Finance

by

TTC Meeting Wrapup for June 24, 2013

Aside from the King Street transit lanes and the new streetcar rollout plans (covered elsewhere), there wasn’t much else on the agenda for the TTC Board (as it now styles itself).

One procedural change was that there are no longer any printed agendas for the meeting — reports are available only online.  If you’re not carrying a device that can display them easily, you’re flying blind making sense of the meeting.

CEO’s Report

Ridership for reporting period 4 (mainly the month of April) was 1.1% below budget, but 2.2% above the corresponding period in 2012.  Poor April weather (an unusually cold early spring) was blamed for the shortfall.  For the last twelve months (May 2012 to April 2013), ridership is up 2.4%.

For the year 2013, ridership is expected to be at the budgeted level of 528-million.  However, the average fare is lower than projected because of higher pass usage, and the revenue projections are down by $2.0m.  This is offset net savings in expense lines.  On the entire budget, this is a variation of less than 1.5%.

Yonge subway reliability has fallen due to ongoing issues with TR train reliability, “workforce availability”, passenger-related delays and fires at track level.

There has been no update on problems with the TRs beyond “we’re working on it”, and the time is overdue to ask whether the goals for reliability have been set too high.  Without a detailed report on the situation, there is no way to know whether the trains have chronic, difficult-to-solve problems, or if we can expect some resolution.  (According to minutes of an Advisory Committee on Accessible Transit meeting (ACAT), TTC staff have no prognosis for correction of the TR platform leveling problem that makes trains inaccessible.)

36 of the 70 TR trainsets on order have been accepted for service.  This leaves 34 trains still in the pipeline to hit early 2014, although the last 10 of the trains are intended for the Spadina extension that will not open until 2016.

“Workforce availability” is an odd term to use considering that overall attendance rates at the TTC are supposed to be improving.  Punctuality is affected by a number of factors including the effect of many small delays, but also by extended times required for some crew changeovers.  The TTC needs to sort out which effects are strictly due to staff and which to other factors.

The reliability index for Bloor-Danforth is also dropping, but still runs at a higher level than the Yonge-University-Spadina line.  The TTC does not break out the various sources of delay by line to report which problems exist system wide and which are more prevalent in certain locations.

SRT performance has been quite good since October 2012 when schedules were changed to reflect the actual capabilities of the aging technology.

Surface route performance for both modes is above the rather generous target levels, but we know from the Quarterly Report published earlier in 2013 that overall headway adherence is quite bad on some routes.  This is no surprise to anyone who looks at vehicle monitoring data.

Elevator and escalator availability continues to get a high rating, although, as I understand things, this is based on a once-a-day report of status.  There is no report of the prevalence of outages or their duration.  This is rather like looking out the window, seeing one bus, and deciding that all is well with the transit system.

A few new Sunday shutdowns of the subway have been announced in this report:

  • June 29 from Wilson to Downsview for track installation.
  • July 7, 14 and 28 for beam installation on the Prince Edward Viaduct.  This work is normally done during the night-time shutdown, but a provision for opening the subway later than normal gives more time to complete planned work.

Details will be announced for each planned shutdown.

Change Orders for Design Costs on the Spadina Extension

Four reports requested substantial changes in the contracts for design work at Steeles West, Vaughan Corporate Centre, Highway 407 and York University stations.  The magnitude of the changes attracted questions from the Board.

According to staff, TTC practice is to award design contracts based on interim amounts with change orders issued along the way as required.  A contingency budget line provides funding for these changes.  Some of the costs will be recovered from third parties such as York Region and GO Transit/Metrolinx who asked for design changes in the originally completed plans.  Other costs were incurred to reduce construction expenses and keep stations within the project’s budget.  The degree to which this may have compromised the original designs is unknown.

Oddly, some of the extra costs cited by staff were for activities at Finch West and the new Downsview/Sheppard West stations (changes to suit GO and the Finch West LRT project).  Neither of these was the subject of the four reports on the agenda.

