A Grand Plan

by

Union Station 2nd Platform Update

I have received queries from some people here, and know there is a discussion on another transit site, about the status of the TTC’s 2nd platform contract.  Recently I asked Adam Giambrone what was going on, and the following info is based on his reply.

The bid that would otherwise have been successful came in at a price well above the project budget.  As this work will be funded by Waterfront Toronto, and they are not prepared to up their contribution, the bid was rejected.

The TTC has reviewed the project staging and will re-tender the work using a different construction scheme that will require the full or partial closing of Front Street.  The new tender will go out within a week.

by

Buses vs LRT: “And”, Not “Or” (Updated)

Updated September 6, 2010 at 4:50 pm:

Anna Mehler Paperny of the Globe and Mail writes about the difficulties of getting around on a bus network where service leaves much to be desired.

The better way? Don’t get Janet Fitzimmons started.

The East Scarborough resident lives less than five kilometres from her work in the Kingston Road-Galloway Road area. But the bus ride takes a good 40 minutes – once the Lawrence Avenue bus comes, if it isn’t full. If the weather’s nice, her commute is faster by foot.

“But I’m lucky: I’m able-bodied and healthy.” And, she adds, “my commute isn’t bad for Scarborough.” A colleague of hers takes three buses to traverse what’s barely a seven-kilometre direct trek.

Meanwhile, Tyler Hamilton of The Star tells of the travails of attempting to use service on Kingston Road in The Beach.

Last Tuesday I needed to head downtown – Bay St. and King St. – for an event. […] It was rush hour. I seemed to have plenty of time, so I decided to take the 503 Kingston Rd. streetcar route. Checked the schedule. Walked to my stop and arrived what I thought was 10 minutes early.

No streetcar. Twenty minutes later, no streetcar.

This is rush hour, remember. Finally a bus that would take me along Queen St. arrived and the driver encouraged me to get on. “The 503 won’t be coming. Take Queen St.,” he says. “It will get you close. Hop on.”

I hop on. A man sitting across from me leans over and says, “TTC, eh… it means take the car.” I offer a forced chuckle. The bus drives along Kingston Rd. for five minutes and then reaches Queen St. “Time to get off,” the driver says. Huh? I join a herd of passengers exiting the bus. Apparently I should have known about transferring onto a Queen St. streetcar.

Confused, I wait. I wait. I don’t see a streetcar. I see a cab. Hail it. It will be worth the $20 at this point – enough money, mind you, to drive half a month in my Honda Civic.

I share my frustration with the cab driver. “The TTC is good for the cab business,” he replies with a smile.

Of course, a regular rider would know that there is no such thing as a 503 car, at least not until September 7 when streetcar service returns to Kingston Road.  The scheduled bus service is every 12 minutes on the 502 and 503 providing a supposedly blended 6 minute headway.  Take the first thing that comes along if you’re going downtown.  If it’s a 502, change to the King car at Broadview if you want King rather than Queen Street.  This is the sort of survival tip a regular will know, but a novice won’t.

By the way, the streetcar services will run every 15 minutes, with an allegedly combined service of 7’30”.  Don’t hold your breath.  A big problem with both of these routes is that they are short-turned and wind up missing the very customers they are intended to serve.

Add to this the appalling off-peak service and you have a recipe for driving away customers.  The 502 bus or streetcar is scheduled every 20 minutes, but only a few days ago I waited 36 minutes for one to show up.  I had not just missed one, and so the gap was easily over 40 minutes.  By the time we reached Queen Street westbound, we had a light standing load even on that wide headway, and we had also passed two eastbound 502s.  That’s right:  3 of the 4 buses on the route were east of Coxwell.  This is called “line management”.

The real irony is that the 12 Kingston Road bus comes and goes at Bingham Loop every 10 minutes.  There is better service east of Victoria Park than west of it on weekdays.  Evening and weekend service on the 22A Coxwell is better than on the 502.  This is one of the few places in the TTC where weekday service is worse than at any other time, and that’s assuming the weekday service is vaguely on schedule.

