Author: Steve

by

Fare By Distance? Not When It Suits GO (Updated)

Today, GO Transit implements a 25-cent across the board increase in all fares.  Writing in the Star, Tess Kalinowski reports displeasure among commuters who have been slapped with higher relative increases for short trips than for long ones.

This isn’t the first time GO increased fares disproportionately, but the cumulative effect sets a pattern.

One commuter who travels from Old Cummer to Union complained that:

… the flat-fare hike means riders who live in Toronto are subsidizing passengers travelling from places such as Hamilton and Barrie.

“Over the last five years, I’ve seen my fares go up 27 per cent. Somebody from Barrie has seen their rates go up 9 per cent, Oshawa 14 per cent, Hamilton 10 per cent,” he said.

In response, GO replies that many costs have nothing to do with how far someone travels:

Transit officials defended the increase, saying many of the system’s costs, such as snow removal, station improvements and communications, are fixed and have nothing to do with distance. They also worry about discouraging riders from farther afield by pricing them out of the system.

Strange, that argument.  It’s precisely the one for which I, among others, have been villified when suggesting a flat (or at least flatter) GTA-wide fare policy.  Long distance riders are subsidised with free parking, new make-work garage building, and proportionately lower fares relative to the resources they consume.  Why?  Because we don’t want them driving to and from work.  The costs — both physical to provide and maintain infrastructure, and social to consume so much land with unproductive roadways and a low-density lifestyle — are greater than what it takes to subsidise their commute by GO.

As regulars here know, I have a big problem with parking construction as an alternative to improved local feeder bus services.  This issue will only grow as GO becomes less of a peak period carrier and more of an all day regional rapid transit system.  That’s one of the many areas Metrolinx, in its less than infinite wisdom, chose to ignore.  We won’t have “Mobility Hubs” complete with soaring interiors and palm trees as Metrolinx envisions if stations are surrounded by parking garages, and those who cannot afford to dedicate a car to all-day storage at a GO lot will still be isolated from regional transit services.

Finally, those who advocate for fare-by-distance as a “benefit” of the “Presto!” card (or whatever technology is eventually adopted) should compare notes with the folks at GO for whom high costs for long trips are a very bad idea indeed.  Queen’s Park and its agencies don’t seem to have a consistent view of how we should price transit.  There is no perfect system, and all of them will distribute benefits and rewards inequitably.

Metrolinx could do everyone a big favour by looking at the impact of various options for fare structures, including the wider issues of local service funding and the broad social value of mobility for everyone.  Will they will have the fortitude to take on this issue (and revenue tools in general) rather than studying only infrastructure we may never be able to afford to build and operate?

Update 1, March 14 at 3:50 pm:  Andrew Salmons of Milton has created an online petition requesting not only a reversal of today’s increase, but a lowering of GO’s cost recovery ratio so that fares could be reduced.

by

Waterfront East Surfaces At Last (Update 1)

Update 1, March 5:

The presentation materials from the CLC meeting on March 2 (discussed below) are now available online.  (Warning: 7.5MB file)

On March 2, I attended what is likely the final meeting of the Community Liaison Committee (CLC) for the Waterfront East LRT project.  Further discussion of this subject will now be consolidated with the Queen’s Quay redesign project.

The primary outstanding issue from our discussions going back a few years was the location and number of portals from the Bay Street tunnel to the eastern branch of the Harbourfront route.  Options involving a swing west into Harbour Street, down York Street or down Yonge Street were rejected in an earlier round as being impractical for various reasons involving available space and gradients needed to reach the surface within available city blocks.

