Beyond 416

by

Richmond Hill or Bust? The Yonge Subway Extension (Part 3)

Posts in this thread have examined the general design proposed for the Richmond Hill subway and the many demand estimates for this line.  Now I will turn to the impact of this line on the larger network.

As many have pointed out in comments to the previous items, the Spadina/VCC extension was supposed to offload the Yonge subway.  We now know, according to the TTC’s estimates, that the effect will be a reduction of less than 10% of the existing demand southbound at the peak point, Wellesley Station.  Meanwhile, the availability of a competing subway line in the established Yonge Street corridor will attract many more riders.

The TTC manages a rabbit-in-the-hat trick by claiming that demand relative to capacity on the subway in 2017 will be the same as it is today thanks to Spadina diversion and more commodious trains.  That’s a very big, very fat rabbit, and I suspect it’s more of a canard.

Development will continue in York Region, and if anything the availability of frequent transit service, both on GO and on the TTC, will offset any effect that long-term increases in energy costs and commuting might have on travel demand and the decision to live far out of the core area.  Demand will grow on the subway both from the 905 and from within the 416. Continue reading →

by

Richmond Hill or Bust? The Yonge Subway Extension (Part 2)

In the first part of this series, I reviewed the general layout of the Richmond Hill subway extension.  Now I will turn to the question of demand on the new and existing portions of the Yonge line.

Information on current and projected demands is very hard to nail down.  Transit agencies have a bad habit of fiddling the demand models to produce the results they want depending on available funding, political imperatives and the phases of the moon.  Small changes in the assumptions in any model can produce huge swings in the outcome.

Probably the single most flagrant problem with Metrolinx is that the demand model is proprietary to a consultant, IBI, and is not available for general “what if” use.  At the very time we are making decisions about network structures and spending priorities, we are told (by Metrolinx) that budget constraints limit the number of model runs.  Detailed parameters such as the capacity and speed of modelled lines are hard to come by.

In this vacuum, any plausible scheme for transit gains political traction even though it may rest on dubious planning foundations.  I say this not to knock the Richmond Hill proposal itself, but to urge caution in looking at the numbers particularly where the interaction between several alternative lines is concerned.

Projections for riding on both the Richmond Hill extension and the rest of the rapid transit network appear in various documents.  One of them even changed between the point where it was presented at a public TTC meeting and its publication on the TTC’s website. Continue reading →

by

Richmond Hill or Bust? The Yonge Subway Extension (Part 1)

The proposed subway to Richmond Hill has an odd history as transit projects in the GTA go.  Normally, we are lucky to see anyone pay attention to any scheme for a decade or more, but this subway has gone from a gleam in local organizers’ eyes (and a website) to a top priority transit project with amazing speed.

Along the way, the whole idea of “alternatives analysis”, that pesky part of an “Environment Assessment” that is only a memory, is completely absent.  It’s a subway or nothing.  That’s unfortunate, to say the least, because the whole idea of Metrolinx was to plan on a regional basis, to see how everything fits together and where money would be best spent to improve a transportation network.

The Richmond Hill subway snuck through into the new, fast-track transit project assessment process before Metrolinx had even approved the final version of the Regional Plan.  Somebody wants a subway really, really badly.

As I have said in a comment thread elsewhere, I am not convinced that this line is a good idea especially when there are alternative ways to get people into central Toronto from the same catchment area as the subway extension.  York Region itself has (had?) plans for an LRT network as an end state for VIVA, although I have never taken them particularly seriously.  This may change once there is some real LRT running within Toronto, but as long as it’s an unknown quantity (or worse, something whose “best” example is on St. Clair West), nobody is going to take the mode seriously.

An argument can be made for an extension to Steeles as a way to relieve the bus congestion feeding into Finch Station, but there is some point where a subway has to end.  We cannot keep building a subway north on Yonge Street until we find ourselves in Lake Simcoe.  The demand simply isn’t there, and at some point the idea of a one-seat ride becomes laughable.  Indeed, even going to Richmond Hill, many travellers will depend on bus feeders or commuter parking to access the subway, and the quality of their trip will depend a lot on the amount of local transit or the scarcity of parking.  This problem is already familiar to GO Transit riders.