An important part of improving bus services generally is that the TTC must stop thinking of the outer parts of lines as places where short turns and unpredictable, infrequent service are acceptable.

Continue reading →

by

Smart Card Wars (Part IV, Updated)

The Star reports that the Ontario NDP has asked the Provincial Auditor to review the contract with Accenture for the development of the Presto smart card system.  An explanation of the background for this request is on the NDP’s website, and it goes into details of past contracts between Ontario and Accenture.

John Lorinc reports in the Globe that a system to be developed for Vancouver will use similar technology to that proposed by the TTC for its own smart card system, and come in at a fraction of the expected price for Presto.

Updated: Royson James weighs in on smart cards in the Star, and John Lorinc has an article on spacing.

In the case of the NDP request, the scope should look more widely than just Accenture which provides system development and operation.  However, some of the capital and ongoing staffing costs for the Presto project are carried in other budgets.  Any review needs to look at the whole picture, not just one contract.

Comparisons with Vancouver will be intriguing, but it will likewise be necessary to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison.  For example, the new system is to be implemented as part of a conversion of the Skytrain rapid transit stations from their current barrier-free design to use turnstiles.  This is intended to reduce fare evasion.  One big cost in Toronto is  for providing existing turnstiles with power and network links to handle Presto.  It is entirely possible that some components of the Toronto smart card budget will be covered by Vancouver’s turnstile retrofit budget.  (Similar burying of costs in multiple accounts occurs quite commonly in TTC budgets, notably for subway station renovations.)

Presto needs to be held to account for what it has produced and the expected cost of system expansion.  The fog of “commercial confidentiality” used, for example, to prevent revelation of the cost of a new city’s rollout (Ottawa) means that we have no way predict long term spending requirements, or to compare these with projects in other cities.

Ontario has just, thankfully, ended its relationship with SNC Lavalin for the Air Rail Link to Pearson Airport, and with this change we should have greater transparency and accountability for the project.

The same openness must apply to Presto.  If it is a demonstrably good and competitive system, then show us.

by

Paying the Piper (3)

Recently, I commented on the gathering held by the Toronto City Summit Alliance at which Metrolinx’ President/CEO (soon to be Chair) Rob Prichard posed a series of questions about funding of transit construction and operations.

Subsequently, as an attendee, I was asked to respond to these questions online.  Why write something for such limited distribution, I thought.  Here are the eight questions and my answers, updated a bit from the “official” version I left of the consultant’s website.

Continue reading →

by

TTC Launches Downtown Rapid Transit Expansion Page

The TTC now has a page within the Projects section of their website devoted to the Downtown Rapid Transit Study.

The study’s purpose is:

1. Assess the need for additional rapid transit capacity to serve the downtown core given the capacity improvements already planned by TTC and GO and recognizing forecast land use and ridership scenarios;

2. Assess alternative strategies to accommodate the forecast demand including the costs and benefits associated with various scenarios composed of the following elements:

(a) The construction of new rapid transit lines such as the previously-proposed Downtown Rapid Transit (DRT) line;

(b) Expanded GO Rail capacity (including additional GO stations in the City of Toronto);

(c) Improvements in streetcar services to enhance shorter-distance transit accessibility in the downtown; and

(d) Fare, service and other policy initiatives to increase downtown transit ridership that may be appropriate.

3. If necessary, undertake the appropriate functional design and environmental assessment studies required to obtain approval for the construction of the recommended facilities.

Information about public consultation will appear when available.

This study is important by comparison with many past efforts by both TTC and Metrolinx in its review of transit as an integration of long, medium and short distance trips, each of which has its own requirement for service.  Too many studies look at only one aspect of this larger problem.

by

Metrolinx Takes Over Airport Link Project

On July 30, Metrolinx announced that it will take over the Air Rail Link project — a premium fare service between Union Station and Pearson Airport — from SNC-Lavalin.

Metrolinx will build, own and operate the service through its GO Transit division.