Five options were studied in detail, of which one will be the recommended option going forward.  These options were:

  • Bay Street between Lake Shore and Harbour.  Under this option, the existing west portal and Queen’s Quay Station would be abandoned, and a new common surface stop would be created on Bay north of Queen’s Quay.  This option is physically constructible, but poses serious operational problems due to congestion of pedestrians, road and LRT traffic at the Bay & Queen’s Quay intersection.
  • Bay Street between Queen’s Quay and Harbour.  This option will not fit, physically, in the space available.  There is not enough room for tracks to rise to the surface to a “landing” before the special work for a surface intersection with Queen’s Quay.
  • Queen’s Quay between Bay and Yonge Streets.  In this option the portal would lie east of Bay and the stop would be just east of Yonge.  This scheme poses many problems because the road is constrained on both sides by existing buildings.  Access to these buildings, as well as the continuity of pedestrian and cycling areas planned for the street would be difficult or impossible.  This scheme is not viable.
  • Queen’s Quay between Yonge and Freeland Streets.  In this option, the line runs in tunnel to Yonge and then rises to street level just west of Freeland.  The station would be just east of Freeland.  This area has enough room to allow the Queen’s Quay design to be continued through the portal area, and has no adverse traffic impacts.  The Toronto Star building north of the proposed portal has no ground level retail that would be injured by the portal’s presence, and any new building on the south side can be designed for its environment.  This is the recommended option.
  • Queen’s Quay between Freeland and Cooper Streets.  In this option, the line would run in tunnel including an underground station at Yonge, and would rise in a portal in front of the Queen’s Quay LCBO.  The first surface stop would be near Jarvis Street.  This option was rejected primarily because of cost.

Initially, the line will be ended in a temporary loop near Parliament Street at a location to be determined.  A separate study is reviewing the redesign of the Don Mouth area including connection of the Cherry Street LRT through to hook up with the Queen’s Quay East line.

Construction of the new tunnel east from Bay will include modification of the existing structure under the intersection at Queen’s Quay so that a full “T” junction including a through east-west track can be installed.  This would allow a direct service linking the western and eastern waterfronts and on through to the Distillery District or the Port Lands.

The TTC also discussed the expansion of Union Station Loop, but their design has not changed noticeably for over a year.  Some fine tuning is required to bring their scheme into alignment with the proposed Union Station redevelopment plan and its new retail and GO concourses.

The first meeting of the consolidated LRT and Queen’s Quay Design CLCs will occur on March 11, and I expect to have more details on the overall scheme for the line in the larger context of the Queen’s Quay redesign project.

There will be a public drop in centre for these projects on Saturday March 28.  The final version of the Environmental Assessment for the Queen’s Quay East line will go to the TTC in May and to Council in July.  Assuming funding, the line would likely begin operating roughly in 2013.

I will post links to relevant documents as they appear online, as well as details of the drop in centre on March 28.

by

Coming Soon

The past few weeks have been rather quiet for news, and I, along with half of Toronto, have been getting over a bad cold that dampened my enthusiasm for writing.

Very little of substance happened at the February TTC and Metrolinx meetings, and that’s why there was virtually nothing here about them.

Recently, I received the vehicle monitoring data for Queen and related routes for the months of December 2008 and January 2009, and I have just started to work on formatting it for analysis and comment.  This period includes some truly appalling weather, as well as different approaches to line management.  It also brings GPS location to the route (most of the time, most of the vehicles), and this has required some programming changes in the analysis software.  (The data are still quirky, but in a different way.)

I hope to start publishing articles based on these new data in a week or two.

Meanwhile, work by Waterfront Toronto and TTC on the Queen’s Quay east line has surfaced after a long hiatus, and I hope to report on updated plans for this project soon.

by

Metrolinx Manages Public Participation

In today’s Globe and Mail, Jeff Gray has an article about the a Positioning and Communications Strategy dated July 10, 2008 from Metrolinx.  Gray had requested this document from Metrolinx via a Freedom of Information request, and what came back contained one deletion on its final page.

An uncensored copy of that page found its way to the Globe and Mail, and the missing text makes for interesting reading.  Under the heading “Consultation Process”, we find:

Our consultation period needs to be tightly structured and telescoped.  The last thing we need is for this to be highjacked by nimbies or local politicians on the make.  These should be mainly informational briefings.  We should salt the sessions with supporters.  An orgy of consultation will mire this in controversy and delay.

Metrolinx Chair Rob MacIsaac disavows this text saying “those are not my words” and that the paragraph in question was “something that I did not especially agree with”.

