Downtown Relief/Ontario Line

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TTC 2024 Service Plan Consultation Round Two

The TTC is part way through production of its 2024 Service Plan as well as a 5-Year Service Plan and Customer Experience Action Plan. In Round Two, consultation will focus on plans for service changes triggered by major construction projects. Five pop-up sessions are planned at Flemingdon Park, Union Station, Liberty Village, Finch Terminal, and Pape Station between June 29 and July 12, 2023. Details are available here.

Also available on that page is a link to a survey seeking feedback on various proposals. Please note that my site is not an official TTC conduit for feedback, although it is no secret that many at the TTC do read articles and comments here. Any specific feedback for the TTC should be submitted through their own survey.

Round Three in August-September will present draft concepts for the 5-Year Plan and Customer Experience Action Plan, and these will be refined into final drafts for Round Four in October-November.

The remainder of this article presents an overview of the survey and proposals for construction-related service changes.

There are no proposals for new routes nor of overall service levels in this round. The election of Olivia Chow as Mayor will no doubt bring a review of existing services, but that is not in the scope of this round.

An important issue left over from the 2023 Budget process and the recent service cuts is the question of Service Standards. These are described as “Board Approved”, but in fact the 2023 changes were implemented by management as part of the budget with only retroactive consent from the Board. Moreover, the actual effect of the changes was withheld from the Board and Council until well after the budget was approved.

Transparency in budgets and service planning will be an important change looking ahead to 2024. With a new Mayor I hope to see a much improved process.

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Osgoode Hall Garden and University Park

Over past months, the Ontario Line’s effect on trees in various locations around Toronto has become something of a cause célèbre. Osgoode Hall was, in a way, the “poster child” for this because of its location and the historic buildings at Queen & University. However, this was far from the only affected location with tree felling on a massive scale elsewhere including Moss Park, Riverside, and now planned for the Don Valley at the Leaside Bridge and the crossing of Walmsley Brook north of Thorncliffe Park.

A common refrain from citizens along the Ontario Line and other corridors is that Metrolinx does not deal in good faith, but rather presents its positions as unchangeable and pressing. They look only for acquiescence so that “consultation” can be claimed for the record. There is no public record of these consultations, and no community is aware of what might be told to others except by information sharing among them.

I have written about the garden at Osgoode Hall before, most recently in a review of the report prepared for the City of Toronto by Parsons looking at various alternative configurations.

On February 23, 2023, Toronto and East York Community Council established a subcommittee composed of Councillors from Wards 10 Spadina-Fort York, 13 Toronto Centre and 14 Toronto-Danforth and “directed the Executive Director Transit Expansion Division to report to the first meeting in March 2023 regarding the current status of the Ontario Line, pedestrian and traffic management plans, and opportunities for City and resident involvement moving forward”.

That meeting will occur on March 22, 2023. The only report on the agenda is from the Executive Director, and a great deal of it is a rehash of information from earlier reports along with a claim that Metrolinx is engaging with communities along the corridor. The actual degree of consultation is a matter for some debate, and one cannot wonder whether the ED is parroting the official line from Metrolinx, hardly an appropriate tactic for a senior City official. I will address that report in more detail after the meeting, but turn here to a proposal for the new entrance to Osgoode Station.

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501 Queen Diversions and Shuttles for the Ontario Line

This article is a follow-up to my earlier piece about the TTC’s Rapid Transit Expansion report including the effect of Ontario Line construction on the 501 Queen service.

Updated March 1, 2023:

  • The reason that track installation on Adelaide, which by itself is relatively straightforward, cannot proceed immediately is that nine Toronto Hydro and Bell vaults must be relocated. Metrolinx opted not to do this work, but the City has taken over.
  • Streetcars will remain on 501 Queen but will divert both ways via Broadview, Dundas and McCaul from May 2023 to March 2024. A bus shuttle will operate over the central portion of the route.
  • The list of track construction projects for 2023-24 has been clarified.

Back in December 2021, the City approved a report with a very long list of proposed road closures for Ontario Line construction.

I wrote about this report beginning with this article:

The construction at Queen Station will entail a multi-year diversion of 501 Queen service, and the plan was for streetcars to operate:

  • Eastbound via York, Adelaide and Church
  • Westbound via Church, Richmond and York

Track already exists for the westbound route, but new track is required on York and on Adelaide for the eastbound diversion.

