Service Analysis

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Streetcar System News – February 2014 (Updated)

Updated February 11, 2014 at 10:00 am:  Questions & answers related to trackwork plans and new streetcars have been added.

Spadina / Queens Quay Update

To nobody’s great surprise, the restoration of streetcar service south of King Street on Spadina will not occur until June 21 rather than with the schedule change in late May as originally hoped. This is a direct result of the bad weather and poor construction conditions. The TTC’s position is:

Due to the delays in Waterfront Toronto’s work and the need for TTC work to follow in series (i.e. overhead), it is not anticipated that the loop will be available for service for the May Board Period. Once we have greater clarity, we will reflect that online.

Some preliminary work on suspension for the new overhead has already been done, but this cannot be completed until the track is in and overhead vans can drive on the new pavement at the loop.

As plans now stand, service will resume on both the 510 Spadina and 509 Harbourfront routes with the re-opening of new streetcar track on Queens Quay rather than in two stages as originally hoped.

I await detailed info from Waterfront Toronto on updates to their construction plans. Much of the utility work on the south side of Queens Quay is now completed, and traffic is shifting to that side of the road at least as far west as Rees Street. This move will allow work to begin on the new streetcar right-of-way in the middle of Queens Quay and the construction of the new permanent roadway on the north side.

Detailed construction news updated weekly is available on Waterfront Toronto’s Queens Quay project page.

No sooner will streetcar service resume on southern Spadina, but the route will convert to bus operation for two track projects likely in August. The intersection at Dundas will be rebuilt this year (the one at College has been deferred because of scheduling conflicts), and there will also be work at Spadina Station.

When the line reopens on August 31, service will be provided, at least in part, by the new low-floor streetcars.

Updated February 11, 2014:

Q: What work is planned at Spadina Station? Track? Platform – especially provision so that two new cars can be on the platform at once – one loading, one unloading. Only 3 CLRVs fit there today.

A: The TTC has placed two low floor streetcars at Spadina already. They can physically fit inside the station, although the lead module of the lead car would have to be positioned opposite the five pillars with glass curtains, and that the lead door would be on curved track with a wider gap between the vehicle and the platform. We are reviewing operating procedures and possible alterations that are necessary to allow two new cars to be on the platform at the same time if necessary.

This implies that the work to be done in August will be trackwork, not platform changes.

New Streetcars

Recently, I sent questions to the TTC about the status of new car production and the implementation of these vehicles. Here are the replies:

Q: What is the status of the order and when will production deliveries begin?

A: Production deliveries will begin in March.

Q: What will be the rate of deliveries?

A: As always planned, there will be a ramp up to the production rate of 3 per month (36 per year). Once stabilized at this rate there are opportunities to transition to a higher rate and this is currently under investigation.

Q: What effect will this have on planned retirement of the problem ALRVs before the next winter season?

A: ALRVs will begin retirement at the end of this year and throughout 2015 as more new streetcars enter service.

What is still unclear is how the TTC will adjust service on 504 King and 501 Queen as the ALRVs [the existing two-section streetcars] disappear from the fleet and these routes continue operation with the remaining CLRVs [the shorter, single-section cars].

Updated February 11, 2014:

Q: Are there outstanding issues still to be dealt with on the ramps in the new streetcars, or have whatever design tweaks were necessary been incorporated in the production versions we will receive?

A: There are still a number of outstanding issues to be resolved. The production vehicle will have the necessary structural changes made to receive the new ramps. However, there is a transition phase between cars going into revenue service and when the final version of the ramp is delivered. For a number of vehicles that will go into service, an interim ramp will be incorporated to improve on accessibility – with improved transition between the ramp, the door threshold and the interior car floor. The final production version will be lighter in weight, less demanding on the drive mechanism (hence more reliable), and will have faster deployment and retrieval times. Initial production cars that do not have the latest ramp configuration will be retrofitted with the final version as part of the configuration control process.

Capital Budget Cuts

Among the City-imposed cuts in the Capital Budget was a $10-million/year cut in surface track maintenance for 2014 to 2018 with an equal cut to subway track in 2019 to 2023. I asked about the effect of these cuts.

State of good repair, which track replacement is clearly part of, will not be affected. If we need to further cut the capital budget to do track work, we’ll find that money elsewhere.

Queen East Major Track Projects

Two major projects will affect streetcar service on Queen Street East this spring.

At Queen and Leslie, the new sewer line must be tied into existing infrastructure under Queen Street, and then the new special work for the track leading to Leslie Barns must be installed.   Tentative plans are for this work to begin in mid-May and run to the end of June.

