A Grand Plan

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What Should We Do About Fares?

In my previous article, I reviewed the TTC staff report about the proposed fare increase, but didn’t say much (except in the comment thread) about my overall view on the situation.

The most important fact about Tuesday’s TTC decision, whatever it will be, is that it will not set, once and for all, either the fare and service levels for 2010, nor general fare policy for the future.  Any attempt to do so runs directly into the limitations of the TTC’s mandate and the simple truth that neither the City nor Queen’s Park have clearly stated how much the TTC might get in operating subsidies for 2010.

For next Tuesday, as I have said many times, I support the proposed 25-cent token fare increase with all other fares rising proportionately.  The attempt to grab $5 extra a month from Metropass holders is an unfair, precipitous action brought forward by TTC staff who have always fought against making the pass “the better way” to travel.  That the scheme was announced by a press release rather than by a formal proposal from the Commission itself raises serious questions about who is setting policy at the TTC.

If the Commission adopts this fare scheme, the TTC will still be about $50-million in the hole going into the 2010 budget process.  At this point we have no idea what sort of tradeoffs this might entail, and the Commission is asked to implement a fare change without all the facts on the table.

As I mentioned in my previous article, TTC staff claim that the system’s costs will rise by 7% per annum for the foreseeable future, but they do not quantify the source of this magnitude of change.  Some factors listed in the staff report are non-recurring or have a limited effect on future budgets.

Next Tuesday, as we always see when fare increases are on the table, there will be many groups calling for various changes in fare structures ranging from a complete freeze to new discounts for certain groups of riders.  I believe that the Commission, and by extension the City, should not be making fare policy on the fly.  We are all badly served by “debate” that is inevitably presented as a decision that must be taken today lest the sky fall tomorrow. Continue reading →

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A Little Accuracy Would Be Nice

The National Post reported comments by former City budget chief David Soknacki at the Board of Trade in which he claims that in the past decade:

  • The TTC staff went up 13%, while the service operated rose by only 1.3%.
  • The cost to Toronto taxpayers for the TTC went from $125 to $250.

This sort of statement gets red-blooded, tax-chopping politicians, not to mention the Board of Trade, hopping mad.  If only the information were accurate and in context.

First let’s look at service levels.

In 1998, the TTC operated 106.6-million km on its surface network, and by 2008, this was up to 126.3-million.  That 18.5% more, and even allowing for the fact that 2008 was a leap year (and had one more day’s operations in it), that’s a lot better than 1.3%.  The surface fleet rose from 1,744 buses and streetcars to 1,985, or 13.8%.

On the rapid transit network, service rose from 71.7m to 78.2m km, or 9.1%.  Most of the increase came from restoration of mid-90s off-peak service cuts and a small bump from the Sheppard Subway opening.

During this period, the TTC was subject to changes in labour laws restricting hours of work in the transit industry, and this triggered a requirement for more operators to perform the same work.

We can have long debates about the merits of Local 113, not to mention the non-union staff at TTC, but the simple fact is that over the past decade the TTC ran more service and hired more people operate the system.

Second, the “transit tax” per capita.

During the mid 1990s, funding for transit and other municipal services was butchered by Queen’s Park, and the City of Toronto (among others) is still digging its way out of that hole.  Transit services were scaled back, ridership dropped, and the farebox recovery rate went above 80%.

Over the next decade, City policy favoured a return to better service quality (the Ridership Growth Strategy) and to a farebox recovery at the so-called historic level of 68%.  There is nothing magic about this figure.  It just happened to be the level when Toronto and Queen’s Park came to an agreement about the amounts of subsidy each would provide, locking in at the then-current level.

In 1998, an adult token cost $1.60 (and had done so since 1996), while the Metropass cost $83 and was not transferrable.  Today, the token costs $2.25 and the Metropass $109 (leaving aside various discounts available).  That’s an increase of 41% on tokens and 31% on passes.

Better service and a higher proportionate subsidy for service combined to drive up the subsidy required by the TTC.

  • In 1998, the total operating subsidy was $146.3-million paid entirely by the City.
  • This rose to $299.6m by 2007, of which $208.0m came from the City with the rest from other governments. 
  • The next year, 2008, the City contribution dropped back the 1998 level even though the total subsidy continued to rise to $316.9m.
  • For 2009, the total subsidy will be about $400m thanks to the combined effects of inflation and the 2009 fare freeze.

