A Grand Plan

by

Service Improvements, Someday

Peter Kuitenbrouwer in the National Post has a series of articles talking about crowding on the TTC.

One more person, and this subway’s gonna explode

If you ignore the smell, the bus is still the better way

A seat on the Queen streetcar? Don’t make me laugh

The February 17 service improvements are a start, but it’s no secret that there’s a long way to go. A few changes are in the wind as described in a TTC report from their February 27 meeting.

We learn that more service will come with the March 30 and May 11 schedule periods to address the backlog of overcrowding, at least on the bus routes.

In the fall, further improvements will change the peak hour loading standard for bus routes. Across the board, the standard will be improved by 10% so that the acceptable average loads, now in the mid-50s depending on vehicle type, will be reduced by 5 or 6. This won’t mean 10% more service on every route because some lines are running below the new standard already and won’t be eligible for more service. (These tend to be short routes where cuts today would have a severe impact raising the average load above the line or making the headway unacceptably wide.)

Also planned for the fall is a return to full hours of service on most routes so that if the subway is open, the routes are operating at least a 30-minute service. 2009 may bring a 20-minute maximum, but that’s a budget issue for next year.

Meanwhile, we see little discussion of streetcar or rapid transit service because both suffer from constraints in fleet size. That may be the situation, though I am skeptical, but what is missing is a projection of what we would need if we made the same changes in loading standards for the rail modes. Continue reading →

by

Interminable Waits at Kennedy (Update 3)

Updated Feb 27, 6:15 pm:

At today’s TTC meeting, we learned that they expect to have repairs at Kennedy completed by Friday. I will post more information about the derailment and the nature of the damage when I receive an electronic copy of the report on this incident.

Correction Feb 26, 11:00 pm:

This evening, I received the following email from Adam Giambrone, Chair of the TTC. It was addressed jointly to me and to Ed Drass whose column I cite later in this post.

Steve,

I told Ed Drass yesterday that I understood the slow order was to be off by now BUT that I was going to check with Warren Bartram of TTC during a tour of the tunnels with CTV earlier this morning (2am-5am) to confirm. I actually watched the crews doing the repairs and I called him earlier today to confirm that the slow order was still in place and will be for another week or so.

The problem is that many of the bolts (I don’t know their technical name) that bolt the rail to ground were ripped up (some 150) and there is only so much that can be repaired in the 150 minutes they have most days to do the work.

Anyway, I usually qualify a statement of fact if I am not sure and I did so in this situation.

Adam Giambrone

I expect to get more details at the TTC meeting tomorrow and will post that info here.

This post has been revised in light of Adam Giambrone’s email.

Updated Feb 26:

This morning at 8:40 am, the backlog of trains from Kennedy stretched to Victoria Park Station, and the trip from there to the terminal took 21 minutes.

According to Ed Drass’ column in today’s Metro, Adam Giambrone was advised that the slow order on Kennedy crossover was lifted last week. This proved to be incorrect based on his email quoted above.

Original post:

Ever since the Kennedy Station derailment two weeks ago, service at the eastern terminal of the Danforth Subway has been glacial, especially at the end of the peak periods. As an example, I spent more than 15 minutes this morning getting from Victoria Park to Kennedy Station, and this has happened almost every day for the past two weeks. Looking on the bright side, the TTC has figured out how to operate a reasonable headway on the SRT even when it was in “manual” mode and we no longer creep from Kennedy to STC. The combination of these two delays made the term “rapid transit” quite a joke.

The problem at Kennedy arises from the slow order which has been on the crossover. Trains move over it at low speed while TTC staff watch carefully as the trains pick their way through the special work. Riding on trains, I can’t tell whether the roughness of the crossing is due to the very slow speed or the condition of the track. With luck, we will learn more at Wednesday’s Commission meeting when there will be a presentation on the derailment.

Meanwhile, capacity on the BD subway is badly constrained. In two previous posts, I talked about the physical limitations that subway line and terminal layouts place on the frequency of service.

