Transit

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Eglinton LRT Public Meetings Announced (Update 4)

The City of Toronto has announced the open houses for the first round of consultation for the Eglinton line. 

Update 1:  A fifth meeting has been added to the list below.

Update 2:  The Star contains an article about preliminary response to the information to be presented at public meetings.  Concerns focus on the space between stops on the underground LRT as compared with the current surface bus operations.  The real question is what, if any, residual bus service will be operated over this portion of the route.

Update 3:  The FAQ for this project is now available online.

Update 4:  The presentation materials for this round of public meetings is now available online.

The Open Houses are planned as follows:

Thursday, August 14
6:30pm to 9:00pm
Forest Hill Memorial Arena, 340 Chaplin Cres.

Tuesday, August 19
6:30pm to 9:00pm
Leaside Arena, 1073 Millwood Rd.

Monday, August 25
6:30pm to 9:00pm
Humber Valley United Church, 76 Anglesey Blvd.

Wednesday, August 27
6:30pm to 9:00pm
Don Montgomery Community Recreation Centre
(Formerly the Mid Scarborough Community Centre)
2467 Eglinton Ave  East

(Added) Richview Baptist Church
1548 Kipling Ave (just north of Eglinton)

The project website is now online.

Note:  If you want to contribute to the thread about technology choices for the line, please do that in the post where that discussion is already underway.

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Jane LRT Public Meetings

The meeting dates and locations for the proposed Jane LRT are:

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
6:30pm to 9:00pm
Jane Finch Mall
1911 Finch Avenue West (SE corner of Finch Ave and Jane St)

Thursday, August 28, 2008
6:30pm to 9:00pm
Syme Woolner Community School – Gymnasium
69 Pritchard Ave (north of Jane and St. Clair intersection, east of Jane)

The project website does not yet contain the display panels for these meetings.

 

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Green is Nice, Working is Better

The New York Times has an article today about a scheme in NYC to operate escalators at variable speeds.  This is intended to save energy by slowing down escalators when nobody is on them.

Despite claims by the MTA, several of the “converted” escalators either were not working at all, or were not behaving as advertised.

The nub of the issue comes right at the end of the article:

Rick O’Conor, who runs the Roosevelt Islander blog, questioned the need for the new technology. “It’s not of primary importance to have motion-activated escalators,” he said. “It’s of primary importance to have escalators that work.”

He said that all 10 escalators at the Roosevelt Island station had been out of order recently, and that his elderly mother had had to walk up the stairs. “A group of teenagers were nice enough to ask if she wanted them to carry her,” Mr. O’Conor said, adding that his mother pressed on.

Of the 10 escalators at Roosevelt Island on Monday, two had yet to be fitted with the sensors and two were shut down.

Another resident, Valentina Montecinos, 28, said, “Sure, it’s a good idea to save energy, but these escalators are never working anyway.”

Alas this is the fate of so many good ideas that bedevil transit systems and other public agencies.  In the name of some higher goal, be it the environment or fiscal responsibility, something is rolled out through an organization that is already doing a tenuous job of running their system.  The new, improved function doesn’t work and may even work less reliably than what it replaced, and “going green” takes a black eye.

Toronto has a bad habit of ignoring or downplaying the importance of a lot of things like reliable escalators and elevators.  Without these, many people can use the subway and RT only with difficulty or not at all.  We hear a lot about “safety” and the number of checks that must be made before a machine can be restarted.  The point is that if you’re going to have this technology, then it has to run reliably and staff must be available to keep it online.

Meanwhile, if anyone has some brilliant brainwaves about transit, make sure that they can actually work successfully rather than creating one more way for riders to be annoyed with poor service. 

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No Pearl in the Oyster?

Today, Transport for London announced that they would be terminating their support contract for the Oyster fare card at the 10-year opt-out anniversary:

Transport for London to terminate £100m a year Oyster contract.

The Mayor and Transport for London (TfL) are convinced that any new contract will deliver enhanced services for less money, driving significant savings.

The Mayor is keen to improve the Oyster card to make it even more attractive for Londoners and TfL will work to make sure this happens both quickly and in a way that represents the best value.

Shashi Verma, TfL’s Director of Fares and Ticketing said: ‘Transport for London is committed to delivering value for money across all of its services.

‘As part of this we are looking at more cost effective ways to manage and develop the Oyster card system that we expect will save millions over the next few years.

‘The savings will be reinvested to deliver further improvements in London’s transport system.’

Full news release

BBC coverage

TfL took pains to emphasize that they think the Oyster card is a great thing, but that the cost of providing the service can be reduced from the £100-million annual cost to a consortium of private contractors.  Issues have already surfaced about ownership of the “Oyster” brand and other components of the system.

Meanwhile, Torontonians continue to hear about the wonders of Presto as the salvation of regional travel.  I must emphasize that I don’t object to technology per se, but in London’s case there was an overwhelming need to replace an antiquated and complex fare structure and fare collection system.  Toronto does not face the same level of complexity.

