Scarborough RT/LRT/Subway

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Sheppard LRT Environmental Assessment Meetings (Updated)

The City and TTC will be holding two EA meetings for the Sheppard LRT line on Tuesday and Thursday, April 15 and 17, 2008.

These will also include discussions of the proposed extension of the Scarborough RT.

The FAQ linked from the EA notice page includes a variety of intriguing items giving an idea of how the project team views what they will implement.  Apropos of discussions in other threads here about stop spacing and vehicle speed, we learn that

there is normally a much greater distance between stops, relative to a typical bus route.

It should be interesting to see how the TTC and City reconcile this statement with the actual layout of streets and stops on the existing bus route, not to mention the Official Plan goals for Avenues with medium density development along transit lines rather than concentrated at major intersections.

Update: The presentation materials from the meeting are now available online.

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It Must Be Spring: The SRT Computers Are Working Again

Those of us who make daily expeditions on the SRT have known, every winter, that operations get rather flaky once it gets cold and especially once there is a lot of snow. This year, the SRT stopped running in automatic mode around the start of February more or less when the major snowfalls came.

The first few weeks were a bit rocky with very long holds at stations as SRT control managed the trains by radio. Believe me, when the wind is howling through those stations, you don’t want to be sitting in a train with the doors open. (Of course, the SRT cars manage to have snowdrifts inside them even when the doors are closed, but that’s another matter.)

Later, the TTC seems to have figured out that running a line with six trains where the operator can easily see trains in front of them isn’t all that hard, and the quality of service improved quite a lot.

Finally, about last Wednesday (March 27), a miracle! A train pulls into Kennedy station without its marker lights flashing (the tell-tale sign of manual operation), and it behaves as if it is being run automatically.

I checked with the TTC to find out whether they had finally activated the new, replacement ATO system for Scarborough, but, no that won’t be ready or a few weeks yet, and they have revived the old one. The saddest part is that they never really needed it in the first place, but it’s a showcase for our technology, don’t ya know.

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Transit City Update

At the TTC meeting last week, there was a long presentation about the status of the various Transit City projects. The TTC’s website contains only the two page covering report with absolutely no details, but lucky for you, my readers, here is an electronic copy. As and when the TTC actually posts this report on their own site, I will change the link here to point to the “official” copy.

Warning: 7MB download: Transit City February 2008

While there may be individual issues to prompt kvetching in this report, overall I am impressed by what is happening. For the first time in over 30 years, we have not only a unified plan, but a unified set of studies. I may be naïve to expect all of this will actually be built, but we are in far better shape knowing what might be than if only one or two lines were on the table.

Here is an overview of the report along with my comments.

Overall Priorities

Of the various Transit City proposals, three have been selected as the top priority for design, funding and construction: Sheppard East, Etobicoke Finch-West and Eglinton-Crosstown. All lines were scored against various criteria, and those coming out on top overall got the nod. This doesn’t mean work stops on the others, but at least we know the staging.

Projected total ridership is highest for Eglinton, Finch and Jane, with Sheppard East in 5th place. Partly, this is due to the length of the routes and their catchment areas. Note that Waterfront West brings up the rear, unsurprising given the area it draws from.

The lines rank roughly the same way for the number of car trips diverted to transit and the reduction in greenhouse gases. There’s something of a compound effect here as several measures all vary more or less as a function of ridership.

Transit City, again with the exception of Waterfront West, touches the City’s priority neighbourhoods where better transit is needed to increase mobility and economic opportunities for the residents.

What’s Missing

Notable by their absence are the Waterfront East lines (Queen’s Quay, Cherry Street and Port Lands) as well as the Kingston Road line in Scarborough. EAs are aready in progress for these, but they don’t make it onto the overall status report.

This is a shame because we must stop making distinctions between “Transit City” itself, and other related transit projects that will compete for attention and funding. Continue reading →

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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.

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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 →

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My New Streetcar [Updated]

This has already been covered in other blogs such as spacing and Transit Toronto, but there are a few observations I want to add to others’ comments.

