A Grand Plan

by

TTC Funding: The Sky Has Not Fallen, Yet

Today (July 30) on CBC’s Metro Morning, Richard Soberman and David Gunn were interviewed about the proposal to close the Sheppard Subway.  In the same broadcast, on the news, we heard a real estate developer whose dreams of selling new condos on Sheppard were threatened by the loss of a significant marketing tool, the subway.

Soberman and Gunn practically fell over each other talking about how crazy the idea is, but sadly, the conversation never went beyond the Sheppard line to the wider issue of TTC service quality.  Even though that subway proposal only represents 10% of the total “savings” to be found in the TTC budget, it gets all of the air time, all of the ink.  Where is the coverage about all the service cuts on bus and streetcar routes?  About the new services that will never see the light of day?

What pains me most is the total absence of anyone “official” from Council talking about how these cuts (a) are a terrible idea and (b) don’t have to happen.  I’m a Miller supporter, but the Mayor has been conspicuously absent along with TTC Chair Adam Giambrone.  This leaves the media field open to doom-and-gloom coverage.

If this goes on very long, the TTC cuts become real, if only in people’s minds, because that’s all we will be hearing.  The great promises of better transit will just be a memory, if that.  Transit City and MoveOntario will just be two more grand announcements of better days for transit that went absolutely nowhere because this city hasn’t got the guts to pay its way.

Next winter, while you wait for a bus that is late and packed, remember all those speeches about “living within our means” and “government waste”.

This is not a question of “if the money can be found” — not finding the money to expand and improve the TTC is really not an option as anyone reading recent studies of the GTA’s transit needs will know.  Building our future transit network needs long-term dedication to funding. 

Often we hear about how Queen’s Park or Ottawa won’t create a dedicated funding stream for transit (or various other municipal services), but Toronto is just as bad.  One year Council will agree to a certain funding level, but the moment some uppity constituent demands lower taxes, the TTC is one of the first to lose its funding.

Being pro-transit isn’t something you do on alternate Thursdays, it’s a full time requirement and needs predictable, long-term revenue to sustain the vision some Councillors profess for transit.

So where is the Mayor?  Where is Adam Giambrone?

We need them to restore a positive view of transit and of what our city can be, and we need them now.

Postscript:  No sooner do I post this in frustration, but the Mayor pops up to tell the Police Board and TTC “make those cuts now, don’t wait until the fall”.  Nothing like confidence to start off my morning.  (July 31)

by

Will We Get It Right This Time?

In a previous post, I mentioned two background reports written by IBI Group for the Ministry of Transportation.  These can be found on the GTTA’s What’s New page.

If you’re pressed for time, read the Stratgic Transit Directions report as its companion, Needs and Opportunities, duplicates a lot of the material.  At the risk of seeming to cherry-pick sections that support positions I have advocated here, I will give a few excerpts and observations.

Travel demand in the GTAH (Greater Toronto plus Hamilton) is projected to increase substantially over the period 2001-2031 (2001 is the base year because the transportation survey data for 2006 was not available when these studies were written).  Even with massive investment in transit, the overall modal split for transit will stay much lower than needed to avoid massive traffic congestion, especially in the 905.  This is not to say that transit is a bad investment, but the problem is so great that the aggressive proposals included here won’t keep up with growth in travel demand. Continue reading →

by

Everybody’s Got a Plan

The agenda for the July 27 GTTA Board meeting includes overviews of the transit plans from all of the GTA regions plus an GO Transit’s schemes.  This material has been updated to reflect the MoveOntario2020 announcement, but not the current budget crisis at the TTC.  In the timescale that these plans operate, that crisis will only be a memory long before any of this is actually built.

Queen’s Park is looking for “quick success” stories, projects that can show some concrete return in very short order.  They actually hoped, at one time, to be able to have photo ops before the election, but that’s not very likely.