CEO Andy Byford wants to improve the reporting of large project budgets and costs, but does not expect to have a proposed scheme for doing so until fall 2013.

Steeles East Night Bus

The Board approved the proposed extension of the 353 Steeles East route from Middlefield Road to Markham Road effective August 4, 2013.  This extension uses up excess running time in the current schedule and requires no extra buses.

Ossington Bus / Hellenic Home for the Aged

The TTC has been requested to divert the 63 Ossington bus to a home for the aged which is north of Davenport up a steep hill on which seniors have difficulty walking to service on the main street (see map in report).  A decision on the matter has been put off to July 24 to allow for meetings between staff and those requesting the change.

The staff report recommends against this diversion which was requested through Councillors Mihevc and Fragedakis.  Mihevc should know better as a former member of the TTC Board.  Off-route diversions are the bane of transit operations and compromise the benefit of straight routes for passengers.

It is worth mention that this home was built off of the Ossington route some decades ago, but long after the route was established.  The policy decision is whether transit routes should be tweaked to serve such sites, and whether the Board has the political backbone to say “no” when the greater good of the route and the precedent for future requests are at stake.

Bicknell Loop

The property at which the Rogers Road car, originally part of York Township Railways, ended has been declared surplus to TTC requirements.  Buses on this route use the nearby Avon Loop on Weston Road.

by

TTC Low Floor LRV Roll Out Plan Released (Update 3)

Updated June 25, 2013:  At the June 24 Commission meeting, CEO Andy Byford presented further details of the roll out plan.  This information is added to the end of the article along with additional information I received from TTC staff.

Updated June 23, 2013:  A section has been added at the end of the article discussing service levels and fleet planning during the transition from CLRV to LFLRV operation on routes.

The TTC has released its roll out plan for the new fleet of low floor light rail vehicles.

The TTC proposes to increase capacity on all routes during peak periods, although by varying amounts.  Off peak headways will be almost unchanged with an effective doubling of capacity on all routes using the 50-foot CLRVs, and a 1/3 improvement on routes with the 75-foot ALRVs.  As a general policy, this is a very good start because it avoids replacing capacity-for-capacity with concurrent widening of headways and degradation of service.

The new service levels are shown on the presentation at pages 7-8, and the changes in peak period capacity are summarized in the following table.

LVLRV_Capacity_2013.06

The amount of added capacity varies by route and between the AM and PM peak periods.  This is supposed to represent the TTC’s estimate of provision for unmet demand although some numbers are a bit hard to believe.

Oddly enough, by the time the new fleet is in place, all of it has been used up serving existing routes (with a 20% allowance for spares).

Off peak services are almost unchanged with the odd effect that there is better planned midday and evening service on some routes than in the peak periods.  The TTC claims that the off-peak levels are set based on a minimum headway policy.  However, it does not make sense to cut service during the peak period.  This seems more the product of two separate plans drawn up without cross-reference to each other than the outcome of careful planning.

Continue reading →

by

King Street: Twenty Years of No Transit Priority

Today, the Toronto Transit Commission passed a motion asking for a report on reserved lanes for King Street.  Yes, you read that correctly: this is a street that, in theory, has had peak period transit lanes since 1993.

Here is the motion moved by Chair Karen Stintz and seconded by Commissioner John Parker:

1. That the Board request the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee to direct Transportation Services to prepare a joint City-TTC report on the feasibility and merits of implementing morning rush hour reserved streetcar lanes on King Street, including details pertaining to extent/boundaries of the lanes, means of designation or separation of the lanes, means of enforcement, means of monitoring effectiveness of the lanes, cost of implementing such lanes, and effects on other traffic in the corridor, as well as study of traffic management measures to mitigate delays at other pinch-points on the King Street route. The report should also include recommendations for a trial implementation of such lanes, including the earliest practical date for undertaking such a trial. If appropriate, this reporting-back could be contained within the forthcoming Downtown Transportation Operations Study. (From Chair Stintz’ blog.)

