The Yonge Subway celebrates its 60th birthday this weekend on March 30, 2014. In honour of the occasion, I have scanned in a few transfers from the era predating the opening. With the exception of the souvenirs from 1953, these were rescued from oblivion when the TTC was cleaning house of old files at Hillcrest Transportation many years ago.
Fares & Fare Collection
Toronto Deserves Better Transit Service Now! Part 2: What Can Be Done
The first part of this article reviewed the evolution of transit service and riding since 2006. In brief:
- System riding grew by about 22% from 2006 to the projected demand in 2014.
- The bus fleet, after increasing by about 22% early in that period in part for the Ridership Growth Strategy (RGS), has not grown since 2009.
- The capacity of the bus fleet has dropped by about 6% as the remaining high-floor fleet was replaced with low-floor buses.
- Although RGS improved crowding standards to encourage more riding, these changes were reversed in 2012 to fit more passengers on existing vehicles.
- The streetcar fleet size has not changed at all, and peak service improvements, such as there were any, came from redeploying vehicles from routes shut down for construction projects.
Changing the level of TTC service on a broad scale is not something anyone can do overnight. More service means more buses and streetcars, more operators and more garage capacity. All of this takes more operating and capital subsidy, and a sustained commitment that lasts longer than a campaign sound-bite.
Toronto’s 2014 Budget & The TTC
On January 30, 2014, Toronto Council passed its 2014 operating and capital budgets. In earlier articles, I discussed details of the TTC budgets and won’t repeat that info here. However, a few details from the City budget debate are worth mentioning.
Scarborough Subway
Three Councillors attempted to sideline spending on the Scarborough Subway project by redirecting the planned $14-million in the 2014 budget either to a reserve or to other projects.
All of these motions were ruled out of order by the Speaker based on advice from City Legal staff who argued that since Council had already passes a special tax to fund the Scarborough Subway, they would be open to a lawsuit if the money were not spent for the intended purpose. This ruling by the Chair was challenged, but the Chair was upheld by a vote of 23-22. This is the same margin as in a previous vote on the issue, although a few Councillors switched sides.
I feel that attempts to derail this project are counterproductive at this time for several reasons:
- Like it or not, Council has approved the Scarborough Subway project and its associated tax.
- The issue is very contentious and in the current political environment quickly becomes a “Scarborough against the world” debate.
- The cost estimate for the project is barely beyond the back-of-the-envelope stage, and this cannot be refined without further study that will occur in 2014 as part of the lead-up to the Environmental Assessment. This will include comparative costs and effects for the City’s McCowan alignment and for Minister Murray’s “SRT” alignment.
- If the cost of the subway proves substantially higher, this will certainly trigger a further debate at the 2015 budget sessions under the newly elected Council who must approve the next stage of the subway tax increase. Any increase must be paid for with 100-cent City dollars because the commitments by Queen’s Park and Ottawa are capped.
Other related issues include:
- The projected demand for the Scarborough Subway must be seen in the context of other regional plans that are under discussion. These include substantially better service on the GO Stouffville Corridor. An EA for double-tracking this line is already underway, and the corridor is part of the “Big U” that is under study as part of Yonge subway capacity relief.
- The claimed shutdown period for the SRT for conversion to LRT has been inflated from the 2.5 years anticipated by Metrolinx to 4 years and beyond by subway advocates. Any discussion of the LRT alternative must include a review of how long a shutdown really needs to take, but we are unlikely to see this given that the only authorized work for 2014 will be on the subway options. Any work to make the LRT option more palatable would be viewed as backsliding by subway supporters.
The whole project will be back at Council again in 2015, and that is the time for a well-informed debate on alternatives.
Operating Subsidy
When the TTC Board approved its 2014 operating budget, there was a $6-million unspecified reduction in the expected subsidy based on a recommendation from the City Manager. At the time, both TTC Chair Karen Stintz and CEO Andy Byford said that they would fight for the missing $6m, although we never found out exactly what the effect would be if the TTC didn’t get it.
The original 2014 subsidy proposed by management in the budget (November 2013) was $434m, up from a budget level of $411m for 2013. The Board passed a budget with a $428m subsidy.
The CEO’s report for November also predicted a $411m subsidy requirement for 2013, but probable actuals reported in January show that the system came in $7.3m below this number, at $403.7m. Whether these savings are one time effects or sustainable into future years is a matter of debate (one unexpected source of revenue was the sale of retired subway cars). The TTC does not distinguish between regular and extraordinary revenues, and some savings or costs (such as the actual vs budgeted cost of diesel fuel) vary with market forces.
