At the TTC Board meeting on December 3, Chair Jamaal Myers proposed a motion to extend the validity of legacy fares (tickets, tokens, day passes) to June 1, 2025 for the “conventional” system, and to December 31, 2025 for WheelTrans. This was adopted by the Board.
After the meeting, in a press interview, Myers was asked “Why June 1”?
He answered that June 1 was the earliest possible opening date for Line 5 Eglinton Crosstown and Line 6 Finch. Those lines have no fare collection support for the old fare media.
This puts Metrolinx in a bind: either they announce an earlier date, something they have been loathe to do for months, or they acknowledge that we will not ride these trains until late Spring, maybe. If Doug Ford holds an election as expected, there will be no ribbon cutting for him to tout his great works.
Updated Dec. 4/24 at 6:10pm: In today’s Star, Myers qualified his statement:
TTC chair Jamaal Myers told the Star on Wednesday that the TTC is preparing to operate the Eglinton Crosstown and Finch West LRTs using an internal target date of early June next year — though he was careful to note that he does not speak for Metrolinx, the provincial agency in charge of constructing both beleaguered light-rail lines.
Myer added that the June target date was set separate from Metrolinx’s construction timeline, and was solely for the TTC’s internal preparations to take over operations once the LRT is ready.
He said TTC staff are using June 1 as a target date to train the LRT drivers and it includes a 30-day “revenue service demonstration,” which will see trains run along the full track of the LRT. The internal target dates were partly created for financial planning purposes and are not specific to the LRT.
After this agenda was published, the Federal Government announced its one third support for the purchase of 55 new Line 2 subway trains. See the Major Projects Update below for more details.
A central part of any transit rider’s journey is the wait for a vehicle that may or may not show up when expected. Even with an app that tells you where the bus is, the news might not be good. Rather than being just around the corner, the bus might be several miles away, and heading in the wrong direction.
The only statistic the TTC publishes on service quality is an “on time” metric. This is measured only at terminals, and even there “on time” means that a bus departs within a six-minute window around the scheduled time. Performance is averaged over all time periods and routes to produce system-wide numbers, although there are occasional references to individual routes in the CEO’s Report.
Riders complain, Councillors complain, and they are fobbed off with on time stats that are meaningless to a rider’s experience.
The problem then becomes how to measure the extra time riders spend waiting for their bus, and to report this in a granular way for routes, locations and times.
This article presents a proposed method for generating an index of wait times as a ratio comparing actual times to scheduled values, and their effect on the rider experience. The data are presented hour-by-hour for major locations along a route to see how conditions change from place to place.
An important concept here is that when buses are unevenly spaced, more riders wait for the bus in the long gap and fewer benefit from buses bunched close together. The experience of those longer waits raises the ratio of the rider’s waiting experience to the theoretical scheduled value. The more erratic the service with gaps and bunching, the higher the ratio of rider wait time to scheduled time. This is compounded by comfort and delay problems from crowded buses, and is responsible for rider complaints that do not match the official TTC story.
There’s some math later to explain how the calculations are done for those who want to see how the wheels turn, so to speak.
Note that this is a work in progress for comment by readers with suggestions to fine tune the scheme.
Back in September, I wrote about the gap between the TTC’s claims of service coming back to pre-pandemic levels and the actual service riders face in their daily travels. See:
I will not repeat all of the information in that post, but we are coming into budget season and the most current info should be available for debate.
When the 2025 budget comes out, we will hear much about service recovery including the obligatory photo op with the Mayor, TTC Chair and other worthies. This will be a sham because actual service today has not been restored to early 2020 levels.
The fundamental problem with TTC claims is that they measure “service” by hours for the simple reason that the primary driver of costs is the labour associated with driving vehicles. Some costs don’t actually vary with driving time, but these are generally a smaller component of the total. (For example, some costs vary with mileage, and others such as garaging are per vehicle.) For budget purposes, the variable that counts is hours.
When comparing pre- to post-pandemic service levels, one hour of vehicle operation does not necessarily provide the same amount of service as in the past. The primary reasons for this are:
Buses and streetcars run more slowly today than in early 2020 due to a combination of traffic congestion and operating practices (notably the pervasive slow orders on the streetcar system).