How Often Can Subway Trains Run?

How Frequently Can We Run Subway Trains?

The minimum headway at a terminal controls the level of service on the rest of the line unless additional trains are inserted at short-turn points. Indeed, that is how the TTC plans to fit more trains onto the Yonge line in eight years or so with turnbacks at Finch (following a northerly extension beyond Steeles) and somewhere in Downsview (following the York U extension).

Just to review, here is the sequence of events at a terminal:

  • Signal turns green
  • Train guard initiates door closing and this completes
  • Train moves off from platform and eventually clears the crossover
  • Signal system determines that the crossover is clear and realigns the switches
  • Signal system displays clear for the incoming train
  • Incoming train starts up and crosses into the station
  • Signal system determines that the crossover is clear and realigns the switches

The two longest steps in this sequence are the train movements. Today, I timed trains at Kennedy, and it takes 80 seconds for a train to move from a stationary position either on a platform (departing) or from the last approach signal (arriving) through the crossover to a point where the junction is clear for another movement.

This means that 160 seconds (2 minutes, 40 seconds) are consumed simply for train movements. Add to this about 10 seconds for signal and switch system activity, and we are up to 170 seconds before any delays introduced by the readiness of crews to depart.

However, the scheduled headway on the BD line is 144 seconds (2 minutes, 24 seconds) in the morning peak. Quite clearly, it is impossible to operate this headway given the constraints at Kennedy, and a queue of trains builds up. This affects service on the entire line unless trains are inserted along the way to bring the headway back down to the scheduled level.

The TTC should seriously consider short-turning some trains. This could be done at Warden, provided that these trains crossed over to the westbound platform so that they did not block the eastbound flow. Yes, this would require careful management at Warden, but it would reduce the backlog at Kennedy and allow a reliably frequent service to operate on the rest of the line.

I say this with some trepidation because this scheme could also foul up the line just as badly as the current arrangement if it were not managed to ensure fast in, fast out turnarounds of the short-turning trains.

A further option, applicable only to the am peak, would be to send trains that would run out of service to Greenwood into the yard eastbound.

I write this not just as someone who is personally inconvenienced, but out of concern that a long-standing operational problem affecting service capacity has not been addressed.

After Wednesday’s update at the TTC, I will add to this item as appropriate.

by

Queen’s Park, Metrolinx & the TTC (Updated)

Late last week must have been slow for real news when both the Star and Globe devoted considerable space to musings at the Pink Palace about a Metrolinx TTC takeover. Furious backpedalling all ’round with denials from Metrolinx’ Rob MacIsacc and cries of “hands off” from Mayor Miller.

Lurking under this sort of scheme are claims that just don’t hold up to scrutiny.

First up is the oft-heard desire for “seamless integration” of transit. Boiled down to its essentials, this means I should be able to ride from anywhere to anywhere for one fare with convenient integrated service wherever a change of route or mode is needed.

Riding on the back of this is a scheme for fare-by-distance charging and smart cards. While this may keep the technology companies and those who value appearance over substance as transit policy, this is totally the wrong end of the “solution”.

If the desire were to give everyone an integrated fare between the TTC and the 905 systems, we could do it tomorrow either with the GTA pass or some area-specific version. The big problems are how to divide up the revenue, what to charge and whether there will actually be any service in the 905 with which a 416 rider can seamlessly connect.

These are organizational and financial issues. As long as each transit system is expected to keep its own books, raise its own revenue, and account for every penny (perish the thought we might needlessly run one more bus than necessary), the rules of the game create agencies that defend their revenue turf.

As long as we maintain artificial distinctions between who gets to pick up riders on which street (again partly a turf war), we will have duplicate services.

As long as we starve transit agencies for funds, the clear goal is not to improve service but to minimize costs. This is totally contrary to any claims that our public goal is to get more people riding transit.