In any event, for the second year running, the TTC’s actual subsidy requirements have come in below projections. This makes the increase from previous year’s actual to current year’s budget bigger than simply a budget-to-budget comparison would show.
In case anyone is tempted to ask why the TTC cannot do “a better job” of budgeting “accurately”, that $7.3m is less than half of one percent of the total 2013 budget of $1.541-billion. If your own personal finances operate at such a level of accuracy or better, then maybe you have a right to complain. However, given that even a small percentage variation for the TTC turns into what, for Councillors, is a huge amount of money, debates about the TTC budget often turn on the minutia. $6m represents 0.25% on the property tax rate.
Among several budget adjustments proposed by Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly and approved by Council, the TTC received an extra $3m for a new budgeted subsidy of $431m.
Council also passed a motion asking staff:
… to develop an intergovernmental campaign to advocate for a Provincial operating subsidy in line with pre-1995 levels.
$70m of Provincial subsidy now goes to the TTC operating budget as part of the City’s subsidy. This is well below the formula instituted by Premier Davis in the 1970s of a 50% Provincial share. A catch-22 here is that slavishly holding to a percentage allows Queen’s Park to dictate the size of the total budget by specifying an absolute limit to the dollar value of the subsidy. This can artificially constrain the growth in TTC service.
Capital Budget
The Capital Budget was passed including over $2-billion in cuts (shifts of projects and funding to “below the line” over the coming 10 years. Some of this lies in large projects that have yet to be approved, but a substantial amount comes from purchase of new vehicles (buses, streetcars and subway cars), garage/carhouse expansions and facilities maintenance. $10m per year has been cut from streetcar track maintenance in 2014-18, and from subway track maintenance in 2019-2023. In the out years, this is accounting hocus-pocus designed to make the capital spending fit within available target levels, but in the short term, this threatens some necessary TTC work.
The City and TTC will continue to beat their drums for added support at Queen’s Park and Ottawa even though, at least in the short term, this is likely to be more wishful thinking that productive lobbying.
Toronto has a self-imposed debt limit that arises from a desire to keep debt servicing costs at an affordable level relative to tax revenue. Of course, if Council wants to raise taxes, they can also raise the amount of debt as they have done for the Scarborough Subway.
Affordability of Transit Fares
Council passed a motion asking several City departments and agencies, including the TTC:
… to report in advance of the rollout of the Presto Fare Card system and prior to the 2015 budget process, on options related to a fare media policy that addresses affordability issues of transit fares for low and moderate income Torontonians.
This topic comes up regularly at TTC Board discussions, and the common TTC response is that social benefits are not in the TTC’s purview. With the move to smart card fare collection, there is an option to build fare subsidies into a rider’s account and to allow such subsidies to be tracked.
The question, as always, will be whether TTC funding should go to improvements in service and/or fare structure for all riders, or be targeted to those who receive some other form of social assistance.
Time-Based Fares for the TTC? Maybe in 2015
The agenda for the TTC Board’s meeting on January 28, 2014, includes a report on time-based fares. The report cites many advantages for a shift to this form of fare including:
- ease of understanding by riders and clarity for enforcement by operators and fare inspectors;
- simplicity of implementation on PRESTO;
- simplicity for routes using all-door loading where transfers would not be inspected on entry;
- compatibility with fare policy on most other transit systems.
The downside, such as it may be, would be a loss of revenue relative to the current fare structure of up to $20-million annually (a bit under 2%). There are additional concerns related to a transitional period before PRESTO takes over the overwhelming majority of all fare transactions, such as the increased value of transfers issued freely in the subway which would become limited time passes.
Management recommends that time-based transfers be considered as part of the 2015 budget. This would leave a final decision on such a change to the next Council and TTC Board. Other proposed changes include discontinuing time-based transfers on St. Clair if a system-wide policy is rejected, and formulation of a policy for locations where time-based transfers would be allowed in future as an offset to major local construction activity (e.g. on Eglinton).
This is quite a refreshing report about TTC fare policy because it proceeds from the basis that this is something that can be done, that many other cities already have implemented, and which has benefits and costs that should be weighed as part of any decision. We do not hear about all the money the TTC would be wasting on people who would obtain more transit for lower fare. The contrast with the typical portrayal of Metropass users is quite astounding.