More recovery time is included in schedules to reduce short turning. The premise is that if there is enough padding, vehicles will rarely be late enough that they must turn back before reaching their terminals.
The combined effect is that more vehicles (and hence vehicle hours) are required to provide the same service on many routes today compared with early 2020.
I have tracked the changes in operating speed on various routes in past articles, and will return to that subject to refresh the charts in coming months.
A related problem for riders is that thanks to uneven service (gaps and bunching), the average wait for a transit vehicle can be considerably higher than the advertised headway. TTC reports “on time performance” only at terminals where service tends to be (but is not necessarily) close to schedule. The information is averaged over many routes and all hours of the day, and bears little relevance to a rider at a specific bus stop at a specific time.
I will turn to the problem of experienced vs advertised wait times in a separate article now in preparation.
The remainder of this piece updates the September charts with planned service hours by mode to the end of 2024, and a comparison of service levels by route and time of day in January 2020 versus November 2024. PDF versions of the chart sets are provided at the end.
This article details upcoming service changes on the TTC network, most of which will occur on Sunday, November 17.
Updated Nov 14 at 1:10pm: The section about supplementary service on many routes and the possible future for 2025 has been clarified based on additional info from the TTC.
Major changes include:
Re-opening of St. Clair West Station Loop. 512 St. Clair streetcars return there on Thursday, November 14, and bus service 33 Forest Hill, 90 Vaughan and 126 Christie on Sunday, November 17.
Note that routes 33 and 126 will return to independent operation and the buses will not interline.
Route 90 will no longer operate south of St. Clair to Bathurst Station.
The final stage of overhead reconstruction will occur on the western end of 509 Harbourfront and 511 Bathurst.
509 cars will operate to Exhibition Loop until November 24 as part of the extra service for Taylor Swift concerts. After that, they will run only to the loop at Queens Quay and Spadina.
511 Bathurst cars will be rerouted to Union Station effective November 14. A shuttle bus will operate from Queen & Bathurst to Exhibition Loop beginning November 17. (The 510D Spadina bus already serves Exhibition Loop.)
The 35 Jane bus will operate with split service on the regular 35A and the via Hullmar 35B branch at the north end of the route at all times, not just in peak periods.
Service in southwestern Scarborough will be modified:
The 12D Kingston Road service to UTSC will now operate weekday midday and early evenings in addition to the existing peak period service.
The 12C St. Clair branch will be removed
The 69 Warden South bus will operate to the Barkdene Hills area at all hours replacing the 12C Kingston Road branch.
A new route 117 Birchmount South will operate between Warden and Victoria Park Stations via Kingston Road.
Routes 69 and 117 will interline at Warden Station so that passengers can ride through between them.
The 110C Islington South branch to Kipling Loop is rerouted to better serve Lakeshore Village. Northbound buses will run north on Kipling, then east via Birmingham, Twelfth, Garnett James, Ninth and Birmingham to Islington. Northbound buses will no longer operate on Lake Shore and Thirteenth.
The stopping pattern for 54 Lawrence East, 954 Lawrence East Express and 154 Curran Hall will be standardized so that all Lawrence corridor services use the same stops in the SRT replacement corridor. Hours of service on 154 Curran Hall will be corrected to match the former 54B service which it replaced.
Service on 304 King Night and 305 Dundas Night cars will improve from every 20 to 15 minutes.
These and other changes are detailed in the full article.
Earlier this year, the TTC conducted the first round of consultations on its 2025 Annual Service Plan. My comments on it include several maps and tables including an update on previously proposed changes that had not yet been implemented.
The following changes are in the second round of consultations:
The proposed removal of 87 Cosburn service to East York Acres has been withdrawn for further review.
The review of Community Bus routes now includes proposed extensions and restructuring, although the scope is limited by a lack of budget headroom. There is no discussion of where more routes might be added to the system but for a lack of resources to run them.
Proposals have been added for alternate service during some, but not all, major construction projects planned for 2025.
A proposal to review and consolidate mid-block bus stops has been added.
Except for the 87 Cosburn, all proposals from round one appear unchanged in round two.