Having all of these plans in one place is useful both for people who are not familiar with what each region has been thinking, and to show just how far the entire GTA has to move to make any serious dent in the rising car traffic.  Some regions don’t plan to be above 10% transit share by 2031 and, given their development and travel patterns, how that can be improved is a mystery.  We can extend the reach of GO Transit, but travel within and between regions travel is quite another matter. Continue reading →

by

GO Ottawa? (Updated)

On July 27, David Cavlovic passed on another Ottawa Sun article in this thread.  He comments:

Well, NOW it’s getting really ridiculous.

That’s all we need. It’s not enough that resources are stretched in the GTA, let’s stretch it in other cities as well.

Toronto Transit CORPORATION. Oh dear. Harbinger of the future?

[The article’s author is not in touch with Toronto’s transit system as we saw yesterday.]

 Fortunately, there is a bit of good sense on Council:

River Coun. Maria McRae, who is also the chair of the city’s transportation committee, said there is no reason why GO Transit and OC Transpo can’t work together.

“We can do both,” said McRae. “We should pursue that GO model for outside the city, but not lose focus on Ottawa’s transit issues.”

[Original post follows] 

David Cavlovic passed on the following item of interest from the Ottawa Sun.

Ottawa could be moving from the O-Train to the GO Train.

With Mayor Larry O’Brien mapping out an ambitious inter-regional commuter transit plan for Eastern Ontario, the province’s biggest regional commuter carrier, GO Transit, is expressing interest in helping the city with its plan.

“It’s definitely something we would look at,” said Jamie Rilett, communications director for Ontario Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield, whose department operates the Government of Ontario (GO) network in the Greater Toronto Area.

“When it was first brought up to us and we discussed it with various mayors and members from the Ottawa area, it was made clear to them we would look at any proposal they had and if they were interested in having GO participate in whatever way then it’s definitely something we would consider,” said Rilett.

[The full article goes on to talk about how wonderful GO is, and manages to get some of the facts wrong.]

Amusingly, this is yet another situation where a comment comes not from the GTTA but from the Minister’s office.  At tomorrow’s GTTA meeting, maybe they can discuss a small eastward expansion of their territory.

More to the point, Ottawa has to decide whether it wants a commuter rail network providing relatively infrequent service oriented to peak demand, or a transit network.  These are two completely different things.

by

From The Archives: The Queen Street Streetcar Subway

Today’s Star contains an article beginning a series about the hidden corners of the TTC with a look at the ghost station at Queen and Yonge.  This was built back in the 50s with the Yonge Subway, and passengers crossing between the northbound and southbound platforms walk through an underpass on the platform level of that station. 

Back in 1968, a few years after the original Keele-Woodbine section of the Bloor-Danforth subway had opened, the TTC was thinking about the Queen Street subway.  One proposal floated through the Commission for streetcar subway through downtown operation.  The full report is interesting reading because clearly, in 1968, the TTC was still thinking of new ways to use its streetcars.

The proposal was for a subway from west of Sherbourne to east of Spadina.   Schemes for streetcar subways had been around for a while, and I described an earlier one in a post last year.

The report throws cold water on this scheme saying that it would not materially improve the capacity of the streetcar line, and it is clear their sympathies lie with a full subway scheme.  Things did not change much for decades thereafter.   It is worth noting that in the late 1960s, there were more than 60 cars/hour on Queen Street east of Yonge.  Today, the service is equivalent to 23 cars/hour allowing for the larger size of the ALRVs. Continue reading →

by

Where Did “Transit City” Come From?

From time to time, the question arises of where the TTC got the name Transit City and I have quietly claimed authorship for this in various conversations.  Now the truth will be revealed!

Back in December 2004, the TTC was working on a response to the new Official Plan showing the potential role of surface rapid transit.  The report didn’t have a name yet, and although many ideas had been floated within the TTC, none had hit the mark. Continue reading →

by

Signage at Eglinton Station [Updated Again]

[Updated Monday, July 9 at 10:45 pm]

I have been advised this evening by Adam Giambrone’s office that the Paul Arthur signage will not be removed at St. George Station.  This will not be considered again until this station comes up for modernization, something that is not in the cards for the near future.

The removal had been planned as part of a general cleanup of the station, something that was long overdue. 

