Author: Steve

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Eglinton LRT: Trouble Brewing in Mt. Dennis (Update 2)

Updated February 17 at 11:00 pm:  At today’s TTC meeting, despite a very long series of deputations from residents of the Mt. Dennis area and a number of local political representatives, the Commission decided to proceed with the staff’s recommended alignment for the Eglinton LRT.

Although I have supported this project and Transit City, today’s meeting ranks among the worst travesties of “public participation” I have ever seen.  This fell on the same day as the launch of the TTC’s vaunted “Customer Service” project showing just how threadbare that scheme already is.

Deputations at the TTC are to begin at 2 pm, but there were many presentations early in the meeting, and the Eglinton item didn’t really get underway until nearly 3.  Staff began with a presentation that completely ignored the specifics of the objections raised by the community, and presented the situation as a choice between two options:

  1. An all-surface option with a station at the intersection of Black Creek Drive, and an island-platform station west of the Weston/Eglinton intersection.
  2. An all-underground option with a station under Eglinton west of Black Creek, and a station under Eglinton west of Weston Road.

One critical point about both designs is that they require a wide tunnel structure around Weston Station and the demolition of a row of houses at Pearen Road.  The TTC did not address the question of moving the station east of Weston Road to reduce or possibly eliminate conflict with the houses and to improve a future connection to GO Transit at the rail corridor.

After the deputations, during which Chair Giambrone had to be reminded by one speaker to pay attention to the public and stop playing with his Blackberry, came a brief discussion between Commissioners and staff.  A few amendments were proposed to the recommendations including a scheme to seek supplementary funding (this might be called the “faint hope clause” for transit projects), but these failed.

In his concluding remarks Giambrone told the assembled crowd, many of whom had been in the meeting room for well over four hours, that in fact the TTC could not change the selected alignment because it had already been approved by Council and was sitting at Queen’s Park for review.  In effect, Giambrone said that all of the public consultation since early December, 2009, when Council approved the Transit Project Assessment, was for naught because the decision had already been taken.

In fact, the TPA process includes an option for amendment, and the TTC plans to use this once they finalize the alignment at Pearson Airport.  Why isn’t this option available for a change elsewhere in the design?  Why was the TTC still holding public meetings on details of project design when there was no intention of entertaining changes?

Some speakers addressed the use of the Kodak lands for the proposed carhouse, and asked that alternative schemes be considered.  Part of this relates to a proposed “big box” development on the land.  However, Council approved the acquisition of this property, by expropriation if necessary, in December.

I could understand the TTC simply saying “look, Council has decided, there’s only enough money for the recommended option, sorry, but that’s how it’s going to be”.  At least that would be honest.  It would not string the community and their Councillors along with the idea that the design might be altered.

This is a classic abuse of process by a public organization, and shows all too clearly the problems introduced by the new “speedy” TPA.  Although there is an appeal mechanism, the grounds for an appeal are very limited.  This is not Transit City’s finest hour, and it damages the credibility of the TPA process generally.

Councillors would be well-advised to be less quick in granting approval to TPA reports lest they give away their last chance to modify a project proposal.

The earlier information in this article follows the break.

Continue reading →

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City Finds Rabbit in Hat: Balances Budget and Funds TTC (Updated)

Updated February 17:

The City’s Budget Analyst report on the TTC is now available online.  I will comment on it in more detail when I have time, but a few points warrant immediate attention.

The big issue in TTC budgeting is always the ridership projection and the anticipated revenue from fares.  This number has been jumping around a bit.

In the February 15 Budget Presentation, the City shows increased fare revenue from the TTC as providing $50m reduction in the original estimate of the City’s shortfall (see page 15).  However, in the Analyst’s notes, a value of $48.4m is cited on page 29 as a gross number.  From this, the Analyst deducts a charge of $12.125m to account for fare revenue “lost” to Metropass users giving a net figure of $36.805m.

The reason for this is that the Analyst uses budget numbers, not real numbers.  Therefore, to get from 2009 to 2010, one must first remove the $12.125m from 2009 to get an adjusted base, and then add in whatever benefit a fare change will bring.

On page 3 of the Analyst’s report, we learn that the TTC’s preliminary year-end report showed that the 2009 revenue shortfall was almost exactly matched by underexpenditures due to lower energy costs and an accounting change in treatment of future accident claims.