This is a substantial step back from a desire to ban cars completely on King, a proposal with which Stintz appeared to agree, at least for a Pan Am Games trial period in 2015, in the media [CBC Star].  The pre-amalgamation Toronto Council implemented peak period transit lanes on King from Parliament to Dufferin in 1993, but these were a complete failure thanks to lack of enforcement.  The downtown section, from John to Jarvis, was removed in 1997.  Stintz’ position on timing has changed also with a shift from the Pan Am Games to the “earliest practical date”.

In March 2000, TTC staff reported on “Operational Improvements on 504 King Streetcar” [this report is not available online].  Among the actions taken or under investigation were:

  • Adding a second on-street Route Supervisor “to manage the line and obtain better schedule adherence”.
  • Use of rear-door loaders at major stops to reduce dwell time.
  • Expansion of Proof-of-Payment to the 504 route possibly including reassignment of the ALRVs from Queen to King Street, or the use of coupled CLRVs (this was not implemented).
  • Improved enforcement of parking regulations (occasional blitzes have taken place, but nothing lasting).
  • Restoration of the reserved lanes between Jarvis and John including overhead signs such as those used for the reversing lane on Jarvis.  “Staff believe that the lanes can be made to work effectively, but this will require the lanes to be much more clearly marked and vigourously enforced.”  (This was not implemented.)
  • Continued enforcement of turn restrictions and of the exclusive nature of the streetcar lanes.  (Almost non existent.)
  • Further assessment of problem locations.  (Judging by actions to date, little has been done beyond a study.)

This is not a new problem.  What is very old is a lack of political will to do anything about the situation.

Simply reserving the streetcar lanes during any period of the day is unworkable if the curb lanes are not guaranteed to be free of taxi stands, parking and loading, not to mention construction occupancy arrangements for new condos.  The effect on King will differ between the financial district (east of Yonge to Simcoe) and the entertainment district (Simcoe to west of Spadina), not to mention the Bathurst/Niagara condo district (Spadina to Shaw).  A one-size-fits-all configuration is unlikely to work or be acceptable.

As a four lane street, and with only a temporary reservation, physical barriers are impractical.  Traffic must be free to move between lanes both when the reservation is not active, and when a curb lane blockage requires movement into the streetcar lane.

I have already written about the limited benefit an AM peak reservation will have even if it is well-enforced.  Running times on the 504 King car show little sign of traffic congestion until around 9:00 am when parking is allowed and commercial activity begins on the street.  If the TTC were serious about “fixing” King Street, they would look at the issue on an all-day basis, but that’s not what the Stintz motion does.  She goes for the least controversial option while still attempting to give the impression of doing something for the riders.

(For more of the history on previous King Street and transit priority schemes, please see Transit Toronto and a 2001 TTC report.)

The most disheartening part of the debate at the Commission Meeting was that nobody in the room, no other Commissioners, none of Management, piped up to say “but we already have a reserved lane on part of King, and used to have more”.  This is all treated as if it is a brand new idea, not a 20-year old retread from the days when Jack Layton was a City Councillor.

Was everyone too embarrassed?  Was it an attack of Emperor’s-New-Clothes syndrome?

TTC meetings are turning into friendly gatherings where good news is the order of the day.  There’s nothing wrong with good news, but some decisions involve difficult choices and political battles.  You can’t be an advocate for the good of transit riders and expect everything to be smooth, quiet sailing, especially with an administration so hard set against anything but subways we cannot afford.

The whole matter will now wander through the City’s committee structure, first to Public Works and Infrastructure from which it might not emerge given the Mayor’s anti-streetcar rhetoric.  Will Chair Stintz ensure that even this modest study proposal survives, or is this an empty motion showing concern without action?

by

TTC Route Ridership and Service Statistics 2004:2012 (Updated)

Updated June 16, 2013 at 10:15pm:  An epilogue comparing system statistics for 1989 has been added.

