A Grand Plan

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Paying the Piper

The Toronto City Summit Alliance (TCSA) recently published a discussion paper on transit and transportation infrastructure funding in the GTA.  This document will be discussed at an invitational working group meeting on July 14.

There is little new information in this report which follows on the heels of a similar paper by the Board of Trade (see my post from May 2010) and a Metrolinx review of revenue options in 2008.  Much more fascinating is the process:  a major discussion of provincial infrastructure planning and revenue generation policy is taking place outside of the agency charged with that task.  Indeed, Metrolinx VP John Brodhead is listed as a co-chair of the working group along with TCSA’s Julia Deans.

Metrolinx itself may be unwilling to discuss the so-called “Investment Strategy”, but this does not stop well-connected external groups from pursuing a more activist agenda.  After years of decrying excessive public sector spending, Toronto’s business community has discovered that failure to spend on infrastructure costs the city dearly in lost productivity and attractiveness for investment.  This is not a problem that turns around overnight even assuming we all agreed on what to do.

Queen’s Park may be horrified of proposing new taxes, tolls, “revenue tools”, but with the understanding that spending on transportation in urban regions is essential, even the more conservative elements at the Pink Palace will have to take notice.

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Metrolinx Meeting Followup June 2010 (Updated)

Updated July 6, 2010:  Metrolinx has now published the Benefits Cases Analyses for the Hurontario, Dundas, Durham and GO projects.  I will comment on these in a separate post.

The original article from July 2 follows below:

This article is a followup to the agenda preview I posted on June 28, 2010.  It is a rather lengthy commentary, as much an editorial as a report on events, with the intent of reviewing Metrolinx’ role over coming months and the complexity of the work facing the organization. 

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GO Transit Electrification Study Update

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:

  • Extreme insensitivity to local concerns about noise and vibration from the West Toronto Diamond grade separation project eventually resulted in a successful appeal to the Canadian Transportation Agency forcing GO to change its construction methods.
  • Proposals to slice through Weston with a widened rail corridor, including closing streets that linked the commercial strip on Weston Road to the residential communities to the east, infuriated local residents.  This was compounded by their discovery that, initially at least, much of the additional traffic on the corridor would be for the premium fare airport shuttle from Union Station.

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:

  • All-day service at least to Brampton on the Georgetown line
  • All-day service to Milton
  • Peak period service to Bolton (a line that now has no GO operations but shares the corridor to the north end of Weston)
  • All-day service to Barrie (a line that shares the corridor from Dundas Street south to the rail yards at Bathurst)
  • All-day service every 15 minutes on the Air Rail Link from Union to Pearson Airport operating via the Georgetown line and a spur to be built into the airport lands

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 →

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Neighbourhood Maps Return! Riders Still Somewhat Mystified.

Last September, I reported on the travesty of new “area maps” for the streets around subway stations.  They were so hopelessly inaccurate that an excellent Toronto trivia contest could have been held to spot all of the errors.  In very short order, they vanished.  (It’s amazing how quickly the TTC can move when it’s embarrassed.)

Joe Clark reports that a new area map has just appeared at Christie Station and has posted photos on Flickr.

Have a look.  What is missing?  The TTC routes serving the area!  There’s a nice green line showing the subway, and the stations are marked, but no surface routes.  Yes, riders can look at the big map right next-door to see the local routes, but it wouldn’t hurt to have them on the area maps too.

Also missing-in-action is the alternate entrance at Bathurst/Markham.

The next question for trivia seekers is this:  will the TTC replace the even older generation of local maps which can be found in selected locations around the system?  These missed the first wave of really inaccurate updates, and were not removed in the great purge.  Does the TTC even know they exist, and will they update them with brand new maps?

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Broadview Station Second Exit Stays Closed

The second exit from Broadview Station opened briefly last summer ending the long period of reconstruction at that station.  By fall, it was closed again due to ongoing problems with water.  The announced opening date kept changing, and most recently signs declared that June 30, 2010 was the new target. 

Here is the explanation from the TTC’s Brad Ross:

We’ve encountered a very difficult problem with water ingress at Broadview Station. TTC Engineering and our consultants are continuing geotechnical investigations to determine the source and extent of the water presence.

The next step is to remove the below grade water on a temporary basis to allow the extensive repairs needed to stairwell finishes and the stairs to re-open. In the interim a permanent solution will be developed and implemented to prevent water from entering the structure in the future. There’s a tank on-site is to facilitate remedial and testing measures and removal of the below grade water.