Over the 1998-2008 period, it is roughly correct to say that taxpayers somewhere (local, provincial, federal) roughly doubled their contribution to the TTC, but that increase was paid back to riders in better service and lower fares, relative to the total cost of operation.

Many politicians pay lip service to the need for better public transportation, and if anything, spending is far behind where it should be, especially for system expansion.  None of that will come without higher subsidies.  We can debate whether those the TTC and other transit agencies get today are spent wisely or effectively, but the need for more transit is inescapable.  Talk about efficiency plays well to the mythical taxpayer, but more often this is code for “no more transit money” at a time when that’s the worst possible choice.

For a detailed look at TTC fares and operating statistics, please visit Bob Brent’s website.

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Metrolinx Publishes Full Richmond Hill Subway Study

The full version of the Benefits Case Analysis for the Yonge Subway extension to Richmond Hill is now available online.  I will comment on it at greater length when I have the time to do so.

Notable in this report is the acknowledgement of the effect of this extension on the existing subway system and especially Bloor-Yonge Station.  There are conflicting remerks in the BCA regarding the degree to which improved service on GO Transit to Richmond Hill can divert riding from the subway line.  A major issue here is that the implementation of very frequent all-day “Express Rail” GO service to Richmond Hill is not contemplated in the Metrolinx plan until 2031, long after a subway extension would open.

Detailed work on a number of related proposals will continue, and Metrolinx expects that a full evaluation will be available in late 2010.

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The TTC Responds: TTC Times 2 / Riding Around Loops

Recent comments in the thread regarding the split operations on 501 Queen, as well as a reported incident where an operator was unaware that GO Transit could be used as a “bridge” between two TTC routes, led me to send questions for clarification to the TTC’s Director of Corporate Communications, Brad Ross. 

Here, with my comments, are the replies.  The questions have been slightly reformatted so that they can stand outside of the context in which they were written. Continue reading →

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GO Transit’s Service Plans: Small Changes Now, More Later

After a brief public session at last week’s Metrolinx Board meeting, there was a press scrum with GO Transit’s Gary McNeil.  Many questions focussed on GO’s plans to conform with the recent order from the Minister of the Environment that service in the Georgetown Corridor would have to meet Tier 4 diesel standards in 2015.  McNeil stated that GO’s goal was to have its entire locomotive fleet at Tier 4 by 2017 thanks to a planned overhaul.

To clarify what was said, I sent followup questions to GO/Metrolinx.

Continue reading →

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TTC Capital Budget 2010-2019 (2): Subway Fleet and Service Plans

The TTC Capital Budget contains many projects related to subway fleet, capacity and future operations.  Collectively, these projects amount to billions of dollars and many of them are not yet funded.

There are two major problems faced by subway planners:

  • Everything has a very long lead time, and plans made today need to balance between overspending on capacity we might not need and underspending that could produce future constraints on service.
  • Everything costs a lot of money, and unexpected additions to the budget can crowd out other necessary projects.

Large organizations and projects share issues familiar to many:

  • Left hand, right hand.  One department plans on the assumption that another project will actually happen in the announced manner and on a definite timescale.  Plans change, but co-ordination is less than perfect, and plans go out of sync.
  • In for a penny, in for a pound.  A project is “sold” politically on the basis of improvements it can bring.  However, actually achieving these improvements triggers the need for many follow-on works that are not budgeted.  Proponents of the first project in this chain innocently claim that they were simply creating the ability for some future enhancement.  Privately the attitude may be that the politicians would never approve something if they knew how much it would actually cost.  In a robust economy, the extra funding is always found somewhere, but when times are tight, budget surprises are unwelcome.

Both of these effects can be seen in the TTC’s subway fleet and service plans. Continue reading →

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Metrolinx Electrification Study Terms of Reference

Metrolinx will seek a consultant to undertake a system-wide study of GO electrification with the intent of completing a report by December 2010.  A Request for Proposals (RFP) will be issued with the intention of award in November, and commencement of work in December 2009.  This is an aggressive timeframe for a project of this scope.

The proposed Terms of Reference (ToR) for this study are now available online.  They will be discussed at a meeting of the Metrolinx Board on Tuesday, October 20 at 11:45 am.  If approved, they will form the basis for the RFP.