Today, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone updated his Facebook page with this information:

It has just come up that ridership is up 1% over last year despite the fare increase in January. And we reviewed the point that TTC actually recorded a SURPLUS of $300,000…amazing especially that at one point we were $23 million behind. It took a lot of work, but we did it. [Posted at about noon on February 17]

The TTC has not yet published stats for December 2009, but based on strong results in January, one might expect that December was a good month also, relative to budget expectations. 

The 1% increase in ridership (which applies to the first three weeks of January) is quite different from the expected riding drop after the fare increase.  Whether this will be sustained through the year remains to be seen, but it is a pleasant sign.  Having said that, a sustained increase would give full year results of about 476m riders, not the budgeted 462m.  Whether the service budget based on the lower ridership can handle more riders will depend on where the increases come and whether they can be absorbed into the service actually operated.

On the budget side, 14m more rides than budget translates to a tidy pot of unexpected revenue.  We do not yet know how many of these new rides are full adult fares, increased use of passes or greater riding at concession rates (students, seniors, children).  By the end of April, when the City budget comes to Council, the TTC should be required to provide an updated projection of its ridership, revenue and funding needs so that the subsidy level can be adjusted accordingly.

When TTC staff proposed the fare increase last November, they projected that there would be a $106m shortfall in 2010 before any budget adjustements in the new year.  Various scenarios were presented, and the one recommended included a 25-cent adult fare increase (pro-rated to concession fares) and a two-trip increase in the Metropass multiple.  This scheme was projected to bring in $50m net of the effect of lost riding.  (see page 8.)

However, the Commission actually improved a 25-cent adult increase, but no change in the Metropass multiple.  This is clearly shown in the staff report as generating only $38.9m in revenue net of losses in ridership, and this does not include the cost of an adult student pass rate starting in September 2010. 

Neither of figures includes the net effect of the $12m in “lost” Metropass revenue.  The Budget Analyst has flagged this in the “Issues for Discussion”, but the City’s budget does not reflect the lower net figure for new revenue compared to the 2009 budget.

Much of the confusion arises from the comparison of budget-to-budget figures, rather than using probable actuals as a base reference, and of citing gross effects of proposed changes such as new fares rather than net effects.

In summary, the TTC (and the City) appear to be overstating the net revenue benefit of the fare increase at the budgetary level, but may be rescued from their errors by stronger than projected ridership.

The original February 16 article follows the break.

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LRT For Hamilton, Maybe

The Metrolinx Board Meeting agenda for February 19 includes the Draft Benefits Case Analysis for Hamilton’s King-Main LRT corridor.

The route would link McMaster University with Eastgate Square, and the alignment would be the same for either an LRT or a BRT implementation.

East Section – turning from a segregated terminus adjacent to Eastgate Square the alignment travels westward in a median transitway via Queenston Road to the Main Street / Ottawa Street Intersection.

Downtown Section – the alignment continues westward from the Main Street/Ottawa Street Intersection along a median of King Street East across John Street and James Street through downtown. The alignment continues along King Street West across Highway 403 to Longwood Road South where it provides convenient access to Westdale Village and the McMaster Community. At Longwood Road South the alignment runs southbound to Main Street.

West Section – From Longwood Road South the alignment transitions into the centre of Main Street and continues westward towards the McMaster University Medical Centre before turning north towards the terminus station on the McMaster University campus. (Page 24)

The BCA examines three options: 

  1. all BRT,
  2. all LRT, or
  3. a staged implementation of LRT on the heavier western part of the route connecting at King and Ottawa to BRT for the remainder.  The LRT would be extended to Eastgate Square at a future date.

Common to all designs would be the reintroduction of two-way traffic on what is now the one-way pair of King and Main Streets in downtown Hamilton.

The BCA considers but rejects the option of diverting the route south to link with Hunter Street Station, now the site of GO Transit’s Hamilton rail service.  A GO connection will be important, but to which station?  The recently announced extension of service to Niagara Falls will return train service to the old James Street Station on the north side of downtown.  Indeed, more trains may run through James Street than to Hunter Street.  The rapid transit line cannot connect with both of them.

GO Transit unveiled a plan last night in which it aims to extend all-day train service — that now goes to Aldershot — to a proposed station on the CN line at James Street North. That would involve 10 trains each way between the proposed new Hamilton station and Union Station in Toronto. Niagara would see four trains each way between Union Station and Niagara Falls. Hamilton would keep its eight trains — four each way — that now run between Union Station and the former Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway station on Hunter Street.

