Author: Steve

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Metrolinx: The Big Move (2) Overview

Over the next few days, I will attempt to summarize and comment on the main areas of the Metrolinx Draft Draft Regional Transportation Plan.  Yes, that is “Draft Draft” because the version now online has not yet been approved by the Metrolinx Board.  Once they do that, and any changes are added, it will be the official “Draft” plan.  The final plan is to be approved in November for transmittal to Queen’s Park so that this can feed into the budget process for 2009.

For easy reference, I have posted copies of the maps on this site.  These are high resolution PDFs.

The full report is available in the agenda for the Metrolinx Board Meeting on September 26.  Look for appendix A in items 8 and 9.  (Warning: that these are big files.)

Continue reading →

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The Tories and Toronto

Recently, I received two comments from a regular contributor here, Stephen Cheung, but did not publish them immediately.  As a pair, however, they are worth seeing if only as an indication of Tory analysis of the political and economic situation in Toronto.

In replies to this item, please don’t start attacking Stephen himself.  I personally have put up with a lot of bovine effluent here and on other blogs suggesting that I am personally responsible for most if not all of the transit planning screwups of modern history, and I find such comments (a) laughable and (b) inappropriate because attacking me avoids discussing the real issues.  I expect any who reply to this post to stick to the topic and treat both the writer and the organized labour movement with respect. Continue reading →

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Metrolinx: The Big Move (1)

This morning, Metrolinx unveiled its draft Regional Transportation Plan at a press conference.  Coverage is already online at The Star, and the report is available on the Metrolinx website.  (That link goes to the agenda page for the next Board meeting, and the RTP is linked from there as Appendix A to Report 8.  The companion Investment Strategy is in Report 9.)

Although referenced in the draft RTP, a number of background papers are not yet online.

  • Modelling Methodology and Results for the Draft Regional Transportation Plan, September 2008
  • Climate Change and Energy Conservation, September 2008
  • Mobility Hubs, September 2008
  • Transit Technologies, September 2008

I am still digesting this morning’s presentation, the draft plan and the investment strategy, and have a technical briefing later today.  Comments on all of this will start to appear this evening.

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Is There an Optimal Supply and Demand for Transit?

On September 16, the Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA) released a study on the optimal supply and demand for transit in Canada.  Although I may have slept through the local press coverage, I don’t think that there was much if any as other issues crowded out the story.  One might ask why I’m bothering with it now, but I think this is worth talking about even though I don’t agree with the premise of the report.

Only the Executive Summary and Backgrounders are available on the CUTA website, and as a courtesy for copyright, I will not post the full version here.  You will have to get it from CUTA if you really want it.

The principal conclusions as highlighted on the CUTA site are:

  • The economically and socially optimal level of transit supply in 2006 would have required an estimated 1.7 billion vehicle-kilometres of transit service, or 74 percent more service than actually supplied.
  • In 2006, capital investment of $78.1 billion would have been required to bring the supply of transit into line with the optimal conditions of supply in that year.
  • Results of the analysis conclude that Canada is clearly underinvested in urban transit.
  • Bringing transit to the optimal level of supply would produce several positive economic and social benefits – more than two thirds of these benefits constitute the economic value of reduced roadway congestion.

There is no question that higher investment in transit is required across Canada.  However, there is a danger with any calculated “optimal” value that this will be taken as an upper bound.  Moreover, the methodology of the study does not address future needs, only the situation that existed in 2006.  It is based on average relationships between several economic variables taken on a national basis that almost certainly misstate the micro-level effects in urban areas. Continue reading →

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TTC 2009 Operating Budget

This week, the TTC presented a 2009 Operating Budget in a style departing from past practice.  Instead of weeping and wailing about how they would love to run better service, but can’t afford it, the TTC now has a budget posture of “this is what we plan to run, now let’s find the money to do it”.

This is the sort of advocacy long missing from a “transit” agency.

The starting point for the budget assumes:

  • Costs will rise due to inflationary and contract pressures, as well as operation of more service.
  • Revenues will rise due to increased riding (with no allowance for a fare increase).
  • The City of Toronto subsidy will remain unchanged (this is actually a decline taking inflation into account)
  • The outstanding difference is to be funded through whatever revenue streams become available including a carry-over of any surplus from 2008 (at last report, a deficit, not a surplus was forecast).