The TTC’s survey is available here and will be open for feedback until November 11, 2024. If you have suggestions, please be sure to respond to the survey. Some TTC planning staff do read this site regularly, but feedback on the plan should go to them directly to be part of the record.
I participated in a recent stakeholder session on the plan, and was disappointed by its lack of ambition. There is no sense of a “Ridership Growth Strategy”, an aspirational statement of “here is what we could do”, as opposed to living within the existing budget. It’s almost as if John Tory and Rick Leary never left.
On an informational basis, the plan does not recap pending changes for the eventual opening of Lines 5 Eglinton-Crosstown and 6 Finch West, nor does it discuss past proposals that have not yet been implemented (see my article on round one for a list of these). This leaves riders to search through available background materials to get an overall sense of what will happen in 2025. There is no concrete discussion of general service improvements to attract ridership.
The remainder of this article details the proposals added in the round two consultation.
Updated October 21, 2024 at 11:30am: The end date for the 501 Queen diversion via Church, King and Spadina has been changed to “mid-November”.
Updated October 18, 2024 at 11:00am: Information on diversions that have finished has been moved to the end of the article to avoid confusion. A planned diversion on Queen west late evening and overnight service from October 21-24 has been added.
Effective October 13: (Don Bridge reopens two days earlier than the planned Oct. 15)
501 Queen:
West end: Regular service.
Downtown: Streetcar Diversion via Church, King and Spadina both ways.
East end: Regular service restored at the Don Bridge.
Shuttle bus from Broadview & Gerrard to Queen & Bathurst:
Westbound via Church, Richmond and Bay
Eastbound via Bay, King and Church until 10pm daily
Eastbound via University, King and Church from 10pm to 5am daily
503 Kingston Road: Regular service from Bingham Loop to King & York looping downtown via Church and Wellington Streets.
504 King: Regular 504B routing restored between Broadview Station and Dufferin Loop. 504A has already been on its regular routing and does not change.
508 Lake Shore: Regular route to Broadview Station via Queen and Broadview restored.
Effective October 21-24 Only
501/301 Queen
October 21-24 only from 11pm to 4am: Streetcars divert between Shaw and Roncesvalles via King for trackwork at Queen & Brock. Shuttle buses to Neville Loop
The TTC will make several changes to their services on October 6.
One major construction diversion in Parkdale ends with restoration of normal routes on King and Queen Street West, and the downtown 501B bus shuttle will end with resumption of through streetcar service on 501 Queen.
Updated September 27 at 3:20: The TTC advises that although the schedules have been drawn up for a unified 501 Queen car service, the changeover will not take place on October 6, but at a later date. Service details from October 6 until eventual cutover have not yet been announced.
Service on the Bloor-Danforth subway, Line 2, will be improved to address crowding.
Several late night and early morning schedules will be adjusted to better integrate routes during the transition from regular daytime routes to the 300-series Blue Night Network.
Other changes adjust service for reliability and/or to reallocate service hours between routes.
Updated September 29 at 3:30: The spreadsheet showing the details of all service changes is now available.
Updated October 2 at 2:20 pm: Although the service change notice for October 6 showed a 30 minute headway would continue for the 303 Kingston Road night car, the electronic schedule published for this route shows a 20 minute headway from 1:40am onward. TTC has confirmed that the 20 minute headway will operate.
The TTC expects to end the year with a lower than budgeted gap between revenue and expenses. Revenues are running ahead of projections because of strong ridership and a higher than expected average fare. For the six months to June, revenues are $15.6-million above budget. In turn, this translates to a better position going into the 2025 budget cycle.
Expenses are running below budget through a combination of unfilled vacancies and savings due to timing changes in some work. The projected year-end position is that the TTC will come in $52.2-million below its net budget (the portion requiring subsidy).
Ridership reached 81% of pre-covid levels in fiscal period 6 (most of the month of June) and is expected to hit 81.5% by the fourth quarter.
Note that ridership and revenue recovery are not the same thing because, allowing for inflation, the value of a fare has dropped while operating costs continued to rise.
Looking ahead to the next two years, there continue to be pressures on the TTC’s operating budget. As things currently stand, service increases will be small with the major changes coming when Lines 5 and 6 open, a date that is still not announced by Metrolinx.