My comments about the ToR were added here at about 6:30 pm on October 15.

Overall, the Terms of Reference are thorough and address many of the issues raised by the community.  Indeed, it is odd that Metrolinx was so defensive about its Georgetown South EA and associated claims regarding emissions considering the breadth of issues that will face the electrification study.

[Note that some remarks here duplicate replies in the comments thread which were posted before I updated the main article.]

The document linked here includes a covering report and the recommendations of the Community Advisory Committee created to advise Metrolinx on the ToR.  That Committee received input from, among other places, a “stakeholders meeting” in which I participated.  Some, but not all, of the issues raised by participants at that meeting have found their way into the ToR, or were already present.

I cannot help being amused (ROTFLMAO), but also dismayed by the following comment:

The GO System Electrification Study is a critical next step in the implementation of the Metrolinx regional transportation plan. It is a timely and important step in advancing the expansion of the GTHA regional transit network. In the continuing Metrolinx tradition that values community and stakeholder input, the Community Advisory Committee enhanced and enriched the quality of the work.  [Page 3]

There are a few community groups who would beg to differ with the claim that Metrolinx has a tradition of valuing community input.  This insults the many people who worked to raise important issues on the Georgetown South study, but for their pains were dismissed as NIMBYs while Metrolinx spun the issues to favour its own position.  Metrolinx is better known for secrecy and isolation than for community involvement.

The ToR are quite clear in requiring input from a broad range of interested and affected parties, and this will be a welcome change if there is no attempt to manage responses to fit a pre-determined conclusion.

A few broad issues are worth mentioning before I review specific sections of the proposal.

  • The study will review diesel and electric options, as well as two as yet unnamed alternative technologies.  Such alternatives have to be possible, realistic and viable, although how a study ending in 2010 would establish that capability for, say, a decade in the future is beyond me.  The last thing we need is another proposal based on a technology that’s just out of reach, or one where the GTA would become the guinea pig to demonstrate a new system. 
  • The distinction between the Union-Pearson Rail Link (UPRL) and Metrolinx/GO is becoming ever more difficult to discern.  For all practical purposes this service is being designed by GO, its infrastructure is built and paid for by GO, and all of the legal processes including Environmental Assessments are handled by GO.  There is little or no public participation by the so-called private partner, SNC-Lavalin, and recent press reports confirmed that a contract does not yet exist with that partner.  Given the level of public investment and involvement, the time is long past that SNC-Lavalin should abandon this scheme so that it can be properly integrated with GO’s plans and operations.
  • The methodology for evaluating environmental effects is much changed from the system used in the Metrolinx EA.  Rather than considering the airshed as a whole and trading off alleged reductions in pollution on the 401 for increases in Parkdale, the study must look at local effects related to distance from the rail corridor.  Of course, when the alternatives under comparison are trains-vs-trains, the concept of displaced trips fades in importance except for situations where technology “A” can carry and attract more riders than technology “B”.

Comments below are keyed to specific numbered sections within the ToR which form Appendix A of the linked document. Continue reading →

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Will Diesels Roar Through Minister’s Loophole?

Ever since Ontario’s Minister of the Environment, John Gerretsen, announced that the Georgetown South expansion of GO services, plus the link to Pearson Airport, would be allowed to proceed subject to a number of conditions, there has been much spin in the press by both side of the argument.

My position is quite clear in two previous posts:  the numbers used by Metrolinx to substantiate their claims about comparative pollution of auto and train travel are seriously flawed to the point that claims made by Metrolinx and the govenment are simply not true.

One additional problem came to light earlier today.

On its website, Metrolinx characterizes the decision as follows:

Trains operated by GO Transit on the Georgetown rail corridor and the Union Pearson Rail Link service must use Tier 4 state of the art engines when the service expansion begins or as soon as the technology is commercially available.

However, the order actually reads:

2. All trains utilized for GO Transit that travel to, from or through Georgetown along the Georgetown South Corridor shall be Tier 4 compliant when service begins or when Tier 4 compliant technology becomes commercially available.

3. All trains utilized for the Union-Pearson Rail Link in the Georgetown South Corridor shall be Tier 4 compliant when service begins or when Tier 4 compliant technology becomes commercially available.