The TTC publishes statistics on its surface routes showing the most recent all-day riding count, the resources (vehicles, vehicle hours and vehicle mileage) consumed by a day’s operation, and the estimated cost of one day’s service.

For many years, this information was included in the annual “Service Plan”, but the last one of those was published for 2008.  The TTC’s Transit Planning page includes the 2008 plan, as well as the 2011 and 2012 figures as free-standing tables.

(In earlier years, the tables included a “revenue” for each route based on the ridership, although the method of calculating this varied over the years.  This was eventually dropped because there is no way to allocate fare revenue in a system like the TTC’s without producing distortions in the resulting “profitability” of routes.  Fares, especially passes which make up the bulk of adult system use, are collected on a flat basis for an entire trip or for a period of time, not for distance travelled nor number of vehicles used in a trip.)

This information becomes more interesting when viewed over time to see the evolution of ridership, service and allocated costs.

Continue reading →

by

Service Changes Effective June 23, 2013 (Updated)

Updated June 13, 2013:

Contrary to the originally announced plans, the 31 Greenwood bus will not divert to Donlands Station during reconstruction of the bus loop at its home station.  Instead, the  buses will loop via Greenwood, Strathmore, Linsmore and Danforth stopping outside of the station.

Major service changes for June 23, 2013 include:

  • Service removal or rerouting for several York Region contract operations by the TTC.  These were proposed as part of YRT’s 2013 Service Plan.  (Specific changes for Vaughan and for Markham.)
  • Seasonal changes to many routes.  The summer cutbacks are generally in line with 2012 although in a few cases routes or periods that had cuts last year are not affected in 2013.
  • Construction changes including:
    • Revised service on many routes in the Beach and in southwestern Scarborough caused by the reconstruction of Kingston Road.  Streetcar service will turn back at Woodbine Loop, and bus service will be provided eastbound only from Queen to Victoria Park.
    • Rerouting of 31 Greenwood to Donlands Station for construction at Greenwood.

The service budget for September 2013 will be about 3.4% higher than the budget for the corresponding period in 2012, and 1% higher than for March 2013.

2013.06.23 Service Changes

by

More Metrolinx New Math (Updated)

Updated June 8, 2013 at 12:05pm:

Metrolinx has issued a correction via Twitter (where this discussion started) clarifying that, yes, it is person-years of employment, not jobs, that they are creating, and acknowledging that the graphics and tweets using them were “shortened”.

Anne Marie Aikins ‏@femwriter

… Report explains “person yrs of construction & LT employment” pg 30. Graphs/tweets shortened. Good reminder. Thx

[Anne Marie Aikins is a Media Relations Manager at Metrolinx]

That’s putting it mildly.  Someone did a calculation to figure out how many ACCs would be needed to hold all those people, and so clearly did not understand how the numbers should be used.  Someone put that chart in the Metrolinx report.  The report survived Board scrutiny without anyone, including their members from the banking sector, spotting the problem.

Ooops.

The original post from June 7 follows below.

Metrolinx recently published a graphic purporting to show the employment effect of the Next Wave’s spending over twenty years.

MetrolinxNextWaveJobsWeb

These numbers are a complete fabrication and show how an organization more concerned with puffery than with accuracy can screw up basic arithmetic.

The statement here is that “enough newly employed people” would fill the ACC 48 times.  The official capacity of the ACC is 19,800, and so we’re talking about 950,400 newly employed people.  That’s roughly 1/3 of the entire population of Toronto.

The problem here is the confusion between employees and employee-years.  Metrolinx plans to raise $2b annually for twenty years.  Let’s assume that it will all be spent on job creation, not on getting more work from an existing pool of labour, nor on purchasing offshore technology such as rolling stock, control systems and managerial expertise.  We’re talking about design, engineering and construction, not the cheapest of professions and trades, and a reasonable average fully-burdened (including benefits) cost per job would be at least $80k.  (Governments have paid vastly more per new job on things like auto plants.)

