Finance

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Those Too-Popular Metropasses (Update 2)

Update 2, 4:45 pm September 23:  The Chief General Manager’s Report for the period to the start of August 2009 is now online.  In this, we learn:

  • The change in average fare revenue is 2.32, not 3, cents per rider due both to higher pass sales and greater use of concession fares (children, students, seniors) (page 3).
  • Revenue loss due to ridership being below budget accounts for $3.4-million, while the lower average fare cointributes $7.6-million.  (Both of these are only for the seven months to the end of July.)
  • Yearend revenue shortfall from fares will lie between $15- and $19-million depending on ridership results through the fall.
  • Yearend revenue from advertising and other income (mainly interest) will be $3.6-million below budget.
  • Expenses are expected to be over budget due to the combined effect of:
    • Inglis building flood remediation ($1.4-million)
    • Higher service requirement from city construction ($2-million)
    • Higher overtime due to staff shortage (gapping), maintenance backlog and severe winter weather ($3.5-million)
    • Vehicle maintenance needs ($4-million)
    • Other changes ($0.3-million)
  • Savings on expenses include:
    • Lower energy rates and water consumption ($4.9-million)
    • Employee cost reductions ($2-million)
    • Planned service reductions ($1.9-million).  It is unclear whether these are reductions still to come, or if this is the saving versus budget of cuts imposed by availability problems with the bus fleet. 
  • The following actions will be taken to address the anticipated $17.4-million shortfall:
    • Some service improvements planned for fall 2009 will be deferred until mid-2010 (no list is given).
    • Overtime will be curtailed.  The effect on service availability is not addressed, but we do know that there were problems with fielding all service late in 2008 due to similar actions.
    • There will be a comprehensive review of hiring and training for operators.  This is intended to address a surge in retirements caused by demographics of the operator workforce.
    • All discretionary expenses in departments will be reviewed.
  • Page 6 mentions “the SRT Conversion and Expansion project”.  Although this is not explicitly mentioned in the Capital Budget report, we are about to see the TTC announce the conversion of the SRT to LRT technology.  This has long been rumoured, and finally has shown up in print.

Continue reading →

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Service Changes for September 2009 (Updated)

Many service changes are coming this fall to the TTC network and they fall into a number of broad categories.

Seasonal Changes

The summer service changes are, for the most part, reversed in September as tourist/amusement traffic falls off and school traffic returns.  Subway and RT services return to normal “winter” levels.

Construction Changes (streetcar lines only)

The Dundas Street watermain work between Bathurst and Dovercourt is supposed to complete by the end of August, and both the 505 Dundas and 506 Carlton routes will revert to their May 2009 routings and service levels. 

Updated September 4:  The 505 Dundas car will operate via Spadina and College west to Lansdowne and thence to Dundas West Station.  A bus service will operate from Dundas West Station to Beverley Street (the west side of the Art Gallery of Ontario).

Work at Bingham Loop will continue, and the 502/503 services on Kingston Road will continue to operate with buses until the October schedule change.

Work at Queen & Church on watermains and track will continue, and the diversion of Queen and Downtowner routes around this area remains until the roads are open for traffic, possibly in late September.

Updated September 4:  The Queen and Downtowner routes will revert to their standard routing.

Work on Roncesvalles will continue until late 2010.

Fleet Availability

In February 2009, there were many service cuts in response to the poor availability of hybrid buses.  This situation continues to some extent, but some of the February cuts have been restored with a few service improvements added.

I have formatted the information in my usual manner for this site, boiling down a much longer TTC document to show service and riding levels, headways, and the rationale for changes (or lack of them).  In this case, I have colour coded the chart to make it easier to see the types of change applicable to each route.

  • Blue:  A service restoration and/or improvement
  • Orange Italics:  A service cut that was made in February 2009 and remains in place.  Note that the headway changes shown for these cases took place in February and are simply continuing into September.  In some cases, the before and after ridership has been updated by the TTC with recent counts.
  • Red Italics Underscored:  A service cut that was made in February has been confirmed as permanent in response to lower ridership.

In theory, when bus availability improves later in 2009, the “orange” list here will see service restored at least to pre-February levels.