I will take MacIsaac at his word, but two critical points remain:

  • These may not be MacIsaac’s words, they are somebody’s or they wouldn’t have appeared in this paper.  They show a mindset bent not just on controlling and streamlining public participation, but of treating any criticism as a force to be neutralized rather than as constructive alternatives to the Gospel of Metrolinx.
  • The nature of the advice in this paragraph, although embarrassing, is no different in character from the sort of comments found throughout the document.  The text was severed on the ground that it was confidential advice to the government, an excuse that is transparently inappropriate.  The Privacy Commission has ruled on several occasions that embarrassment is not valid grounds for withholding information.  Who decided to sever this paragraph from the version sent to the Globe?  Did Rob MacIsaac participate in this decision?

Metrolinx public participation was, in fact, largely structured as information sessions with limited scope for meaningful input.  As the Regional Plan went through various drafts, some public, others private, there was a consistent sense that actually changing anything was almost impossible.

Critiques of demand projections and network structures were met with claims that it was too expensive and time consuming to look at alternatives even though (a) that’s what planning is all about and (b) more recently published Metrolinx studies show clearly that refinements continued to be made in the demand model and network layout.

Metrolinx professes a love of public participation, but their planning process is quite secretive and controlled.  Even the “public advisory committee” is subject to a gag agreement, and this group is expected to provide support for the RTP.  The last time I looked, “public advice” was public, and members of advisory bodies are free to dissent.  If Metrolinx wants trained seals, just hire more consultants.

The process of detailed benefits case analysis is conducted completely out of the public eye, and even when reports emerge, the data in them is too superficial to permit an analysis of how the results were calculated.

Quite recently, indeed, there has been a change in the methodology that causes the value of auto trips diverted to transit to be priced at a much higher level (compare the Scarborough RT and VIVA BCA reports) with the effect that the financial “benefit” of the transit investment appears greater than it might actually be.  This is the hallmark of an agency in a defensive mode trying to put the best possible face on its work.

Metrolinx could be doing a lot of good work, but this is undermined by its secrecy and its distrust of the very communities it serves.  If Metrolinx assumes that opponents are all nimbies or politicians “on the make” at Metrolinx’ expense, then it is short-changing the public.  Indeed, if the politicians on the Board are grandstanding when they don’t happen to agree with the Chair, this shows contempt for the foundations of the organization.

MacIsaac may not have written those words, but whoever did, and whoever approved hiding them from the Globe do not belong in the public service.

by

The TTC “Crime Wave”

Recently, the local media have run low on things to sensationalize.  No governments are falling, the budget debate at City Hall is boring everyone to tears and we’re all in “wait and see” mode until Queen’s Park tells us just how broke they are at the end of March.

Into these doldrums fell a few stories that have been blown out of proportion:

  • January 22:  A shooting at Osgoode Station brought chaos to the afternoon rush hour and the first round of “is the TTC safe to ride” publicity.  In time, we learned that the shooter and victim knew each other, and the wanted suspect has turned himself in to police.
  • February 12:  A man was stabbed at Wilson Station.  No further details are available.
  • February 13:  At Dufferin Station, three teenagers were pushed from the platform in front of an incoming train.  One managed not to fall, the others dropped to track level and, through quick thinking, wound up under the platform overhang.  One of them sustained foot injuries from the train.  The assailant was pursued and captured by various passengers and TTC staff, and is now known to have mental problems that could be the root of his actions.
  • February 23:  A youth boarded the Ossington bus and was recognized by two passengers.  The youth was shot, non-fatally, and the incident continued outside on the street.  A weapon has been recovered, and it is clear that the parties involved know each other. 

These are all serious incidents, but they must be seen in the larger context of the city as a whole.  Violent crime happens in many places — shopping malls, car parks, dance clubs both downtown and suburban, even in the 905, although the Toronto media tend not to report such things unless the story is just too juicy to leave alone.

In two of the cases above, the parties were known to each other, in one case we have no information, and one case is clearly a disturbed person.  These events could have just as easily happened on the street such as the Dundas Square Boxing Day shooting in 2005.

Somehow, this has become a TTC Crime Wave.  One reporter (from CBC Radio) actually dredged up an incident where a girl riding on a bus had been hit by a stray bullet from an incident on the street nearby.  That’s not TTC crime, that’s street crime, and it shows how desperate some in the media are to manufacture a story.