GO Transit, for their part, plans to upgrade service on their Richmond Hill line to 15 minutes peak, 30 minutes off peak.  This is not the same as frequent subway service, and it will only take people to Union Station, but this is an important part of the mix of services in the corridor.

All the same, any review of the proposal needs to assume that it will be built and that whatever impact this has on the network will have to be addressed.  If we are going down this path, we need to understand the consequences.

In the sections to follow, I will review the TTC report and presentation from December 17.  Parts of York Region’s original EA for this area make interesting reading, especially the ridership forecasts. Continue reading →

by

Privatization If Necessary?

David Cavlovic passed on to me an article by Ben Dachis in the Ottawa Citizen dated December 18.  The thrust of the article is that we can improve transit by avoiding strikes, and we can do that by encouraging competition among service providers.

One of the major stumbling blocks in the current negotiations has been the issue of outsourcing. However, outsourcing of transit operations and maintenance can be done in a way to improve public transit, preserve the jobs of workers and ensure that the city isn’t crippled by a strike.

Ottawa should consider modest relaxations over the transit monopoly that OC Transpo has in the region. Private companies could be permitted to operate a transit route on contract to the city.

If one transit operator went on strike, another could fill the service void. Ottawa can look to a suburb of Toronto, York Region, to see that in the case of a strike by one transit provider — Viva, operated by Veolia Transportation — the rest of the operations continued normally and most riders were not left waiting at the curb.

Competition between transit companies can ensure service delivery, reduce costs and improve service. The key to all of this is transit competition — not a transit monopoly.

This is utter nonsense.  The ability of one provider to take over for another assumes that there is sufficient capacity — buses and drivers — available to operate the fill-in service.  As was well-reported in York Region, the YRT buses could not cope with the riding displaced from VIVA.  Moreover, neither system carries riders on the scale of major urban systems like Toronto’s where the sheer size of operations would make any shift between providers a daunting one.

The classic example is the U.K. In London, controlled competition has led to cost savings and an increase in passenger trips.

In Ontario, privately operated transit systems had operating costs per hour of vehicle operation 20 per cent below publicly operated transit systems. The realized gains in efficiency come a number of ways, such as lower management costs.

London (and anywhere else in the U.K.) is probably the worst possible example regarding labour costs and service provision.  England is notorious for overly generous work arrangements for unionized staff, and the savings (such as they may be) achieved there do not transport across the pond to North America.

A related issue is that many schemes to privatize segments of systems eventually led to monopolies as the larger, better-financed operators systematically bought up the smaller ones.  The problem of a single operator’s shutdown taking the whole system becomes just as real in this situation with the added problem that the negotiating team is removed from public review.

Ontario cost comparisons need to be taken with several grains of salt.  First off, the most likely services to be privatized are those that are small enough for a private firm to take them on.  They are also likely to have much less demanding operating conditions (hours, riding levels, vehicle costs) and be candidates for part-time staff with lower total wages and benefits.  Major urban systems are different, and will automatically have “higher” costs due to their complexity, level of service and the need for a much larger organization to manage and operate their systems.

The unions can bid alongside private maintenance companies for the right to maintain OC Transpo vehicles, in what is known as managed competition. When this was done with U.S. government contracts, public unions won around 90 per cent of all work that was bid out, suggesting that they will not lose much work. In fact, in the U.K., local government employees have been successful at winning contracts for private-sector work in certain services.

If public workers are going to win about 90 percent of all work offered on tender, this implies that they are already competitive or close to it.  A more important question, however, is what proportion of work was actually offered on tender?  How many private companies now exist who repair large bus fleets or subway cars? It’s not as if there is an underutilized transit maintenance industry just sitting there waiting to do work on large transit systems.  The real agenda is likely the selloff of existing public assets to a private “operator” at fire-sale prices.  Think Highway 407.