Riding at current levels was last seen almost two decades ago in 1990, just before a recession triggered job losses, funding and service cutbacks.  During the dark years, service improvements were hard to achieve because almost no changes could meet the high average cost recovery of the existing system.  Policy shifts in this decade have moved the TTC to actively seek new riders even if this means that average will fall from its high of 85% back to a range in line with historic practice of the 80s and before. Continue reading →

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TTC Hosts Presentation on Montréal’s Smart Card Experience (Updated)

On the evening of Thursday, September 18, there was a presentation by Montréal’s AMT on the implementation of their Smart Card system.

See the announcement flyer for more details.

Updated:  The presentations gave a lot of information about the Montréal OPUS project, and I will outline the high points here.

Joël Gauthier, President and CEO of the Agence métropolitaine de transport was the main speaker.  He began by talking about the transit renaissance in Montréal.  Ridership has grown consistently since 1995, and the introduction of new fare systems supports the growth and attractiveness of public transit in general.  Capital programs are also underway to expand transit services including a new commuter rail line and an LRT line.  System ridership in 2008 is up 8% over 2007.

The Montréal region contains 83 municipalities (plus an additional 8 within the AMT’s service territory) and 14 transit operators serving a population of 3.6 million.  There are 2,550 buses, 5 commuter rail lines (52 stations) and 4 subway lines (68 stations).

An important thread in M. Gauthier’s talk was a focus on consumers.  The transit system needs a good relationship with its customers through service quality and through offerings such as OPUS that simplify the travel experience.  Smart Cards are part of an overall solution, not a cure-all.  Indeed, the OPUS project includes the construction of twelve customer centres around the Montréal area that will provide general support for the public in addition to OPUS itself.

The old fare structure in Montréal was fragmented among the 14 separate agencies each with its own fares, media and discount structures.  Riders would have to purchase single fares (tickets, tokens, passes) for each system they used, much as we see today in the GTA. 

Fare rationalization was introduced in 1996, five years before the OPUS project even started, to simplify fares for riders.  The metropolitan area is divided into 8 zones although most riders lie within a few of them.  A pass covering multiple zones is 15-25% cheaper than the combined cost of passes in the old, local systems.

Riders within the downtown zone are split about 50-50 between single ticket and monthly pass users, while those who cross zones are split 90-10 in favour of passes because of the discount.  The fares apply to all services including commuter rail.

Although revenue under the new scheme is lower, this is subsidized by funds from the provincial gas and vehicle license taxes.  Note that this is an organizational and governance issue, not a technology issue.  The desire to lower cross-zone fares is a noble goal, but it has a cost.  Smart Cards allow for flexibility of implementation of new fare schemes and for more accurate tracking of usage on each system, but they don’t magically create new revenue.  The expected savings from reduced fare fraud are seen as an offset to the system’s capital and operating costs, not as funding for fare rationalization which was already in place for a decade. Continue reading →

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The TTC’s Low-Floor LRV Presentation of August 27, 2008 (Update 2)

The TTC has not published the presentation on their website, and in the interest of having the material in view, I am transcribing it here.  Few pages involve diagrams, and so for the most part I will simply transcribe the text.

Where I comment on the material, I will do so in italics to distinguish my words from the TTC’s.

The pages with diagrams are linked to scanned images.

Update 1 (August 30):  In the post below, I originally said that the chronology did not mention the change from a 70% low floor spec to 100%.  A quibble has been raised on this point.

The original spec had both 70% and 100%, and the change was to remove the 70% option.  The net effect was the same:  any 70% low floor car that might have been proposed was eliminated from consideration.  It remains to be seen whether, in fact, any builder can adapt their designs to Toronto’s track geometry.

Update 2 (September 16):  The full presentation is now available on the TTC’s website.  The links in the post below take you to scanned images on my site.  If you want better resolution, use the TTC copies.

Continue reading →

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Jane/Eglinton LRT Open House

Lately I have been distracted by other events, and neglected to post information about the Jane LRT Environmental Assessment.  The display panels from the open houses can be found on the project website.  Note that three linked “display drawings” showing the detailed route layout on an aerial view of the line are quite large with the fine details visible only if they are viewed at 100% size.

There will be a joint presentation of the Jane and Eglinton LRT:

Monday September 22
6:30pm to 9:00pm
Centennial Recreation Centre West, gymnasium
2694 Eglinton Ave West
(just east of the York Civic Centre and adjacent to York Memorial Collegiate Institute)

The Jane LRT design is, putting it mildly, challenging because of the narrow right-of-way available for the south end of the route.  Alternatives including underground construction or reduction in the number of road lanes are being considered.  These will be a harder sell in the Jane corridor than on other Transit City routes because of the lower projected demand relative to the community impact and the cost of an underground option.  This would place the line underground south of Wilson Avenue, but would result in much wider average station spacing (1km if underground, 500m if on the surface).