The report notes that only about 10% of existing trips on the TTC involve the use of a paper transfer because more than half the riders use passes, and many trips involve connections where there is no fare barrier and therefore no need for a transfer as proof of payment. Trips that now involve multiple fares (e.g. a short there-and-back trip, or a multi-legged trip with stopovers) would be cheaper for those riders who do not now use passes, and who do not already organize their journeys to optimise transfer use. (As someone who has used a Metropass since they were introduced in May 1980, I still miss the challenge of getting the most out of one fare.)
An obvious point the report completely misses is that a time-based fare would give the single fare more value in that it would buy a few hours of unlimited riding rather than a single connected trip. This is particularly important for people who tend to pay their fares one at a time.
Another effect would be that Metropass users, now portrayed as taking an almost embarrassingly high number of “rides”, would be seen as using far fewer “fares” because some trips now counted as separate would now be part of one connected journey. The concept of “lost revenue” to passholders would become even more difficult to justify in an environment where the right to use transit was sold by time, not by trip segment.
Indeed, the TTC will have to recalibrate how it counts “riders” and “fares”.
Transfer abuse is estimated to be the single largest source of “lost revenue” today. I put that in quotation marks because transfers, and the inventive ways riders use them, have been around for over a century, and the “loss” was never money the TTC might have collected in the first place. It is part of the cost of doing business, and indeed is a “cost” brought on by the obvious incentive riders have to maximize the return for their fares.
The TTC claims it loses almost $15m to transfer abuse each year, but that is not real money they could recoup without a large investment in enforcement. The lost fares represent under 1.5% of the annual total (7.6-million fares out of 540-million).
The cost for a two-hour, unlimited use fare is estimated at $20-million annually. This would have to be made up by additional subsidy (less than 5% over the current operating subsidy level), by an extraordinary fare increase (about 2% based on $1-billion in annual fare revenue) or by some combination of these.
Modified schemes with more restrictive policies would cost less, but they have drawbacks:
- a shorter time period such as 90 minutes would catch more riders and trigger second fares;
- restrictions on where a transfer could be reused would be confusing and would not completely eliminate arguments between staff and riders about transfer validity.
One aspect the report does not mention is the problem of delays and short-turns. What happens if someone’s trip is pushed beyond the time limitation because of erratic TTC service? In the case of manual fare inspection, there is at least a chance for a conversation to explain the circumstances, but where the fare check is automated, this is much more difficult. Should riders be penalized with extra fares because of poor TTC service?
Time-based fares will be essential for regional fare integration. A rider should be able to “buy” the ability to ride transit and change between routes regardless of which company operates the bus. There could be a premium for including GO trains in a journey, but it should not be a full additional GO fare. (This would make system-wide the existing co-fare practice between various 905 transit systems and GO.) All of this is comparatively simple (from the technology, if not the political perspective) with a smart card fare system, and all but impossible with the TTC’s current transfer rules and fare collection.
Discussions of time-based transfers go back almost a decade. The report includes excerpts from studies in 2005 and 2009. The 2003 Ridership Growth Strategy looked at fare-by-distance and at time-of-day-based fare discounts, but not at transfers as short-term passes.
This is not a new idea, but one that until now has always been sandbagged by the combined effects of “we can’t afford it” arguments and an attitude that any fare reduction is “lost money” for the TTC, not an improvement in the system’s quality and attractiveness for riders.
A thorough discussion of this is long overdue and, but for the Ford interregnum, we might have seen this a few years back as part of the TTC’s concept for smart fare cards even without PRESTO.
The shift to time-based transfers, in effect to short-term passes, would complete the TTC’s move away from a one trip, one fare model. This would increase transit’s attractiveness for casual or irregular users whose travel is penalized, compared to pass holders, by that outdated model.
Mayoral and Council candidates would do well to consider the benefits of this system, and look to implementation in 2015 at the latest.
Will The TTC Board Ever Discuss Policy, or, Good News Is Not Enough (Updated)
Updated January 21, 2014 at 2:20 pm: The description of the loading standards introduced with the Ridership Growth Strategy has been corrected.
The election season is upon us in Toronto, and transit made an early appearance on the campaign with mayoral candidate David Soknacki’s proposal that Toronto revert to the LRT plan for Scarborough. I am not going to rehash that debate here, but there is a much larger issue at stake.