Large systems already contract out some speciality work where it makes sense to do so, and large-scale capital projects are substantially built by private companies.  The last year has been a bonanza for private transit consulting firms, and there is a queue of construction firms ready to build new lines the moment the designs are finished and the funding is available.

The labour situation in Ottawa will not be helped by sabre-rattling on privatization.  This only fuels distrust at the bargaining table and suggests that the politicians are more interested in scoring debating points than in addressing contract issues.

by

Yonge Subway to Richmond Hill (Update 2)

Update 2:  The presentation from the Commission meeting is now online.  (4MB PDF)

I will write up comments on this project on the weekend.

Update 1:  Here is the text of the motion made by the Commission including the various caveats and requests for additional information.

Original Post:

The TTC staff report on the Richmond Hill subway is available online.  (Warning 15M PDF)

Today, the Commission voted to endorse this report in principle with futher discussion and deputations to follow at the January meeting.  The Commission also reaffirmed that Transit City was its first priority for system expansion, and sought a number of additional reports to clarify the impact of the subway extension on the existing network.

I do not have time now (Wednesday evening) to write this up in full, but will do so over the next few days.  Some material was presented at the meeting which is not in the linked file.

Of particular concern to the Commission is the haste with which this project is rolling forward based on an assessment launched by York Region that had very little consideration for how the line would fit in the overall scheme of the network.  I might be forgiven for thinking, only a month ago, that we had turned away from “my line first” planning to a network view thanks to the Metrolinx Regional Transportation Plan.

An argument can be made for extending the subway, but the true cost and impact are lowballed.  Yes, the staff report raises many caveats about service and capacity impacts, but there is no real alternatives analysis, no sense that anyone has looked seriously at larger issues.  I will turn to this when I discuss the report in detail.

by

Trams vs Skytrain: A view from Vancouver

Today’s Globe & Mail includes an op ed article Rethinking the Need for Speed reporting on a recent study comparing the cost of transportation modes.  The study and the article conclude that trams (streetcars) are the best choice, and that Skytrain (also known as the “RT” in Toronto) is a distant choice.

Those who know me well know that any chance to give the RT/ICTS/Skytrain advocates a black eye is more than welcome, but in this case I have to put a bit of context on the discussion.

The Skytrain vs LRT debate has consumed Vancouver transit advocates, planners and policitians for decades.  The original Skytrain was a combined product of a premier who didn’t like streetcars and of lobbying by the Ontario government to get its then-new ICTS showcased for Expo in Vancouver.  Certain characteristics of the original Skytrain route including the availability of a tunnel under downtown that could handle stacked Skytrains, but not LRT, an available right-of-way that kept down elevated construction costs, and the operational advantage of close headways of short trains tipped the balance in Skytrain’s favour.

Having said that, I must also observe that the technology was used to its maximum during Expo with a far more sophisticated operating model than anything the TTC has ever implemented on any line.  This was automated transit really shining, but only for a brief moment.  Probably the most important thing about the Vancouver system is that the people running it really wanted to make it work.  From the day it opened, they analysed operations (including automatically produced charts such as those you see in my TTC route studies) looking for ways to handle demands and unusual events better.  The idea of throwing up your hands in resignation, the TTC’s approach to line management, was totally foreign.

Skytrain works not just because of the technology, but because the people running the system care to make it run well.

All the same, the love affair with Skytrain wedded Vancouver to high-cost system expansion, and a route design skewed to handling commuters more than local trips.  Indeed, most of the original Skytrain line does not follow city streets, and it depends on local redevelopment, walk-in trade and bus feeders for passengers.

The LRT vs Skytrain debate heated up recently with a proposed east-west line along Broadway, a major bus and trolleybus corridor.  This is a street with much local development and Skytrain foes look to LRT as a way of achieving better local access and support for the community throiugh which the line will pass.  Elevated construction is out of the question, and a Broadway Skytrain will almost certainly be underground adding considerably to its cost.