The math is straightforward:  $2b/year divided by $80k gives 25,000.  If the entire amount goes to net new hires, then that’s 25k.  Do this every year for 20 years, and you produce 500k person-years of employment, but not 500k new hires.

There will be some multiplier effects in that an employed person has money to spend and that will find its way into the local economy.  How many new jobs will result is another matter.

We can look at this from the reverse angle: if there is $40b on the table, and it has to be shared among 800k new hires, then each of them will receive $50k.

In this, I have assumed that even the 25% of revenue dedicated to municipal projects creates jobs on the same basis as for the 75% allocated to the Next Wave.

Metrolinx has similar math challenges on commuting times when they routinely confuse avoided future congestion with actual savings.  Moreover, the claimed “saving” only occurs if the entire Big Move is built, something that appears vanishingly likely.  Because Metrolinx only ever discusses their fully-built scheme, we have no idea of how much “saving” will accrue for intermediate stages of the network, nor of the variation in benefits across the region.  This most basic of business analyses is totally missing, at least in any published Metrolinx papers.

Metrolinx really needs some remedial work on economic analysis and basic arithmetic.  Think about it: does it really take 1/3 of Toronto’s population to build a transit network? I have to repeat: the Metrolinx claim is not for job-years, but for newly employed people, nearly one million of them. That’s a basic reasonableness check anyone should be able to spot. How did such a claim even get out the door?

Howling errors like these job creation numbers undermine credibility not just of an incompetent agency but of the government who looks foolish for making claims they cannot possibly deliver.

 

by

What Does Subway Construction Cost?

An interesting article on the site Pedestrian Observations was recently linked on Twitter by Taras Grescoe (@grescoe), the author of Straphanger.  In Comparative Subway Construction Costs, Alon Levy attempts to bring together projects worldwide, adjust for currencies, inflation and other factors to derive comparable US$ values for subway construction.  The numbers are interesting in light of complaints about overpriced construction in Toronto.

The underlying problem, of course, is that no two projects are the same.  Varying proportions of underground construction, different soil/rock/water conditions, variations in station numbers/size/depth, not to mention rolling stock procurement and yard/maintenance facilities all affect the total cost and hence the cost/km.  Stir in political differences and the ease or difficulty with which projects are approved, and the number of variables is quite high.

All that said, Toronto’s costs are not wildly out of line.  This is not to say that they may not be excessive, but the cause could be our extended design and approval process and a preference for deep bore tunneling that drives up construction costs compared to shallower cut-and-cover.

The argument for LRT has always turned on the availability of a surface option where it is practical.  Whether we choose to exercise this in every possible case is another matter.

There are cases where underground construction is the only practical way to build a line, but that should not condemn Toronto to building only subways without looking at alternatives.

by

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.

Continue reading →

by

TTC Meeting May 24, 2013 (Update 3)

The agenda for the TTC meeting on May 24 contains a few items of interest, but also a troubling sign that matters of public interest are being debated behind closed doors.

Items included in this preview:

Updated May 23 at 12:10 am:

Links to the TTC construction pages for the York Street, Ossington Avenue and Kingston Road reconstruction projects have been added.

A reference to a statement about the New Streetcar Implementation Plan attributed to Andy Byford at the April Commission meeting has been corrected to reflect that it was made by Chris Upfold, Chief Customer Officer, who was standing in for Byford at that meeting.  TTC’s Brad Ross has confirmed that this plan will be presented in the public session of the June Commission meeting.

Updated May 23 at 9:15 pm:

The Kingston Road construction project info has been updated to reflect the early replacement of streetcars by buses effective June 3.

Updated May 25 at 1:30 pm:

This article has been updated to reflect events at the Commission meeting.

Continue reading →