While Queen Street is closed, service will operate with bus replacements and streetcar diversions:

  • A 501 Queen bus will run from McCaul Loop to Woodbine Loop (at Kingston Road) diverting around construction via Jones, Dundas and Greenwood.
  • 501 Queen, 502 Downtowner and 503 Kingston Road Tripper streetcars will divert via Broadview, Gerrard and Coxwell.
  • Carhouse trips for 504 King and 505 Dundas that now operate west from Russell Carhouse via Queen will use Coxwell and Gerrard.

Beginning at the end of June and running through July, the special work at Broadview and Queen will be replaced. This intersection is in poor condition with long-standing slow orders and one switch (west to north) permanently out of service due to a danger of derailments.

During this work, service will operate as below:

  • The 501 Queen bus will divert via River, Dundas and Carlaw.
  • 501 Queen, 502 Downtowner and 503 Kingston Road Tripper streetcars will divert via Parliament, Gerrard and Coxwell.
  • 504 King cars will divert via Parliament and Dundas.
  • Carhouse trips to Russell will continue to operate via Coxwell.

Normal service on all routes resumes in August.

King Street Diversion

New February 11, 2013:

Q:  The 504 King diversion around construction at the Don Bridge is now listed as running to August due to additional work in the area.  I understand that the track connection at Sumach to the new Cherry Street line is to go in this year.  Will this be done while the 504 is on diversion (ie before August), or will there be yet another shutdown for this trackwork too?

A:  The Sumach/King connection work is scheduled for March 30.

Transit Priority for Diversions:

Q:  With the extended period of various diversions, why has there been no change to implement transit priority or at least advance greens for left turns at various locations?

A: We continue to work with the City on transit priority signalling. There are no new installations to date; where there, they are in use. Advance greens and the like is a question better put to the City.

I am meeting with Stephen Buckley, Toronto’s General Manager of Transportation Services, on February 12 and will discuss this issue with him.

[TTC comments provided by Brad Ross via email on February 7, 2014.  Updates by email on February 11, 2014.]

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TTC Service Changes Effective February 16, 2014

The February 2014 schedules bring only minor changes on the system.

Exhibition Place

A new “walking transfer” will be added between services in the south end of Liberty Village and Exhibition Loop. This will link 63 Ossington at Atlantic and Liberty Streets to the 511 Bathurst, 509 Harbourfront and 29 Dufferin routes at Exhibition Loop.

Walking transfers are a quaint part of the TTC’s fare system where connections are permitted between routes that do not actually meet, but which operate nearby. This practice (and the rules governing where it is allowed) will not be needed as an exception within the overall system if the TTC moves to time-based fares.

A temporary Dufferin Street bridge will allow 29 Dufferin service to resume its operation into the park.  Service will be the same as in March 2013.

York Region Contracted Services

These changes are at York Region’s request.

The last afternoon peak trip of the 17A Birchmount route north of Steeles will be eliminated.  This trip now leaves Steeles northbound at 6:53, and returns from Royal Crest southbound at 7:06.

The last late Sunday evening trip of the 102 Markham Road route north of McNicoll will be eliminated.  This trip now leaves Nashdene & Markham at 11:14 pm and returns from Mount Joy GO Station at 11:42 pm.

An earlier trip will be added to 105B Dufferin North from Major Mackenzie on weekday mornings.  This trip will depart southbound at 6:29 am.

Pearson Airport Night Services

300 Bloor Danforth and 307 Eglinton West will change to use the same sequence of serving terminals as the daytime 192 Airport Rocket and 58 Malton routes. There will be no change in service levels, but scheduled times at stops will be altered by the new routing.

Other Service and Route Changes

142 Downtown Avenue Road Express was changed in late December by the elimination of a trial extension of its downtown loop west to Peter Street. This is now formally implemented in the scheduled route.

Service on 509 Harbourfront will be reduced in response to lower riding, and schedules will be changed to “improve reliability” with additional recovery time.

Service on some routes will be modified by adjustment of running and recovery times to improve reliability. Service levels are not affected, but some trip times will change.

  • 41 Keele will be modified in the evening on weekdays.
  • 30 Lambton will be modified during many periods, and recovery time will be shifted to Kipling Station to reduce bus idling at High Park Station.
  • 73 Royal York will be modified during peak periods.

Service to the Zoo on 86 Scarborough and 85 Sheppard East will be modified to reflect the change in closing time to 6:00 pm effective March 1, 2014.  Last trips will leave the Zoo at about 7:00 pm.

Service on 91 Woodbine will be changed on weekends to improve reliability with headways on both the 91C York Mills and 91A Parkview Hills branches changing from 20 to 24 minutes to provide extra running time.