The Ford/Stintz era at Council and at the TTC has been notable for its absence of substantive debate on options and alternatives for our transit future. Yes, we have had the subways*3 mantra, the palace coup to establish Karen Stintz and LRT, for a time, as a more progressive outlook on the TTC Board, and finally the Scarborough debate.
But that’s not all there is to talk about on the transit file. Do we have a regular flow of policy papers at Board meetings to discuss what transit could be, should be? No. Ford’s stooges may have been deposed, but the conservative fiscal agenda remains. Make do with less. Make sacrifices for the greater good, whatever that may be. Show how “efficiency” can protect taxpayer dollars even while riders freeze in the cold wondering when their bus will appear.
Every Board meeting starts with a little recitation by the Chair of good news, of stories about how TTC staffers helped people and the good will this brings to the organization. There is ever so much pride in improved cleanliness and attractiveness of the system – a worthwhile achievement, but one that should become second nature to maintain. It should also be a “canary in the coal mine”, a simple, obvious example of what happens when we make do with “good enough”, with year-by-year trimming to just get by.
If the bathrooms are filthy, imagine the condition of the trains, buses and streetcars you are riding. I’m not talking about loose newspapers blowing around, but of basic maintenance. From our experience in the 1990s, we know how a long slide can take a once-proud, almost cocky system to disaster, and how hard it is to rebuild.
In a previous article, I wrote about the threat to basic system maintenance posed by underfunding of the Capital Budget, an issue that has not received enough public debate. Part of the problem is that the crucial maintenance work that must occur year over year is treated the same way as new projects. Maintenance competes with the glamour projects for funding, and may be treated as something to be deferred, something we don’t need yet. Couple that with starvation of funds for basics like a new and expanded fleet and garage space, and there’s a recipe for a TTC that will decline even while more and more is expected of public transit.
The budget isn’t the only issue that deserves more detailed examination, and many other policies should be up for debate. Within a month, the TTC will have a new Chair as Karen Stintz departs for the mayoralty campaign. Within a year, Toronto should have a new Mayor, one whose view of transit is not framed by the window of his SUV. At Queen’s Park we may have a Liberal government with a fresh, if shaky, mandate to raise new revenues for transit construction and operation, or we may have a populist alternative with a four-year supply of magic beans.
In the remaining months, the TTC Board has a duty to lay the ground for the governments to come, especially at City Hall. The 2015 budget debates should be well informed about the options for transit, if only for planning where Toronto will need to spend and what services the TTC will offer in years to come. Will the TTC rise to this challenge, or sit on its hands with a caretaker Board until the end of the current term?
Here is a selection of the major policy issues we should be hearing about, if only the TTC would engage in actual debate to inform itself, Council, the media and the voters.
- Fare structure: What is the appropriate way to charge fares for transit service? By time, distance, week, month? How does smart card technology change the way fares are collected and monitored? What are the implications for regional travel and integration?
- Service standards: What loading standards should be used to drive service improvements? Should the TTC build in elbow room to encourage riding and to reduce delays due to crowding? Should there be a core network of routes with guaranteed frequent service?
- Service management: What goals should the TTC aim for in managing service? Do the measures that are reported today accurately reflect the quality of service? Are bad schedules to blame for erratic service, or does this stem from management indifference or from labour practices that work against reliable service? What are the tradeoffs in the relative priority of transit and other traffic? What are the budgetary effects of moves to improve service?
- Budgets and Subsidies: Both the Operating and Capital Budgets have been cut below the level recommended by TTC management. These cuts will affect service and maintenance in the short and long term, but there has been no debate about the effect, especially if these are not quickly reversed in a post-Ford environment. The Capital Budget faces a huge gap between available funding and requirements. Over ten years, the shortfall is 30% in available financing versus requirements, and this is back-end loaded so that the shortfall rises to 50% in later years. The proposed level of City subsidy is barely half what would be needed if Queen’s Park returned to its historical 50% capital funding formula. Hoped-for money from Ottawa is more likely to finance major projects such as new subway lines, not the “base” budget for capital maintenance. The budget, especially capital, is not well understood by the TTC Board or Council in part because of the confusing way in which it is presented. Toronto cannot begin to discuss subsidy policies if those responsible for decisions cannot understand their own budgets.