Much of this work was supposed to have been completed in 2022, with the intent that the diversion would be available in May 2023. Various factors combined to foul up this schedule.

  • The contract to install new track on York and on Adelaide east to Victoria was, for some reason, to be a Metrolinx responsibility separate from City work on utility upgrades and relocation. This lengthened the potential timespan with two separate procurements, and inevitable delays as one contractor waited for the the other to finish.
  • Metrolinx was supposed to build the new track on York Street in 2022. This did not happen. According to a recent City report (about which more below), Metrolinx has been preoccupied with the Ontario Line.
  • Construction on Adelaide west from York to Spadina was done by the City to restore track inactive for many decades and to provide more flexibility for downtown diversions. This went quickly through the fall, and was performed by Midome Construction who were also working on utilities east of York.
  • For various reasons, notably discovery of unexpected underground Toronto Hydro and Bell plant, the work east on Adelaide from York did not complete in 2022, although it was substantially finished from York to Bay. Some water main connections were incomplete with pipes blocking the curb lanes, and this complicated traffic and transit diversions around a major sinkhole at King and University.
  • The City proposes to expand the Midome contract to include track replacement from York to Victoria. Work on this can begin immediately where utility construction no longer occupies the eastbound track lane (second counting from the south side). See: Non-competitive Contract with Midome Construction Services Limited for the New Streetcar Tracks on Adelaide Street

Queen Streetcars or Shuttle Buses

Until quite recently, if one ignored the incomplete work on the diversion trackage, it was possible to think that the streetcars would simply divert as planned beginning in May. This is obviously not going to happen, and it must have been clear to the TTC for months that the 501 Queen service would have to be modified.

The first hint of this was buried in the report under discussion at today’s (February 28, 2023) TTC Board Meeting.

Metrolinx has identified that the potential delay to complete the streetcar detour work will result in approximately 20 months of shuttle bus service commencing in early May 2023. The TTC is still working closely with Metrolinx and the City on exploring options to optimize the construction schedule of the Adelaide civil and streetcar track construction work to reduce the duration of shuttle bus service.

TTC Transit Network Expansion Update at p. 14

The words “shuttle bus” will send hapless TTC riders screaming from the room. There is a long history, particularly in recent years, of the TTC’s incompetence in operating construction shuttles including changing routes with little or no notice, conflicting information online and at stops, and erratic service with shuttles running in packs and taking long layovers at terminals. This was compounded by the number of planned and unplanned construction projects and the overlapped periods of construction on what should have been distinct route and road closures.

The grand daddy of them all is the King-Queen-Queensway-Roncesvalles project where all manner of delays including pandemic effects on work, unexpected utility relocations, slow work by affected companies such as Toronto Hydro, Bell and others, pushed the completion date out to, with luck, July 2023.

The idea that Queen would see 20 months of shuttle buses before the streetcar diversion would be ready is a testament to fouled up planning. The work should never have been divided between Metrolinx and the City but consolidated as a single contract with a goal of completion as fast as possible.

We now know, courtesy of the Star’s reporting that the delay will be only ten months instead of twenty thanks to the City’s contract consolidation. That’s an improvement, but it should never have been necessary.

For the TTC’s part, this continues a sad tale of communications and consultation foul-ups. The need for shuttles would clearly have been known months ago. How exactly they will operate is totally unknown because the TTC has issued no guidance on this. Will there be shuttles downtown? Over the entire route? Will the route be split to make it more manageable and give different routing options for eastern and western legs?

This should have been a public discussion months ago even if some details were still to be nailed down rather than a surprise landing on already-suffering riders who have dealt with many disruptions on Queen and other routes.

There are several planned track and road construction projects on Queen and King Street in coming years, and I learned recently that several of these have been deferred to reduce overlaps and conflicts. The revised schedule has not been published, and yet this will be essential to any discussion of transit service through the Ontario Line’s construction period. These include:

  • Scheduled for 2023, but deferred:
    • King West from Close to Strachan.
    • Queen East from Parliament to River.
    • Queen East from Carlaw to Greenwood.
  • Queen at Degrassi. Revision to streetcar power distribution for Ontario Line. 2023, date TBA.
  • Scheduled for 2024:
    • Queen West from O’Hara to Triller. 2024.
    • Queen East from Davies to Carlaw. 2024 (likely during Metrolinx work at Degrassi underpass).
    • King West from Strachan to Spadina. 2024.
  • Bathurst Street from Queen to Front
  • Scheduled for 2024, but deferred:
    • King East at Church (intersection).