The City’s target is for a 0% change in TTC funding. This is not as straightforward as it seems. Budgets are struck on a budget-to-budget basis, not actual-to-budget, and so the starting point is the budgeted subsidy in 2024. This arrangement has been in place for many years, and it gives an incentive for the TTC to end the year in a “surplus” position. Other aspects are changes, if any, in external subsidies and which aspects of TTC costs these offset. For example, the extra cost of Lines 5 and 6 are substantially covered by a new, albeit temporary, provincial subsidy and the City does not face this cost at least for 2025 and 2026.
The “Reserve Draw Reversal” is an accounting adjustment. Originally, the 2024 budget included a $15-million withdrawal from a reserve, but this was not required and will not be carried forward into 2025. Therefore, on a budget-to-budget basis this item shows up as reduced revenue. Like the “surplus”, this tactic is also fairly common in TTC budget planning.
Challenges the TTC recognizes going into 2025 include:
The need for attracting riders through “customer experience and satisfaction”
Changing demographics of Toronto
The ability to meet the 0% target without affecting service
Limited funding for state of good repair (this is the Operating Budget component that covers day-to-day work as opposed to major overhauls and asset replacement)
The Mayor’s Vision
The meeting agenda includes a letter from Mayor Chow regarding the hiring of a new permanent CEO.
We must be a city where people choose transit first because it’s the fastest, safest and most convenient choice to get to work, school or run errands – everywhere.
Imagine a city where a commuter taps their card to enter, paying an affordable fare, and then takes a working escalator or elevator down to the subway platform. The station is clean and well-maintained, the message board is working and tells them their train is on time. People aren’t crowded shoulder to shoulder waiting to get on the train, only to be shoulder to shoulder during their ride. If while they wait they feel unsafe, there’s someone there to help them. And they can rely on high quality public WiFi or cell service to chat with a friend or send that important text to a family member.
Imagine a system with far-reaching, frequent bus service. Where riders aren’t bundled up for 20-30 minutes outdoors, waiting for bunched buses to arrive. Where transfers are easy and reliable. Where there is always room to get on board. Where people can trust their bus to get them to work and home to their families on time.
In short, to make the TTC the better way again it needs to be reliable, safe and remain affordable.
People have to be able to count on their train, streetcar or bus to arrive on time, and to get them where they are going quickly – without surprise route changes, delays or bunching. Vehicles, tracks, stations and stops should be proactively maintained and in a state of good repair. Riders and transit workers should feel safe and respected on the system.
That’s a fine vision for what transit should be, but it does not align with the budget process now underway, nor with the projected level of service additions in the next few years.
Also on the agenda is the quarterly financial report. I will review it in more detail in another article, but it includes material relevant to the Line 2 project
The modernization report updates the status of various projects, notably the proposed purchase of replacement trains for the T1 fleet on Line 2. Related projects include installation of Automatic Train Control, upgrades to Greenwood Yard, and various infrastructure changes to support future service increase.
Recent months have seen much hand-wringing over the timing of a subway car purchase and the state of both the aging T1 fleet and the 1960s-era signal system. The newfound urgency at TTC is due, in part, due to deferral of an entire package of Line 2 upgrades in past years.
A comprehensive plan was presented to TTC management’s Executive Committee in March 2017, but it sat on the shelf. [Note: This plan is not available online.] The plan included many components including a new fleet with a delivery window of 2026-2030, and conversion of Line 2 signalling to Automatic Train Control. Trains, signals and other infrastructure continue to age, costs rise, and the first of the replacement trains is not expected until 2030.
With later delivery of new trains, the existing T1s require another five-year overhaul cycle for continued service. This adds an estimated $163 million to overall costs which are already up due to inflation.
Thanks to the delay when the TTC and City were constraining the capital budget, the need for a Line 2 modernization was not “rediscovered” until 2023.
Toronto is now in the difficult position of having a huge appetite for transit capital, but with funding sources inadequate and uncertain beyond the immediate future. Assuming that each level of government will pony up one third of any project is a foolhardy basis for planning, and hard decisions will be needed about which projects can go ahead.
At a time when Toronto claims it wants to shift urban travel from cars to transit, the level of investment we will likely see will at best preserve existing operations and infrastructure.
Steve Munro 