The saga continues.

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The Spaces In Between

As the Mayoral campaigns of various candidates meander toward October 25, I can’t help noticing a common thread in the transit platforms of the major candidates.  Actually, a missing thread.

Everyone loves to draw a map.  Pull out a magic marker and a map of the city, cross out a few “David Miller” lines to show you’re an independent thinker, draw in a few of your own, and Voila!  You have a transit platform.

Some candidates talk about quality and reliability of transit service without saying exactly what they mean.  One would give seniors a free ride for four hours a day.  One would integrate TTC and GO fare structures and operations.  But the real debates, as I saw just this morning at yet another joust for three would-be Mayors, turn on maps and funding.

Large swaths of Toronto will never see rapid transit, whether we use that name for full-scale subways, or LRT, or BRT, or jet-propelled Swan Boats.  Riders living there will put up with local bus and streetcar services forever.  There may be a new subway or LRT down the street, closer than today, but not in walking distance.

What we don’t hear in the debates is a sense of that much-hated word “vision”.  What role does transit play in the city, not just today but in decades to come?  What does “good service” mean?  How much are we willing to pay for a bus every 10 minutes or better at midnight?  How much of the cost should be paid by governments as an investment in mobility and enabling transit lifestyles, and how much should be paid by riders?

Drawing lines on a map looks good, at least to people who live near the projected routes, but unless there’s a lot of them, and a mechanism to pay for their construction, they’re just doodles to most transit riders.  Doodles, moreover, of lines that may not open until the would-be Mayor has been driven from office by a newer municipal saviour.

My question to those who would be Mayor is simple:  what will you do to improve transit today?

Be honest about fares.  Will you raise them?  Will you charge by distance?   Will you get rid of the TTC’s arcane transfer restrictions?  Will you truly integrate GO and TTC fare schemes in a way that is attractive to riders?  Don’t tell me about Smart Cards, whether it’s Queen’s Park’s Presto or a new Open Payment system.  Tell me what your philosophy of charging for transit really is.  Once we know how you want to price transit, we can work out how to collect the fares.

Be honest about service.  People love subways.  They run until almost 2am with trains every five minutes.  There’s even a big three-way meet of last trains at Bloor-Yonge.  No wonder people want us to build subways — they guarantee the TTC will run vastly more service than, were it a bus or streetcar route, the corridor would see.  If you’re a suburban bus rider, don’t count on frequent service or protected connections.

What is “acceptable” service in frequency, crowding and reliability?  How long should someone wait for a bus to show up?  Should they be guaranteed a seat outside of the peak period?  Should reliable schedules be enforced for infrequent routes, and should frequent services provide a reliable headway between vehicles?

What does “transit priority” mean to you?  Will you take capacity away from other road users to speed transit operations, especially in locations that are already congested and transit service is often delayed?  Are streets more important for parking and deliveries, or for moving vehicles?

What is your attitude to pedestrians?  Transit users make their trips as pedestrians walking to and from stops and transferring between routes.  Should access to transit be easy and comfortable?  Are pedestrian spaces important for you, or do they get the leftovers?

The next time you hold a press conference, go to a corner that doesn’t have a subway or an LRT today, or on any map, not even on yours.  Explain what you will do to make transit better for that community.

In between rants about making City Hall more accountable and tightening our belts, explain just what this will mean to people who don’t live on your rapid transit network, who won’t benefit from all the capital spending you plan to squeeze out of Queen’s Park and maybe, just maybe, Ottawa.

When the new buses start running, when the service improves (even on the Queen car), then we’ll hold a photo op for you.  Think how many neighbourhoods you will visit with your better bus and streetcar service!  And you might even do it before the next election!!

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More New Streetcars For Toronto (Updated)

Updated on June 15 at 11:30 am:  Thanks to “nfitz” for pointing out that the base prices for both the TTC and Metrolinx cars are available in Bombardier press releases. 

Updated at 11:50 am:  A link to Transit Ottawa’s website has been added.

We gathered at an odd, odd-of-the-way spot — the GO platform at Kennedy Station — a small band of media, government aides and friends of MPPs.  In the background, SRT trains came and went from the upper level of the subway station.

The occasion?  Metrolinx and the Government of Ontario announced Cabinet approval of the extended “Big 5 in 10” project funding and the  purchase of 182 new Light Rail Vehicles for the Transit City network.  The “Big 5” announcement was no surprise — an agency like Metrolinx doesn’t publish a plan like that without knowing approval is certain.  The real news was that Ontario has embraced LRT by actually ordering vehicles.