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York Street Reconstruction (Update 11)

Updated December 3, 2013 at 12:20 pm:  The last piece of track to be installed on York, from King south to Wellington, is now in place.  Photos follow the break and the summary of events.

Updated November 14, 2013 at 6:30 pm:  Because of delays with hydro and water utilities, the project on York Street is running about 4 weeks behind schedule.  Installation of track from King south to Wellington is now planned for the week of November 25.  The project as a whole should be finished by December 13, and 503 York service will resume on December 16.  [Thanks to Brad Ross at the TTC for the update.]

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Analysis of Route 501 Queen May to October 2013: Part I Headways

Updated November 18, 2013 at 6:15am:  Broken links/filenames corrected.

Route 501 Queen is the longest of the TTC’s streetcar routes, and among the longest in the entire system (54 Lawrence East is longer as a surface route, and the Yonge-University-Spadina subway is longer than both of them).

The Queen car is the subject of unending complaints about service quality.  It suffers the compounding effects of its length, its passage through some very busy sections of Toronto, and the fact that it operates with two nominally interleaved services.

During 2013, this route was subject to a number of disruptions through one-day events and from long-running diversions, but the operating schedule for the route was not changed except recently when construction on Lake Shore Blvd. required that streetcars turn back from Humber Loop.  This provided a series of views of operations on one route under various conditions.

501_2013_Service

The table linked here shows the headways and running times for various periods of operation for the 501 Queen car during 2013.

The only schedule changes during 2013 were:

  • April 1:  Midday, early evening and late evening services improved to address overcrowding.
  • September 3:  Humber-Connaught AM peak trippers changed to operate only to Parliament.
  • October 15:  Service split at Humber Loop with buses running west to Long Branch.

No adjustments were made to running times throughout the period to allow for the effects of construction and numerous special events affecting the route during 2013 including:

  • May 1:  A protest march required a diversion of service in the early evening via King between Church and Shaw
  • May 5:  Goodlife Marathon
  • May 20:  Victoria Day (fireworks in The Beach)
  • June 29 to July 28:  Reconstruction of the intersection at Queen & York.  Queen service diverted via King between Church and Spadina.
  • July 1:  Canada Day (celebrations at Nathan Phillips Square)
  • July 8:  Major storm and flooding
  • July 25-27:  Beaches Jazz Festival
  • August 6 to 20:  Reconstruction of the intersection of King & Spadina.  King service diverted onto Queen, and spillover road traffic from King affected Queen and other neighbouring streets.
  • June 23 onward:  Reconstruction of Kingston Road.  Depending on the state of open and closed sections, Queen east of Woodbine suffered from extra traffic diverted south from Kingston Road.
  • October 5:  Nuit Blanche
  • October 20:  Waterfront Marathon

One-day events are handled with diversions, extra service and ad hoc management.  Construction effects should result in schedule changes, but nothing was implemented.

In this article, I will review the headways actually provided at various points along the route.  This information is derived from the TTC’s vehicle monitoring system (the same data that feed the NextBus system and other web applications) for the months of:

  • May (as a “before” reference),
  • July (service diverted off of Queen),
  • August (service diverted onto Queen from King),
  • September (return to quasi-normal), and
  • October (split service at Humber starting on Thanksgiving weekend).

This is an unusually long article with many linked charts because I am covering a lot of territory and want to give readers who are interested lots of material to see what is happening on the route.  What is evident is that 501 Queen does not suffer from occasional upsets, but that it provides chronically poor service under a wide variety of conditions.

This article focuses on headways.  In a separate article I will turn to running times and the degree to which insufficient schedule time contributes to erratic service.

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King Street Update — Fall 2013

Over the opening weekend of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), King Street is closed in the block from Duncan (aka Ed Mirvish Way) to John to provide additional pedestrian space around the major TIFF events in the area.  This will last until Monday, September 9.

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Of particular note, control of access by the streetcars to the centre lanes is handled not by Toronto Police paid duty officers, but by TIFF security guards and festival volunteers.

Further east, at the Don Bridge, structural problems that have imposed a slow order on the King Street leg will finally be addressed (now that Waterfront Toronto and the City have sorted out a cost sharing agreement).  Starting September 9, all 504 King and 503 Kingston Road cars will divert both ways via Queen and Parliament.  There will be no replacement bus service on King.

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The diversion is expected to last until sometime in November.

There is no word on the status of the eastern approach to the bridge which also has a slow order on it.

