A Grand Plan

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Speed or Frequency

There’s an excellent post, complete with several links, on Jarrett Walker’s Human Transit blog talking about the fundamentally different way that highway engineers and sustainable transit folk think about questions of “speed”.  Their views are totally at odds, and the result when a highway thinker takes on a transit problem may leave much to be desired.

Looking at the speed of a trip (or trip segment) may not tell the whole story.

In the context of technology debates here in Toronto, some will take issue with the “or” in this article’s title.  After all, a subway can be both fast and frequent as we all know.  However, part of the total trip is also the access time to service, and that brings us to debates about stop spacing, development patterns and pedestrian-friendly neighbourhoods.

The article also links to a piece about streetcars vs buses on Walker’s site.  The extensive comment thread covers many aspects of the debate we have seen here in Toronto.  One important distinction that Walker himself makes is that the article deals with streetcars vs buses, not LRT vs BRT.  He has a separate article on the distinction between streetcars and LRT.

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Transit City Cars to be Built by Bombardier

Today, Metrolinx announced that they would exercise the option in the TTC’s order for Light Rail Vehicles with Bombardier for the Transit City fleet.

Here is the press release:

Metrolinx will be entering into formal negotiations with Bombardier Inc. to exercise the option from the replacement streetcar contract to purchase Light Rail Vehicles (LRVs).

The negotiations with Bombardier to procure LRVs are part of Metrolinx’s phased plan which is being developed for the four Light Rail Transit (LRT) projects as requested by the Province.

In June, 2009, following an open competitive procurement process, Bombardier was awarded the original contract to produce vehicles for TTC’s legacy streetcar replacement. This contract contains an option clause that provides Metrolinx with the ability to purchase additional LRVs from Bombardier for the four LRT projects.

Over the past six months, Metrolinx, with the assistance of the TTC and the international transit car expert LTK Engineering Services, evaluated its procurement alternatives. Metrolinx, with the unanimous support of its Board of Directors, concluded that entering the negotiation to exercise the option would obtain the best value for Ontario.

If the negotiations are successful, Metrolinx will announce the details of the procurement when an agreement is reached.

Note the reference to the “phased plan”.  This is the stretched out implementation scheme for the funded Transit City lines contemplated by the March budget cuts to transit.

The timing of this announcement is odd in that it falls between Metrolinx Board Meeting cycles.  It’s almost as if Queen’s Park is trying to tell us that they have not forgotten Transit City.

Updated at 10:15 pm:  See also coverage by the Toronto Star’s and National Post of this announcement.

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GO Transit Pile Driving Ruled Unreasonable (Update 3)

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.

Continue reading →

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Saving Transit City

Just over two weeks ago, the wheels came off Transit City and many more plans for new transit routes in the GTA.  Queen’s Park, feeling poorly after bailing out the auto industry and promissing tidy sums for non-transit portfolios, decided to defer $4-billion of spending on The Big Move, the GTA’s transit master plan.  The effect was felt most by Transit City whose projects were those already prepared, out the door and ready to build.  Whether the work on VIVA that is also part of the first batch of funded projects will be affected, we don’t yet know.

Metrolinx has been handed the thankless task of figuring out what to do, and they’re being very quiet about it.  Word on the street is that nothing is to be annouced until the May 19, 2010 Metrolinx board meeting.

For months, it was no secret that Metrolinx was working with the TTC to rein in costs on Transit City so that the projects would stay within the funding envelope, and some trimming was expected (if only by way of creating a “phase II” for some projects).  As long as the total stayed within the announced funding, all would be well, or so everyone thought.

Now, Queen’s park wants to push spending (and associated debt) out into future years, and wants to “defer” about half of their previously committed funding.  Reaction at the municipl level was predictable with the Miller administration openly attacking Queen’s Park for renegging on a promise.  Would-be mayors are thrilled with the opportunity to have someone else delay Transit City so that candidates don’t seem obstructionist.  Meanwhile, such bastions of anti-Miller sentiment as the Toronto Star and the Board of Trade have both criticised the transit cutbacks.

The unhappiness does not stop at the 416 border.  Politicians who were expecting funding for transit improvements including BRT and LRT now wonder openly whether their projects will ever see the light of day.

Continue reading →

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TTC E-Initiatives Update (Revision 2)

Revised April 6 at 7:00 am:  A short section has been added about Google Maps.

Revised April 5 at 10:00 pm:  A section has been added at the end covering those e-initiatives which were not included in the discussion at the TTC.

On March 24, 2010, the Transit Commission received an update from staff on the status of various initiatives broadly relating to the use of information technology.  These include:

Internet Trip Planner (ITP)
Next Vehicle Arrival System (NVAS)
Customer Service Disruption Notification (CSDN)
Narrowcasting
Next Train Arrival System (NTAS)

This article gives a summary of that presentation and a few of my own comments on these and other related matters.