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Service Changes for October 18, 2009 (Updated)

Updated August 31, 2009 at 4:10 pm:

In response to questions in the comment thread, I checked with the TTC about two items:

  1. The elimination of premium fares on some express routes has been moved back to June 2010.
  2. Construction of Park Lawn Streetcar Loop is on hold indefinitely due to funding constraints.

Original post:

The following service changes will be implemented, except as noted, for the schedule period beginning Sunday, October 18, 2009. 

Of note here are new express bus services, the split of the 501 Queen car into two separate routes (covered in detail in a separate post), and the restoration of service cuts implemented in February 2009. Continue reading →

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Queen Car Route Split Effective October 19, 2009

Starting on October 19, 2009, the TTC will experiment with splitting the 501 Queen route into two segments on weekdays only.  The intention is to decouple the outer ends of the line from events that occur on the opposite side of the city, and to provide sufficient flexibility that short turns should not interfere with riders’ ability to use the service.

This will be a trial operation lasting only for the October schedule period (roughly six weeks).  Seven cars will be added to the route during peak periods, with between five and eight additional at other times.  Weekend service is not affected, nor is the operation of the 502/503 routes on Kingston Road.

Two separate services will operate:

  • Neville Loop to Dufferin, looping in the west via Shaw, King and Dufferin.
  • Long Branch Loop and Humber Loop to Broadview, looping in the east via Parliament, Dundas and Broadview.

The eastern route will operate from Russell Division, and the western one from Roncesvalles.  This will eliminate crewing complexities with cars and operators switching between divisions.

Overnight service on the 301 Queen car will be split in the same manner, but cars will be scheduled to connect.  This arrangement will result in scheduled pairs of cars on the common section, a rather odd configuration.

The Neville-Dufferin branch will operate with the following headways:

  • AM Peak: 7’15”
  • Midday: 7’30”
  • PM Peak:  7’15”
  • Early Evening: 8’00”
  • Late Evening:  9’30”

The Humber-Broadview branch will operate with the following headways (service to Long Branch in parentheses):

  • AM Peak: 5’30” (11′)
  • Midday:  6’15” (12’30”)
  • PM Peak:  6’30” (13′)
  • Early Evening: 7’30” (15′)
  • Late Evening: 9’30” (19′)

By comparison, scheduled service for September 2009 is:

  • AM Peak: 5’10” (10’20”)
  • Midday: 5’53” (11’45”)
  • PM Peak: 5’40” (11’20”)
  • Early Evening: 6’45” (13’30”)
  • Late Evening: 10′ (20′)

If the new service is closer to schedule than the old one, then service should be improved even though scheduled headways on the outer ends of the route are slightly wider.  

Headways on the two halves of the route are, except for the overnight operation, different and there is no attempt to produce a blended operation in the central part of the route.  It will be interesting to see how many cars run in pairs by coming out of Dufferin or Broadview immediately behind a through car.  This is a challenge for TTC line management, and could defeat the benefit of the overlapped service between Broadview and Dufferin.

The considerable overlap of the two routes provides continuity even if either of them needs to be short turned.  Westbound cars from Neville could short turn at Bathurst or at McCaul while still serving downtown and connecting with the through service to the west end.  Eastbound cars from Humber could short turn at Church.  A shorter overlap would have almost guaranteed that many cars would never serve the major downtown stops or connect with their counterparts for through service.

Although all cars will pass through the congested section between University and Bathurst, short turns will be possible without eliminating connections, and the need for short turns at the outer ends of the line should be reduced.  This will bear watching.

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Transit City Bus Plan: Surface Routes Matter (Update 2)

Updated August 28, 2008 at 8:15 pm:

At its meeting on August 26, the TTC adopted the Transit City Bus Plan with a few amendments:

  • There will be a 6-month communication and consultation period  regarding the proposed plan.
  • Staff will report back on criteria for inclusion of routes in the plan so that these can become part of the formal Service Standards policy.
  • Staff will report back on headway-based rather than schedule-based management of routes with frequent service including those in the Plan.

As I was out of town for this meeting, my comments were submitted as a written deputation.