You don’t need a quarter-billion’s worth of high technology to fix these problems which, indeed, will still remain if we don’t fix the underlying way in which revenue is allocated to operators. If the fare barrier at Steeles Avenue is eliminated, somebody is going to have to pick up the difference — the TTC and its riders, York Region or Queen’s Park. Nobody wants that debate, but we can sidestep it so long as we focus on Presto! rather than on how it will be used.

It’s ironic that many cross-border services are now operated by TTC on contract to other agencies and the only “impediment” is the fare at Steeles Avenue. Maybe York Region would opt to pay the TTC more to carry its customers. Maybe a special subsidy could be arranged just as it is for Oakville passengers connecting with GO Transit. Why is it okay to have a special fare arrangement for GO Transit feeder services, but not for 905-to-TTC riders?

The “seamless barrier” is one of those transit myths that get dragged out regularly to avoid discussing the real issues. The line between the 416 and 905 could disappear tomorrow if only someone wanted to pay for it and co-ordinate the overlapping services where they exist.

This brings me to that shining example of Ontario’s contribution to transit, the GO system. Remember that GO is not paid for entirely by Queen’s Park, but levies a tithe against the municipalities. Only last week, a tripartite agreement with Ottawa was finally settled when Toronto agreed to pony up its share of a GO Transit funding request.

Metrolinx has been churning out discussion papers (green ones to solicit comment now, white ones to set policy soon) like sausages, and they hope this will lead to a Regional Transit Plan by “Spring 2008”. Whether they mean March 21 or June 22, I am not sure, but even the later date is very optimistic. Moreover, it is troubling because we recently learned that the RTP is also to stand in for the first two steps of the already shortened Environmental Assessment process.

We risk having a regional plan rammed through with little opportunity for comment or intelligent debate that could commit us to a complex and explicitly laid-out network long before we have a chance to consider how it will all fit together. Moreover, there is no mandatory ongoing review and process for change of the plan making “getting it right” at the outset all the more critical.

While Queen’s Park muses about a TTC takeover, they should look closer to home first. GO Transit has been in the commuter rail business for decades, with small forrays into buses, but with the focus on peak period, downtown oriented services. It does not matter what the agency name might be, there is a need for long-distance capacity around the GTA that does not stop at every lamppost. Riders in Oshawa don’t want a tour of Pickering, Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke on their way to Mississauga where they might arrive just in time to go back again.

GO’s service reliability raises questions about its ability to take on a larger role. Riders are cranky about crowding and unexpected changes in schedules, and there is even an online petition demanding a fare rebate when service runs late.

GO, however, has been at least as constrained for funding as the TTC and thinks only of its core services. Expansion comes in small jumps because they have no firm commitment from any level of government to do more.

I might believe that a Provincial agency could do a passable job with the TTC if the current one were actually looking beyond a narrow mandate as a commuter service. Imagine the example Queen’s Park could show of what their bounty could bring to transit. So far, what we have is unimpressive as a replacement for the TTC.

This is not to say that the TTC couldn’t use some housecleaning. However, any “new broom” had better know what it’s doing, not just come in to sell off the furniture and declare huge but ephemeral savings.

One particularly troubling aspect to some comments in this debate is the political slant. Adam Giambrone is out-and-out NDP, and David Miller certainly is not a Tory. Toronto Council is, if not in the grip of the left wing, at least not quite as right-wing as it was in the Lastman days.

What’s the solution? Take them over? Well we tried that with amalgamation, and after a few years of flailing around, look what we have: a moderately left Council with a moderately left Mayor. The voters have spoken.

If anyone has designs on the TTC or on GTAH transit in general, let the decisions be made for legitimate reasons of management, finance, operations and community involvement, not because some politician wants to score points for a coming election. We have seen decades of Provincial interference in transit both in funding and in technology choices that had much more to do with so-called economic development and pandering to voters than with production of useful transit infrastructure.

Message to Dalton McGuinty: Leave the TTC alone. Let Metrolinx continue with its planning, and don’t force the issue of a final plan so quickly and so permanently that we regret everything and start over in ten years.