The City, TTC and Metrolinx owe everyone an apology for this cock-up, and a commitment to resolve conflicting schedules and publish credible plans as soon as possible.

I will add to this article as the story develops.

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TTC Transit Network Expansion: February 2023 Update

At its meeting on February 28, the TTC Board will receive a report summarizing the status of most of the rapid transit plans in Toronto. This article condenses the TTC report and reorders some sections to group related items together.

Dominant among many projects are, of course, the “big four” provincial projects: Ontario Line, Scarborough Subway, Yonge North Subway, and Eglinton West LRT extension.

Project Status Overview

The effect of major projects elbowing everything else aside is clear in the table below. Some projects do not have in service dates because they are not funded, and the timing of that (when and if it occurs) will determine when various lines can open.

Not shown in this table are several major projects that pop up from time to time:

  • Bloor-Yonge Station Expansion
  • Waterfront West LRT from Dufferin to The Queensway
  • Bloor West subway extension
  • New Line 2 fleet and yard at Kipling (Obico yard property)
  • Sheppard East subway extension
  • Platform Edge Doors

Of these, only the Bloor-Yonge project has funding, and some are only a glimmer in various politicians’ eyes.

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Toronto’s Board of Trade Contemplates Transportation

Prologue: When I started to write this story, John Tory was still Mayor of Toronto and the dynamics of City-Province relations assumed he was in charge. The context for these discussions was soon to change.

The Toronto Region Board of Trade holds a yearly “transportation summit”, and on February 8, 2023, this focused on the Greater Toronto Area’s transit, plans for the future, and the aftermath of the covid pandemic.

The TRBoT is no wild-eyed radical institution. The regional economy and businesses are at the heart of causes it advocates.

Both in the introductory remarks and in comments by speakers sprinkled through the day, the economic effect of traffic congestion was a mantra. This sets the framework for the importance of both transit and road projects, depending on who is speaking. The latest factoid describing Toronto’s problems is that we have the third worst congestion in North America and the seventh worst in the world.

CBC: Toronto ranks 3rd most congested city in North America. Here are the city’s worst traffic spots

A problem with this hand-wringing is that there is little acknowledgement that some particularly bad locations are related to major infrastructure projects such as the Gardiner Expressway rebuild and various rapid transit lines. Moreover, goods movement has severe problems in areas that historically have poor transit and show little chance of seeing any in the near future. No single project will solve the problem of many-to-many trips patterns that now depend almost totally on roads and private vehicles.

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Osgoode Station Entrance Review

Metrolinx plans along several of its corridors have provoked community opposition and proposed alternative schemes, but Metrolinx has been quite intransigent about “just getting things built”, the mantra of the Ford government at Queen’s Park. Opposition is not merely steamrolled, but is painted as anti-transit, out of touch, and nimbyist in preventing the wider population from enjoying the benefit of new transit lines.

This does not endear Metrolinx to many groups (and they stretch well into the 905, not just central Toronto), but Metrolinx does not care. For them, it’s all about managing the message. Most communities just roll over and give in to an unstoppable force trying to make the best of a bad situation. “Consultation” amounts to picking the colour of the tiles for a bathroom reno, and hoping that the contractor actually installs the ones you selected.

Several sites along GO corridors and the Ontario Line have been subject to tree clearing either to open construction sites, or to remove trees that will conflict with electrification infrastructure. A small grove at Osgoode Hall, although far from the largest area Metrolinx has cleared, received much publicity because of its location. The northeast corner of Queen and University is a park beside one of Toronto’s oldest buildings, a green space complementing the square at City Hall just to the east and a more recent arrival, Campbell House, to the west.

Although the park was owned by the Law Society of Ontario, the portion Metrolinx requires was expropriated for the Ontario Line. The community around Osgoode Hall (a mix of the legal profession, the local BIA, residents and heritage advocates) convinced Toronto Council to undertake a review of Metrolinx plans in comparison with alternative designs that would preserve the treed parkland.

