This article has been created to hold reader comments that accumulated elsewhere on the transit system’s reaction to recent appallingly bad weather, the power outage and the general miserableness that stood in for life in Toronto. Please leave new comments, other than those specifically related to the streetcar system (which has its own article) here.
Finance
Poor Frozen Streetcars
Over the past week, we have heard a lot about streetcars that were stuck in the yard or failed in service because of frozen air lines.
If the air isn’t dry, moisture condenses and freezes, blocking air movement. Whatever system that air line runs – such as releasing the brakes – stops working, and the streetcar is stuck just as if it were frozen to the rails. Think of this as sclerosis for streetcars.
Drying the air has been an issue for the streetcar fleet more or less since it was delivered 30 years ago, and the problem is worse on the long ALRVs than on the shorter, and older, CLRVs. One can only wonder if this is yet another subsystem where the TTC gambled that things would keep running until new cars arrived.
They lost.
Record cold weather meant anything that was borderline temperature sensitive has failed, and riders have seen the effects.
The new cars are over a year late. If the wait means they work perfectly “out of the box” I will be ecstatic – the Toronto Rocket subway trains have not exactly inspired confidence in Bombardier.
The partial replacement of streetcars by buses led inevitably to musing by Councillor Doug Ford that maybe we should just make this a permanent arrangement. The Ford family is well known for looking for any excuse to rid Toronto of what they see as a nuisance.
This begs two very important sets of questions for the TTC and its current chair, Karen Stintz. Will they rise to the streetcars’ defence not just for the short, post-deep-freeze, but for their long-term future?
TTC Capital Budget 2014-2023 Part II: Streetcar Infrastructure
The TTC 2014-2023 Capital Budget contains a great deal of streetcar infrastructure work over coming years. Broadly, this can be subdivided into three types of project:
- Catching up with inferior maintenance of past decades to bring the system to a “steady state” condition where each year’s work is commensurate to the scale of the network and industry norms for the lifespan of assets .
- Changes to support the new low floor LRVs including Leslie Barns, conversion to pantograph power collection, and updating other infrastructure such as power supply and track switching.
- System expansion.
Although some of this looks ambitious on paper, the plans are threatened by capital availability at a level well below what is needed. The TTC has other demands on a shrinking capital pool, notably on the subway system. Combined with the City of Toronto’s self-imposed limits on debt levels and taxes and the expiry of various provincial and federal funding programs, there is insufficient capital to maintain the system. The streetcar network takes a hit from this, but the details are not yet known.
I will explore the shortfall in capital funding in the next article of this series. Meanwhile, the plans discussed here should be read in the context that the City Budget, as now written, seeks a reduction in various line items of the TTC’s Capital Budget. How this will fare at Council remains to be seen. The two biggest problems are the lack of details of where cuts will fall and their effect, and the abdication of responsibility for advocacy by TTC Board members and senior management. “We will muddle through somehow” is not an inspiring call to battle.
TTC Capital Budget 2014-23 Part I: Fleet Plans (Or, Where Will We Put The Riders?)
The past two years at TTC and Council have been all about the fight over LRT and subways, and the shifting loyalty to each mode especially when potential votes are to be gained. While Toronto (and Queen’s Park) flailed about with expensive rapid transit plans, something more important, but more subtle, off the radar, was happening.
Discussion of the future of our transit fleet and service levels later this decade took a back seat in the triumph of ideology over planning. We are now in a position where all three modes — subway, streetcar and bus — will strain to meet demands placed on them for the foreseeable future. We will have very clean subway stations, but service and capacity are quite another matter.
The problems for each mode are different.
Yet Another Way To Fund Transit
The Transit Investment Strategy Advisory Panel issued its recommendations on December 12. I have written a short review of them for the Torontoist, and will add more extensive comments here in coming days.
Congestion Management and Transit Priority: Toronto’s Confused Approach
Two studies came through Toronto’s Public Works & Infrastructure Committee at its November meeting revealing a less-than-coherent approach to traffic management and transit priority.
The Congestion Management Plan (CMP) takes a city-wide view with two background reports:
- Managing Toronto’s Congestion Today gives an overview of the current situation and factors contributing to congestion.
- The Congestion Management Plan 2014-2018 lays out specific proposals for what might be done to address various problems.
The Downtown Traffic Operations Study (DTOS) has a much tighter focus on the core area from Bathurst to Jarvis with a northern boundary of Queen Street, except between University and Victoria where it extends to Dundas Street. Background reports include:
- Project Descriptions for 17 specific proposals.
- Project Schedules for each proposal.
- Detailed lists of changes to traffic bylaws that will be implemented.
Most striking about these reports is the fundamentally different way in which they approach their subject.
DTOS is very much about action, making specific changes “on the ground” to the way streets operate with the goal of improved capacity. This includes a more sophisticated form of Transit Signal Priority (TSP) that would take into account not just the presence of transit vehicles, but whether they were ready to proceed through intersections.
By contrast, the CMP spends a great deal of time talking about the need for technology upgrades and for co-ordination among various agencies – City Transportation, TTC, Utilities, Emergency Services – to the point one might ask if any of them ever talk to each other today and, by extension, how much “congestion” there is simply in agency-to-agency co-ordination. TSP gets pushed to the back burner here with a suggestion that it be granted only when vehicles actually need it, although how exactly that would be achieved given TTC’s chaotic approach to line management is anyone’s guess. More to the point, the TSP facilities now in place were funded by the TTC, but City Transportation now proposes to hobble their usefulness.
TTC Service Changes Effective January 5, 2014
The TTC will make improvements in several routes in January 2014. Many of the changes are small-scale “tweaks” and we have yet to see system-wide benefits from the fare increase that will take effect on January 1.