Recognize that building and running more transit, getting a bigger share of the travel market, is going to cost a lot of money, and some of that will come from the public purse. Keep your chequebook handy.

Don’t substitute the illusion of action — organization and re-organization — for the real needs of transit systems throughout the GTAH.

by

Metrolinx Fast Tracks Environmental Assessments

I received the following note from Tony Turritin that fits in with earlier threads about streamlining the Environmental Assessment process:

Just a note to mention that Metrolinx published Statutory Notices in the Toronto Star on January 7 and 9, 2008 regarding their Regional Transportation Plan study.

By my reading of the notice, transit advocates better get on the stick, because if it ain’t in the plan in just the right way, there is no or little hope for any alternative. The Notice states that the RTP will constitute Phases I and II of any future EA that flows from any element of the RTP as it is implemented.

The Notice states:

“Once completed, the RTP will provide the background for any required future Environmental Assessment (EA) studies. It is intended that the recommended RTP will have fulfilled the requirements of Phases 1 and 2 (i.e. problems/
opportunities and evaluation of alternatives to the undertaking/ selection of the preferred transportation system) of all applicable Class EAs and individual EAs that may be required for projects identified in the RTP. The selection of the preferred transportation system will identify the need for the facilities, the recommended network corridors, and possibly the preferred technology for each corridor.”

This is right out of the traditional way that MTO used to do, and still does, highway EAs. First they would do a “needs” study, those straight-line projects that always show increasing traffic, particularly truck traffic. Then when an EA came along, and people objected saying, where was the comparison with the rail alternative (say trucks on trains), the reply always was, the needs study has already been done, and the road is needed. And Oh, by the way, in a needs study there is no obligation to look at other alternatives.

In perspective, it is clear that an EA is a very very poor tool to attempt to rectify any bad road, transit, rail infrastructure adventure that the transport bureaucracy decision-makers come up with.

Metrolinx’ Regional Transportation Plan is more than a plan — it legally constrains future environmental assessments too.

We are on the verge of a situation where a master transportation plan that will affect the GTA for decades to come may act as the de facto planning process for dozens of lines. The MoveOntario2020 plan was itself a grab-bag of every plan that was sitting on a shelf when it was announced, but at least there was a clear statement that the announcement was a first cut, and fine tuning would follow.

We may find that the “fine tuning” comes by way of the Regional Transportation Plan from Metrolinx that could occur without the sort of fine-grained local input people, at least in the 416, are accustomed to.

All the more reason to stay in touch with what is brewing at Metrolinx.

by

Metrolinx Wants to Hear From You

I received a note from Braz Menezes, a member of the Metrolinx Advisory Committee. Braz and I both sit on the community panels for the waterfront east transit EA studies.

As you know Metrolinx is putting quite a lot of emphasis on public consultation. Can you please ask your readers how easy it has been to access information and make comments to the website for Metrolinx. It would be good to iron out any technical glitches early in the process.

Sincere thanks,
Braz

I will start off by noting that the page asking for consultation contains a link only to the first of the Green Papers, even though drafts of these have appeared in the Board Agendas. However, if you go into the detailed consultation page, options for papers 2 and 3 also appear.

You can find Green Papers 4 and 5 in the February 2008 agenda.

Please put your comments about this site here so that everyone else can read what you think. I will moderate the comments only to the point of taking out flagrant insults to other writers (but not to the designers of the Metrolinx site itself), and tidying up your layout and spelling. Also, please don’t give Braz a hard time, he is just passing on the request to my fine readers.

I am particularly looking forward to Joe Clark’s contribution.

by

What Are Environmental Assessments For?

In the process of replying to the thread about streamlined Environmental Assessments, I made remarks that deserve a post of their own.

My concern is that a lot of bilge has flowed recently about what the EA process is supposed to protect, and the strong implication is that if we don’t hurt any plants or wildlife, the EA has done its job. Moreover, public input is seen as a nuisance holding up much-needed works.

