A Grand Plan

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Metrolinx: The Big Move (3) Investment Strategy

The Metrolinx Investment Strategy (Draft) is a really odd collection of documents, and as I look at the presentations, I can’t help feeling there is a mountain of background somewhere that Metrolinx would prefer to keep out of sight.

On the agenda of September’s Board Meeting, we find a glossy brochure that is clearly intended for the coming public review.  For a “draft”, it has the look of something rather final to me.  With a section titled “Your voice matters”, this is not intended for the Board’s consumption, but for the process that Metrolinx calls public consultation.

Worth noting are Rob MacIsaac’s own remarks at last Tuesday’s briefings.  On at least two occasions, he said that there won’t be much pressure for change in the plans based on the extensive consultations to date.  He is prejudging the outcome, and that’s no way to ask for public input.

The separate presentation to the Board is not available online, but I have reformatted it on my own site.  (Note to the purists:  most of this was scanned as text and then cleaned up to avoid problems with blurry copy-of-copy scanning.)

Draft Investment Strategy Presentation September 26, 2008

The heart of this “strategy” is to do next to nothing about proper transit funding for many years (at least one if not two election cycles), and to live off of the previously announced $11.6-billion MoveOntario money.  A subset of the projects in the 15-year draft Regional Transportation Plan was selected to soak up this money, and if the Tooth Fairy is feeling generous, we might even get another $6-billion from Ottawa to stave off actually making a decision about transit funding for almost a decade.

Continue reading →

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Metrolinx: Too Many Fingers in the Pie (2)

The Metrolinx Board met on September 26, and I am pleased to report that Board members bit hard into a proposal to establish a complex process for project approval and procurement.  (See “Project Management and Delivery” in this report.)

Chair Roger Anderson (Durham Region), already in a feisty mood over omissions in the Draft Regional Transportation Plan, led off by noting that a major policy decision was buried in an “Information Report”, the CEO’s monthly status update.  He discovered this scheme when he read his meeting agenda at 1am, and clearly he was not amused.  Even more clearly, this whole idea had not been discussed at all by the Board even in private session.

Anderson moved to defer the item to a future meeting, and this triggered concerns by Rob MacIsaac, chairing the meeting.  Watching him in action, it’s obvious that he doesn’t like to lose votes, but as the debate went on, it was clear that Anderson was not alone, and MacIsaac wisely got out in front of his troops to lead them where they were already headed.

A common thread in remarks by Anderson, Mayor David Miller (Toronto) and Mayor Hazel McCallion (Mississauga), among others, was whether Metrolinx exists to work with the municipalities as a regional agency, or as a provincial overseer interfering with and dictating to local bodies.  Anderson noted that municipalities have the staff to design, manage and deliver projects, and that they should not have to fight Metrolinx to get things done.

Michael Fenn, Metrolinx CEO and author of the report, replied that Queen’s Park, through the Ministry of Transportation, has a role in project evaluation.  If so, I must ask whether Metrolinx is simply providing cover for MTO interference, and what role, exactly, is expected of a Board composed of leaders of the very municipalities that originate most of the transportation plans.

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Metrolinx: Too Many Fingers In The Pie

With all the attention on the Draft Regional Plan, another proposal lurks unnoticed in the agenda for Friday’s Metrolinx Board Meeting.

The agenda itself gives no indication, and the report of interest is called “CEO Report”, an innocuous title.  However, within that report we find a detailed description of the “Metrolinx Project Delivery Process” which the Board is asked to endorse.

First as a matter of process, substantive policy decisions should not be embedded in reports whose title implies a status update, unless the real desire is to hope that nobody will notice.  Second, the proposed process shows that Queen’s Park has no intention of letting Metrolinx operate as a truly independent regional authority, but instead will hold it very tightly under control by various Ministries.

Many have spoken as if Metrolinx would someday become the overarching authority for GTA transit planning, construction and operations.  Not true.  Even the proposed amalgamation of GO Transit with Metrolinx is sitting as unproclaimed sections of the GTTA Act, and my guess is that GO will fight every step of the way against being taken over by an agency that has never run a single transit vehicle.

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Metrolinx: The Big Move (2) Overview

Over the next few days, I will attempt to summarize and comment on the main areas of the Metrolinx Draft Draft Regional Transportation Plan.  Yes, that is “Draft Draft” because the version now online has not yet been approved by the Metrolinx Board.  Once they do that, and any changes are added, it will be the official “Draft” plan.  The final plan is to be approved in November for transmittal to Queen’s Park so that this can feed into the budget process for 2009.