Updated August 23, 2008 at 8:45 am:

I have added information at the end of this article about streetcar and bus route headways illustrating some of the issues raised here.

Original article:

Today, the TTC published its Transit City Bus Plan, the next step in an ongoing attempt to focus attention on the transit system overall, not just the subway projects.

I would like to report wild enthusiasm about this plan, but we will have to drop the “wild” part, and think of enthusiasm tempered by disappointment.  The TTC is headed in the right direction, but with compromises.  In a constrained economy, compromises are necessary, but so are the bolder strokes giving politicians and the public at least the option of moving faster should they wish to.  That was the whole concept of the Ridership Growth Strategy (RGS) to which the bus plan is a successor.

The report linked above contains both an Executive Summary and a detailed set of proposals.  I will skip over the summary and comment on the main report. Continue reading →

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Why Streetcars?

Tom Jurenka sent in the following note, and it raises questions that deserve a debate.

Hello Steve

As a non-native Torontonian (grew up in Winnipeg, but have lived in Toronto for 24 years now) I have always been puzzled — and often infuriated — by streetcars (and the absolutely terrible traffic light timing in Toronto, but that is another story).

My question is an honest one — WHY? All I can see is the negatives of streetcars:

  • they tear up streets (I’ve lived through Queen Street E, Gerrard, now St. Clair, being torn up utterly to undo the damage of streetcars pounding the rails)
  • they are slow as molasses (as a bicyclist, I routinely pass 5 or 6 streetcars on Queen Street heading from AC Harris to downtown)
  • because of their slowness and immobility they delay traffic all the time, causing snarls and the attendant idling pollution
  • they are super expensive (witness the recent funding mess)

So I’m really curious why streetcars are a better alternative to trolley buses or just plain old buses, which move fast, are mobile, and are less expensive per unit to buy. Would you be able to point me at some links/articles/studies/whatever to help me understand this issue?

Thank you for your time.

Best regards,

Tom Jurenka

This is a far more complex question than just the list above, but I will use this as a jumping off point. Continue reading →

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Service Changes Effective August 2, 2009

For mid summer, there are only a few schedule changes on the TTC network, and they take effect at the start of August running through to Labour Day weekend.

Changes for September are much more extensive, and I will deal with these in a separate post.

Bingham Loop Reconstruction

Due to the reconstruction of Bingham Loop, routes 502 Downtowner and 503 Kingston Road Tripper will be replaced by buses.  Combined streetcar service of 7’30” will be replaced by bus service of 6’00”.  The off-peak 20’00” headway is unchanged.

Diversions at Bingham Loop will change from time to time as construction progresses.  This also affects the 22A Coxwell, 12 Kingston Road, 322 Coxwell and 324 Victoria Park Night Buses.

Roncesvalles Reconstruction

Running times on the Roncesvalles shuttle bus will be increased at some times to compensate for actual start of construction and the diversion of southbound service via Dundas, Lansdowne and Queen.

501 Queen

The test of a modified step-back crewing operation will end, and normal crewing will resume on this route.

77 Swansea & 71 Runnymede

Running times on these interlined routes will be increased.  In the AM peak and midday, this will be done by reducing recovery times scheduled at terminals.  In the PM peak and evening, headways will be increased.  PM peak headways on the common section of the route will go from 10′ to 11′ with a change from 20′ to 22′ on the Runnymede branches.  A similar change will occur in the early evening, but at that time only half of the service runs south of Bloor.

Caribana

Additional service will operate for the parade on Saturday, August 1 on 511 Bathurst, 509 Harbourfront and 29 Dufferin, as well as express buses from Keele, Dundas West and Lansdowne Stations.  The 329/316 night routes will divert around the CNE grounds as described in the next section.

Additional service on 509 Harbourfront, 510 Spadina and 6 Bay is also planned for the Sunday, August 2 events on Toronto Island.  Whether these will actually occur given that the civic strike has shut down the ferries remains to be seen.  All of the added service is operated “at the divisional level”, meaning that the work is easily cancelled or reassigned if the party ends up at a new location.