Source: Canadian Pacific Daily News Scan from the Hamilton Spectator and the Niagara Falls Review, January 27, 2010

After a great deal of number crunching (which I will leave to my readers’ copious spare time), the report concludes:

Overall, the results indicate that an investment in LRT in Hamilton will generate significant benefits and support the City’s broader objectives to revitalize, redevelop and reshape its most significant east-west corridor. While the lowest cost option, Option 1, produces the highest benefit-cost ratio of 1.4, both LRT options generated benefit-cost ratios that are greater than 1.0. The highest cost option, Option 2, also produced the greatest benefits in all accounts, all of which make an important contribution towards achieving the objectives and goals of both the City and the Province.  (Page 51)

This is a straightforward, unambiguous conclusion.  However, there is a covering report on the Metrolinx agenda, and it is not quite so clear in supporting LRT.

Although full LRT is the highest-cost option, it also generates the highest transportation user benefits in terms of travel time savings, ridership attraction and overall “qualitative” travel experience. LRT also carries a stronger potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and generate more significant economic development impacts such as employment, income and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for the city and region. The BCA also identifies LRT as having greater potential to shape land uses and uplift land values along the King-Main corridor.

BRT is considerably less expensive to build and thus generates a strong benefits-cost ratio. At the same time, however, BRT delivers less total benefits and its secondary benefits are less extensive.

On the other hand, the significantly higher investment required for the full LRT option will require careful attention to the partial LRT option to increase affordability – and even to the BRT option if sufficient funding is unavailable for either LRT option. (Page 2, italics added)

This is an astounding statement.  “Sufficient funding unavailable”?  Whatever happened to the brave new world of The Big Move where transit investments would flow like water from Queen’s Park?  Are we suddenly feeling poor, and cutting back on transit options?  This rapid transit line is the second in the “top 15” priority list.

If the BCA had shown LRT to be a poor choice, one might understand taking the least cost option, but that is not the case here.

Metrolinx has some explaining to do, especially in regard to the many other top priority projects in its hopper.  Maybe transit isn’t quite as important as Dalton McGuinty claimed it was back on that sunny day in June 2007 when he announced MoveOntario 2020.

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Service Changes For February 2010 (Updated)

The following service changes will occur effective Sunday, February 14, 2010.

Updated to include a table comparing service levels on 512 St. Clair.

305 Eglinton East Night Bus & 354 Lawrence East Night Bus

These routes now operate separately from each other, with three vehicles on each route, and have difficulty maintaining schedules.  To give both routes more running time, one bus will be added, and the routes will be interlined to give each route an additional 15 minutes for a round trip.

Buses will alternate trips on each route.

44 Kipling South

Saturday afternoon running times will be increased, and service will be improved, to counteract reliability problems.  The existing 15 minute headway with 2 buses will change to a 12 minute headway with 3 buses.

116 Morningside & 86 Scarborough Service Blending

Midday headways on the 116 will be widened from 8’30” to 9’00” to provide extra running time.  No buses will be added to the route.  Midday headways on the 86 will be widened from 8’00” to 9’00”.  One less bus will be needed on the 86.

In both cases, the average load will rise from 36 to 38, within the offpeak service standards.

Early evening headways on the 116 will be changed from 7’45” to 7’30” to match the existing 86 headway.

512 St. Clair

Running times will be increased during many periods to reflect actual requirements for this route.  No cars will be added, but scheduled headways will be widened.  The affected periods are:

  • Weekdays afternoon, pm peak, early evening
  • Weekends morning and afternoon

The table linked below compares the April 2007 schedule (just before the west end of the line closed for construction), the original January 2010 schedule, and the revised February version. 

2010 vs 2007 Service Comparison

Zoo Services

The 85 Sheppard East and 86 Scarborough schedules will be adjusted so that the last trip from the Zoo matches its later closing time (7 pm) beginning in mid March.

Driving Time vs Recovery Time

One of the oddities of TTC schedules is that many routes have “recovery time” that is, in fact, little more than a rounding factor so that the headway will work out to an exact integer.  For example, on the 44 Kipling South change above, the new schedule has a 12 minute headway, but this is achieved with 34 minutes of driving time and 2 minutes of recovery per round trip.

A few routes have schedule adjustments that consist of nothing more than reallocating time from recovery to driving.  This means that the actual time provided for a vehicle to make a round trip is unchanged, but the “recovery” which might be used for a break at a terminal is squeezed.