My criticism lies with the underlying assumption that somehow the professionals present perfect transit schemes that, but for rabblerousers like me, would have made Toronto a paragon among transit cities worldwide years ago. This is complete nonsense, and many of the fights that have entangled EAs have turned on the absence of good planning and design, not to mention, until recently, complete ignorance about alternatives in transit technology.

Wearing a Transit City hat, yes, it would be wonderful to see these lines built as fast as possible, but wearing my advocate’s hat I look at the fact that there was virtually no consultation before the network was announced. This time, it happens to be a scheme I support, but who knows what a new political crew might bring?

The centre poles on St. Clair are a prime example. Clearly, the decision on that design had been taken long before the first public consultation, and the staff were absolutely immovable on the subject. This design has been repeated on Fleet Street.

I understand that the new street lights for St. Clair had already been purchased, or at least selected, even though the project didn’t have official approval. The fact that they have had to be replaced at least once, possibly twice because the designs were unsuitable, tells me all I need to know about the expertise that went into that choice. The politicians who are loathe to criticize staff realized only after the line was up and running that the design could have been better, and even this was not enough to change the style for the phase now underway.

Why should we care about street lights? Well, these lights were the underlying reason for the centre poles because originally there would be far fewer side poles much further apart with much more powerful, but fewer lamps. That scheme didn’t work out, and the side poles are in fact at the same spacing as the centre ones. This is but one example of the stupidity that can occur even when the technical folks are challenged, and much worse design flaws may fly through under the guise of an expedited review.

Those centre poles, in turn, limit the ability of buses and emergency vehicles to use the right-of-way. Word on the street is that the emergency services were told to shut up and accept the design even though they didn’t like it.

If we actually had a meaningful planning process in this city, we would discuss design issues and neighbourhood impacts. I’m not saying we should stop projects in their tracks, but that often the pros get it wrong, and there needs to be a mechanism for review and fine tuning.

There are specific provisions about the content of an EA, from the Environmental Assessment Act (RSO 1990, Chapter E18):

(2) […] the environmental assessment must consist of,

(a) a description of the purpose of the undertaking;

(b) a description of and a statement of the rationale for,

(i) the undertaking,

(ii) the alternative methods of carrying out the undertaking, and

(iii) the alternatives to the undertaking;

(c) a description of,

(i) the environment that will be affected or that might reasonably be expected to be affected, directly or indirectly,

(ii) the effects that will be caused or that might reasonably be expected to be caused to the environment, and

(iii) the actions necessary or that may reasonably be expected to be necessary to prevent, change, mitigate or remedy the effects upon or the effects that might reasonably be expected upon the environment, by the undertaking, the alternative methods of carrying out the undertaking and the alternatives to the undertaking;

(d) an evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages to the environment of the undertaking, the alternative methods of carrying out the undertaking and the alternatives to the undertaking; and

(e) a description of any consultation about the undertaking by the proponent and the results of the consultation.

Just because you want to build something doesn’t absolve you of the need to review alternatives and consult with people.

If we build infrastructure that harms neighbourhoods, this will have an impact on quality of life, on economic activity, even on the attractiveness of the transit system. As I have said before, “the environment” includes neighbourhoods.

It is worth quoting the definition of “environment” from the Environmental Assessment Act:

1. (1) In this Act,
[…]
“environment” means,

(a) air, land or water,
(b) plant and animal life, including human life,
(c) the social, economic and cultural conditions that influence the life of humans or a community,
(d) any building, structure, machine or other device or thing made by humans,
(e) any solid, liquid, gas, odour, heat, sound, vibration or radiation resulting directly or indirectly from human activities, or
(f) any part or combination of the foregoing and the interrelationships between any two or more of them,

in or of Ontario;

Quite clearly, the Act is intended to protect not only the flora and fauna, but also the communities affected by a project. Anyone taking the narrow view hasn’t read the legislation.

