A Grand Plan

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When Will Dalton Discover Hot Air?

One of the more bizarre election stories appeared in the Globe and Mail today — Dalton McGuinty is advancing the idea of hydrogen-fuelled GO Trains.

Regular readers here will know that my opinion of hydrogen as a transit fuel is thinly-veiled contempt on the best of days, and I am astounded to see McGuinty wandering down this technological dead end.

Fuel cells and hydrogen power have their uses, but they run into difficulties even at the scale of a city bus, let alone a railway car.  If this were used for GO equipment, it would be at best for self-propelled cars running on minor lines that did not warrant full, locomotive-hauled trains.  This is a niche market, not a mainstream replacement for existing equipment. Continue reading →

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Keeping the Sheppard Subway Running

In another thread, Mimmo Briganti commented on the TTC’s revelation that we wouldn’t save anything by closing the Sheppard line.

So it turns out that closing the Sheppard subway would only save $300,000?  Total idiots!!  Why do they go out spreading such stupid PR when they don’t even have their numbers straight?  That $10M figure they quoted was supposed to be NET (after the replacement buses were added).

If this new figure is accurate, doesn’t it destroy your argument against the Spadina extension?  If the capital cost of the extension is paid for by the senior levels of gov’t, and the operating cost ratio (subway vs. # of buses) is similar to Sheppard, isn’t it peanuts to run the extension on a cost per passenger basis?

I don’t get it — these numbers just don’t add up!

I agree that the numbers just don’t add up, but there isn’t enough detail in the report and I have been too busy with other matters to try to work through an “alternative” estimate.  Alas, we still don’t have an estimated cost to operate the Sheppard line itself, only a claimed delta.

Going from a claimed $10-million annual saving to zero shows a huge error in estimating techniques and undermines the credibility of all of the TTC’s service and cost based proposals.  This has happened regularly at the TTC, but never on such a spectacular scale.

Note that the $300K figure is for closing the Sheppard and Spadina (north of St. Clair West) lines only on weekends.  There is no cost estimate for a full closure.  Of course, you can’t really close the Spadina line operationally because it provides access to Wilson Yard.  Sheppard at least could be mothballed, but you don’t get savings from that unless you close it 7×24.

The average weekday ridership on the Sheppard Subway, at 43,000 trips, is matched only by the Dufferin bus, and that route (a) is longer, (b) has good bi-directional demand, and (c) has good all-day demand.  The Sheppard riders are much more concentrated in space and time and would require a very frequent peak bus service.

As for the Spadina line, we must be absolutely certain that the capital costs will not block other deserving projects from being funded.  Otherwise we could sink every penny of provincial or federal grants into one line but still not have capital available to expand the rest of the system.

The TTC also published a cheerleading report yesterday about why the Spadina extension project must go ahead.  I will turn to that report in a separate post.

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Walk Left, Stand Right Revisited

Oh gentle reader, you may remember that the TTC, in an unusual show of speed, removed all of the “Walk Left, Stand Right” signs on all of its escalators virtually overnight.  For an organization that can leave up public notices months after they are current (often with two conflicting versions of the same notice in the same place), this was truly breathtaking.

You may also remember that the TTC claimed the reason for this move was that the signs encouraged people to walk on the escalators and this was a safety hazard and we don’t want any of those on the TTC.  In this dubious stance, the TTC was supported by the TSSA, the regulatory body that watches over escalators and elevators.

Today, I noticed a poster on the subway about escalator safety, no doubt a matter of burning interest to riders especially in those cases when the escalators are actually running.  You can look at it yourself on the TTC’s website.

Notice point three:  “Stand Right”.  I’m not sure what you are supposed to do on the left, although point 5 tells us not to rush other passengers, complete with a photo of two people “standing right”.

One of these days, the TTC will learn to check out their own promotional materials before putting out bogus explanations for taking down signs that encourage people to follow an international standard in escalator behaviour.

Now for extra points, class, how long will it take for all of these “safety” posters to disappear from the system and the PDF to be pulled from the website?  No fair stealing them yourself as souvenirs!

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Private or Public?

Ian Folkhard wrote recently with this question:

Is there a website that objectively lays out the effects of privatization on formerly publicly controlled operations?

It would be very interesting to see if any of the savings and efficiencies that the supporters of privatization claim will result have actually been passed back to any group of taxpayers. Something that referred to the British experience with public transit and the railways would be really interesting reading.

I hunted around on the net and, alas, there are lots of papers written extolling the virtues of individual projects, but very little by way of an objective overview.  One paper was written for the OECD as a 30-year retrospective in January 2007.  The information in it is reasonably current, although the recent meltdown in London is not included.

[Note that this is a long paper with 35 pages of text, 14 pages of citations and 72 footnotes.  Be sure to read the footnotes as many of them contain important additional information.]

The author proceeds from the premise that some degree of private operation of public transit is becoming the norm rather than the exception, and that privatization is an attempt by the transit industry to become more competitive with the rising use of the automobile.  I don’t agree with that premise for reasons that will become obvious, but the presentation covers the subject and is not unduly doctrinaire about the wonders of free enterprise.  Continue reading →

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Who’s In Charge at Kipling Station?

[Since the Star has hotlinked my site from their article, it might be nice if there was actually some content here for any visitors to read.  Hence this piece.]

Today, Queen’s Park announced that GO Transit would fund the construction of a regional terminal at Kipling Station for joint use by GO and Mississauga Transit.  Amusingly, this project was not part of MoveOntario, but, like many other bits and pieces, was overlooked in the rush to put together Dalton McGuinty’s transit plan.

Oddly, nobody from the City or TTC was at the announcement even though the new terminal will sit on their land.  The TTC design for a new Kipling Station came out late last year, and it’s hardly news.  All we were waiting for was funding, and that arrived today.  However, Queen’s Park seems only concerned with the regional part of the project and it remains to be seen how the City/TTC portion, which includes redevelopment of some lands at Islington, will fit into everything. Continue reading →

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What Will We Do With Kingston Road?

Although it was totally ignored by the Transit City announcement, the EA for the Kingston Road corridor is rumbling along through the old, tedious EA process and now awaits approval of its Draft Terms of Reference.  Yes, all that work just to get to the point of asking for approval to actually study something.  A boon for consultants, a waste of time and money for transit.

For those unfamiliar with southern Scarborough, the Danforth Subway was, in many ways, a curse because every route within miles of a station is drawn inexorably to the subway.  There are L-shaped routes, there are U-shaped routes, but don’t try to go from one end of Kingston Road to another unless you have a lot of patience for transferring.

The purpose of the EA is to determine ways in which transit in the Kingston Road corridor can be improved both for travel within the corridor and to the existing subway and streetcar system.  Continuous service within the corridor and to/from downtown are goals for this project.

It is worth noting that although 38 percent of the trips originating in the corridor go downtown, 62 percent do not.  Moreover, as land use changes on Kingston Road, the balance of local and commuting trips may also shift if transit service is supportive of off-peak travel.  Of the trips bound for downtown, the study suggests that a continuous service would divert riding off of the subway.  Possibly, although vastly improved service and reliability will be needed.  The 502/503 are a joke for commuters today especially in the PM peak. Continue reading →

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We Get Letters

I have received a number of comments recently that have turned rather more abusive about past efforts by myself and others.  Also, I’ve had comments that attempt to trivialize the advocacy of LRT as railfan nostalgia. 

Please note that anyone who posts such comments will simply fall off the earth as far as my publishing any future feedback they might have, and they should spend their time elsewhere. Continue reading →