The TTC launched their public consultation for a new streetcar design (stop already folks — I know it’s a “Light Rail Vehicle”, but real people out there call them “streetcars”) at the last TTC meeting.  Information flyers appeared on TTC vehicles and a website sprang to life.  This is an excellent example of the sort of co-ordinated announcement that is possible when an organization actually thinks about getting its message out.

The TTC wants to show people examples of modern car designs and ask their input on what’s important for the fleet that will serve Toronto for many decades to come.  Bombardier has a partial Minneapolis car in town that will be on view at Dundas Square on Thursday, June 28 from noon to 8:00 pm.

Other public sessions (at this point it is uncertain whether the demo car will be on site) will be held at Finch Station (June 25), Scarborough Town Centre (June 26) and the Albion Centre (June 27).

[James Bow has advised that the mockup car will only be at Dundas Square, not the other locations.]

As someone who works at STC, I will be thrilled to see a display of possible new streetcars just outside the door (I can see the existing ones at Broadview Station from my living room), but it will be bittersweet.

The SRT line was supposed to be an LRT line originally and parts of it were engineered for that technology — the loop and the original low platform at Kennedy — and the signs at Kennedy even had LRT pictographs on them on opening day.  Instead we got an expensive orphan technology, and the planned extension to Malvern was never built.

The TTC studied the question of replacing the RT with LRT and their consultant, Richard Soberman, was clearly leaning to that conclusion at the public meetings.  Then something changed, and the idea of LRT conversion was presented in as negative light as possible.  With the recent funding change relieving the City of responsibility for capital spending on major lines like this, the decision on technology really is out of the City’s hands.  Nominally, it’s the GTTA’s decision, but I fear that the need to prop up the reputation of the technology will trump any other issues.

On Tuesday the 25th, we will have the irony of a display about new streetcars at a location they will never serve.

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Why Scarborough Will Never Have a Rapid Transit Network

This post has been updated by correcting a bad link to the TTC’s site, and by enabling comments. 

The TTC has finally delivered up a report in reply to my deputation last August on the question of why the RT should not be converted to LRT in the context of (a) a larger Scarborough LRT network and (b) the request from the Scarborough Caucus to extend the line into Malvern.  No big surprise.  The TTC really doesn’t want to convert the line.

The report can be found at:

http://www.ttc.ca/postings/gso-comrpt/documents/report/f3085/_conv.htm

The argument in brief is that there is no customer benefit of a conversion, that it would require a prolonged closure of the line and that the Malvern extension cost would be equal no matter what technology was chosen. Continue reading →

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TTC Capital Budget: Where Will The Money Come From?

In between many screenings at the Film Festival, I took the opportunity to write up the TTC’s Capital Budget presentation from August 30.  The information here is a combination of the TTC staff presentation, remarks by Ted Tyndorf, Chief Planner for Toronto, and my own opinions.  This is intended mainly as a view of the most recent TTC thoughts on the subject. 

Here are the high points:

  • Expenditures on transit have been deferred over and over again, with most big-ticket attention going to a handful of subway lines.  This is not sustainable.
  • Population and ridership growth is happening faster than predicted, and significant investment in new and improved service is essential.
  • The goals of the Official Plan and Building a Transit City are not worth a penny if we are not going to invest in transit.
  • The TTC budget projections push some projects further into the future than is reasonable if we are going to lead population growth with transit, for example, the Transit First policy for the eastern waterfront. 
  • There is no provision for many new lines including the proposed LRT/BRT network in Scarborough or anything in the Don Mills corridor.

I will take up the issue of where we should go next with transit planning in a future post, likely over the weekend.  Meanwhile, the gory details. Continue reading →

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The RT and Scarborough’s Future

The Final Report of the Scarborough RT Strategic Plan came up for discussion nearly at the end of a very long Commission meeting on August 30.  This was preceded by a long presentation on the Capital Budget, approval of the Bombardier subway car order and a moving deputation by the wives of two workmen seriously injured by on-the-job carbon monoxide poisoning.  Lengthy debate was unlikely. Continue reading →