This is the political background to the Skytrain vs Trams study, and it’s important to read the study in context.  The study itself does not address specific corridors, but simply looks at the operating and capital costs of each mode, as well as the environmental effects.  When the numbers are combined, trams come out on top (or more accurately on the bottom with the lowest cost and carbon impact).  Skytrain is much higher, primarily due to capital cost.

The basic debate in all of this is one of philosophy:  should new transit lines be built to serve long trips where speed between stations is paramount, or should lines serve shorter trips and local demands with easily accessible stations?  In the ongoing debate here, Transit City comes under fire because the lines won’t be fast enough for long trips.  Should that be their purpose?  What role does GO have as a regional carrier within the 416? 

Some Transit City proposals call out for redesign, especially regarding the Sheppard/Finch transfer and the dubious nature of surface proposals for the south ends of the Don Mills and Jane routes.  Work on new proposals is already underway as a spinoff of the Metrolinx studies, but the old plans still get lots of play including the TTC’s own Transit City campaign all over the system.  The TTC needs to update the proposals to remove the less credible options and to indicate that they are not just drawing lines on maps.

Finally, I hope to see the Metrolinx study of options for the Scarborough RT published soon.  This is an ideal chance to convert the line to LRT, and even the TTC’s own recommendation to upgrade with Mark II cars only, barely, made sense if the line would never be extended.

We now know that the “SRT” will run north into Malvern and possibly north of Steeles Avenue.  The cost comparison between LRT and Skytrain should spell the end of the RT as we know it.

by

Metrolinx Benefits Cases: VIVA First Out

Metrolinx has started the publication of its Benefits Case Analyses with the York VIVA system.  The SRT replacement study is also completed, and I expect to see it online soon.

These papers will appear in a section of the Projects Page on the Metrolinx site.

There is nothing too surprising in the VIVA study.  The map, excerpted from the full report, shows the staging options for the construction of exclusive bus lanes, here called “Rapidways”.

The core of the system radiating out from Richmond Hill Centre north to 19th, east to Unionville and west to Vaughan Corporate Centre would be finished by 2013.  In Option 1, the remainder of the network would be completed by 2018, or if Option 2 is chosen, by 2026.

A quite fascinating part of the BCA comes in the ridership estimates.  In the “Base Case” (just leave VIVA as it is with provision for modest fleet expansion), the projected 2021 ridership is 28.0-million per year.  This rises to only 30.3-million for either of the options studied.  Similarly, 2031 ridership is projected at 31.3-million for the Base Case, or 34.0-million for either of the optional networks.

Various factors are at work here.

The core of the demand falls on the first stage network that is common to both options, and the impact of the extensions is so small that it doesn’t make a difference (Before anyone accuses me of VIVA-bashing, that is a direct paraphrase from the report.)  Although the implementation of the Rapidways will give existing users a better riding experience, the comparatively small jump in riding suggests that most of the potential market is already using the system.

Updated:  In a comment posted following this post, “Dave R in the Beach” notes that the big jump in ridership is from current ridership of 6.8-million to the Base Case value of 28.0-million, and this is largely due to the subway extension.  In my response, I observed that the marginal gain from either BRT network is small and may reflect the comparatively small contribution the reserved bus lanes make to overall trip times when the much longer subway segment of the journey is included. [End of update]

An unknown acknowledged in the BCA is the question of land use planning.  Will York Region redevelop along the Rapidways, and how much will this contribute to future demand?

In the end, the BCA does not specifically recommend one option over the other, but the message about getting most of the benefit for 60% of the capital cost is quite clear.  We will see how this fares when Metrolinx puts together its detailed plan for project staging.

by

TTC’s October Supplementary Agenda

The supplementary agenda for this month has now been posted, and it contains some reports of interest.

At this point, I am only posting links here for information, but will comment on these after the meeting on October 23.

Queen Car Update:  No route changes at this time.  Continue attempts to improve line management.

