Update 1: July 28, 2010 at 4:00 pm: Comments and clarifications by Ernie Wallace at Presto have been added to this article.
On July 26, I visited the folks at Presto and talked with Ernie Wallace, Executive Project Director, about the system and its plans. Subsequently, I did some digging of my own, primarily on the Ontario government website. The information below is organized to keep topics and the logical flow intact rather than to represent the sequence of the conversation.
Jarrett Walker has a few good articles on his website, humantransit.org, that should be required reading for our friends at Metrolinx, among other places.
In What Does Transit Do About Traffic Congestion, he argues that the last claim that should be made for transit is that it will reduce congestion. Instead, the benefits of a transit-oriented city show up in economic activity, mobility and other benefits.
There is, however, a caveat lurking here. Dense cities with good transit (or even cities with a good potential for better transit) don’t appear out of thin air. Once we build sprawl, then the benefits and effects of transit seen in the older, denser cities will not appear overnight even if we run the most intensive BRT, LRT or subway network through auto-oriented suburbs. Transit can make things better, but it will not reverse the damage and inevitable congestion of decades of bad planning.
By the way, be sure to read the comments. If you think the threads on this site get out of hand, just try Walker’s blog. You will see some very intelligent point-counterpoint discussion in some threads.
In If On-Time Performance is 96%, Why Am I Always Late?, Walker discusses the conundrum that transit agencies talk a great line for being on time, but the actual experience of users is much, much, much worse. Both GO Transit and TTC have a love for patting themselves on the back (although rarely each other’s), and talking about their improvements in on-time performance.
So much of this is relative to the metrics used (how late can a train or streetcar be and still be “on time”) and the lack of weighting of the results to reflect the number of passengers affected by on time (or not) service. Even in the off-peak, gaps of two scheduled headways or more are common on downtown routes and this drives riders away. At least with NextBus, it is now possible to know with certainty that there is no car just around the bend out of sight, and if there is, it’s going in the opposite direction.
GO Transit now has schedules that reflect the real world in which they operate, but persists in reporting all-day on-time figures rather than breaking these out to show service quality when most people ride the system.
Finally, in Strasbourg: You Can’t Take It Home With You, we get a loving overview of both the city and its tram system, part of the renaissance of LRT in France. The real issues come at the end where we learn about the major changes in street space usage and restrictions on cars that accompanied the installation of tram lines in this very old city. The moral, applicable to anyone comparing transit systems, is to look beyond just the technology and the scenery, and understand how and why the city streets work (or don’t) as they do.
Any moves to improve “congestion” in Toronto must start with a fundamental debate about what the streets are for, and which existing uses must be reduced (and how) in order to make room for what’s left over. Ironically, we focus these debates on the heart of downtown, a comparatively small area, when the real problems of transit’s competitiveness and congestion lie out in the suburbs.
With the election upon us, some candidates have decided that transit Smart Cards are an issue they can use to say “I’m the best candidate” by hitching their star to Ontario’s Presto card program.
The Star reports that the TTC will proceed with a tender for an Open Payment system later this year with the intent of a 2011 rollout. Mayoral hopeful Rocco Rossi has his own scheme called “Presto Plus”. Can the TTC actually commit to a new system with the current regime still in office? Rossi’s campaign confirms that he would cancel the TTC’s scheme if he were to become mayor.
Metrolinx would love to see the TTC sign on to Presto, but many questions remain about just what Presto can do for a truly integrated transit system.
Smart Cards are yet another example of the way that transit technology wars in the GTA get in the way of solving fundamental transit problems. The technology choice becomes more important than the service it provides. Here are a few questions anyone with “the answer” should consider.
The Metrolinx Board met on Wednesday, May 19 for an unusually long public session. Rather than post separate articles, herewith a compendium report. The major topics are:
The Board Speaks!
Probably the most astounding thing about this meeting, the first anniversary of the “new” Metrolinx, is that the Board members finally found their voices. I was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to show some indication of earning their keep and actually asking hard questions of staff in public. We’re not quite there yet, but at least the discussion gave an indication that the Board is thinking about its role.
As regular readers will know, I believe that organizations such as Metrolinx should be publicly accountable through an electoral process and through direct access to one’s representatives. Boards that answer to nobody but the government which appointed them, and entertain no criticism from the public, can leave much to be desired.