This report was produced by a consulting firm, Parsons, and was posted on the City’s website on February 4. It exists in two formats:

An interim injunction, in force until February 10, paused the felling of trees at Osgoode Hall for a time. Other locations have not been as lucky, nor have they had groups like the Law Society capable of taking on Metrolinx.

An important distinction for this site is that it also contains a heritage building, and there are concerns for potential damage Osgoode Hall might suffer from the overall construction plans. However, the injunction itself only applies to the trees, and it is not clear whether the wider issue of construction effects will form part of the broader argument when the application is heard.

Among the legal issues will be whether a heritage site with mixed ownership (the Law Society, Metrolinx and Ontario) can be treated as “indivisible” for the purpose of heritage preservation so that one owner, the LSO, can prevent changes on property of another owner, Metrolinx. There is also the question of whether Metrolinx can even be bound by an injunction as it is one of many agencies that are exempt from many provincial regulations.

In Brief

  • An interim injunction pauses work until February 10, with possible extension, pending further review.
  • The Parsons report commissioned by the City was published at the last moment, and was seized upon by Metrolinx to justify commencement of work on the same day as the injunction hearing.
  • Parsons concurs that the Metrolinx proposal is the best of those analyzed, but suggests that an alternative using the Campbell House site should be studied in more detail.
  • The Campbell House option would effectively displace the house from its location, and it is doubtful that it could return in as harmonious a setting as it has today.
  • Parsons does not afford the same treatment to the Osgoode Plaza proposal even though this is the major contender among the alternatives.
  • The City’s inaction on the proposed Osgoode Plaza is an (almost) missed opportunity to make the new station and the intersection into a major site downtown. If this is to be pursued, prompt action by the City is needed so that Metrolinx could adjust their construction plans accordingly.

If City Council, and most importantly Mayor Tory, are serious about an alternative to the Metrolinx plans for Osgoode Station, they should proceed as quickly as possible to endorse the Osgoode Plaza scheme and work with Metrolinx to adjust construction plans for Osgoode Station on the basis of road space on University Avenue that the plaza will free up.

In the presentation accompanying the report, the Osgoode Plaza option is shown first, and it is dismissed for various reasons notably the absence of detailed studies because the City has not yet embraced the proposed reconfiguration of University Avenue. Rather than recommending that the potential of this scheme be examined in greater detail, Parsons rejects it. This effectively prejudices the report to endorse the Metrolinx scheme as the only viable option, with a faint hope alternative that is worse than the original.

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Tracking Metrolinx Project Costs

The Province of Ontario is not exactly transparent when it comes to reconciliation of announced project costs and actual spending, let along the changes that might occur along the way. A project, or group of projects, might be announced with a value in then-current dollars, and without necessarily including all future contract costs. There are various reasons behind this approach including:

  • The government does not want to tip its hand on the amount of money “on the table” to prospective bidders who might tailor their bid to the perceived level of funding.
  • Some contracts include future operating and maintenance costs as well as capital costs. In some case the announced cost does not include the O&M component, only the estimated capital portion.
  • Provincial projects are typically quoted in then-current dollars with future inflation to be added as it occurs, at least to the point where there is a contract in place which includes that provision.

This approach hides the likely as-spent costs and makes provincially run projects appear cheaper, at least in the short run.

This is fundamentally different from the way the City of Toronto tracks projects and how TTC requirements are reported. Specifically:

  • City project cost estimates include inflation to completion because this is factored into future funding requirements.
  • City projects do not bundle future operating costs with capital, but report them separately.

Note that cost estimates shown in the Infrastructure Ontario market reports do not necessarily match values shown by Metrolinx because IO shows these values on a different basis. Future operating and financing costs are no longer included in IO estimates so that a project’s value reflects only design and construction costs, a value that gives potential construction bidders a general size of the project’s scope.

Infrastructure Ontario notes on the November 2022 Market Update that we have modified the methodology used to calculate the estimated costs as presented on the chart. In May 2022, and for Market Updates prior to that, we used the Estimated Total Capital Costs. For the latest update, and going forward, the costs listed only include Design and Construction costs.

These changes were adopted after feedback from our construction industry partners found that including only design and construction costs provided them with a better sense of the scope of the project and would assist in determining if they wished to participate in the bidding process.

Email from Ian McConachie, Infrastructure Ontario, Manager, Media Relations & Communications, November 24, 2022.