I’m all for moving transit projects forward quickly, but we must get past the idea that just because it’s a transit project, it must be ideal and we cannot criticize it. If the new timelines are to be enforced, then the TTC, GO Transit, Metrolinx and their armies of consultants will have to be much, much more responsive when issues are raised. Today, we can wait months for feedback on proposals even from “friendly” EAs where the staff actively try to engage the community. The new timelines invite staff to run the clock and say “sorry, that may be a great idea, but we had to file our documents last week”.

This is a recipe for exactly the sort of contention that led to the Environmental Assessment Act in the first place, and it will give transit projects an unjustified bad name in the very communities they seek to serve.

by

Environmental Assessments — Why Bother?

In yesterday’s Star, we learned that Queen’s Park has gutted the Environmental Assessment process by imposing a six-month cap on the period an EA can be under development. The claim is that transit’s opponents, those who would delay projects to no good end, have tied EAs in knots preventing much needed, environmentally friendly transit development.

I beg to differ.

What has caused the most grief to every recent transit proposal has been questions of detailed design and implementation. Time and again, we have seen schemes that trample over neighbourhoods for the simple reason that the “professionals” don’t understand what they are doing. There are two ways to handle this type of problem: work with local communities to improve the plan, or fight them to the wall. As recent examples:

  • The West Donlands LRT EA produced a completely new scheme for running the Cherry Street right-of-way along the side of the road rather than in the middle. This only happened because the EA took the time to work with the community.
  • The East Bayfront EA is mired in questions about a second portal to the Bay Street tunnel. With the accelerated EA, what will quite likely happen is that a new portal on Queen’s Quay itself will be rammed through over local objections despite much work in good faith to find an alternative.
  • The Waterfront West EA is a procedural nightmare with many overlapping studies producing, at best, second rate results. The presence of an already-approved EA nearly two decades old for part of the line further limits discussion because an analysis done years ago under different circumstances cannot be challenged.
  • The St. Clair right-of-way project ran into serious problems because of neighbourhood impacts and a design that left much to be desired. A major delay arose from a legal battle, not from the EA process itself. The credibility of the project has been further undermined by the chaos with which it has been managed, using that term rather loosely.

Dalton McGuinty may think that he’s doing transit a big favour, but what has really happened is that the EA process is reduced to little more than a quick review. If the proponents of various schemes expect co-operation from the public, their professionals (staff and consultants) must learn how to be more inclusive, how to integrate community concerns in the process.

Only last year, a new streamlined “Class EA” was defined for most transit projects that eliminated the hugely wasteful “terms of reference” stage in which an army of consultants, engineers, facilitators and other hangers-on went through the charade of deciding that, yes, this project we want to build is the project we want to build. The next year was spent in actually looking at the options in detail. This farce, thankfully, is over, and EAs were expected to drop to about a year.

Now, McGuinty wants it down to six months. The single biggest problem with the old process was a “Catch 22”. You couldn’t talk about detailed design (the thing most people actually care about) until you had an approved EA, but by the time that happened, mysteriously the design had progressed to the point where significant changes were difficult or impossible, and all a neighbourhood could do was choose the colour of paint on the transit shelters.

Time and again, the professionals have shown that they don’t look at all the options, in some cases because external influences cause filtering of what is considered. No better example exists than the WWLRT. The ghostly presence of the Front Street Extension prevented potentially superior options from getting on the table until the community and local politicians demanded it. Under the new rules, such options would likely never be seen because it would take too long to analyze them.

The Environmental Assessment process does not exist simply to protect the odd spotted newt that may live in the path of a new transit line. “Assessment” includes looking at the impact on communities, and “Alternative Assessment” means considering ideas other than the one the planners cooked up over lunch.

The dedicated lane for Toronto’s St. Clair streetcar, for example, was held up for months at the assessment stage with fights over curb heights, which had nothing to do with the environment. In the end it took two years to get through the assessment.