Canadian National Exhibition

Additional service will operate on all of the usual routes including 511 Bathurst, 509 Harbourfront, 193 Exhibition Rocket and 29 Dufferin.  Overnight service on interlined routes 329 Dufferin and 316 Ossington will not operate through the CNE grounds, but will connect via Fraser and Liberty.

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Queen’s Park Reveals Metrolinx’ Role

My thanks to Peter Miasek who sent me the link to this item on York Region’s website.

Recently, Ontario’s Deputy Minister of Transportation, Bruce McQuaig, wrote to York Region advising on the financial and operational framework for “designated projects” as defined in the recently enacted Metrolinx legislation.  This letter can be found among several pieces of correspondence bundled into one PDF starting on pages 12-16.

I understand that a similar letter went to the City of Toronto, but it has not yet appeared in any public debates, partly because there are so few of them currently.  It is alluded to in a TTC report on Transit City funding.

The scheme begins with a desire by Queen’s Park to bring its books into line with current accepted accounting principles.  What this means, in practice, is that instead of shipping money off to York Region and Toronto, never to be seen again except as part of the Provincial Debt, Ontario will now own the assets purchased with those funds.  Nothing in the letter explains how those portions of projects funded by others such as Ottawa would be treated, nor what would happen with extensions of existing lines owned municipally like the Yonge-University Subway.

The assets would be depreciated over their expected lifetimes and would show up as an offset on the provincial books to the debt raised to fund them.  This is a neat bit of accounting that ignores the fact that an asset only has a real value if you could sell it and recapture your investment, but it keeps the bean counters happy and makes the books look better for the politicians.  To quote the letter:

Through retaining the risks and rewards of asset ownership over regional transportation assets, the Province can best achieve its accounting and financial management objectives.

This, of course, has nothing to do with transit and could equally refer to a hospital, a school or a highway.

There are some fine words about partnerships with the municipal governments coupled with concern about “value-for-money to taxpayers and transit customers”.  Then we get into the details.

Ontario, through Metrolinx, will own and control the Sheppard LRT, Eglinton LRT, Finch LRT, Scarborough RT and VIVA Next Bus Rapid Transit.  Ownership, from an accounting point of view, requires control and this means that Queen’s Park can’t just build the lines, they have to actually appear to manage them rather than effectively ceding them to municipalities via a long-term lease.  This does not prevent Metrolinx from contracting with local agencies for construction, operation and maintenance, but on paper, the lines remain Queen’s Park’s property, and they could be assigned to some other entity if they chose to do so.

Terms of any operating agreement would be set at 75% or less than the expected lifespan of the asset so that, in a worst case scenario, Metrolinx would regain control of a line before it was run into the ground.  A great deal of legal verbiage must be created to define the criteria to which local agencies (or any private entity) will be held by Metrolinx.  This strikes me as an opportunity for a huge bureaucratic waste of time especially if all parties involved are in the public sector.

Metrolinx will define project scope, budgets and schedules, and any changes will require their approval.  Given the total absence of political input from the municipal level to Metrolinx, these discussions will likely happen in private.  Of note is the exclusion for Metrolinx funding of ancilliary upgrades to utilities, streetscaping, etc. that are thought to be add-ons of convenience for a municipality rather than an integral part of a transit project.  It will be interesting to see what standards Metrolinx defines as the “basic” level it will fund, and how much will fall on municipal budgets.

Queen’s Park wants transit riders to “experience the benefits of a regionally integrated and inter-operable system”, and the Presto fare card will be a requirement for all of the designated lines.  In a telling comment, the Deputy Minister states:

 … the Province and Metrolinx will … monitor the evolution of technologies, and will consider how to plan for enhancements and improvements as part of an overall strategy to sustain the Presto electronic fare collection system.

“Evolution” will no doubt include a recognition that this is not a situation where Ontario should develop or adapt a proprietary technology, but should work with internationally recognized electronic payment standards and systems.  The time is long past when Ontario could get away with building “roll your own” systems, and they need to look at the extensive experience in other jurisdictions.