At Queen’s Park, MPP Mike Colle, formerly Chair of the TTC, has introduced a Private Member’s Bill to make crimes on transit property subject to special penalties.  Already, several legal beagles have pointed out that this would be ultra vires (beyond provincial jurisdiction) because such crimes are federal matters under the Criminal Code.  However, it got Colle a “sparsely attended press conference” according to the Globe, and one short news cycle.

Violent crime in Toronto should not be ignored, but we risk wasting a lot of time demonizing the TTC as if it were inherently unsafe.  The TTC is a place where lots of people travel, and by extension events of all kinds will happen there.  Some types of activity may be deterred by cameras, at least for those criminals who understand or care that their actions are recorded for posterity.

This may contribute to TTC safety by pushing the violent crime elsewhere.  The larger benefit of monitoring applies to typical onboard crimes such as pickpocketing and “stealth” sexual assaults that exploit the crowded conditions on vehicles.

Finally, I am appalled by the complete lack of attention to the issue of mental health and whether the Dufferin Station incident may have been preventable not by platform doors, but by treatment of an existing condition.

Platform doors, bluntly, are a make-work project for the TTC.  The politicians can’t very well say that they are against them as it’s a motherhood issue.  However, we’ve now seen a back-back-burner project leap to the forefront, partly as a reinforcement for “we need automatic train control now”.  The TTC needs to be more responsible in its capital planning than hoping for an increase in “crime on the subway” to generate funding for its projects.

To the TTC’s credit, various spokepeople, notably Chief General Manager Gary Webster, have been quite measured in their response.  The rest of the TTC and Toronto’s media need a similar, responsible approach.

Jeff Gray in the Globe has an article with an overview of recent events.

by

Is McGuinty Impatient With Metrolinx?

A story in last Sunday’s Toronto Sun claimed that Premier McGuinty is miffed at delays by municipal politicians that  get in the way of spending money on transit.  Reaction from sitting members of the Metrolinx board reads quite the opposite (both in that article and a followup piece), and my own take on the Board from personal observation is that they are getting on very well.  They would love to spend money if only Queen’s Park would actually let them.

The problem lies with the part-time chair, Rob MacIsaac, who doesn’t understand the difference between being a leader and being a dictator.  Some of the decisions have not gone his way, and major debates are still in progress on two large groups of projects:

  • Eglinton and Scarborough RT/LRT.  Before the draft regional plan even came out, MacIsaac plumped for an updated RT technology line along Eglinton in complete defiance of Toronto’s stated desire to build this route as LRT.  Moreover, Eglinton and Scarborough are pushed as one continuous route from Malvern to the airport.  MacIsaac was rightly criticised for jumping the gun on his own regional plan, but he wasn’t too happy about it.
  • Yonge Richmond Hill Subway.  This is a high priority project for many, but Toronto had the temerity to suggest that more was involved than just building more subway track.  There is the capacity of the existing line and its stations to take into account.

In both cases there are valid technical and planning arguments to be heard.  Some at Metrolinx seem to think the Regional Plan, which describes itself as a guideline, not as a cast-in-stone design, is inviolate and to question it is just about treasonous.  This is total hogwash.

Metrolinx screwed up badly in two ways.  First it conducted much of its planning in secret, despite a lot of pro forma public consultation, and changes to the general direction of the plan were not well received.  Second, Metrolinx has produced a network and associated demand model for 2031 that may work perfectly well provided that we built it all and the wheels don’t come off anywhere in the meantime.  What they did not look at is a “Plan B” in case we don’t have enough money, or even a staging exercise of how interim versions of the network will perform.

There are things to like and things deserving of valid, constructive criticism in the plan, but the word “NIMBY” is heard more and more these days as a catch-all epithet to drown out real debate.  This is unworthy of the plan and of the Premier’s goals with MoveOntario 2020.

The Sun reports:

But instead of a dragon slayer, there is growing concern that the Metrolinx board, dominated by municipal politicians, is enabling red tape, funding disputes, resident opposition and parochial decision-making.