For easy reference, I have posted copies of the maps on this site.  These are high resolution PDFs.

The full report is available in the agenda for the Metrolinx Board Meeting on September 26.  Look for appendix A in items 8 and 9.  (Warning: that these are big files.)

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The Tories and Toronto

Recently, I received two comments from a regular contributor here, Stephen Cheung, but did not publish them immediately.  As a pair, however, they are worth seeing if only as an indication of Tory analysis of the political and economic situation in Toronto.

In replies to this item, please don’t start attacking Stephen himself.  I personally have put up with a lot of bovine effluent here and on other blogs suggesting that I am personally responsible for most if not all of the transit planning screwups of modern history, and I find such comments (a) laughable and (b) inappropriate because attacking me avoids discussing the real issues.  I expect any who reply to this post to stick to the topic and treat both the writer and the organized labour movement with respect. Continue reading →

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Metrolinx: The Big Move (1)

This morning, Metrolinx unveiled its draft Regional Transportation Plan at a press conference.  Coverage is already online at The Star, and the report is available on the Metrolinx website.  (That link goes to the agenda page for the next Board meeting, and the RTP is linked from there as Appendix A to Report 8.  The companion Investment Strategy is in Report 9.)

Although referenced in the draft RTP, a number of background papers are not yet online.

  • Modelling Methodology and Results for the Draft Regional Transportation Plan, September 2008
  • Climate Change and Energy Conservation, September 2008
  • Mobility Hubs, September 2008
  • Transit Technologies, September 2008

I am still digesting this morning’s presentation, the draft plan and the investment strategy, and have a technical briefing later today.  Comments on all of this will start to appear this evening.

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Is There an Optimal Supply and Demand for Transit?

On September 16, the Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA) released a study on the optimal supply and demand for transit in Canada.  Although I may have slept through the local press coverage, I don’t think that there was much if any as other issues crowded out the story.  One might ask why I’m bothering with it now, but I think this is worth talking about even though I don’t agree with the premise of the report.

Only the Executive Summary and Backgrounders are available on the CUTA website, and as a courtesy for copyright, I will not post the full version here.  You will have to get it from CUTA if you really want it.

The principal conclusions as highlighted on the CUTA site are:

  • The economically and socially optimal level of transit supply in 2006 would have required an estimated 1.7 billion vehicle-kilometres of transit service, or 74 percent more service than actually supplied.
  • In 2006, capital investment of $78.1 billion would have been required to bring the supply of transit into line with the optimal conditions of supply in that year.
  • Results of the analysis conclude that Canada is clearly underinvested in urban transit.
  • Bringing transit to the optimal level of supply would produce several positive economic and social benefits – more than two thirds of these benefits constitute the economic value of reduced roadway congestion.

There is no question that higher investment in transit is required across Canada.  However, there is a danger with any calculated “optimal” value that this will be taken as an upper bound.  Moreover, the methodology of the study does not address future needs, only the situation that existed in 2006.  It is based on average relationships between several economic variables taken on a national basis that almost certainly misstate the micro-level effects in urban areas. Continue reading →

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Some Day My Train Will Come (Updated)

Over the past week, I have spent a lot of time in Dundas Station what with the AMC theatre being a major venue for the Film Festival and the location of the principal box office.

On opening night, September 4, the “Next Train” information was up and running on the One Stop video monitors.  Alas, by closing night, September 13, all we got was a black band with “No Information Available”.

As those who’ve been reading here for a while know, I am not impressed by technological tricks, especially when they are of dubious value and don’t work reliably.  There’s probably some very good reason for the system’s failure, and this is part of the 90-day pilot, but I can’t help wondering whether the TTC will be any better at keeping information systems running than escalators.

The full rollout of One Stop monitors is supposed to be completed, along with the in-station “Next Bus” info screens, by the end of 2009.  This brings me to one huge problem with One Stop:  It’s an advertising medium, and it is located to be seen by the most people, up to a point.  Many stations (including the one right under TTC head office) still have Metrons, some with working displays advertising for that same kennel near the Airport.  Donlands may even have a full set of working displays, and the ones at Museum were carefully preserved until days before the station redecorations were unveilled.