The irony of the location, a site where we might have seen Toronto’s first LRT line three decades ago, made this event one I just had to attend even if I will have to wait almost a decade to see the new cars rolling out of Kennedy on a rebuilt, extended SRT.

This order builds on the already-approved TTC “legacy” order of 204 LRVs from Bombardier.  That contract included an option for up to 400 additional cars of which 300 were assigned to Metrolinx and the remaining 100 stayed with the TTC.  If Metrolinx wants to bump its order, it has six years to exercise the option for its remaining 118 cars.  This lies well within the timeframe of announcements for another round of LRVs for Toronto or possibly other Ontario systems, but on the timescale of transit planning, is short enough to focus attention on the question “what’s next”.

The new cars (5MB pdf) are slightly longer and wider than the “legacy” LRVs, and the Transit City lines have been designed to match the specs of an “off the shelf” vehicle rather than the more restrictive TTC streetcar system.  A comparison chart shows the major differences between the two new fleets as well as the existing CLRVs and ALRVs.

The contract price is $770-million not including taxes, spare parts and future change orders.  This $4.23-million unit cost compares favourably with the TTC’s $1.2-billion contract for 204 cars (roughly $6-million each), but the actual difference will only be in the range of 5-10% according to Metrolinx CEO Rob Prichard.  Much of the difference lies in the way the TTC and Metrolinx quote pricing and inflation (the TTC’s is an all-in price because as-spent dollars must be quoted in capital budget projections).

The TTC and Metrolinx would do well to present a price reconcilliation so that everyone can make an apples-to-apples comparison.  The last thing we need is a bunch of ill-informed Mayoral candidates presenting the difference as an example of how streetcars are too expensive in Toronto.

Updated June 15:

The base price for each set of vehicles can be found in Bombardier press releasesThe first of the new cars will run on the Sheppard East LRT scheduled to open in 2014.  The remainder of the fleet isn’t needed until 2019/20 when the Finch, Eglinton and (rebuilt/extended) SRT lines are scheduled to open.  This puts much of the order at the back end of the TTC legacy car deliveries running to 2018.  Bombardier and their workers in Thunder Bay are quite happy to see production continuing at their plant.  They have committed to 25% Canadian content, and Bombardier hopes to improve on that figure.

Metrolinx order: 182 cars for $770-million, or $4.23-million each

TTC order: 204 cars for $851-million, or  $4.17-million each

This order sets the technology pattern for other LRT projects in the GTA including Hamilton, Mississauga and Kitchener-Waterloo if any of these progresses beyond the planning stage.  Less clear, however, is the relationship with Ottawa whose LRT scheme recently got back on track with announced 1/3 funding from the federal government.  Siemens was the chosen supplier for the original Ottawa proposal, and will no doubt have a presence in any revival of that scheme.

So begins the long-overdue introduction of LRT to suburban Toronto, although much remains just lines on a plan.  There are the “Phase 2” elements of the four LRT lines, the proposed Sheppard East extension south to University of Toronto Scarborough Campus, the rest of Transit City, and who knows what beyond the 416.  The UTSC extension proposal will be on the Metrolinx Board agenda for its June 29, 2010, meeting, while the remainder awaits the “Investment Strategy” and discussions on how to fund a growing regional network.

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Furious George Has A Plan (Update 2)

Updated June 8, 2010 at 11:00 pm:

The Smitherman campaign has posted a backgrounder to his transportation plan which has been updated to reflect the funding of inflation by Queen’s Park.

In a previous update, I noted that there was a bit over $1-billion still unaccounted for.  This is explained in the backgrounder as follows:

Once the provincial government formally approves their contribution escalation the Smitherman construction cost increment is reduced to $3.87­billion, or $5-billion once financed to 2021. [Page 3]

Although this issue has been addressed, the method of paying for transit investments has not been changed.  Smitherman still depends on revenue from gas tax and dividends from City agencies, money that is already spoken for by existing budgets at the TTC and the City.  He also depends on new tax revenue from developments along the routes to be built.  However, those taxes traditionally have been at least partly spent to serve new residents and businesses these developments would bring.

While I applaud Smitherman for at least producing a detailed plan, I still do not agree with elements of it such as the Bloor-Danforth subway extensions or with his financing scheme.  (For the record, at Council today TTC staff responded to a question from Councillor Thompson about a subway extension and explained that any subway extension could not be built along the existing SRT corridor.)

The original content of this post follows the break.

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