Those who have expressed concern with the “consensus” goverance model include its chair and, sources tell Sun Media, Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Dalton McGuinty doesn’t sit in the meetings, and we have to assume that someone is whispering in his ear claiming all is not well in Metrolinxland.  Chair MacIsaac does, but his Board has a mind of its own.

Red tape?  Look no further than the byzantine approval process for projects that were already proposed by municipalities and annonced as part of MoveOntario. 

  • The TTC can study all it likes, but it’s on the City of Toronto’s dime unless Metrolinx feels the project is worthy of design funding.
  • Then we get a super-fast Transit EA, but it’s so fast that we have to do a lot of work before even officially starting it so that we have some idea of what we might be building.
  • Then we have to submit not only the EA, but also put up with the “Benefits Case Analysis”, a process that brings a bunch of dubious economic arguments to evaluating options for a line.  They sound good, but the intent is to wrap some quasi private sector value for money analysis around the project, and the methodology is open to question because so much underlying information is not published.  The BCA may completely overturn the results of the EA, or of other network plans, but there is no way to challenge it, much less review its content.
  • When the BCA doesn’t come out the way it is expected (see Scarborough RT BCA which actually supports conversion to LRT), we have to find some way to delay even further such as linking this with another project (the Eglinton line).
  • Construction is dependent on provincial budgetary decisions, even though MoveOntario was supposed to be financed with borrowed money and paid for after lines actually started to run.

Funding disputes?  Well, that’s no surprise given that the original $11.6-billion from MoveOntario assumed that Ottawa would kick in a 1/3 share and top up the pot to about $18-billion.  Fat chance, but it allowed McGuinty to announce a list of projects he couldn’t possibly pay for, never mind the inevitable inflation in projected costs for all of them.  When money is tight, politicians jockey for position in the queue.

Toronto isn’t trying to block the Richmond Hill subway, but there are many valid questions about the timing of various projects such as Richmond Hill GO improvements and alternative ways of adding to subway capacity.  The problem here is as much with TTC staff as with the politicians.  When Metrolinx own demand projections show that there may be a better set of projects that would accomplish all of the goals, and Toronto says “we think you should look at these options”, that’s not obstructionism, that’s trying to build the network in an optimal way.

Resident opposition?  That sounds like the Weston Corridor debate, something that has been largely outside of Metrolinx until the recent reassignment of the study from GO.

Parochial decision making?  The Metrolinx Board is a model of co-operation.  If anything, Metrolinx itself has failed to address funding concerns for local transit systems without which the regional plan is meaningless.  Local policians may be forgiven for wondering how they will pay for their share of the whole system.  That’s a policy problem from Queen’s Park, not the Board.

If the Premier’s has sleepless nights thanks to such a biased view of Metrolinx operation, it doesn’t say much for his ability to collect political intelligence.  On the other hand, if he has a private agenda requiring hands on management by his office, he should tell everyone what it is and stop pretending the regions have anything to do with transportation.  Wear the problems and the challenges, don’t just show up for the photo ops.

If the Sun article clearly reflects Rob MacIsaac’s view of his own Board, then he has some explaining to do.  “Leaders” don’t slag their own.  That part-time job at Mohawk College should become full time.

[For those who are just coming to this article, there is a long comment about the role of politicians and “professionals”.]

by

GO Kitchener-Waterloo & Guelph

Mark Dowling passed along a link to the presentation materials from the recent GO Transit EA meeting in Kitchener.

You can follow the story of GO service from a Kitchener-Waterloo perspective on the GOKW Blog.

One of the fascinating points about the proposal for this corridor is that it recognizes that this line has bidirectional demand, as well as local demand that isn’t going to downtown Toronto.  This has always been the case, although VIA has done the worst to discourage people from using their service.

Intriguingly the track plans in the display materials show a substantial increase in VIA service in the future.  Those of us who travel to Stratford will relish better service, but the real bread-and-butter on this line is the traffic to and from universities.  It’s always been a natural corridor for better service, and maybe, finally, we may actually see it.

Also worth noting is the idea of eventually moving Kitchener Station so that the line will make a good connection with the planned KW LRT line.

by

Urban Goddess: Jane Jacobs Reconsidered

[Originally published in early January 2009]

As many of my readers know, I was fortunate and honoured to win the Jane Jacobs Prize in 2005 for my long-standing advocacy of transit improvements in Toronto.  This was the last year the prize was awarded while Jane was still alive.

