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.
On July 12, the Toronto City Summit Alliance (TCSA) held a round table at Wychwood Barns to discuss their recently published paper on transit funding. Please refer to my first article on this topic for details.
The round table added nothing to what we already know on this subject, but did provide insight into public policy debate here in the GTA. Although this was officially a TCSA event, it was clearly at the service of Metrolinx who had a strong presence. Rob Prichard, Metrolinx CEO, gave opening remarks. As I have already noted, John Brodhead, Metrolinx VP of Strategy & Communications, co-chaired the working group behind the TCSA paper. Other Metrolinx staff were scattered through the crowd, some as facilitators at tables.
Invited participants included activists of varied backgrounds, a few politicians, professionals from government and industry, representatives from various business groups, a few from the media, and others from the collection of “usual suspects” one sees at this type of gathering. The idea, the hope, was that the collected wisdom of this group might inform future debate and recommendations about how to proceed.
Where Did The Study Come From?
GO Transit’s Georgetown corridor, home to many existing and proposed services, has not been a happy place for the Environmental Assessment process, especially on the southern end of the line. Officially, this project was the Georgetown South Service Expansion (GSSE), now shortened to the Georgetown South Project. However, the project has a troubled history thanks to:
This established a confrontational relationship between GO and corridor residents. When Metrolinx published The Big Move, it was obvious that vastly expanded service would be operated along this line including:
GO was so preoccupied with opposition in Weston that it failed to take account of the quickly growing population around the rail corridor south of West Toronto Junction. Aside from the question of daily train movements, GO further alienated residents with a proposal for the Strachan Avenue grade separation that would have created a major barrier within the new King West / Liberty Village community. This matter was not resolved until intervention by Metrolinx and a compromise solution acceptable to the City of Toronto was adopted.
GO runs popular services, and as a provincial agency it is used to getting more or less what it wants. Public participation and accommodation have not been GO’s strong suits.
When the Georgetown South project revealed that there would be over 400 train movements per day on the southern end of the corridor, residents were more than a little upset. Their concerns about noise and pollution were not helped by GO’s appeal to the greater good with claims that, overall, there would be less pollution thanks to auto trips diverted from highways. Those highways are not in backyards in Weston, the Junction and Parkdale, and the benefits that might accrue on Highways 400, 401 and 427 were little comfort to those who would see their local rail corridor gain vastly more traffic than it has today.
From this swelling activism came a demand that GO electrify its system to reduce noise and pollution levels in the neighbourhoods through which it travelled. Electrification had been considered before, but only in the context of the Lake Shore corridor, and only for lower service levels than The Big Move contemplates. This has always been a “nice to do” that gets shunted aside thanks to budget constraints and a desire to concentrate on building service. By late 2009, the demand for a detailed study reached a level where Queen’s Park and Metrolinx could not dodge the issue, and GO’s Electrification Study was born. Continue reading
The Metrolinx Board will meet on June 29. This article is a preview of the agenda, and I will report on the meeting itself later in the week.
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.
Updated April 12, 2010: Metrolinx has dropped the appeal of the CTA’s order. The Star quotes Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne:
“This is about working with the community and repairing any damage that has been done and building a good relationship,” said Ontario Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne.
“These transit projects are going to be going to go on for a number of years, as they should be. That means there will be disruption in the communities,” she said.
But the government is committed to working with residents to make the process as comfortable as possible, said Wynne.
A few days ago, Queen’s Park dropped a bombshell on local and regional transit plans by announcing the deferral of $4-billion of previously announced support for transit construction. Details were left for Metrolinx to work out.
Pity poor Metrolinx, and its Board who are about to embark on their annual retreat. This will be no wine and canapés in the woods outing, but some very hard slogging for “Metrolinx II”. This is a Board that did not work through the creation of The Big Move, and many members are short on local planning and political experience. All the same, it’s their job to sort out what is to be done.
I’m not a Metrolinx Board member. I wasn’t even on their Advisory Panel. But if I were, here’s the advice I would give.
Metrolinx is stuck in a policy vacuum. Queen’s Park claims it has not lost interest in transit, merely that it wants to hold off a while to get the financial house in better order and concentrate on portfolios more demanding of short-term spending. We have to take them at their word, but this doesn’t really tell us what support for transit will look like whenever it will materialize.
Any program that assumes one specific level of support is doomed to irrelevance on two counts:
Queen’s Park has announced that it will produce a 10-year fiscal plan in 2011. That plan necessarily will include (or omit) whatever funding for transit, including Metrolinx projects, that will take us to the next decade. Metrolinx’ job is not to produce one scenario, but a range of options that can inform the creation of that plan.
For obvious political reasons (the coming provincial election), debate on these options may happen in private, and that would be quite sad. The future of the GTA’s transit network is far too complex and far-reaching to appear as a fait accompli by way of a pre-election announcement next year. Moreover, if the Liberals were to lose power, a single program embedded in an election platform would almost certainly be discarded as a product of the ancien régime. You need only look to the treatment accorded David Miller’s Transit City to see what the future might do to a Liberal transit plan.
Here, Board members, are your assignments. Continue reading
On March 22, the Toronto Public Health Department hosted a meeting at City Hall regarding the issue of clean trains in the Weston corridor.
I was not able to attend, but Robert Wightman sent the following report.
I was at the meeting at city hall tonight and a few interesting things came up.
1 Prof. Christopher Kennedy, Civil Engineering U of T, said that far side stops on centre reservation LRT lines were a bad idea.
2 The number of 480 trains per day is only valid if GO gets every commuter to take the train downtown. They are only going to run an extra 10 to 15 GO trains per day. They were designing for the “worst” or “Best” case scenario. Gary McNeil from GO/Metrolinx said they did not have the capacity at Union for this many trains, no kidding.
3 Gary McNeil gave the impression that GO/Metrolinx really doesn’t know where it is going or what its real direction is. He did say that GO is inter regional as is not interested in providing service within the 416, but if the TTC wants to build a rapid transit line up the corridor they could tunnel under the rail right of way. GO is unwilling to consider anything that is not mainline railway compatible even if they own the entire corridor and have enough tracks to keep regular freight and passenger equipment off them.
4 SNC Lavalin is looking at a mainline version of the Ottawa Talent cars instead of recycled Budd Cars.
5 The Air Rail Link must be running for the Pan Am Games.
6 GO transit has NOT bought the Oakville Sub or any other tracks along the Lake Shore from CN but they are in negotiations for any and all lines that CN or CP will sell them. The guy beside me told me this. I think that his name was Bob Prichard.
7 McNeil said the electrification study should be done by December and that GO and MPI will have a tier 4 version of the MP40 Locomotive ready in about a year for testing.
The crowd was remarkably civil considering the fact that 99% thought that GO Metrolinx had been treating them like mushrooms, keeping them in the dark and feeding them manure.
If anyone else wishes to contribute observations, please do so in the comment thread.
Steve Munro 