Day: November 22, 2023

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TTC 2024 Service Plan Update

The 2024 Service Plan was presented and approved at the November 22, 2023 TTC Board meeting.

Construction Plans for 2024

The presentation includes a chart showing major construction plans in 2024. The overhead projects are for the completion of migration to pantograph-only overhead. (It is hard to believe that they would take Queens Quay and Fleet out of service during the CNE in Q3, but I’m not planning the City’s infrastructure projects.)

The overhead projects raise the question of whether they will actually occur on time. Past work has been scheduled, diversions implemented, and then nothing happened. Riders should not have to put up with disorganized project scheduling.

The only major track project (beyond completion of St. Clair West Station and the 501 Queen via Adelaide connection) is on King West from Dufferin to Shaw. In the Service Plan report, one set of diversion routes was shown for the 504 King, 29/929 Dufferin and 63 Ossington routes. This has been revised, and there are now two options under consideration, both different from the one in the report.

Here is the original plan which has two phases with the second being for the duration of the intersection replacement at Dufferin planned for June/July 2024. Note the removal of service on King west of Dufferin in this version.

For phase 1 (mid-February to late June, August to late October) there are two new options which preserve service on King between Dufferin and Roncesvalles by extending 63 Ossington buses west to Sunnyside Loop. In both options, the 504 King service diverts north via Shaw to Queen, but the difference lies in what happens at Dufferin Street.

In option 1 (left below), the 501A Queen cars divert south to Dufferin Loop. Service on Queen west of Dufferin is provided by the 504 King cars with the 504B service running to Humber Loop until late evening. Late evening service through to Long Branch will be provided by the 501C as it is today.

In option 2 (right below), the 501 Queen cars stay on Queen Street, and the 504B diverts south to Dufferin Loop.

508 Lake Shore cars operate via Queen and Shaw in both options.

The 29/929 Dufferin bus service only diverts for the period that the King/Dufferin intersection is closed (not shown here).

The TTC is conducting a survey to determine which of these is preferable to riders.

Their King West project page is here.

Service Reliability

Service reliability will be addressed on various fronts. The phrase “expanding beyond on-time performance and adding emphasis on consistent, well-spaced, and completed service” is very gratifying. If the TTC actually pulls off this change in focus, it should repair many long-standing issues that the simplistic terminal departure metrics completely ignore.

With the change in ridership patterns, there are new periods requiring better service. Even with the system as a whole running at less that 100% of pre-covid ridership, there are routes and time periods that are over 100%. This is compounded by traffic congestion that is, in some places, worse than in 2019.

Budget Directions

The chart below shows two possible futures for TTC service. On the left is at best a stand pat scenario where service is trimmed to reduce the call on City subsidy and savings, if any, might go to reduce deficits, not to support operations. On the right is a scenario for improvement with better funding and service quality.

The 2024 budget will likely appear at the TTC Board in December, but the final choice will be up to Council and, indirectly, to other governments and their support for municipal spending.

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TTC Five Year Service and Customer Experience Action Plan 2024-2028: Final Consultation Round

The TTC is conducting its final round of consultation about its five year service plan covering the period from 2024 to 2028. This is a longer view of what the TTC might focus on over multiple years, a related but separate process from the Annual Service Plan for 2024 that will come to the TTC Board’s November 22 meeting. Although the range begins in 2024, in practice, 2025 will be the first budget year informed by the five year plan.

There is an online survey covering many topics, and I will review that it more detail later in this article.

Of particular interest as background to this process is the result of the third consultation round conducted in late summer. The TTC’s overview of the action plan and consultation includes detailed notes of feedback from various groups: online survey respondents, stakeholders (community groups and advocates), employees, riders, and youth ambassadors. There is a common thread through all of them about problems with information and communications, service quality and management. What remains to be seen will be whether the TTC has any appetite for addressing these issues rather than making superficial changes that sound good but achieve little.

I recommend reading those consultation summaries both to transit riders who might think they are lonely voices crying into the wind for better service, and to politicians who have only a tenuous grasp of what riders really want and need. Open the overview page for the service plan, and scroll down to Consultation Documents, Round Three.

Of course any major change depends on funding if more service is involved, but it also requires an organizational recognition that every transit problem cannot be blamed on uncontrollable, external forces. The issue of communications is entangled with the TTC’s organizational structure and the fractured responsibility for various aspects of getting the message out to riders.

The service plan itself echoes these limitations in that it talks about what might be done in general, but it is silent on basic matters such as how much service the TTC can physically provide (fleet size and availability, staffing limitations), and the magnitude of costs involved in changing service levels. Some issues, such as better management of service frequency and reliability require recognition that simplistic definitions for “on time” have little meaning in the real world faced by riders and operators.

The time is long overdue to stop the kudos for achieving “key performance indicators” that misrepresent the actual quality of operations. Lest this seem a rather broad indictment without background, I refer readers to the many articles I have written both on the content of the CEO’s Report and detailed reviews of day-to-day operations.

A review of the fourth round online survey follows below together with notes on information from this round of stakeholder meetings.

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