This affects:

  • 34 Eglinton East (peak)
  • 16 McCowan (weekday early evening)
  • 116 Morningside (peak)
  • 224 Victoria Park North
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Adam Giambrone Withdraws From Mayoral Race

At 11:00 am today, Adam Giambrone held a press conference at which he profusely apologised to his supporters, to his personal partner, and to his fellow Councillors for the recent revelations about his personal life and his mishandling of the response.  Then he left the podium.

A few minutes later, his Executive Assistant, Kevin Beaulieu, return to read the full statement in which Giambrone announced that he was withdrawing from the mayoralty race, but would remain as Councillor for Ward 18 and Chair of the TTC.  He wants to address the renaissance of the TTC and the building of Transit City.

Whether he actually gets to do this remains to be seen.  The Commission will meet next week, and it is possible that a vote of non-confidence will end Giambrone’s role as Chair.  His opponents may use this opportunity to tar much of what he and others in Mayor Miller’s camp have achieved with transit, and that would be a terrible mistake.  Those changes, those policies exist not just because of Giambrone, but because many Councillors, the Mayor, Queen’s Park and countless members of the public recognize that transit in Toronto must improve.  The Chair may pass to another Councillor, but the organization and the goals remain.

The TTC is in desperate need of clear, unambiguous leadership from someone who inspires confidence and trust, from someone whose word can be believed, whose announcements are not second-guessed as photo ops for a political campaign.

I have been a long-time supporter and advisor to Adam Giambrone, but my view is that he must step down.

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Walking the Talk (2)

Today (February 9), Bob Kinnear, the President of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, held a press conference to present the union’s response to recent events and statements on the TTC, in the media and from TTC management.

Note that the text linked here was scanned from the version distributed to the media before the briefing, and it may not exactly match Kinnear’s presentation.  However, the text doesn’t appear to be in a convenient online location and so I am posting it here.

The text reads fairly well and while it takes a firm stance, it does acknowledge that things need to change.  To that end, the ATU plans to organize a series of Town Halls where the public and union members can discuss issues related to the TTC and how they might be addressed.  Whether such events will be at all cordial I don’t know given the comments on various blogs and media sites, but at least the union is trying to go to the public with its story.

I wasn’t at the press conference, but received news of it later and saw a few clips on the evening news.  Unfortunately, what I saw showed Kinnear in the more familiar, combative mode that is the union’s public face.  Some of this was selective editing.  For example, there was a line “Who made you God?” which was directed at the TTC’s Brad Ross for implying that it is possible to take a washroom break in only 3 minutes, including the time it takes to get between the vehicle and the washroom.  This was forcefully (more than necessary) delivered, and used as a free-standing clip by Global TV.

Later, I was interviewed by Global, but they used only a snippet out of a longer conversation.  In that clip, I said, in effect, that the problem of rude staff isn’t a one-or-two-of thing because there are simply too many separate reports coming from reasonably credible sources.  I didn’t mention that I (and I’m sure anyone else who is even vaguely connected with the TTC) am getting notes and reports from friends about their experiences.

The larger context of the interview was first my pleasure that the union took the high road even though, as I understood things, Kinnear’s delivery of the message used a hard line that might have been counterproductive.  I talked about “TTC culture” and a management where, for anything that happens, the first reaction is to find something external to blame rather than looking inside for improvement.

I also talked about the need for some labour discussions to take place in public, and unusual move I know.  One of the big issues through the past weeks is the question of breaks — how long, how often, where.  Some operating shifts have breaks built in, but not all of them, and even the scheduled breaks can be thrown awry if service is always badly off kilter.  Fixing this will take much negotiation and probably changes in the way operators’ work is defined and scheduled.

Recent events are so public that at least the broad outline of the issues, positions and possible fixes must be visible so that even if everyone can’t agree (and I use a very broad definition of “everyone”), at least they will understand the options on the table.

(I am not going to get into a debate about the level of operators’ wages here as we have pounded that topic to death before.)

The joys of media coverage, whether you’re a union president, a politician or just a transit advocate, involve the chances one takes in the editing.  I said what I said, and I stand by that, but wanted those who might only see the five second clip to know the larger story.

Please note that comments on this item will be strongly monitored for intemperate language.  This is a complex issue and it deserves an informed, detailed discussion, not rants from either side of the political spectrum.

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The Mythology of Benefits Case Analyses

Among my many “things to do” on this site is an evisceration of the concept of the “Benefits Case Analysis” as practised by Metrolinx.  These analyses purport to judge the value of project options by reducing many aspects of the process to a monetary value.