While the province and the Union Pearson Air-Link Group (UPAG), a subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin, were able to make significant progress negotiating, financial market conditions prevented acceptable terms. The government will continue to work with UPAG to build on the design and development work that has been completed to date.

This long-overdue change in the ARL scheme should bring the project into public view where all aspects of its design, financing and operation will be subject to the same scrutiny and openness as other Metrolinx projects.  Issues such as service levels, equipment provisioning and, most importantly, electrification will no longer hide behind the veil of “commercial confidentiality”.

Fares will be part of the overall Metrolinx/GO network scheme, and the amount of any “premium” surcharge over comparable GO fares will be a matter of public record.  The current one-way GO fare to the airport from downtown is $5.55, far below the $22 figure touted as a possible charge for the SNC-Lavalin operation.  As a matter of public policy, Metrolinx should decide whether the ARL should operate on a full cost recovery basis, or like other transit services, be subsidized for the larger benefits of moving travellers without autos.

This change will affect the design of infrastructure and operational planning.  If the ARL is priced and operates more like a GO service, it will attract riders such as commuting airport workers, and integration with through Kitchener-Waterloo line will be much simpler.  However, the size of facilities now proposed for the ARL may be inadequate to a role as a major airport link.  There may even be an option to rethink the technology choice for this corridor and the details of its connection at Union Station.

Today all we have is a press release, but Metrolinx must truly integrate the ARL planning into The Big Move.  The ARL will not be a separate, privately-owned service whose business might cloud planning and implementation of “competing” routes.  There should be one plan for the airport with regional bus and LRT services including the Eglinton, Finch West and Hurontario/Brampton lines.

The airport is a vital regional hub in The Big Move, and transit service to it must be more than a few lines sketched on a map.  Metrolinx should launch planning — including public participation — for its airport services immediately.

by

Metrolinx Musical Chairs

On July 28, Queen’s Park announced that Bruce McCuaig, the Deputy Minister of Transportation, would become the next President and CEO of Metrolinx effective September 4, 2010.  Rob Prichard will move from this position to become Chair of the Metrolinx Board, and the present Chair, Rob MacIsaac, will leave Metrolinx to devote his time to the presidency of Mohawk College.

McCuaig is a career bureaucrat at Queen’s Park with 26 years’ experience in various posts in the Ministries of Municipal Affairs & Housing, and then Transportation.  From his government bio page:

[Before becoming Deputy-Minister] Mr. McCuaig was Assistant Deputy Minister of Provincial Highways Management Division in MTO. He has also held the position of Assistant Deputy Minister of the ministry’s Policy, Planning and Standards Division, as well as a variety of other positions at MTO and at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Mr. McCuaig has a Bachelor of Applied Arts degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

Media reports in the Star and Globe suggest that McCuaig will use and build on his relationships with transit agencies and managers, notably Gary Webster at the TTC.

Rob Prichard’s move to the Chair’s role and Rob MacIsaac’s departure complete a changing of the guard that began with “Metrolinx II”, the new politician-free Metrolinx Board created in early 2009.  Prichard is better at glad-handing and advocating for transit than MacIsaac who tended to be distrustful of public input although that is a fundamental part of this high-profile agency’s work.

Both Prichard and McCuaig have big challenges.  The first will be to determine “who’s on top” in setting policy and overall direction.  Major policy announcements and funding come from Cabinet and the Ministry, and this puts a former Deputy Minister in a leading role.  However, the Metrolinx Board, especially with the supposed benefit of private-sector input, should, like any Board, give overall direction and ensure that management is doing its job.  That has a potential for conflict, if not outright abdication of the Board’s role.

Board members need to ask difficult questions, to challenge Metrolinx staff, to conduct a real debate about how the GTA’s transportation network will grow and be financed.  Metrolinx makes recommendations to the Minister, but the Board should not be a rubber stamp for whatever the staff proposes.

The early days of Metrolinx were comparatively easy ones.  Everybody loves to draw lines on maps, and The Big Move, the end product of that period, speaks of a bright transit future for the region.  Reality is not quite so simple.  Changes in funding schemes and land use, not to mention the vital role of local transit systems, require hard work, not simply the publication of a glossy plan.