[Updated Monday, July 9 at 1:10 pm] 

The proposed work at Eglinton Station does not involve moving the outer walls of the station back two feet.  What is proposed is that safety alcoves 5 x 7 feet will be cut into the walls to provide refuges for workers when trains come through the station.  With some careful placement, the existing signage should not be disturbed at all.

As for other stations, there is a press conference later this week that will cover already approved changes at various locations.

[Original post follows] 

Earlier today, a reader asked me to comment on the proposed redesign of Eglinton Station and the need to preserve original signs.  In writing this, I hope not to engender a slugfest among the design mavens of this town, but we shall see.  Worthwhile comments will be posted, repetitive rants will not.  If you must rant, at least be original about it.

First, it’s worthwhile asking just what we are asked to preserve, and to that end I visited Eglinton Station earlier tonight.  The only original signage still in place is the repeated word “Eglinton” on the station walls in large letters, and along the banner at the top of the wall in a smaller version of the same typeface.

For those who remember the original signs, there were not many, and they disappeared one by one from the station.  They included the “Way Out” signs to Duplex and to Yonge Street (pre Canada Square building) as well as the signs at the washroom entrances.

Completely separate from this debate (and the subject of previous threads here — please don’t post again) is the matter of hand-written signs and tattered, out of date announcements.  That is a different issue affecting the entire system including surface routes.  With luck, nobody will find a service change sign so antique that it qualifies for historic preservation.

Continue reading →

by

Kingston Road Transit Improvements EA

The draft terms of reference for the Environmental Assessment of improved transit service on Kingston Road from Victoria Park east to Eglinton are working their way through City Council approval.

One bizarre aspect of this process is that the Kingston Road study was already underway when Transit City was announced, and for some reason, no line was included on the Transit City map for this corridor.  This is rather odd considering that the proposed St. Clair extension to Jane was included in Transit City even though it is little more than an intriguing add-on to the overall St. Clair project.

Furthermore, the Kingston Road study is proceeding under the old EA process soon to be replaced by a new, streamlined “Class EA” that will be used for the Transit City studies.  Some processes, once started, are hard to stop, but it’s important after the MoveOntario announcement that the various studies now in progress for Transit City, the Waterfront and any other bits and pieces proceed as a co-ordinated effort.

The draft Terms of Reference and Supporting Documents are available online. 

by

GO Transit’s Addiction to Parking Lots

The GO Rail system has for years depended on parking lots small and large to bring riders to its trains.  Local bus services do some of the work, but the parking lots are the mainstay of GO ridership.

With the recent announcement of substantial increase in GO capacity and reach, especially on the Lake Shore corridor, the linkage between parking lot construction and GO rail service must be drastically reduced.  There is an upper limit to the amount of land available for parking, and huge lots poison the land around stations — natural focal points for communities — by limiting development.  I have even heard a politician complain about the opening of a GO station because of the traffic it will generate through her community enroute to the parking lot down the road.

GO has started to think about developing the land around its stations, but this is still in the context of even more parking.  Garages are expensive, and GO hopes to defray this cost by including them in condo developments or office buildings.  This is a very short-sighted view.

A major gap in MoveOntario is the absence of funding for local transit operations, especially lines that will feed new and expanded regional services.  Many families cannot afford to have enough cars that each person can drive to the GO station as and when they need to use the service.  GO’s ridership is already at a level where they cannot provide parking for everyone, and even before MoveOntario was announced demand was expected to double over the next 20 years.

Today, I learned that about one third of the riders boarding at Oakville Station come by transit.  The rest drive in either to park or be dropped off.  As the Lake Shore line becomes a frequent, all-day service, accessing GO by car will not be a realistic way to travel because the lot will be full early in the morning.

MoveOntario forces all of the GTTA to change the way it thinks about transit both regionally and locally, although I’m not sure Dalton McGuinty’s advisors thought that far down the road when they cooked up this scheme.

GO must break its dependence on parking if it is to grow out of its role as a peak-period commuter network, and the local systems must expand to complement the regional improvements.  I am not saying we should close GO parking lots, but we have to think hard about stopping expansion plans, especially on heavy routes with present or soon-to-come all-day service.