I remember, warmly, sitting beside her on the stage with other prizewinners, John Sewell and David Miller as Jane spoke so warmly of our “new Mayor” (Miller), but scathingly about the dysfunctional Planning Department so dominated by the suburban, North York mentality.  Paul Bedford, then recently-retired as Chief Planner, was in the audience nearby and in her sights.

A documentary on Jane Jacobs will appear on February 18 on TVO.  Here is their press release.

The View From Here:
Urban Goddess: Jane Jacobs Reconsidered – World premiere

Airs on TVO Wednesday February 18, 2009 at 10 pm.  (Repeats Sunday February 22 at 10:35 pm and Wednesday morning — i.e., late night Tuesday — February 25 at 1 am)
52 minutes

Produced by Bliss Pictures Inc. in association with TVO, Knowledge Network and SCN

When Jane Jacobs died in 2006, Canada lost one of its loudest and most persistent urban voices. What Jacobs advocated is well known: short blocks, mixed-use buildings and diverse neighbourhoods. Urban Goddess: Jane Jacobs Reconsidered considers the livable city: an issue that directly impacts the quality of life of the majority of the world’s population.

The documentary examines the champion of neighbourhood activism’s legacy, through two redevelopment disputes: one in New York and the other in Toronto. These disputes raise many of the same issues Jacobs encountered 50 years ago. It also looks at Vancouver, a city frequently put forward as a shining example of Jacobs’ livable city philosophy.

The documentary asks “Is Jane Jacobs’ legacy intact?” and, more to the point, “Is it still valid?”

by

Ontario Parks

This morning, Premier McGuinty announced that, with the generous assistance of our friends in Ottawa, we are about to see a boom in transit spending.  On parking lots.

About $175-million will go to expanded parking at 12 GO Transit sites, half of which will receive parking structures.  This marks a reversal from the “we won’t build structures because they’re too expensive” policy of many years.  Moreover, it does nothing to address capacity on trains nor on the local transit systems that many GO riders use to reach those trains.

Metrolinx may be working on a regional plan, but this announcement sounds like an echo of the days when commuting meant driving to a parking lot.  Yes, we can build it quickly, but is this what we should be doing with transit infrastructure dollars.

Lurking down at the end of the announcement, almost as an afterthought, is $75.5-million for the Hamilton Junction grade separation.

It appears that the cost of these projects will be shared 50/50 by both governments.

by

Trolley Buses? Not For Toronto (Update 2)

The TTC commissioned a report from Dr. Richard Soberman on the economics of trolley bus operation in Toronto.   Cutting to the chase, the conclusion is that creating a new system from scratch is uneconomic, and we should wait for coming improvements in electric vehicles.

Soberman’s report makes a strong case against trolley buses on its basic economic arguments, and that’s a debate worth having.  However, electric vehicles have yet to make a substantial dent in the personal car market, let alone for vehicles the size of a city bus.

I have one simple reply:  Remember CNG?  The saviour of the enviroment for the TTC?  We lost the old system through neglect and through belief in an unproven technology, not to mention political machinations.

For your reading pleasure:

Commission report and summary

Dr. Soberman’s report

Updated February 15:

A detailed review has been added to this post.  Some of the document is reasonably accurate, but there are enough outright mistakes and misdirections to cast the whole thing in an unsavoury light.  This is a report that tries to sound balanced while hoping we won’t notice what it gets wrong either by accident or by design.

Update 2, February 16: My long-time Vancouver friend Angus McIntyre pointed out two issues with the Soberman report.

  • Vancouver will order an additional 34 articulated trolley buses funded from the Federal gas tax.  This adds to the new fleet of 188 standard and 40 articulated buses.  These plans are not reflected in the TTC report even though the press release is over a month old.
  • The substation spacing of 1.5 to 2km is a measure used on “feederless” systems such as Seattle’s where small local stations feed directly into the contact wires rather than the Toronto or Vancouver model with large substations feeding a local network of services.  Has the report used Seattle’s close spacing, but Toronto’s costs for larger substations?

Continue reading →