Author: Steve

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Analysis of 512 St. Clair Service: Part III

This article continues my reviews of bus operations on 512 St. Clair in September 2023 and of streetcar operations in the preceding months.

One aspect of any route’s operation is the degree to which vehicles have time for a layover at terminals. If this time is too small (or worse, none at all), service can be disrupted by the simple need for drivers to answer calls of nature and just decompress for a few minutes.

There is no formal break built into schedules in Toronto as can be found in some other transit systems, but a quick look at the TTC’s schedule summaries will show that most routes have built in “recover time”. This is intended to compensate for random events during a trip, although sometimes it is simply a mechanism to make the round trip time come out to a multiple of the scheduled headway.

Some of the “service reliability adjustments” the TTC advertises with schedule change are nothing more than shifting time from “recovery” to “driving” time without actually changing the round trip time. In other cases, time is added or removed without changing the total number of vehicles causing the service headway to get longer or shorter.

When schedules have excessive travel and/or recovery time, vehicles queue up at terminals causing congestion on the approach if there is no place to park off-street.

In the case of 512 St. Clair, the time spent at St. Clair Station (the eastern terminus) was fairly consistent up to the end of June 2023, but things got really messy. This corresponded to the point where service on the line as a whole became considerably worse as we saw in earlier articles.

This was caused by two competing factors in route operations.

  • In July and August, the TTC extended streetcar service to Gunn’s Loop west of Keele even though it was only scheduled to run to Earlscourt Loop at Lansdowne. This made keeping “on time”, the TTC’s holy grail of service management, impossible.
  • The approaches taken in July and August were quite different, but a common factor was that streetcars spent more time sitting in St. Clair Station Loop to get back on time at the expense of providing the advertised service on the route.
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Analysis of 512 St. Clair Service: Part II

This is the second part of my review of service quality before and after the substitution of buses for streetcars on 512 St. Clair in September 2023. Part I deals mainly with bus operations in September.

Until May 8, streetcars operated between St. Clair Station and Gunn’s Loop over the full route. Work on the GO bridge west of Caledonia was expected to start in May, and so on May 8 the streetcars were cut back to Earlscourt Loop and the 47A Lansdowne to St. Clair bus service was extended west to Gunn’s Loop.

The work did not occur as expected, and in response to problems with and complaints about service provided by the 47A, the streetcars resumed operation to Gunn’s Loop, but with no added running time, effective on July 4. That condition remained in effect until September 3 when buses took over the full 512 St. Clair route, and the 47A Lansdowne returned to its normal terminus at Earlscourt Loop.

The TTC has a lot to answer for here with the combined effect of service cuts and erratic operation of the service that remained while the line operated with streetcars. Buses look better by comparison because the streetcars, even with their dedicated lane, were so unreliable.

This was compounded by the effect of the long-running bus substitution on travel times discussed in Part I of this series, and by the inadequate preparation for transit priority as of day one of the bus replacement.

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Analysis of 512 St. Clair Service: September 2023

Effective September 3 and until July 2024, the TTC has replaced streetcar service with buses on oute 512 St. Clair for various construction projects. The length and scope of this work evolved between May 2023 and the point where the full closure was announced at the end of August. See The Changing Scope of St. Clair Construction.

Replacement buses are scheduled far more frequently than the streetcars they replaced, but they are running in the mixed traffic lanes beside a now-empty streetcar right-of-way. Depending on traffic conditions, travel times can be substantially longer with buses.

In the months before the conversion, the streetcar service was already in upheaval for planned work at the GO overpass west of Caledonia, and the St. Clair car was cut back from Gunn’s Loop (Keele) to Lansdowne. It was subsequently restored when the timing of work at the overpass changed, but the schedules were not changed to reflect the longer route.

This article reviews, mainly, the bus service from September 3-30, 2023. In a following article, I will turn to the streetcar service it replaced and the less than ideal quality provided during the on-again, off-again service through to Keele over summer 2023.

Responding to complaints about the bus service, the TTC has stated that they are working with the City on traffic signalling changes, as well as modifications to road lane allocations to remove bottlenecks in the bus operation. For the length and potential effect of this streetcar service suspension, one must ask why these changes are studied and, maybe, to be announced, implemented after the fact rather than as an integral part of the switch to bus service using the regular traffic lanes.