This scheme is born of an era when nobody cared about the soft, social benefits and costs of doing or not doing something, when “businesslike” behaviour was the goal for all right-minded public enterprise.  Sadly, we never had a discussion about what “businesslike” actually means.  Recent private sector examples appear to involve raiding not only your own cookie jar, but getting the government (ie: you and me and our descendents beyond count) to keep refilling that cookie jar to save the starving plutocrats.  I will generously assume that this is not the sort of behaviour Metrolinx has in mind.

[The above paragraph is for the benefit of readers who decry my left-leaning stance on many issues.  Now and then I have to throw them a bone, a quote they can use to prove their point.]

In a future post, I plan to review one or two of the Metrolinx BCAs.  Their most glaring failure lies in the scope of the analysis.  The Big Move is a network, but each BCA considers only an individual component of that network, not its role in the overall picture.  Moreover, construction spending is actually treated as a benefit because of the employment and other economic effects it would generate.  This completely misses the larger picture of public sector spending (might a hospital be more valuable than a new transit line), not to mention the future implications of the public debt (however it might be hidden in public or private sector accounts) for the viability of transit systems and governments.

Jarrett Walker’s Human Transit blog has an interesting article on the evolution of Benefit Case Analysis and the flawed philosophy underpinning the methodology.

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A Response to “Save Our Subways”

For some time, I have stayed away from the “Save Our Subways” dialogue over on UrbanToronto in part because Transit City and related issues are presented as being “Steve Munro’s” plan (there’s even a poll that just went up on that subject), and because there are many comments in the SOS thread that are personal insults, not fair comment, well-informed or otherwise.

Such are the joys of an unmoderated forum.

Some have proposed a public debate, possibly televised, which I flatly reject.  First off, the issues are more complex than can be properly handled in that forum, and it certainly should not turn into a mayoral candidates’ debate on transit.  I do not know any candidate who could debate the details of either commentary.

Second, the lynch mob mentality of some writers on UrbanToronto is utterly inappropriate to “debate”, and this poisons many of the discussions on that site.

Recently I was asked by the authors of the Move Toronto proposal to respond, and this article is an attempt to start that dialogue in a forum where civility occasionally breaks through the diatribes.

To begin with, there are areas where SOS and I agree strongly, notably on the need for the Downtown Relief Line (at least the eastern side of it).  I’ve been advocating this for years at the very least as a high-end LRT line, more recently as a full subway as that technology fits its location in the network better and is well suited to the likely demand.

Where we part company is the premise that we have to give up big chunks of Transit City to pay for the DRL.  This sets up a false dialogue where TC lines are portrayed as overpriced and underperforming, denigrated at least in part to justify redirecting funding to the DRL.  That is an extremely short-sighted tactic and harms the cause of overall transit improvements.  It takes us back to the days of debating which kilometre of subway we will build this year.

I don’t intend to repeat my three long posts about Transit City here, but anyone who has read them knows that I do not slavishly support everything in that plan.  If anything, the lack of movement on some valid criticisms people have raised regarding TC sets up a confrontational dynamic.  Instead, the City/TTC could have been seen as responding to concerns.

Now, with the mayoralty campaign, attacking TC has become a surrogate for attacking the Miller program and the candidacy of Adam Giambrone.  These need to be disentangled if we are to have any sort of sensible debate.

My greatest concern is that whoever is the new mayor, the issues will be so clouded by electoral excess, by positions taken as debating points, as sound bites to attack an opponent, that we won’t be able to sort fact from fiction afterwards.  If, for example, George Smitherman winds up as Mayor, he will need a reasoned program, likely a mixture of some old, some new, not a “throw it all out and start over” policy.  People will have different ideas about what that new program might be, and that’s a valid debate.

Whether Steve Munro is an arch villain (SFX: maniacal laughter) plotting the end of civilized transportation is quite another matter.  To some, I have a vast reach through the political machinery of the GTA, while to others I am irrelevant.  I am not the issue.  Transit is.

These comments are organized roughly in the sequence of the Move Toronto paper (6mb download).  Although variations and alternatives have appeared in other locations, notably threads on the UrbanToronto website, I have not attempted to address these as they are (a) a moving target and (b) not necessarily the formal position of the Save Our Subways group.

