Yes, friends, I am finally starting to dig through the backlog of issues, and I’m starting with an analysis of the TTC’s route cost and revenue figures.  These are normally reported in the annual Service Plan, but since there was no plan published this year, the stats for 2005 appear in a stand-alone document at this link.

This data, reformatted as a spreadsheet and with additional columns can be obtained here: 2005 Route Statistics.

I have written before about how untrustworthy these numbers are as a guide to operating costs and service productivity.  Various comments came in, and I have held them awaiting a chance to work on this in more detail. Continue reading →

A few days ago, I set off on what should be a straightforward trip by transit, but the planets and stars were not well-aligned for me.  The problems I encountered don’t show anything unusual for regular riders, but they also show the combined effect that can result.

Here is the planned journey:  Leave Scarborough Town Centre via the 190 Rocket to Don Mills, Subway to North York Centre, (pick up package), Subway to Eglinton, bus east to Mt. Pleasant. Continue reading →

Today’s Globe and Mail features an article, in the Toronto section, about Margaret Wente’s week riding the TTC.  Wente, for those of you who don’t follow that paper, has written rhapsodies to her SUV, to the joy of driving the most environmentally unfriendly car in the city, rather than taking the TTC to work at the Globe.

For one week, she forsook her car and used the TTC (well, almost a week) and discovered how the other half lives.  In the process she made several observations that won’t be news to regular users of the system, but might actually embarrass the folks who run and fund the system for one or two moments. Continue reading →

For 2006, the TTC did not produce a Service Plan because, with the shortage of buses and operators and budget, there was not much point.  Many services are awaiting implementation, but the message is “come back next year”.

One fascinating part of the annual plan was the statistics for surface routes.  I have tracked these for about 20 years, and it’s fascinating to see how often (or not) the TTC actually updates the information for each route. Continue reading →

Forty Minutes or It’s Free?

We’re in the middle of the United Way campaign, and the TTC is hard at work selling pizza all over the system.  Remember, this is the same TTC that once tried to have eating food banned in the subway and on vehicles until someone pointed out that there was a MacDonalds inside Dundas West Station.

In case you were wondering, the Za comes from Pizza Pizza who were the only firm able to supply in the quantities and timelines that the TTC needed.  The TTC is paying $10.80 per pizza, and just under half of the sale price winds up going to the United Way.  The total order comes to $300,000. Continue reading →

The Chief General Manager’s Report covering the month of June is now out in the TTC’s agenda here.

In it, we learn that riding for the first half of 2006 is up 3% (6.4-million) over last year and 1.8% over budget.  The numbers would have been higher without the loss of 1.2-million rides to the May 29th wildcat strike.  Revenue is better than budget and expenses are slightly under.

Current projections show the total 2006 ridership at about 442-million (6-million over budget), and there will be a small surplus at year-end.  The impact of the recent changes in tax policy for monthly passes have not yet been factored in.

This continues a familiar pattern with TTC budgets that are conservatively cut, but brings us back again to the same problem we had last year:  the City’s bean counters won’t let the TTC actually spend the surplus or commit it to additional service, and if last year is any indication, this money will reduce the City’s contribution to TTC operations.  Year after year of conservative budgeting by the TTC constrains our ability to run more service because riding and revenue growth are underestimated. Continue reading →

We talk a lot in this town about how progressive and pro transit we are, but there are times I wonder if anyone at City Hall really cares.

The project to rebuilt Fleet Street which was part of the TTC’s planned capital program since last fall has been held off to 2007.  Why?  It seems that Toronto Hydro and the City Works Department have not managed to get their designs and staffing plans in order, and there is no way that the work can be done this year.

Streetcars will continue to plod over some of the worst track I have ever seen in Toronto until, at best, next spring when we may finally see the reconstruction of Fleet Street and its conversion into a transit right-of-way.

This change was so last-minute that the original detailed announcement of the September Schedules (on which I reported in another post) included the Fleet Street project, but the service summary for September shows the service going to the CNE.  If you look closely, you will see a reference to Union Station service on the 511, but this is left over from the original version of the schedules.

The September Service Summary is available on the TTC website here.

For September 2006 we will see many service improvements although these fall largely in the off-peak period as the fleet size constrains the TTC’s ability to run more peak service.  Looking through the long list, I noticed that the Service Planning folks have been squeezing every drop they can out of the available budget by, in some cases, only adding a few extra trips here and there rather than a service change for an entire operating period.  Typically, this extends the shoulder of the rush hour rather than, say, improving service all day long.

Some service improvements originally planned for early 2006 but deferred due to budget deliberations are finally in the schedules, while others remain on hold for future implementation.  Next year’s budget brings with it the big jump in the bus fleet and a concurrent need for additional operating subsidy.  We will see whether the Budget Advisory Committee, Council and the Mayor are willing to put their money where most of their mouths are on transit improvements.

In the long section that follows, I do not give the details of the changes (for that, you can look at the TTC’s own site when they are posted), but only a general idea of what is happening.  I have omitted the minutiae such as garage reassignments and operational changes that do not affect headways. Continue reading →

[After I posted this article, I received an email pointing out that the change in off-peak loading standards I had described as only applying to low-floor bus routes had, in fact, been applied to all surface modes.  After checking the schedules for January 2005 against those for March 2006, I found that some service improvements were, in fact, made in off-peak frequencies on some streetcar routes.  The article below has been revised accordingly.] 

The July 19th TTC agenda contains an update on the Ridership Growth Strategy, and it contains many items worth talking about here.

Broadly speaking, there are four classes of changes covered by the RGS update:

• Service Quality
• Transit Priority
• Commuter Parking
• Fare Incentives

Service Quality improvements have two broad subgroups:  better loading standards and better minimum service standards. Continue reading →