This can be confusing with “bundled” projects such as the Ontario Line RSSOM contract which includes both provision/construction of vehicles and infrastructure, as well as future O&M costs. This is probably the reason, or a good chunk of it, for the very large increase in the RSSOM contract value between the initial estimate cited by IO and the contract award. However, the way these contracts are handled generally makes it impossible to know how much of the change is simply due to inflation in materials and labour costs, and how much is due to underestimates or scope changes.

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Infrastructure Ontario Procurement Update: November 2022

Infrastructure Ontario has issued an update on its various projects in procurement. I have been tracking the transit projects for some time, and the table linked below shows how they have evolved.

My last article on the subject was for the January 2022 update, but I skipped May because so little had changed. This article (and the table) reflect changes in the May and November bulletins.

Updated Nov 22/22 at 7:20 pm: The status tracking table has been updated to correct the date for the Ontario Line Pape Tunnel project.

IO Status Tracking November 2022

Some of the changes in this update are quite substantial.

Ontario Line

The North Civil, Stations and Tunnel contract previously included both the tunnel segment from Gerrard north to the Don River, the bridge over the river, and the elevated structure north to Eglinton. This has now been split into two separate contracts.

  • Elevated Guideway and Stations
  • Pape Tunnel and Underground Stations

Each of these projects is shown with an estimated cost of $1-2 billion, compared to $3 billion for the combined version.

In May 2022, the North Civil contract execution date was July-Sept 2024.

The Elevated Guideway and Stations contract is now shown in two stages with the Development Phase Agreement (DPA) in Jan-Mar 2024 and the Project Agreement (PA) in Jan-March 2025.

The Pape Tunnel and Underground Stations contract is now shown with a DPA of Jan-Mar 2024 and a PA in July-Sept 2026. [Corrected]

There is no indication of the effect these changes will have on the opening date.

The Rolling Stock, System Operations and Maintenance (RSSOM) contract was awarded in November 2022. In previous updates it was estimated at “>$2B” (greater than $2 billion), but was awarded at a value of $9 billion.

The South Civil, Stations and Tunnel contract was also awarded in November 2022, In previous updates it was estimated at “>$4B”, but was awarded at a value of $6 billion.

Line 2 (Scarborough) Subway Extension

The Stations, Railway and Systems contract project agreement (PA) date was previously cited as Jan-Mar 2024, but this has been changed to July-Sept 2024.

The tunnel contract was awarded in May 2021 and is already underway.

Line 1 (Yonge North) Subway Extension

The tunnel contract Request for Qualifications issue date has slipped from Jan-Mar 2022 in the January 2022 update to Jan-Mar 2023 in the November update. For some reason, the estimated cost has gone down from $2-4 billion to $1-2 billion. I have asked Infrastructure Ontario to clarify this.

The Request for Proposal issue date was supposed to be Jul-Sept 2022, but is now Apr-June 2023.

Contract execution has slipped from July-Sept 2023 to Apr-June 2024. It is not clear what effect this will have on the planned opening date.

Eglinton-Crosstown West Extension

This project has four components:

  • The tunnel contract for the segment from Renforth to Scarlett was awarded in May 2021.
  • The tunnel contract for the segment from Jane to Mount Dennis closed its RFP process in November 2022. Award is expected in Jan-Mar 2023.
  • The elevated structure between the two tunnels is in a separate contract now at the RFQ stage.
  • The Stations, Railway and System contract has not been issued yet.

Lines In Planning

Three lines are in the planning stage only with one added in the May 2022 update:

  • Line 4 (Sheppard East) Subway Extension
  • Hamilton LRT
  • Eglinton West Crosstown Airport Segment (new in May 2022)

GO Expansion

All of the contracts for the expansion program have now been awarded, and they will not appear in the IO updates.

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Metrolinx Vandals And Osgoode Hall (Updated)

Updated November 21, 2022 at 10:45 am: The Sir William Campbell Foundation has written to Metrolinx challenging their plans for Osgoode Hall’s garden and noting specifically their previous commitments to await a City-commissioned study.

Earlier this year, after considerable debate about the future of the trees in the park at Osgoode Hall, Metrolinx agreed to the City undertaking a study of alternative designs for the new Ontario Line station there. No action would be taken until a consultant’s report, commissioned by the City, was delivered and presented to Council.

The report is supposed to be completed in 2022 and reported to Council in the first quarter of 2023.