The Big Move 2.0, an update process launched recently, will be driven mainly by staff, but a new plan must acknowledge and address shortcomings in the 1.0 version.  These include:

  • dubious projections that overstate demands and available capacities in some major corridors, notably commuter rail;
  • a focus on the end-state of a network after 25 years’ construction rather than intermediate stages;
  • a project evaluation methodology that considers each line in isolation rather than as part of a network; and
  • a failure to acknowledge the scope and cost of changes required in local transit operations to support the ridership hopes for regional services.

If the Board is to earn its keep, it must ensure that TBM 2.0 isn’t simply a warmed-over-lightly repackaging of TBM 1.0.

Metrolinx is no longer just a planning agency, and the move into construction and operations changes its role from one of a talking shop to front line delivery of facilities and services.  Although the recently merged GO Transit division has this background, The Big Move dwarfs current operations and will fundamentally change GO Transit itself.  Old models won’t work any more.

Getting all of this financed and built requires long term commitment, a notoriously absent character in the political scene.  Metrolinx must assume the role of advocate for transit and transportation expansion, but must do so with a credible base of plans and demonstrable benefits.  Billions in new funding will come only if the public, and by extension the politicians, trust what Metrolinx tells them.

Bruce McCuaig and Rob Prichard have much work to do.  I wish them well, but won’t hesitate to demand openness, quality and credibility from Metrolinx.

by

Smart Card Wars (Part III) (Update 1)

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.

Continue reading →

by

Thoughts From Down Under

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.

by

Smart Card Wars (Part II) (Corrected)

Correction added July 24 at 10:45pm:

Mark Dowling, in a comment later in this thread, has pointed out that a TTC report last November cited a provincial requirement for participation in Presto as a condition for funding through various programs.  (See 4th paragraph on page 7)

This report must be read in the context of the amended recommendations approved by the Commission as reported in the Minutes:

Chair Giambrone moved that recommendation no. 1 contained in the report, be amended as follows:

“It is recommended that the commission:

1. Conditionally approve the adoption of the Presto Fare Collection System subject to satisfactory resolution of the issues outlined in attachment a, subject to:

* TTC and City staff discussions with representatives of the Federal Government, Provincial Government, Metrolinx and the City of Toronto to develop operating and financial agreements necessary to resolve the issues outlined in attachment a;

* TTC staff reporting back to the commission for approval of the operating and financial agreements that have been developed;

* TTC staff developing detailed business requirements for adopting the Presto System at the TTC to the satisfaction of the commission;

* TTC staff undertaking the engineering and design work necessary for future subway infrastructure modifications to provide power and communications to support smartcards”.

The motion by Chair Giambrone carried.

Chair Giambrone moved that the final bullet in attachment ‘a’, be amended as follows:

* “TTC and the City must not be bound to fare payment exclusivity that would preclude implementation of advances in fare payment approaches and technologies, such as and including open payments, mobile phone media, etc”.

The motion by Chair Giambrone carried.

Commissioner Milczyn moved that attachment ‘a’ be amended to include the following:

* “TTC and the City expect the presto system to be designed to support open architecture;

* TTC and the city remain cognizant of our own fare policies and the system must be designed with flexibility to allow for different fare policies”.

The motion by Commissioner Milczyn carried.

Chair Giambrone moved that the commission approve the report, as amended.

The motion by chair Giambrone carried.

Therefore, when I originally reported that the link between Presto and programs other than Transit City had never been brought to the Commission, I erred.  The main article below has been updated accordingly.

In turn, this begs the question of why this issue was not raised when the Commission approved a study of a separate system from Presto, and the degree to which the conditions for acceptance of Presto, as set out in the November 2009 motion, have or have not been met.

I have also corrected the expiry date of the current Presto contract to 2016.  The original date cited, 2011, appeared in another report that I was using as reference material.

The original post from July 23, with amendments, follows below.

Continue reading →