I don’t know where the Star got this blinkered view of the St. Clair debacle, but a lot more was going on than debates about curb heights. The big issues were sidewalk cuts, intersection design, lane widths, parking and host of other matters affecting how the project would affect the neighbourhood. That’s “environment” the last time I looked.

Under existing rules, if someone objects to a streetcar, the transit authority has to come back with a study showing the implications of a bus, train, or even a hot-air balloon servicing the corridor instead.

“If someone wanted to talk about a new idea using cable cars or catapults you would have to evaluate them,” TTC chair Adam Giambrone said.

Giambrone forgets that Transit City, a network of LRT lines, only exists because for years advocates like me objected to subway schemes saying “there’s a better way”. Indeed, even though the Sheppard Subway was already on the books east from Don Mills to Scarborough Town Centre, the TTC now plans an LRT line along Sheppard itself.

There’s a reason we take a second look at official proposals. Even I, a supporter of Transit City, worry that the momentum of LRT could be lost if, suddenly, we wake up to find a completely new proposal on the table and plans to ram it through without debate. Transit City may benefit from streamlined approvals, but the same process could be used to change it beyond recognition.

Are we headed back to the bad old days when governments simply built whatever they wanted and the public be damned? How many decades has it taken just to get some reasonable understanding of what transit can be, other than ruinously expensive subway projects?

The key to all this lies in the Star’s sidebar:

The scope is limited to environmental concerns. Right now, everything that was argued over during the municipal planning process, including how wide a dedicated bus lane should be or whether a streetcar project is even needed, is rehashed at the environmental assessment.

This presumes that we have a municipal planning process that actually works and involves communities rather than fighting them. I don’t remember much communuity consultation, much “municipal planning process” around a lot of the projects on the table, in part because everyone assumed that the Environmental Assessments would be the venue to sort all of that out.

The entire process needs an overhaul right from the overall policy framework, the early stages when proposals are little more than doodles on a napkin, through the formal EA, and into detailed design. If all we actually get is planning-by-election-announcement, followed by perfunctory EAs and superficial design consultation, transit projects risk needless alienation of the very people they are meant to serve.

by

GO Transit’s 15-Cent Solution

Sean Marshall wrote in with the following comment in another thread. I’m putting it in its own post so that replies can be kept in the appropriate area.

… at GO Transit, they’re planning to increase fares again by the flat $0.15 rate. Of course, this is a disproportionate fare increase for those who make shorter trips (say within the 416 or from, for example, Georgetown to Brampton) yet almost insignificant for someone coming in from Barrie. And GO also has to fix the problems with its fare structure, where, for example, a bus trip from Square One to York U is the same price as from Bramalea to York U, about half the distance.

Anyway, my sense is that GO will always take the easiest route (requiring the least thought) to fix a “problem”. Service crowded? Tack on more cars. Issues with parking? Build more spaces. Crowding at platforms? Remove the escalators. Raise fare revenue? Make it a flat fare increase so we don’t have to work out what the new fares should really be.

This is not the first time GO has done this, and I can’t help worrying just a bit in anticipation of a smart card system that can do everything but make passengers’ breakfast, lunch and dinner, but might wind up supporting a fare structure more appropriate for conductors and ticket agents. Will GO continue to penalize short-haul riders with disproportionate fare increases?

by

Low Technology Has Its Place

This morning I had the dubious pleasure of riding the SRT from Kennedy to STC in what was clearly a manual dispatch mode. Trains were not always at full speed, and each station-to-station move was made after clearance from SRT control.

Much grumbling was heard from passengers around me as this sort of thing is not uncommon in bad weather.

I couldn’t help thinking how the SRT was supposed to be an LRT line originally, and how the capabilities of its ATO system have never been exploited or needed on a line with such infrequent service. As an LRT line, it would have had limited signals at the terminals and for the underpass at Ellesmere, and operation would be “on sight” for most of the route.

I have seen the train control system do wonders with interlined services on the Vancouver SkyTrain where, also, the operation is completely automatic. In Toronto, the signal system just gets in the way, an example of technological overkill.