An odd thing seems to grip advocates for technologies in various guises:  all of that private sector, value for money, keep an eye on the taxpayer’s dollar stuff flies out the window the moment someone wants to sell a system.  Metrolinx and Queen’s Park seem to be big on “alternate financing”, a scheme by which we keep the cost of infrastructure off of the public books by having a private company own and operate it under a long-term service agreement. 

Will they turn the same eagle eye on Presto, or will we simply be dragged into the new system without understanding its true cost?  The last time I heard, the cost to implement just for the TTC was approaching $250-million, plus annual costs to operate the system of at least $10-million greater than the current elderly but simple token and pass scheme.

Will there be a option to get out of the Presto contract at, say, a 10-year anniversary as there is in London?  Will the contract be written to ensure that the infrastructure, the trademark and any valuable side-agreements such as the use of a fare card as an electronic wallet stay in the public realm?  Will we just give away the store like Highway 407 to the salesman with the best song-and-dance who offers a quick solution, don’t fret about the details?

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Finch West LRT Proposal

The information panels from the Finch West open houses are now online at the project’s website.

A few items of interest from the preliminary plans are:

  • Station designs for both Finch and Finch West stations
  • Design problems for the Highway 400 crossing
  • Options for the western terminal

At both subway stations the LRT will serve, one of the options will be an underground LRT station.  At Yonge Street, a few of the proposals seem a bit far-fetched especially a lengthy “around the block” arrangement that would encircle Finch Station with LRT trackage.

Something that needs to be remembered in whatever design the TTC chooses is the possibility the line will eventually be extended east on Finch.  An east-west alignment for the terminal as well as the capacity for a large volume of transfer movements with the subway are important, and my gut feeling is that the underground scheme will be chosen.

At Finch West Station, there are two main options:  surface or underground.  The surface option has two variants.  Either this would emulate the classic streetcar/subway interface such as we see downtown with passengers walking to sidewalk subway entrances, or there would be a centre platform with connections directly to the mezzanine level of the subway.  The latter is my preference.

The western terminus is not settled yet, but the Woodbine Live centre is certainly an extension option.  Totally absent from the panels is any discussion of an airport connection.  The possible alignment shows up on an overview of all transit studies, but as part of a Hydro corridor scheme. 

Finally, I must congratulate the TTC in finding a photo of an attractive substation, a lovely brick structure that would actually complement any neighbourhood rather than the dull bunkers we have seen in previous open houses.  Who knows?  Transit City may launch a whole new generation of “hummer houses”, a disappearing feature of the Toronto landscape.

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Analysis of Route 39 Finch East: Part II — Monthly Views

In this post, I will review the behaviour of the Finch East route over the month of December 2006.  As I mentioned in Part I, the schedules have changed a bit since then, most notably in the extension of a frequent service to Neilson Road in the PM peak period.

First let’s look at where all the buses went outbound, and how well-spaced the service was.  This chart shows the destination of all buses eastbound from Victoria Park.  The horizontal spacing measures the headway at that location, and the vertical axis measures how far the bus actually went.  The ongoing problem with service reliability to Neilson Road is quite evident on all weekdays except for those when special schedules operated.

Destinations eastbound from Victoria Park

In this chart, any short turns at Seneca College have already been filtered out as they are west of the reference location.

On every weekday, the clustering of vehicles is evident and this even show up at times during periods of the supposedly 12 minute headway to Neilson Road. There is a variation in what I can only call the “texture” of the service from day to day, but the overall pattern is clear. When service is very frequent, close management is not generally needed as long as the overall scheme is maintained. However, as is evident, there are gaps and when these are on the less-frequently served part of the route, they can be quite large. Continue reading →

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Analysis of Route 39 Finch East: Part I — Introduction

When I started the analysis of operations on various routes, I requested data for a number of suburban lines as well as the downtown streetcar routes.  Up until now, I have only published material on 29 Dufferin, but it’s worthwhile getting some of the other data out in view before it is completely stale.

The data in this series come from December 2006, but the conditions on Finch have not changed too much in the interim.  The service is not as complete a mess as we have seen on some of the major streetcar routes, but it is far from perfect.  It’s worthwhile looking at how a frequent bus route operates in conditions that should be generally favourable to transit service.

As I have done before, I will start with Christmas Day 2006 because this shows the basics including the route’s behaviour when there is no excessive passenger demand or traffic congestion.  For contrast, I will also present a weekday Friday, December 1, 2006. Continue reading →

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Harbourfront Tunnel Slow Order

In a spectacular piece of bad timing, the TTC has instituted a slow order in the tunnel between Union and Queen’s Quay Stations for track repairs due to problems with the concrete.

One can’t help wondering why they didn’t find and fix whatever was wrong earlier this year when the line was closed down elsewhere.  Were they hoping to save this for next winter, but lost the gamble?