Continue reading →

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Open Houses: Ashbridge’s Bay Carhouse & Scarborough LRT

Two upcoming open houses may be of interest to readers.

Ashbridge’s Bay Carhouse

April 8, 2010 from 6:30pm to 9:00pm at the Toronto EMS and Fire Academy, 895 Eastern Avenue

The project website includes notes from previous public sessions and a map of proposed alternative routes to the carhouse from the existing streetcar network.

The notice for this meeting also includes reference to information about the new streetcars.  The final design for these cars is not yet determined, and an advisory committee (of which I will be a member) is now being organized by the TTC to assist with this.

Scarborough RT to LRT Conversion

Two public meetings have been scheduled for the Scarborough LRT conversion project.  This is the official launch of the Transit Project Assessment (TPA).

April 12, 2010 from 6:30pm to 9:00pm at Jean Vanier Catholic Secondary School (Cafeteria), 959 Midland Avenue (north of Eglinton)

April 15, 2010 from 6:30pm to 9:00pm at the Chinese Cultural Centre, 5183 Sheppard Avenue East (at Progress Ave)

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“Admiral Adam” launches Amphibious City

[This article is cross-posted with spacing]

Spacing exclusive – we have learned that the Toronto Transit Commission will announce a major service increase. Smarting from recent customer service issues including higher fares, sleeping employees, and rush hour service cuts, the TTC will roll out an ambitious plan for rapid transit expansion. New routes will utilize the city’s waterways to link the downtown core with neighbourhoods across Toronto.

The plan – Amphibious City – calls for partially grade-separated waterway routes as the means to quickly move commuters to and from the city’s core. Several new routes will operate as soon as this summer. In mid-March, Spacing lamented minor service cuts by the TTC and GO – despite increased ridership and higher fares. We now learn that the cuts released enough operators for intense training allowing a “quick launch” of new services.

The preliminary fleet of seven-year old “Hippo” buses will operate on three routes by the end of June. Several routes will be added in coming years leading up to the 2015 Pan-American Games.

The news of an upcoming official announcement, barely a week after the Ontario government’s budget delivered a kick in the teeth to Toronto’s LRT plans, is surprising. However, TTC officials explained to us that this is part of a contingency plan for any Transit City delays. Hippo buses will be cheap to implement, require much less money in construction costs, and the first phase can be implemented without going through a lengthy environmental assessment.

The purchased Hippo buses, acquired by the City of Toronto from a defunct private tourism enterprise, will provide service until larger and wheel-chair accessible vessels can be acquired, preferably from a Canadian manufacturer.

Some dredging and remedial work will be required for service on inland waterways such as Highland Creek or the Don River.

Speaking to Spacing insiders, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone called this the “most exciting transit news since Transit City.”

Continue reading →

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“Traffic Congestion” In Toronto

Recent news reports made a great deal out of the Toronto Board of Trade’s 2010 Scorecard on Prosperity in which, among other things, we learn that Toronto is dead last in a list of cities as measured by the average commute time to work.  Even Los Angeles is better!

At the risk of suggesting that the Board of Trade is misleading, and that the Toronto media are gullible fools, there is a basic flaw in the way the report’s findings are presented.

The Board’s question is

  • “how long does the average person take to get to work”,

not

  • “how far does the average person travel to work” or
  • “at what speed does the average person get to work”. 

This measure combines the effects of network capacity (or lack of it), of travel demand, and of the dispersal of origins and destinations across the region.  People may choose to live a 90-minute drive from home because they prefer the lifestyle, because housing is cheaper or because their families are established in locations far from their present jobs.  This may not have been inherently “bad” when they made their choice, but the economics of the situation are changing as commute times and costs go up.

Lazy readers tend to look at only the summary (these things are called “Executive Summaries” for a reason), but the important stuff is buried down in the heart of the report. Continue reading →

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Le Métro Léger de Charleroi

John F. Bromley sent along a link to a 5-minute video about three proposed LRT lines in Charleroi, Belgium.  While we agonize over transit spending and modal choices in Toronto, it’s inspiring to see examples of how LRT is presented in a positive manner elsewhere, as an opportunity not just to ram transit lines down a street, but to transform the city they will serve.

The commentary is in French.

Originally conceived in the 1960s as a pre-metro network (LRT technology running on HRT infrastructure), much of the planned system was never built.  The new scheme involves surface running in many places and changes to road and pedestrian layouts at major stations.

The population of the metropolitan area of Charleroi is a bit over half a million, although the city proper is only about 200,000.

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Time For Metrolinx To Earn Its Keep

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:

  • If spending priorities change for any reason, the program will be out-of-step with available funding and we will be back to the familiar position of waiting for yet another proposal while the clock ticks away.
  • A single program without alternatives includes many assumptions and tradeoffs that may be hidden in private discussions, and which preclude vital public debate on what role transit should have and how it will be financed.

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 →