The wording of item 2 above is curious.  Only trains that “to, from or through Georgetown” are subject to the order.  This omits the following services from the scope of the order:

  • Proposed frequent short-turn service to Brampton,
  • Trains to Milton which use the corridor south of West Toronto diamond,
  • Trains to Barrie which use the corridor south of Dundas Street, and run parallel to it for some distance to the north,
  • Trains to Bolton, a proposed new peak period GO line, which uses the corridor to the point where it turns west over the Humber River.

However, Metrolinx has no compunctions about including these trains in its calculations of diverted trips, saved emissions and, of course, the benefits of Tier 4 diesel technology.

Either the order is oddly and badly drafted, or there is a deliberate attempt to limit its scope while giving the impression that all new trains will have the latest in pollution controls.  The former would be mere incompetence.  The latter casts both Metrolinx and the Government’s position in a much darker light.

The Minister of the Environment owes everyone a clear statement regarding the intent of his order.  If it applies to all trains that will operate on the rail corridor beginning roughly at the Strachan Avenue grade crossing and ending at Georgetown, then say so.  If not, then explain why the frequent services planned for the heavy Milton (future Cambridge) and Barrie routes will operate with Tier 2 diesels.

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Fun With Figures at Metrolinx (2)

Yesterday, I wrote about the Metrolinx calculations purporting to show improvements in pollution due to all the new diesel trains that will run in the corridor.  In that article, I concentrated on the GO services and the off-the-scale error in estimates of trips that would be taken.

This error — assuming all trains would be completely full, all day, both ways — dilutes the pollution per trip assigned to each passenger, and also inflates the pollution “saved” by auto trips that are diverted to transit.

A comment in that thread came in from John Galeazza:

Re. Pearson traffic growth.

Come now are we saying that Pearson has not seen a 4 fold increase in traffic over the past 20 odd years? Take a look at Pearson’s reports (they’re available on the GTAA’s website) in both passenger volume and aircraft movements there has been a steady increase.

To say that we shouldn’t use a piece of infrastructure because it has steadily fallen into disuse is farcical in my humble opininion. If that were the case GO would never have gotten started on the old freight/passenger lines that became “useless” with the arrival of the airplane and the car.

In my original reply (which has been hidden from the thread), I questioned the estimated ridership in the corridor for the air-rail link. Thanks to an arithmetic error (yes, even I make them, but at least I admit it when they happen), my comment would up addressing a false premise. That’s why I pulled it. Continue reading →

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Fun With Figures at Metrolinx

Monday’s approval of Metrolinx’ plans to run diesel trains on the Weston/Georgetown corridor stirred up lots of discussion here, in the mainstream media and at City Hall.  If this approval rested on solid data and projections, we could simply argue the fine points and debate rollout plans.  However, the claims made by Metrolinx for emissions from the project, comparisons with auto travel and supposed reductions by redirected auto travel depend on calculations that are transparently wrong.

In brief, Metrolinx assumes that every GO train trip, both ways, every day, all day in the corridor will be completely full of passengers, all 1,900 of them (a fully seated load on a 12-car train).  This absurd premise overstates the likely ridership by a factor of at least 4, probably greater (details follow later in this article) with the following effects:

  • Pollution caused by the trains is a fixed number determined by how many trips they make.  If there are fewer passengers, the pollution per passenger trip is much larger than claimed by Metrolinx.
  • If there are fewer passengers, then fewer auto trips are diverted to rail.  This does not affect the pollution saving per trip (presuming that one even agrees with this premise), but the total saving is greatly reduced because so many fewer trips are diverted.

Opening day (2015) traffic projected for the corridor is 184 GO trains and 140 UPRL (Airport) trains.  The total trips calculated by Metrolinx for the corridor GO services is 349,600 per weekday.  To put this in context, the entire GO rail system carries about 180,000 passengers per day today.

In practice, the trains will carry nowhere near 1,900 per trip on average.  Peak travel will be heavily inbound in the AM and outbound in the PM, with lightly loaded trains in the counterpeak.  During the off-peak, loads will be much lower than at peak, and some trips (notably inbound late evening runs) will be almost empty.  The same patterns can be seen on the Toronto subway system.

I am inserting the break here for those who don’t want to read the gory details, although the conclusions are down at the end. Continue reading →