To be fair to Metrolinx, even when it had a political board, much of the “public participation” was managed to achieve concensus with, more or less, what Metrolinx planned to do anyhow. That other well-known transit board, the TTC, is elected, but has succumbed to the disease of being cheerleaders for the organization right-or-wrong.
Metrolinx has not had to actually do much (as opposed to GO Transit which was simply merged into its new “parent”), and we have yet to see how the Board and the Government will react if Metrolinx badly fouls up any of its projects.
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:
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.
(Updated at 3:00 pm, February 1. I omitted a section on the proposed Sheppard subway extensions to Downsview and to Scarborough Town Centre. This has been added.)
In this, the final installment of my review of Transit City, I will look at the unfunded (or underfunded) TTC transit projects. Some of these spur passionate debates and the occasional pitched battle between advocates of various alternatives. There are two vital points to remember through all of this:
I will start with the unfunded Transit City lines, and then turn to a range of other schemes and related capital projects. Continue reading
Stephen Rees blog has an article about the two Bombardier Flexity trams loaned from Brussels for operation in Vancouver during the Winter Olympics. These cars are similar to those Toronto will see, but with a few important differences.
As for the Transit City fleet, I understand that Metrolinx will decide whether Bombardier will, in fact, get the add-on car order in the near future. This matter needs to be settled so that cars will be available by the time the first Transit City line opens.
The BBC reports that despite the heavy snow and service disruptions on Britain’s rail network, a brand new steam engine managed to operate and provide rides for about 100 passengers stranded by the weather. The locomotive makes regular runs, and this happened to be the last one for the season on this tourist train.
For detailed information about this locomotive and its construction, visit the A1 Steam website.
In light of the TTC’s plans to convert the SRT to LRT, I won’t drag out plans for steam-hauled RT trains.
A few weeks ago, Stephen Rees Blog in Vancouver ran an interesting piece on the effect of the new Canada Line (the one connecting Vancouver Airport and Richmond to downtown) on local shopping neighbourhoods. Since bus service on the former surface routes has been cut, merchants are concerned that they get less walk-in trade from bus passengers.
The comment thread following the article requires some knowledge of Vancouver’s neighbourhoods and geography, but includes a variety of viewpoints on this phenomenon. One point comes right at the end of the thread in a comment about the reconstruction of Cambie Street, under which the Canada Line runs:
Cambie Street between 16th and King Ed was completely rebuilt at great tax payer expense. What an opportunity to create a “Great Street” and boost neighborhood identity!
Instead, the streetscape design is the worst possible for enhancing the Cambie Village experience. Six lanes of traffic without separating medians, with curb side parking taking up the outer two.
My favourite symbol of the lack of capacity shown in this area of design practice is the introduction of “park benches” on the sidewalks facing parked cars.
We hear a lot about urban design in Toronto and the improvements possible as an offshoot of the Transit City projects, and the Cambie experience should be a warning of what can happen.
Rees’ article talks about the problems of merchant pressure for parking taking precedence over transit, and this effect can be seen on St. Clair where parking was one of the car-oriented street functions that forced an uncomfortable design onto the street overall.
He makes an important point about transit, namely that it is part of a pedestrian experience:
Every transit trip is an interrupted walk. Transit stops and stations ought to be seen as key to retailing. Far too often in Greater Vancouver bus passengers are banished to remote, sterile areas like Phibbs Exchange, or the Ladner bus loop. Always this is forced by local merchants who have only contempt for what they see as the low income bus passenger, and who regard buses as noisy, smelly nuisances. Of course, transit’s selection of large diesel buses only confirms that view. We do have to learn from our experiences, and acknowledge our mistakes. Far too often, transit advocates are expected to be cheer leaders for a system which, sadly, often lets us down, and seems incapable of learning from its past mistakes. Let’s all learn from this when we design our next system change.
As one who is often expected to cheer for transit plans and hope that we will fix the design problems “later”, I can only say that the time for believing planners when they say “trust me” is long over.
Today’s Metrolinx Board Meeting was notable both for the update, in public session, of the project status for five major lines as well as for supplementary information that came out in a press scrum after the public session.
Five projects now have funding and are at various stages in their approval/construction process.
Steve Munro 