Now, Metrolinx has advised the Law Society of Ontario that tree clearing will begin on December 5, 2022. This is in direct contravention of the agreement Metrolinx made with the City, the Law Society and other community groups.

It is no secret among any groups and politicians, with the possible exception of the Premier, that Metrolinx’ word cannot be trusted on any “promises” or “commitments”. This outcome does not surprise me one bit based on their past behaviour. Why should anyone participate in their public participation shams?

There is no word from our all-powerful Mayor who made threatening noises – back when he was trying to get re-elected – about protecting Osgoode Hall. How long has he known that this would be the outcome, that Metrolinx would forge ahead with their plans on their schedule, and the City’s position be damned?

It is entirely possible that Metrolinx knows what the consultant report says based on discussions they have already had. If so, and if the consultant’s position was “gee whiz guys, I really would like to save your trees, but …”, then simple decency demands that the report be released and the options debated before Metrolinx launches into their tree clearing. But that’s not how Metrolinx works. Bull ahead, make an irreversible move and to hell with the consequences.

My opinion of Metrolinx is no secret, even though I keep trying to find touches of good will, of professional quality among the dross and endless feel-good PR they churn out. Sadly, Metrolinx never surprises, never actually listens and consults, beyond asking what colour of toilet paper we want to clean up their inevitable mess.

The timing of the announcement, right as the new City Council is getting established and distracted by its own problems, is typical. Catch the opponents when they have other things on their plate.

This is a disgrace for Metrolinx, and a disgrace for Mayor Tory who can huff and puff for the cameras, but when it counts turns out to be Doug Ford’s puppet.

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TTC Board Meeting: July 14, 2022

The TTC Board held its last scheduled meeting of the current term on July 14. Barring an emergency requiring a special meeting, the next regular meeting will follow reconstitution of the Board after the municipal election in the Fall.

Some items on the agenda have already been covered in previous articles:

This article covers:

  • The CEO’s Report
  • Outsourcing of non-revenue automotive vehicle and equipment maintenance
  • Automatic Train Control for Line 1 Yonge-University
  • Five and ten year service plans
  • Transit network expansion update

I will review the Green Bus program update in a separate article.

CEO’s Report

The CEO’s Report contains many charts purporting to show the operation of the system. Unfortunately some of these hide as much as they tell by giving a simplistic view of the system.

I have already written about the wide discrepancy between actual short turning of vehicles and the reported number. A distortion this major calls into question the accuracy and honesty of other metrics in the report.

In a future article, I will turn to the appropriateness of various metrics, but here are some key areas:

  • Averages do not represent conditions riders experience. Data that are consolidated across hours, days, locations and routes hide the prevalence of disruptions. Service that is fairly good on average can be terrible for riders who try to use it at the wrong time.
  • Values for some metrics are reported with capped charts that show only that a target is met, but not by how much it was exceeded. This gives no indication of the room to improve the target value, nor of the variation that could make a higher target difficult to achieve consistently.
  • Reliability is shown only for vehicles that actually operate in service, but there is no measure of actual fleet utilization and the headroom for service growth using available buses, streetcars and subway trains.

In discussion of the report, Commissioner Carroll noted that the TTC still has a problem with on time performance for streetcars. CEO Rick Leary replied that there is an On Time Performance team who are looking at details including recognition that there are three types of routes: those that run well, those affected by construction and those with other problems.

Carroll replied that people are quick to complain about King Street and wondering why they are still waiting for the 504. The TTC says that construction is the reason, but do they have a strategy to deal with bunching and communicate with riders. Management replied that they have strategies for keeping riders informed during planned diversions, but for unplanned emergencies there are service alerts. Changes are coming and service should improve.

This discussion was frustrating to hear because, first off, the central part of 504 King between Dufferin and Parliament is not affected by construction. Only the outer ends in Parkdale/Roncesvalles and on Broadview have (or had until recently) bus shuttles. As for keeping riders informed, irregular service plagues all routes in the system as I have documented in articles here many times. The problem is line management, or the absence of it.

On another topic, Carroll noted that the TTC seems to have a lower standard for the condition of stations than it does for vehicles, or at least tracks the latter at more detail. Leary replied that a summer blitz using student workers will scrub down all stations to bring the system back to a better quality for riders returning in the Fall.

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