- The Waterfront: While battles rage over subway and LRT proposals for the suburbs, a major new development on the waterfront is starved for transit thanks to cost escalation, tepid interest by the TTC, and the perception that waterfront transit can be left for another time. The pace of development may be threatened if good transit does not materialize on Queens Quay, and later to the Port Lands, but meanwhile this project sits on the back burner little understood by most members of the TTC Board and Council.
- Rapid transit plans: The artificial distinction between GO and the subway (or even higher-end LRT operations such as the proposed Scarborough line) will disappear as GO becomes a frequent all-day operation. There will be one network regardless of the colours of the trains. GO service to the outer parts of the 416 is particularly important as an alternative to subway construction serving long-haul trips to downtown. Subways, LRT and BRT each has its place in the network, but electoral planning must not leave us with fragments of a network rather than an integrated whole.
- Accessibility: The need for accessibility extends all the way from the severely disabled who require door-to-door service, through a large and growing population who have some degree of independence, to those whose only problem may be bad knees or a weak heart. Neither the TTC nor the City has taken the issues of accessibility particularly seriously in recent years. There may be good words, but the budget and service policies clearly limit the growth of the parallel Wheel Trans system. Meanwhile, retrofitting the system for full access is delayed thanks to funding limitations at both the City and Queen’s Park. What we do not know is the true extent of the need for accessibility on the TTC and what this means for service and infrastructure.
TTC Board Meeting October 23, 2013 (Update 3)
Updated October 26, 2013 at 5:20 pm to reflect discussions at the meeting.
The TTC Board met on October 23.
Update: The 2014 Operating and Capital Budgets are still not public, and they may now appear in November (this has yet to be confirmed). This is unusual because under Mayor Ford, the budget process for the City has been moved up so that the overall budget can be finalized early in the new year. In 2012, the TTC budgets for 2013 were on the September agenda.
Will the TTC roll over again and accept a flat-lined subsidy placing the entire burden of extra costs on riders through fare hikes and compromises on service quality, or will they finally argue for better subsidies and force Council to debate just what transit should be doing – aside from building one subway line – for Toronto?
The CEO’s report (below) offers a hint in this statement:
“… discussions with the City continue regarding the TTC Operating and Capital Budget submissions for 2014-2023. I am resolute in expecting an increase in subsidy to accommodate and service ever increasing customer numbers.” [page 5]
Does this represent a strategic position on the TTC’s part, or division among the Commissioners about the direction the organization should take?
The City of Toronto will launch its 2014 budget process formally on December 2, 2013.
Recent reports in other media have talked of a proposal to rename the subway lines with numbers to simplify wayfinding information for riders. The details of this and other schemes to overhaul information will be presented at the meeting.
Updated October 23 at 10:55am: The presentation is now online linked from the title above.
Updated October 26 at 5:00pm: This topic will be split off into a separate thread given the volume of comments, and the accumulated comments will be moved to the new thread.
The CEO’s report has little new relative to the September edition. Riding continues to be above 2012 but below budget. For reporting period 8 (mainly the month of August), riding was up 3.5% over 2012. On an annualized basis, riding is up 2.8%. These results are 0.1% below budget for the period, and 0.5% below budget for the year to date.
Total ridership for 2013 is projected to be 527m, 1m below the budget projection. This shortfall, coupled with higher-than-expected sales of passes versus token/cash fares, will mean revenue will fall $7.6m below budget. This will be counterbalanced by various swings plus and minus on individual expense lines (details on page 24).
Update: According to CEO Andy Byford, the lower ridership and revenue numbers for 2013 are mainly attributed to the severe weather and floods earlier in 2013. Major shutdowns planned for 2014 will definitely affect ridership and this will be built into the budget estimates.
Subway punctuality on the Yonge-University line remains a problem particularly in off-peak hours. It is unclear how much this is a side-effect of the yardstick of headways within ‡3 minutes of scheduled values. During peak periods, it is much easier to meet this goal because there are more trains on the line, and entire trips can be missing without headways going beyond the 3-minute rule.
The BD line problems occasionally from the transfer of trains to the Yonge line to “cover shortages”, although this is not explained. Are there simply not enough working trainsets to operate the Yonge service, or are BD trains poached to fill major service gaps?
Update: I have asked the TTC to clarify what this section of the report actually means.
As if the wait hasn’t been long enough already, the CEO’s report states that the Harbourfront line will not return to streetcar operation until August 2, 2014. No reason is given for the further slippage between the July date given by Waterfront Toronto and the TTC’s new August date.