While Metrolinx is working on the benefits of a regional service, they will also need to address the integration of GO Transit fares and service into the wider regional system.  GO, as a separate entity, has remained aloof from regional integration except as it suits them with cost sharing arranements in 905 municipalities.  These arrangements are to GO’s advantage because the joint fares with local operators are much cheaper than the cost and development effects of building more parking at stations.

Finally, Infrastructure Ontario will act on Metrolinx’ behalf for projects that are to use Alternative Financing and Procurement (AFP).  This is a variation on a PPP in which the asset may actually be built and held by a private company and leased to Metrolinx.  The accounting fig leaves are thick on the ground here.  One way or another, Ontario borrows money, Metrolinx builds something (or has it built for them), and, likely, the local operating agency contracts to run it.

Lurking under all of this is a clear indication that it is Queen’s Park, not the Metrolinx Board of Directors, who runs the show.  To be fair, it is their money (or more accurately our money), but the opportunities for interference and sheer bureaucratic incompetence are legion.  There’s a reason transit has been in local hands for decades — the Ministry of Transportation hasn’t the first idea how to operate large systems, nor any feeling for the local issues involved.

Metrolinx itself becomes little more than a construction planning and, later, a holding company on the Province’s behalf.  This should not overly tax the skills of the new, non-political Board, for whom all of the important decisions will be made elsewhere.

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How Many Streetcars Do We Need?

Recent comments by Adam Giambrone, Chair of the TTC, suggest that 30 to 40 percent of the streetcar fleet is out of service in the shops, and that bus substitution will be required on some routes come the fall.

Those of us who follow the TTC have been waiting for a definitive fleet plan for some time, and hope to see one, finally, in the July Commission Meeting Agenda.  Meanwhile, I thought that I would set the stage by reviewing the current scheduled service to see how it may evolve over coming months.

The fleet contains 195 CLRVs (one of the original 196 has been scrapped) and 52 ALRVs.  The scheduled service beginning June 21 is 123 CLRVs and 38 ALRVs.  This is 63% of the CLRV fleet and 73% of the ALRV fleet.

Peak AM requirements by route are:  Bathurst (9), Carlton (32), Dundas (14), Queen (31 ALRV), Lake Shore (3), Downtowner and Kingston Road (11), King (27 CLRV + 7 ALRV), Spadina (15), Harbourfront (6), St. Clair (6).

What we don’t know is the number of cars that are permanently out of service with problems that cannot be or are too expensive to fix.  In effect, we don’t know what the true size of the available fleet might be.  A CLRV overhaul program is in progress (the affected cars are those with the new entrance layout and revised rear seating), but this is not as extensive as the original plans to replace major subsystems such as the electronics package.  This program takes some number of cars out of the pool, but should gradually replenish the fleet.  We don’t know how quickly this is happening, nor how reliable the “new” cars are.

In August, peak requirements will drop by another 11 cars when the 502/503 routes are converted to bus operation, although this will be offset in the fall when the 505/506 routes revert to their standard arrangement in the west end.  The May schedules for these routes required 53 cars in the AM peak compared to 46 today.  A further 9 cars will be needed to restore the 504 King line to its May schedule.

Late in 2009, the 512 St. Clair line’s service will be restored at least to Oakwood, later to Lansdowne.  However, this route is now using a captive pool of cars trapped north of the underpass work at Dupont and Bathurst, and there are, I believe, enough cars in that pool to handle this extension (combined with appropriate schedules where cars spend more time in motion than laying over at terminals).

The TTC needs to explain how it plans to manage streetcar service over the next three years, not to mention service improvements for capacity and the commencement of service in the eastern waterfront.  How long will new streetcars simply make up for failing CLRVs and ALRVs rather than contributing net new capacity to the network?

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Service Changes Effective June 21, 2009 (Updated)

Updated:  The Service Summary is now available online.

The June/July schedule board period will bring many seasonal cuts to transit service on the TTC.  I will not list all of them, but the real issue will be to see whether they are reversed in the fall.  A few cuts in this round are identified as a response to budget concerns (see my previous article about Metropass use and its effect on revenues).  If this is just reasonable belt-tightening, that’s just good management.  If this is a return to the bad days of stealth service cuts even while riding grows, the TTC is in for problems. Continue reading →