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 →

This post is in the best journalistic tradition.  On those slow days and holiday weekends, all the material you’ve been saving up for months finally sees the light of day.  To readers who submitted comments and wondered where they went, take heart.  Today is for you!  This post collects comments loosely related to service quality and operations.

Back in March, I was writing about how transit services are analyzed.  We’re still waiting for the 2007 Service Plan to give us updated stats, but it’s time to rekindle the discussion here. Continue reading →

Looking at the June schedules for the TTC, I was struck by something quite odd:  on some streetcar routes there is either no additional rush hour service, or only a marginal change in service levels.  Have riders abandoned the TTC?  Are “downtown” riders travelling at times other than the conventional peak period?  Or is the TTC just pinching pennies by cutting service?  Here are some examples: Continue reading →

I’ve been rather busy this week with various cultural events including the hotdocs festival (more reviews to come), a Jane Jacobs memorial get together (repeated on CP24’s Hour Town on Sunday at 6:00 am and 1:05 am), the launch of spacing magazine’s latest all-transit issue, a spectacular performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass by Tafelmusik, and it’s still not over.

Having a few moments here, I’ll catch up on some of the comments that have accumulated for the week. Continue reading →