This is not the first time in 2023 (or earlier) that the TTC plays catch-up with getting priority measures for its service during extended diversions and construction projects. The attitude seems to be that problems will be addressed as and when they occur, rather than being anticipated and planned for, with transit service and riders getting a raw deal.

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Line 3 SRT Replacement Service and Derailment Investigation

The TTC Board received a presentation at its September 26, 2023, meeting updating the information in the report published with the agenda. The first part deals with plans for the Line 3 bus replacement service and gives additional details beyond those previously announced.

The shift to using all of the Red Lanes on Ellesmere, Midland and Kennedy is planned for November 19.

The travel time today is considerably higher than when the RT was operating (second bar in the chart on the right below). This will be reduced with the elimination of transfers at STC between feeder routes and the 903 shuttle service together with the full transit priority implementation in mid-November. Further saving is expected when buses shift to a busway in the SRT corridor.

On November 19, eight routes will be extended to Kennedy Station to eliminate the need to transfer to the 903 shuttle.

The most disappointing part of the presentation is the timeline overview which shows the opening date for the busway in the SRT corridor as 2026. Design work is underway to be completed in 2024 with construction in 2025 aiming at a mid-2026 opening date.

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Streetcar Diversion Update, Sept. 24, 2023

The weekend of Sept 23-24 saw another shuffle in the streetcar diversion list on which I last reported a few weeks ago. This round of changes is triggered by two events:

  • Metrolinx work on the Lakeshore East corridor at Queen & Degrassi streets prevents streetcar operation through the underpass, and at times the road will be closed to all traffic.
  • Toronto Hydro work on Queen West has completed to the point that streetcars are no longer diverting via King Street through Parkdale.

Services now operating on Queen Street include:

  • 501L (aka 507) Queen bus from Long Branch to Dufferin. These buses do not appear on transit apps.
  • 501B Queen bus from Bathurst to Broadview & Gerrard, with downtown diversion around Ontario Line construction.
  • 501 Queen streetcar from Sunnyside Loop to McCaul Loop.
  • 501D (aka 513) Queen bus from Victoria Street (looping via Church, Richmond and Victoria) to Neville Loop. These buses appear on transit apps as 513 Queen East.
  • 503 Kingston Road bus between the Don River and Kingston Road.

During certain periods, the underpass at Degrassi will be closed to all traffic and the 501/503/513 services will divert via Broadview, Dundas and Carlaw.

Complete closures are planned for Sunday, September 24 all day, and from Friday, September 29 at 10pm to Monday, October 2 at 4am.

The 504 King car operates only west of Distillery Loop pending completion of road and track construction on Broadview from Gerrard to Broadview Station Loop. Heavy construction at the loop will begin on Monday, September 25. Paving in the curb lanes on Broadview south of Danforth has begun following completion of track work.

The 72A Pape bus serving King Street East will use the same diversion around Queen & Degrassi as the Queen services, and will not serve stops south of Dundas nor on Queen east of Broadview during periods when the underpass is closed.

The 505 Dundas car no longer serves Queen Street East except between Coxwell and Woodbine Loop. It now operates via Broadview, Gerrard, Coxwell and Queen to Kingston Road.

There is no map of the current route arrangement in the east end on the TTC’s Streetcar Service Changes page, and some maps for 505 Dundas reflect its route before the shift north to Gerrard Street. The 505 Dundas section also still includes a reference to the 506C bus from Castle Frank Station which no longer operates.

The 506 Carlton car is unchanged with normal service except at the west end where cars divert to Dundas West Station due to water main construction on Howard Park Avenue.

Routes 509 Harbourfront, 510 Spadina and 511 Bathurst are operating normally.

Route 512 St. Clair will remain a bus operation until summer 2024 for various construction projects.

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TTC Board Meeting Preview: September 26, 2023

The TTC Board will meet at Scarborough Council Chambers at 10:00 am on September 26, 2023. This will be the first meeting of the reconstituted Board under Mayor Chow’s administration. Among the reports on the agenda are:

The agenda also includes a report Update on TTC’s Partnership Approach to Community Safety, Security and Well-Being on Public Transit. I will address this in a separate article.

