it would be a major change to roll back the “safety” precautions. As for new electronics, this problem goes back 30 years and there was a lot of foot-dragging trying to come up with a new system. I do not know if they ever considered an “off the shelf” switching and signalling system from an existing vendor.
I asked repeatedly about the status of the Capital project to replace the electronics and it was always “next year”, and then “still in design”, and finally delayed by the pandemic. I am waiting to see if it shows up in the 2024 Capital Budget.
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But, it [Robert Lubinski’s comment] does make a difference, if the original question posed in this section is ever to be answered.
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These newest streetcars are a complete waste of money. The TTC already has 204 new streetcars and the peak fleet utilisation rate is less than 40% and add 60 more of these wasteful streetcars to make it 264 and they will be doing nothing but collecting dust. This money could and should have been spent in unserved and underserved areas such as Scarborough and Rexdale. It would be wise to immediately retire the oldest 60 of the new fleet (4400 to 4459) to reduce storage and maintenance costs.
Steve: Your math is a tad off. Peak scheduled streetcar service is 144 cars in the PM peak. This is 71%, not “less than 40%”. Moreover for that level of scheduled service, between 22 and 28 spares are required for maintenance and extra service. Taking the conservative figure gets us to 166 (81%). When streetcars return to St. Clair, that will push the number up to about 186 (91%), and more cars will be needed for restoration of King service to Broadview Station.
You really don’t know what you’re talking about.
Meanwhile the bus fleet utilization is about 1,600 scheduled vehicles out of a fleet of over 2,100, or about 76% before allowing for spares. This is only slightly better than the streetcar fleet utilization.
The real problem is that the TTC is starved for operating funds and cannot run all of the vehicles they own.
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Were there any changes made to these new vehicles, even minor changes they might have recognized the need for after experience with the first 204?
Steve: Good question. I will inquire.
Update: The cars are built to the same specs plus fixes that have been identified over the years on the first group. The TTC did not provide a list.
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