The Service Budget does show some increase over past years.
January Vehicle Hours of Service Per Week 2010 159,288 2011 160,187 2012 160,830 2013 163,148 2014 167,118 (Budget, unchanged from Nov. 2013)
The values above do not include construction services, that is, additional vehicle hours required to accommodate construction projects which vary from year to year. Although some construction-related costs are charged to the capital budget, construction service takes buses and operators that are not available for regular service. In a year with many construction projects, this can delay the onset of service improvements elsewhere.
Despite budgetary constraints, the TTC was able to increase service in 2013 because its actual costs for 2012 were below budget. The 2013 subsidy was “flat lined” at the 2012 level, but the effect on an “as spent” basis was that the subsidy dollars rose in 2013, and the burden of additional service did not fall entirely on the farebox.
In 2014, there is a real dollar increase in the subsidy coupled with higher fares.
Route Changes Due To Construction Projects
504 King, 503 Kingston Road and 303 Don Mills Night Bus
Construction on the King Street approach to the bridge at the Don River will take longer than originally expected, and diversions will now remain in place until April, according to the TTC’s diversion notice.
72 Pape and 172 Cherry
Construction downtown has made for unreliable operation of the integrated service on Pape and its longer branch via Commissioners Street to downtown. Pending completion of the construction (mainly the work at Union Station), the route will be split.
72 Pape will operate from Pape Station to Cherry & Commissioners looping via Cherry, Villiers and Munition Streets.
172 Cherry will operate from St. Andrew Station to Cherry & Commissioners and will use the same loop as 72 Pape.
On Sunday evenings, matching existing schedules, there will be no service on 172 Cherry, and the 72 Pape route will terminate at Eastern & Carlaw.
97 Yonge
Water main repairs on Yonge Street between Finch and Sheppard will disrupt the 97 Yonge bus. The route will be split with overlapping services:
- Steeles to Lawrence Station (all hours)
- Davisville Station to York Mills Station (all hours)
- Queen’s Quay to York Mills Station (peak only)
Midday service between Davisville and St. Clair stations will be discontinued.
Where Is The TTC’s Customer Liaison Panel? (Updated)
I have finally received a reply from the TTC to my query about the Customer Liaison Panel. My original query went out on November 14, and I sent a follow-up on November 27. Here, slightly edited, is a reply from Chris Upfold.
I don’t think you’ll be surprised that I don’t think they need to meet in public / have a web presence / etc. to be an effective consultative and steering body.
The model for ACAT is quite different. They are representing a particular part of society that, by their very nature, can have higher instances of social exclusion. For that very reason of social exclusion it is critical that a body like ACAT (for which I’m also responsible) have a public voice that can ensure they are heard above the general demands / wants of customers. The majority of our customers don’t need that same voice given they have the ability to feed back to us on a plethora of items in a multitude of ways – not least of which are our Town Halls and Meet the Managers.
The CLP meet on at least a monthly basis and have broad authority to ask the TTC to present to them on any initiatives or services. They’ve looked at route management for surface and subway, our complaints procedure, our communications plans, PRESTO plans, wayfinding, fare policies etc. etc. We also use them to give strategic and tactical feedback into options that we are looking at. They review some TTC Board papers at an early consultative stage so that the recommendations we are making are strong and supportable for customers.
Given that they do these things before they reach the public eye (or indeed are ready for the public eye) I think it’s absolutely necessary that they happen in private. As I say there is plenty of opportunity for customers to feed back in public. All of the members have signed NDA’s [Non-disclosure agreements] specifically for this reason.
I don’t think they need to “earn their keep in public” to have huge value for the TTC.
That’s all very nice, but the operative word in this group’s title is “Liaison”, and they can’t do much of that by meeting in private and reviewing management proposals, a privilege that may exceed even what is extended to some members of the TTC Board. Without any public presence, they certainly cannot be spoken of as “representing” anyone.
When the Customer Service Advisory Panel proposed the formation of a liaison group, their recommendation was very heavily weighted to TTC management, unsurprising considering that the whole CSAP exercise was a big cheerleading session highjacked by management. This is the same process that gave us more things riders had to do for the TTC, than the TTC had to do for its riders.
The site on which it was originally posted (ttcpanel.ca) no longer exists, but the report is available through an archive site.
Recommendation 1C: Customer Service Advisory Group
The TTC should institute a governance structure in order to ensure that the recommendations made by the CSAP, as well as future initiatives, are considered, implemented, and followed through to completion.
It is recommended that a Customer Service Advisory Group be created, consisting of:
- 2-3 TTC Commissioners
- 1-2 outside customer service specialists
- The Chief General Manager of the TTC [now styled as the CEO]
- The new Chief Customer Service Officer
Plus other appropriate members of the senior management staff.
In addition, this committee could include TTC employees and members of the public.
Quite clearly, the intent was for an internal panel to monitor and support the rollout of customer service improvements, and the public was very much an afterthought.
By the time the CLP was actually constituted, the balance was completely changed with the majority of members coming from the public through an appointment process. This might suggest a more public presence, but that’s not what we actually see.
The original article from November 29 follows the break below.
TTC Capital Budget 2014-2023 (Updated)
Updated November 26, 2013 at 5:55 pm:
I have written a commentary on the City of Toronto budget as it affects the TTC on the Torontoist website.
For further information please see:
I will add comments here on some of the details at a later date.
TTC Operating Budget 2014 (Update 2)
Updated November 26, 2013 at 5:50 pm:
I have written a commentary on the City of Toronto budget as it affects the TTC on the Torontoist website.
For further information please see:
I will add comments here on some of the details at a later date.
Steve Munro 