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Analysis of Route 54 Lawrence East (Part II)

In the previous article of this series, I examined headways on the Lawrence East 54 bus route for the months of November 2011, March 2012 and May 2013.  The data revealed a route where staying close to the scheduled headway is a matter of chance, and happens far less commonly than “reliable” service demands.

If running times are fairly consistent, then the time taken from point “A” to “B” is predictable and headway maintenance should simply be a matter of short holds for the faster operators and encouragement to speed up to the slow ones.  However, the headways are uneven right from the termini of the route and from an intermediate point (Lawrence East Station) where re-spacing service to a regular headway could easily be done.

A related issue with schedule adherence is the question of running times.  Is the underlying problem that operators cannot make the assigned times in the schedules and therefore have no choice but to run at whatever chance headway occurs?  I have looked at this previously on Queen and on Dufferin where schedules are a problem for some, but not all, specific time periods.

Finally, there is always the issue of traffic congestion, the bane of surface operations and a mantra to which the TTC often resorts when people complain about service.

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Analysis of Route 54 Lawrence East (Part I)

This is the first of a series of articles to review service on a number of routes both in the suburbs and downtown.  There are three sets of data for November 2011, March 2012 and May 2013.  The first two were selected to show the effect, if any, of service cuts implemented in February 2012.  All three months had fairly benign weather and this would not have much effect on service.  (The winter of 2011-12 was particularly balmy in Toronto.)

Our old friend the Queen car comes in for lots of abuse on this site and elsewhere that transit riders and critics (not necessarily the same group) congregate.  For a change, I thought it would be interesting to review a very long bus route, 54 Lawrence East, to see what its service looked like.

Lawrence East is actually longer than Queen (Long Branch), although it operates at a higher speed overall. The express service has a substantially higher scheduled speed, but does not run on the congested inner section of the route.

54 Lawrence East operates three services:

  • 54 Eglinton Station to Orton Park (between Markham Road and Morningside)
  • 54A Eglinton Station to Starspray
  • 54E Lawrence East Station to Starspray Express (peak only, express west of Markham Road)

Peak hour headways are shorter on Lawrence East than on Queen due in part to the size of the vehicles.  Although Lawrence East has a 3’00” combined AM peak service, this is only actually available at the few stops between Lawrence East Station and Orton Park served by all three branches.  Each of these operates on a 9’00” headway providing an average 4’30” headway over much of the route where only two of them are available.

During off-peak periods, half of the service operates to Orton Park and half to Starspray.

If we are to believe the common wisdom about transit routes, Lawrence East should have more reliable service because it operates in a relatively less constrained environment than the Queen car.  In fact, actual service on Lawrence East suffers many of the same problems of bunching and uneven headways differing substantially from the advertised schedule.

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King & Spadina Intersection Reconstruction (Update 6)

King & Spadina is the last of the TTC’s three Grand Unions to be replaced in as many years.  Work began on August 6, and is planned to reach the point by August 20 that streetcar service can resume on 504 King, 508 Lake Shore and 510 Spadina (to King only).

This post will track the progress of the reconstruction.

Updated August 16, 2013

Paving of the track lanes is substantially complete, and work has now moved to the curb lanes and sidewalks.

Concurrently with the reopening on Tuesday, August 20, the TTC will begin operation of the 521 King Exhibition streetcar service between Church Street and Exhibition Loop, although the cars will be signed “504” because the “521” exposures were removed from the roll signs years ago.

Many of the pedestrian bypass routes through the intersection are now via the roadway.

Updated August 14, 2013

The TTC has clarified the arrangements for service through King/Spadina starting Tuesday, August 20.

504 King and 508 Lake Shore will resume their normal King Street routes rather than diverting via Shaw, Queen and Church.

510 Spadina will remain a bus operation until the next schedule period (Sunday, September 1) when streetcars will return.  The bus diversion via Richmond/Adelaide, Peter, etc., will cease on August 20 and buses will operate straight north-south through King/Spadina.  Some buses will short turn via Charlotte Loop.

Updated August 12, 2013

Assembly of the intersection was substantially complete late today with most of the new rail in place.  Work remains on the approaches as well as levelling, connection of grounding cables and other finishing touches before the track can be set in concrete.

Updated August 11, 2013

The east quadrant has been installed and work is in progress on the north quadrant of the intersection.

Updated August 10, 2013

The diamond plus the west and south quadrants of the intersection have been installed, and the foundation is in place for the remaining two quadrants.  Placement of the grounding cables for the new track has begun.

Updated August 8, 2013

A substantial portion of the new foundation slab is now in place, and the track panels for the intersection are spotted nearby ready for installation.

Photos follow the break.

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