Meanwhile, operators have been directed as follows:

To all operators on the 509 and 510 routes, the following announcement should be read to your customers when entering the tunnel on the Harbourfront route and when leaving Union Station.  The announcement may help the customers understand the slow speeds required.

YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE:

SLOW VEHICLE OPERATION IS IN EFFECT WITHIN THE TUNNEL.  THEREFORE, IT WILL TAKE A FEW EXTRA MINUTES TO REACH

UNION STATION (INBOUND) (or)

QUEEN’S QUAY (OUTBOUND)

YOUR PATIENCE IS APPRECIATED.

The TTC’s website is silent on this situation.  Any added information would be appreciated.

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A Scourge of Scratchitti

My daily commute gives me a chance to look at the SRT in all its glory.  Lately, I have noticed that there is either an explosive growth in scratchitti on SRT cars, or that the TTC has simply stopped replacing the glass.

I can’t remember the last time I was on a car that had none at all, and things have now developed to the point where there are layers with one tagger overwriting another.  This problem is also starting to show up on the subway and in some stations.

The TTC embarked on a station cleanliness program last year and it has shown some results (with notable exceptions), but my sense is that scratchitti is getting out of hand.

I would be interested in hearing reports from other parts of the system.  This sort of problem is symptomatic of an organization that may have given up trying, and the real worry is what other invisible maintenance is also left for another day.

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How Many People Will Ride the Eglinton Line? (Updated)

[Update:  As promised, I have received the updated ridership projections TTC is using for Transit City.  They have been added in the body of this post.]

Recently, there has been a lot of ink about the technology choice for an Eglinton rapid transit line, whatever it may turn out to be.  Earlier this weekend, after a nagging period when I thought the ridership projections looked a bit off, I went back to the source material to check.

In the Globe article on July 24, Adam Giambrone says that the route’s projected 9,000 riders in the peak hour of the morning rush in 2021 don’t justify a subway.   Hmmm.  9,000 you say?

[This section has been updated.]

Let’s have a look at the original Transit City projections and the revised values now in use as part of the EAs in progress.  Original values are in parentheses.  Current values are for 2031 and reflect anticipated population and employment growth, although further refinements are possible as the EAs progress.

  • Eglinton:  5,000-5400 (4,700) (see below)
  • Scarborough-Malvern:  4,600-5000 (3,900)
  • Don Mills:  2,600-3000 (2,900)
  • Sheppard East:  3,000 (2,700)
  • Jane:  1,700-2,200 (2,700)
  • Finch West:  2,300-2,800 (2,300)
  • Waterfront West:  2,000-2,400 in 2021 (Taken from EA document) (2,200)

The revised values are current while the originals date from March 2007.

The Eglinton projections do not include Airport ridership.  However, traffic to Pearson will generally not co-incide with the peak time, location and direction and is unlikely to make much if any impact on the required level of service.

In the Sheppard EA, there is a note that peak ridership on a full Sheppard Subway to STC is projected to be about 5,000/hour versus 3,000 projected for the LRT east of Don Mills.  This appears to support arguments that a subway network will attract more riders, but the TTC also notes that the majority of the additional riders are merely diverted from other transit services.  What is unclear is the impact of less accessible transit service for local trips and the effect on transit usage and pedestrian amenities in the areas between subway stations.

If we look at the Eglinton projection of 5,400, we can expect that a full subway would attract more riders, but still well below the level needed to justify that level of capital investment, and still leaving the question of what other routes these riders might have used.

Even with revisions, none of the lines was expected to come anywhere near subway-level demand.  I am particular struck by the drop in the estimated demand on Jane which begs the question of whether it is an appropriate corridor for this technology.

[End of Update]

Eglinton is a particularly important case because it is at least two separate routes west and east of Yonge, and the demand accumulating at any point will be affected by what routes and services intersect it.  For example, as on the bus service, riding east of Eglinton West Station will be lower than to the west because many trips will transfer to the Spadina subway.  East of Yonge, the provision of an alternate, fast route to Danforth or further south via a Don Mills or Downtown Relief line will drain much load that would otherwise continue west to the Yonge Subway.

Many months ago, I asked Metrolinx to release the detailed ridership projections for each component and segment of their various “test case” networks.  I was assured that this information would be published concurrently with the draft Regional Transportation Plan.  Alas, that plan sits in limbo and will not appear until, at best, late September.  The modelling is for the test cases was done long ago, and there is no reason Metrolinx should keep the results secret. 

Of course, the numbers may not back up some of the plans people have for various rapid transit schemes, and the data could set off a debate about just what sort of network is really needed.

The last thing we need is a huge rush this fall to ram through a draft plan just so that Queen’s Park can announce something in time for the next election.  Given both the economic situation and the frosty reception from Ottawa to fund MoveOntario, let alone Metrolinx, the pressure to approve something, anything may have waned a tad.

Without question we need to spend more on transit, but let’s do so where and how it’s demonstrably needed rather than pre-announcing routes and technologies.