One major issue that the CEO’s report does not address is the fleet availability in Toronto. Only through the shutdown of substantial chunks of the streetcar system has the TTC managed to field enough cars to cover what remains in operation. It is in their interest to prolong construction projects until they can get the first of the new fleet on the road. What was originally touted as a “spring” startup of LFLRV service may now well slip to at least “summer”.
Production deliveries of cars are supposed to start later this fall. What is the status of this order?
Service reliability is supposed to be reported quarterly for all surface operations, but the third quarter report has not yet appeared (it is expected to show up sometime on October 21). When it does, I will be reporting separately on comparisons of the numbers over the past three quarters of 2013.
Update: The quarterly report was published on October 23 and has been discussed elsewhere on this site.
I will follow up on questions raised here with TTC staff at the meeting and will update the article when further info is available.
TTC Fare Policy – Requests For Fare Discounts
This is a compendium report on various proposals/requests the TTC has received for reduced fares for various groups. The staff position is that any additional subsidies for various classes of riders must be funded through a policy decision at City Council with adequate funding through the subsidy stream to offset the projected revenue losses.
This has been the TTC’s stock position for such requests for years, but at least we now have a consolidated report listing the projected cost for each option. If Council wants to fund new discounts, the expected cost is known presuming that we accept the TTC’s estimates (some of which are dubious).
- Extending “Family Pass” (6 people, maximum 2 adults) pricing to the entire week. This is projected to cost only $2.2-8.6m per year, although I am suspicious of the figure because it is based on existing pass sales. If the pass is more attractive, then more of them will be sold, but the estimate does not take this into account.
- Free off-peak trips for seniors. The cost is estimated to be at least $22m per year based on the number of non-pass trips by students/seniors today (45.2m), subdivided by the proportion of seniors (40%) and then the proportion of off-peak trips (65%).
- Off-peak only pass for seniors. The technology to handle time-of-day passes does not exist on turnstiles today, and so this option would best be left until Presto is rolled out across the system. The estimated annual cost is $1.0-2.1m, but this depends on various assumptions regarding pass pricing, trip counts and conversion rates from the existing all-day passes.
- Lower age for “senior” passes to 60 from 65. The estimated cost is $3.3-4.9m, but this includes only the lost revenue from existing Metropass holders switching to the lower-priced pass. No provision is included for token users for whom the senior’s Metropass would be more attractive than continuing to pay single adult fares.
- Extend senior/student fare pricing to ODSP and OWP recipients (these are the Ontario Disability Support and the Ontario Works programs). This is projected to cost $6.3-12.6m, but the mechanism for administering these fares is not discussed. Of particular note, the calculation is based only on the actual recipient numbers within Toronto, not on their dependents and spouses.
Any special fare regime will be easier to administer once automatic fare collection is in place. Time-of-day discounts and special fares associated with a rider’s status can be build into the fare structure, and the actual amount of discount provided for each target group can be tracked. This will be important if special subsidies are involved so that they remain separate budget lines rather than simply merging into the overall TTC revenue stream.
Advisory Committee Activity
An interesting read in recent TTC agendas has been the meeting minutes for the Advisory Committee on Accessible Transit (ACAT). This is a very active group whose discussion cover a wide range of issues with TTC staff, and the minutes report their activities in detail.
One might wish for the Customer Liaison Panel to be as forthcoming with information on its activities. It is unclear whether the CLP has done anything since its formation, or what its areas of focus might be. If the panel is intended to represent “customers” as part of TTC activities, why doesn’t it show the rest of the world what it is doing?
Supplementary Agenda
Yorkdale Fatality of September 14, 2012 – Final Investigation Report
This report contains the detailed findings regarding an accident last year in which a work car struck two employees during overnight maintenance near Yorkdale Station.
[New] York University Station Construction Status
Councillor Perruzza addressed the Board on the issue of York University Station where, as reported in the National Post, the station excavation is a lake, and no work appears to be in progress.
According to TTC staff, the tunnel construction contractor, Obrascón Huarte Lain and FCC Construcción, has handed off the site to the station contractor, Ellis-Don, but this process has taken longer than expected. Meanwhile, Ellis-Don did not take over pumping of water even though they were now responsible it. This is to be corrected, and Ellis-Don will begin active work on the site in 2-3 weeks.
Construction at this location was substantially delayed due to a worksite fatality in 2012.