Oddly, the same language about running LRV trains because of the difficulty of managing close headways is carried over from other EA materials.  This gives us the absurb claim that it is difficult to manage a headway of 3’30” of single cars, and a 7’00” headway of trains would be operated for reliability.  Contrast this with the Eglinton LRT EA where the proposed headways are 3-4 minutes.

At York University, there are three proposed routes to link the Jane LRT with Steeles West Station.  One stays completely on Jane and Steeles, one skirts the campus on the west side via Murray Ross Parkway, and one goes through the campus.

Two Metrolinx proposals (shown on the map published by the Star) include a northern extension of the Jane line to meet up with east-west service in York Region, and truncation of the south end at Eglinton where it would connect to whatever is built in the Eglinton corridor.  Also omitted, thanks to the ever-present Blue 22 line, is any mention of a service via the Weston rail corridor to Union Station.  Both of these schemes for the south end of the line would leave the Jane LRT serving only the portion of the route north of Eglinton with bus service remaining south to Bloor.  These options should be examined if only to determine their impact on peak service demand and the origin-destination pattern of riders in the Jane corridor.

The refined proposals for the Jane route will come back to a second series of open house meetings later in 2008.

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Some Day My Train Will Come (Updated)

Over the past week, I have spent a lot of time in Dundas Station what with the AMC theatre being a major venue for the Film Festival and the location of the principal box office.

On opening night, September 4, the “Next Train” information was up and running on the One Stop video monitors.  Alas, by closing night, September 13, all we got was a black band with “No Information Available”.

As those who’ve been reading here for a while know, I am not impressed by technological tricks, especially when they are of dubious value and don’t work reliably.  There’s probably some very good reason for the system’s failure, and this is part of the 90-day pilot, but I can’t help wondering whether the TTC will be any better at keeping information systems running than escalators.

The full rollout of One Stop monitors is supposed to be completed, along with the in-station “Next Bus” info screens, by the end of 2009.  This brings me to one huge problem with One Stop:  It’s an advertising medium, and it is located to be seen by the most people, up to a point.  Many stations (including the one right under TTC head office) still have Metrons, some with working displays advertising for that same kennel near the Airport.  Donlands may even have a full set of working displays, and the ones at Museum were carefully preserved until days before the station redecorations were unveilled.

At Yonge Station, the monitors are far enough apart that the “Next Train” info, were it present, would be illegible to half the waiting passengers, and Yonge has more than one monitor per direction.  The problem, of course, is that if signs are intended to offer information, there have to be lots of them and this runs headlong into the design issue of overwhelming stations with video screens.

Speaking of Museum, the white columns are starting to look dirty, and there has been at least one naked lady (at least a classical reference) sketched on a column.  This sort of thing is endemic on the TTC.  Projects start but never finish.  Things are built but not maintained.

During the whole 9 days the displays at Dundas actually worked, I didn’t experience a delay to see whether they gave accurate info, or resolutely showed the same estimated time for 10 minutes running while the next train sat somewhere down the line.  I didn’t get to see a display with any value higher than 3 minutes, and have no idea of how reliably the system will deal with service holds and gaps.  We shall see, once they get it working again.  Any other observations of the displays’ behaviour would be appreciated.

Updated Sept 14:  I have been advised that different versions of the “next train” software will be tested and that the display will be out of service from time to time.  All the same, it bears watching to see how reliably available and accurate the information will be.

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The Winter Garden’s Moon Shines Again

With the Film Festival making good use of the Winter Garden theatre, I’ve been in that house a few times recently.  One vital piece of decor was not in working order: the moon in the sky over the stage, house left.

Theatre lights are important, and the Winter Garden’s moon is a key part of the decor.  I wrote to the Ontario Heritage Foundation about this, and here’s their reply:

Hi. Thank you for your enquiry about the moon in the Winter Garden’s “sky”. The bulb that lights up the moon had burned out late last week. Because we’ve had both daytime and evening screenings all week unfortunately there was no time to change the bulb. Today, things are somewhat less hectic upstairs, with only one screening in the W.G. at 8 pm. The light bulb will be changed today and the moon will shine once again! Thank you for taking the time to contact us.

Arnie Lappin
Marketing & Communications Coordinator
Elgin & Winter Garden Theatre Centre

Long may it shine!