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Streetcar Queues at Spadina Station

Updated September 19, 2023 at 6:40 pm: According to the Financial and Major Projects Update on the TTC Board agenda for September 26, 2023:

Detailed Design Review (100%) for the Spadina Station – Streetcar Platform Extension is underway and expected to be completed by Q3 2023.

Nearby redevelopment planned to occur in the near future will provide access to the tunnel structure for platform expansion.

Regular riders of the 510 Spadina will be familiar with long, sometimes very long, intervals spent waiting in the tunnel outside of Spadina Station just for their car to move onto the platform and discharge passengers.

This is the compound effect of several factors:

  • The Flexity streetcars are too long for two of them to be on the platform at once (as the former CLRV cars could be) with one loading and the other unloading.
  • The Flexitys cannot selectively open doors, except for the very front one, to serve riders while only partly on the platform.
  • A common situation at this station is for a car to wait on the platform while the operator takes a bathroom break or waits for a relief crew to show up.
  • The running times on the 510 schedule are generous enough that there is usually time to sit at Spadina Station rather than leaving immediately.
  • During some periods, service that would normally operate to Union Station is cut back to Queens Quay or Charlotte Loop giving cars even more surplus running time.
  • When service on Spadina is bunched and a parade of cars reaches Spadina Station, only one car can use the platform while those behind wait in the tunnel.

This situation cries out for better line management and scheduling, including shifting away from a strict adherence to “on time” cars and a move to dispatching on a regular headway to avoid backlogs. Step back crews would be essential in allowing cars to leave as quickly as possible while operators had their breaks. (Note that breaks are generally not taken at Union because it is a busy station serving two routes.)

As things are, much of the benefit for riders of a reserved lane on Spadina can be undone by the operation at Spadina Station.

During the month of August 2023, 510 Spadina service to Union did not operate on the following days so that all service at Union could be provided by 509 Harbourfront cars to Exhibition Loop:

  • Saturday, August 5 from about 8am to 8pm during the Caribbean Carnival.
  • Friday, August 18 onward from about 10am to 8pm during the CNE.

In an attempt to see just how bad this problem was, I built a fine-grained “map” of Spadina Station Loop for my usual route analysis programs. This includes screenlines at:

  • The loop entrance where the north and southbound tracks divide
  • The east end of the station platform
  • The west end of the station platform

This allows plotting of how long cars spent queued in the tunnel, and how long they sat on the platform. Unfortunately, it is not possible to resolve the difference between cars sitting at the loading area at the west end of the platform and those almost, but not quite, on the platform to unload.

(The reason for this is that the TTC’s “Vision” tracking system does not accurately map car positions inside the station. Indeed, cars sometimes appear to reverse within the station according to the GPS data. This is likely due to the problem of getting accurate GPS info underground.)

This is a route that should have more reliable service given its operation entirely in reserved lanes, and it certainly should not make riders wait five minutes or more just for a car to reach the platform at Spadina Station.

The TTC’s Real Estate Investment Plan includes an item for expansion of the platform at Spadina Station, but it is not clear that this applies to the streetcar platform. With the current tight budget it is hard to see this sitting near the top of the pile for funding.

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Yet Another 501 Queen Diversion

The TTC has announced a diversion of 501 Queen streetcar service between Roncesvalles and Shaw via King due to Toronto Hydro work at Gladstone Avenue.

This diversion took some at TTC by surprise. I was alerted to it by a reader [with thanks] who received a notice from Hydro of an impending project and streetcar service suspension “as per TTC approval”. This was not mentioned in the September Service Planning memo, and when I asked the TTC, nobody seemed to know anything about it.

The services now operating on Queen are:

  • 501L/B Queen bus from Long Branch to Broadview & Gerrard, with downtown diversion around Ontario Line construction.
  • 501 Queen streetcar from Sunnyside Loop to McCaul Loop diverting via King and Shaw through Parkdale.
  • 503 Kingston Road bus between the Don River and Kingston Road.
  • 505 Dundas between Broadview and Woodbine Loop at Kingston Road.

Needless to say, this arrangement completely bamboozles trip prediction apps, although transsee.ca makes a valiant attempt to keep up with the situation.

This will change on September 22/23 with the closure of Queen East at Degrassi for Metrolinx work on the GO corridor, and, in theory, completion of the Hydro work on Queen West. Stay tuned for updates.