Transit City Update

Yonge Subway Richmond Hill Extension

by

Local Road Planning: A Challenge for Metrolinx

In previous posts about the Metrolinx regional plan, I have written about the absence of local transit service other than something assumed to grow a lot, but not on Metrolinx’ dime.  Another aspect of local planning that pops up at Metrolinx Board meetings is the road network.

To nobody’s surprise, there are many projects to expand road capacity in the 905 given that the vast majority of travel there today and in the foreseeable future will be by private car.  Yes, there may be improvements through car pooling, park-and-ride and other schemes to lower the total passenger miles carried by autos, but there will still remain a huge demand for road space.

Recently, I received a note from a reader about the challenge of fighting Environmental Assessment battles in York Region.

Background

York Region has proposed a massive arterial road widening program. The base plan is to widen virtually all existing 4-5 lane arterial roads (2 lanes each way + left turn lane) to 6-7 lanes + wide median + bicycle lanes. The extra lane would be for HOV/bus during rush hour and general purpose the rest of the time. Different roads are at different stages in the EA process. Most are going through without citizen opposition.

However, in Markham, citizen concerns, lead by me, has resulted in the EA process being halted for 5 regional roads. The Region has agreed to model a broad range of alternatives and to form a citizens’ advisory committee. This work will commence this fall. They have also renamed the program “Transit Supportive Roads”, a very disingenuous name as you will see below.

Case Example – 16th Ave

Let me use 16th Ave in Markham, as I am most familiar with that regional road.

  • runs through established low density residential/parkland neighbourhoods (95%) or commercial (5%)
  • stable adjacent neighbourhoods unlikely to intensify in next 20 years
  • one YRT bus route (Route 85) with peak service every 20 mins
  • maximum current transit ridership say 50 people/hr/peak direction
  • VIVA BRT on dedicated right of way coming soon on Highway 7 ( 2 km south)
  • heavily congested by automobiles during peak hours

The idea that this road needs investment of scarce public dollars to build a “transit supportive road” is ludicrous. Until the built form of the area changes, this will remain as a low transit ridership route (< few hundred pphpd). The project is a road widening for cars with a fancy new name.

My Request of your Readers

However, let’s play along for a minute. Do your readers have any suggestions on what could be tried (or modelled) to improve transit within the existing footprint or with minor widening? At this point, the Region seems amenable to testing a broad range of ideas. Two ideas have surfaced so far:

  1. Build a single reversible bus-only lane in the centre of the road
  2. Use the “intermittent bus lane” concept cited in Metrolinx Green Paper on Transit (pg 11) and apparently giving 50% improvement in bus speeds in Lisbon with limited impact on general traffic movement

Has anyone seen #1 anywhere in North America? Has anyone been to Lisbon and observed #2? Does anyone have other ideas?

Peter Miasek

This raises at least two questions.  First, are we facing unbridled widening of roads in the 905 regardless of whatever efforts are made to woo people onto transit?  The current situation with VIVA is disheartening in that an entire network of BRT is shut down, but it carries only 35,000 people a day.  Those people are feeling the impact, but they’re a drop in the bucket of transportation demand.  How much political clout can transit plans muster?

Second, the Metrolinx Draft plan contains some fairly strong language about the need for local municipalities to bring their plans into line with the new regional plan.  Will Metrolinx have anything to say about road projects, some of which, as Durham’s Roger Anderson pointed out, are on the verge of construction but don’t even appear on the Metrolinx maps?  How can Metrolinx formulate a regional plan when it ignores the role and impact of local road and transit decisions?

by

“Evergreen” Won’t Be LRT in Vancouver

To no great surprise, Translink has announced that the Evergreen line will be built using Skytrain technology, not as a conventional LRT line.

I have always wondered how this LRT scheme managed to get a foothold in a city so dedicated to one mode and where LRT proposals had constantly been sidelined. Indeed, building one orphan line off in the burbs hardly made sense.

The business case rests on faster travel times for ALRT which translate into higher future ridership (a claim that has been used consistently for modal comparisons in other corridors) and on lower operating costs at least in part because the line would be an extension of an existing system.