I believe that Move Toronto contains many flaws arising from an underlying desire to justify a subway network just as critics of Transit City argue against its focus on LRT.  Among my major concerns are:

  • Subway lines are consistently underpriced.
  • LRT is dismissed as an inferior quality of service with statements more akin to streetcar lines than a true LRT implementation.
  • Having used every penny to build the subway network, Move Toronto proposes a network of BRT lines for the leftover routes. However, this “network” is in fact little more than the addition of traffic signal priority and queue jump lanes (“BRT Light”) on almost all of the BRT “network”.
  • Parts of the BRT network suggest that the authors lack familiarity with the affected neighbourhoods and travel patterns.
  • There is no financial analysis of the life-cycle cost of building and operating routes with subway technology even though demand is unlikely to reach subway levels within the lifetime of some of the infrastructure.

That’s the introductory section.  The full commentary is available as a pdf.

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Walking the Talk

Today, the TTC issued a Media Advisory containing a letter for all TTC staff from Chief General Manager Gary Webster.

Our Customers Deserve Better

February 6, 2010

I don’t know about you, but I am becoming increasingly tired of defending the reputation of the TTC; tired of explaining what is acceptable and what is not; and tired of stating the obvious: that much of the behaviour being reported is, indeed, unacceptable.

You have heard me say that I am proud of the TTC. I still am, but I am not proud of what we have been dealing with over the last several weeks.

Two weeks ago I said that the vast majority of TTC employees care about the organization and do a good job, but we can all do better. I asked everyone to respond well. Some of you did. Clearly, some of you did not.

We all have to accept responsibility for allowing the TTC to drift into a culture of unacceptable operating discipline. In other words, we have deemed it acceptable for some employees to not do all aspects of their jobs.

We have two choices. We can continue to react to issues, deal with individual employee problems, and hope that the rest of our employees get the message, behave themselves and not get caught doing something they should not be doing.

The other choice, and the one we are going to take, is a much broader approach. Expectations need to be clear, especially for frontline employees. And employees need to be held accountable for their poor performance.

We are in the customer service business, but some of the behaviour our customers have encountered recently would suggest otherwise. Our customers pay a fare and the City provides hundreds of millions of dollars every year to the TTC. This public transit agency belongs to the very people we serve.

As Chief General Manager, I am ultimately accountable to our customers. As employees, you – and you alone – are accountable for your actions. The culture of complacency and malaise that has seeped into our organization will end. I hold all of management responsible to make this happen. Reviews and plans are under way to address systemic issues regarding customer service, but real change starts with you.

Gary Webster

Chief General Manager

On the same day, Joe Clark, who writes about many issues including transit, but from a design, signage and accessability perspective, was on a Queen car where the operator clearly was wearing earphones.  When Joe challenged him, the situation escalated including calls for assistance to Transit Control, and officious behaviour from a TTC Supervisor.  Both TTC staffers persisted in claiming that photography on the TTC is illegal (it isn’t, and there is a specific section both in the bylaw and on the TTC website on this subject).

TTC staff may feel under siege from the hordes of camera-bearing riders, but I have absolutely no sympathy.  If they are doing their jobs properly, there will be nothing to photograph.

Joe Clark can be a pain in the butt, but his valid messages are too often ignored by the TTC.  (Even I have been the target of his less than decorous comments.  Some folks consider a mention on his site as almost a badge of honour.)  His frequent letters and deputations to the monthly meetings are almost always “received” (thanks, now bugger off), and hardly anyone at the meeting table pays any attention while he speaks.  That is precisely the sort of treatment that sends guerilla photographers out into the streets looking for the most embarrassing shot they can find.

Good manners start at the very top, even when the customers or deputants at TTC meetings have messages you don’t want to hear.

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TTC Trip Planner Available For Beta Testing (Updated)

Updated February 3 at 10:55:  The TTC added another server to the trip planner last night, and this may explain some of the outages during the evening.

The TTC has announced a trial version of its online trip planner.  Those of us who have played with earlier versions know it has some warts, and the TTC wants your input.  There is a feedback form linked to the planner pages.

The TTC wants feedback from users about the beta version of its trip planner as it continues to develop this tool. When complete, the TTC trip planner will include alternate route suggestions, an expanded points of interest list, a mobile application, the ability to create profiles, and complete integration with e-alerts and service changes. Later this year, the TTC will make its trip planner data openly available to the public and outside organizations, such as Google, so applications can be developed that will be useful to TTC customers.  [From the TTC’s press release]

Please direct technical notes about what it does or doesn’t do to the TTC, and keep track of your submissions (I’m sure the dedicated among us will have many).  The real test will be how quickly changes and fixes are implemented.