[New] Time-Based Transfers for Eglinton West
Commissioner Colle requested a report from staff on the implementation of a time-based transfer arrangement on Eglinton West during the Crosstown tunnel construction similar to the setup still in use on St. Clair Avenue. The TTC will ask Metrolinx to contribute to the cost of this if it is implemented.
[New] GO/TTC Fare Integration at Dundas West and Exhibition Stations
Chair Stintz requested that staff report on the provision of a joint TTC/GO fare between Union Station, Dundas West and Exhibition Stations as a way of relieving demand on the system, notably on the 504 King car. The report should be on the November agenda.
TTC’s Five Year Plan Reviewed
TTC CEO Andy Byford was hired by former chief Gary Webster to modernize management practices and provide focus to an organization that had lost its way. Thanks to Webster’s ousting at the hands of the subway-loving, LRT-hating Mayor Ford, Byford unexpectedly found himself top dog. After a year in Toronto, Byford released his five year corporate plan on May 29, 2013.
Those of use who follow the TTC closely have heard a lot about this plan as a centrepiece for the future of our transit system. Byford’s talks at meetings around the city, most recently a Town Hall presented by Councillor Josh Matlow on the eve of the plan’s release, raised expectations for a major document, a fundamental shift in how the TTC would operate. If this were a summer movie release, Byford’s appearances would be the equivalent of ever more tantalizing trailers and “sneak peeks” at what would come.
The plan’s release was something of an anti-climax — a press release via web and email, no additional information, no political feedback to indicate support. The TTC board discussed the plan in its private session at their May 24 meeting, but made no public comment. Internally, the plan was launched at staff meetings that will continue over coming weeks to reach throughout the 12,000-strong company.
Media attention is, to be generous, muted with the story completely submerged under the Ford follies at City Hall and the Metrolinx Investment Strategy.
Metrolinx Reveals Preferred Revenue Tools, But Says Little About Investment
On April 2, 2013, Metrolinx released a list of the preferred “revenue tools” in its forthcoming “Investment Strategy”.
Public consultation until today featured a longer list, and several of the options fell off of the table thanks to public and political feedback. The complete list and a detailed analysis of each option can be found in a 225-page report “Big Move Implementation Economics Revenue Tool Profiles” produced by AECOM and KPMG in March 2013.
At a press conference, Metrolinx CEO Bruce McCuaig emphasized that the duty of his organization is to make recommendations, to offer advice, but that the final choice on tools and the amount of revenue to be sought will be up to the politicians at Queen’s Park. This neatly shifts the focus of detailed questions, but avoids the question of just how much detail will be included in those recommendations.
A handout we are sure to see during the next round of consultations outlines the general philosophy and gives details of what might be achieved with each short-listed tool.
The most important statement here is that
An Investment Strategy is about more than just raising revenues for transportation; it’s about implementing mechanisms that grow a more livable, prosperous and sustainable region.
To this I would add that a “strategy” also includes important components such as the staging of projects and discussions about the speed (or lack thereof) with which the full Big Move network is implemented. Today and in the past weeks leading up to the announcement, we have heard a lot about new revenues, but little about how they should be “invested”.
TTC Meeting Wrapup for December 19, 2012
The Toronto Transit Commission meeting of December 19, 2012, brought a few items of interest, although the desire to get away for Christmas was definitely in the air. Nonetheless, the public meeting ran close to five hours.
In this article:
- Leslie Barn(s)
- A New Approach to Community Relations
- Subway Station 2nd Exits
- Presto Update
- CEO’s Report
- Gateway Lease
- City Auditor’s Report on Wheel-Trans
Metrolinx and the Auditor General (Updated)
Updated December 14, 2012 at 1:40pm:
Additional information regarding Presto and Metrolinx’ response to the Auditor General’s report has been added at the end of that section in this article.
Original post from December 13:
The Auditor General of Ontario released his Annual Report on December 12, 2012, and it includes a section on Metrolinx. For those of us who have wrestled with the secrecy of Metrolinx, some of the information and recommendations in this report are a breath of fresh air.
Metrolinx’ overall reaction to the report is much of the same boilerplate about the wonderful job they are doing and how important they are to the region. In some cases, Metrolinx dodges the questions raised by the Auditor in a way familiar to anyone who has ever attended one of their press conferences.
The report should be read in the context of March 31, 2012, the end of the period to which the audit applies.
Steve Munro 