At Yonge Station, the monitors are far enough apart that the “Next Train” info, were it present, would be illegible to half the waiting passengers, and Yonge has more than one monitor per direction.  The problem, of course, is that if signs are intended to offer information, there have to be lots of them and this runs headlong into the design issue of overwhelming stations with video screens.

Speaking of Museum, the white columns are starting to look dirty, and there has been at least one naked lady (at least a classical reference) sketched on a column.  This sort of thing is endemic on the TTC.  Projects start but never finish.  Things are built but not maintained.

During the whole 9 days the displays at Dundas actually worked, I didn’t experience a delay to see whether they gave accurate info, or resolutely showed the same estimated time for 10 minutes running while the next train sat somewhere down the line.  I didn’t get to see a display with any value higher than 3 minutes, and have no idea of how reliably the system will deal with service holds and gaps.  We shall see, once they get it working again.  Any other observations of the displays’ behaviour would be appreciated.

Updated Sept 14:  I have been advised that different versions of the “next train” software will be tested and that the display will be out of service from time to time.  All the same, it bears watching to see how reliably available and accurate the information will be.

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Transit City, Paris, Reviewed

Last night, I had the immense pleasure of attenting the RATP’s presentation about the use of LRT rather than subways.  I’m not going to attempt to reproduce the information here, but am hopeful that the illustrations will show up on the TTC’s website fairly soon.

Toronto has needed this sort of presentation for a long time, and if only scheduling problems had allowed it other than on a Friday evening, there might even have been media coverage and more representation from senior staff and politicians outside of the City.

The Mayor of Paris decided that he wanted to reduce car use and green the city, and that transit was a key to regeneration of the inner suburbs.  ‘Tramways” (LRT in our terms) were the solution both for their lower cost (why build “five times the capacity at five to eight times the price”) and for their ability to stimulate the neighbourhoods through which they passed because of the pedestrian activity along the route.

Major street redesign was integral to their plans.  They knew perfectly well that the tramway would reduce road capacity, and the lower traffic volume combined with the lowered road speed converted semi-arterials into calmer, walkable neighbourhoods.

The bus service to be replaced had reached the maximum it could handle, and substantial additional riding came with the conversion to LRT.  They are now running peak headways of 4 minutes (15 trains/hour) of cars with a capacity of 300.  This is on a street with short blocks and much local demand.  Indeed, stop service time is a considerable part of the trip time even with all-door loading.  This makes the trip slightly slower, but avoids the need for passengers to access stations.

The construction projects were co-ordinated between all utilities and agencies, and a liaison committee met monthly with people and businesses in the affected areas.  A standard method of compensation for business interruption handled the vast majority of complaints in that department.  Construction co-ordination was vital to avoid the sort of cock-ups we have seen on St. Clair where each city agency rearranges its priorities without regard for the impact on overall project plans.

I could not help noticing the absence of centre poles to hold up the overhead even though the streets were a good six lanes wide.  Poles are considered visual polution in Paris and their use is minimized.  Where one pole can do the work of two or three, it does.  Transit City urban design team please take note.

This is not to say that the Paris Tramways and street geometries are a model for everything we do in Toronto, but it is so refreshing to have a city say “this is what we can do” rather than endless reasons for delay.

As and when the presentation is available online, I will update this post with descriptive comments.

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Ed Drass Wants to Organize Meetings

The following comment was left by Ed Drass in the Metrolinx thread, and I have moved it to its own post so that replies are kept together for easy review.

Steve, if I may, I am wondering whether there is any interest among readers of your site in attending a series of meetings to discuss the RTP over then next few months.

The meetings can be informal or I could attempt to promote them as an unofficial complement to the Metrolinx/Metronauts consultation process.

Either way, the plan would be to discuss in depth the research and planning that has gone into the RTP, as well as the possible impact of the recommendations.

It would important, for me at least, to hear comments not only from knowledgeable people who are following the process ‘from the outside’ but also to invite the professional planners and consultants who have actually helped develop the plan.

We could work out how to deal with any attribution issues since I (and possibly other media) would attend.

If anyone wishes to assist or advise, you can contact me via transit (at) eddrass.com or 416-922-0077. Thanks for the space, Steve.

Steve: Don’t forget that the time is very constrained and a final version of the RTP has to go to the Premier by late November. Effectively, this limits everyone to the month of October for feedback if it will have any hope of making it into the plan.