Service Analysis

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Why Streetcars?

Tom Jurenka sent in the following note, and it raises questions that deserve a debate.

Hello Steve

As a non-native Torontonian (grew up in Winnipeg, but have lived in Toronto for 24 years now) I have always been puzzled — and often infuriated — by streetcars (and the absolutely terrible traffic light timing in Toronto, but that is another story).

My question is an honest one — WHY? All I can see is the negatives of streetcars:

  • they tear up streets (I’ve lived through Queen Street E, Gerrard, now St. Clair, being torn up utterly to undo the damage of streetcars pounding the rails)
  • they are slow as molasses (as a bicyclist, I routinely pass 5 or 6 streetcars on Queen Street heading from AC Harris to downtown)
  • because of their slowness and immobility they delay traffic all the time, causing snarls and the attendant idling pollution
  • they are super expensive (witness the recent funding mess)

So I’m really curious why streetcars are a better alternative to trolley buses or just plain old buses, which move fast, are mobile, and are less expensive per unit to buy. Would you be able to point me at some links/articles/studies/whatever to help me understand this issue?

Thank you for your time.

Best regards,

Tom Jurenka

This is a far more complex question than just the list above, but I will use this as a jumping off point. Continue reading →

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Service Changes Effective August 2, 2009

For mid summer, there are only a few schedule changes on the TTC network, and they take effect at the start of August running through to Labour Day weekend.

Changes for September are much more extensive, and I will deal with these in a separate post.

Bingham Loop Reconstruction

Due to the reconstruction of Bingham Loop, routes 502 Downtowner and 503 Kingston Road Tripper will be replaced by buses.  Combined streetcar service of 7’30” will be replaced by bus service of 6’00”.  The off-peak 20’00” headway is unchanged.

Diversions at Bingham Loop will change from time to time as construction progresses.  This also affects the 22A Coxwell, 12 Kingston Road, 322 Coxwell and 324 Victoria Park Night Buses.

Roncesvalles Reconstruction

Running times on the Roncesvalles shuttle bus will be increased at some times to compensate for actual start of construction and the diversion of southbound service via Dundas, Lansdowne and Queen.

501 Queen

The test of a modified step-back crewing operation will end, and normal crewing will resume on this route.

77 Swansea & 71 Runnymede

Running times on these interlined routes will be increased.  In the AM peak and midday, this will be done by reducing recovery times scheduled at terminals.  In the PM peak and evening, headways will be increased.  PM peak headways on the common section of the route will go from 10′ to 11′ with a change from 20′ to 22′ on the Runnymede branches.  A similar change will occur in the early evening, but at that time only half of the service runs south of Bloor.

Caribana

Additional service will operate for the parade on Saturday, August 1 on 511 Bathurst, 509 Harbourfront and 29 Dufferin, as well as express buses from Keele, Dundas West and Lansdowne Stations.  The 329/316 night routes will divert around the CNE grounds as described in the next section.

Additional service on 509 Harbourfront, 510 Spadina and 6 Bay is also planned for the Sunday, August 2 events on Toronto Island.  Whether these will actually occur given that the civic strike has shut down the ferries remains to be seen.  All of the added service is operated “at the divisional level”, meaning that the work is easily cancelled or reassigned if the party ends up at a new location.

Canadian National Exhibition

Additional service will operate on all of the usual routes including 511 Bathurst, 509 Harbourfront, 193 Exhibition Rocket and 29 Dufferin.  Overnight service on interlined routes 329 Dufferin and 316 Ossington will not operate through the CNE grounds, but will connect via Fraser and Liberty.

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Construction Season 2009 (Updated)

This morning, I took a ramble around the city to have a look at various projects affecting the streetcar system.  For those who don’t see all of the sights, here’s a roundup.

Updated 5:20 pm:  A link to a more recent design layout for St. Clair Phase 4 (west from Caledonia) has been added.

Updated 6:20 pm:  John F. Bromley provided a route history for the Roncesvalles Shuttle which I have added to this article.

St. Clair

The now-and-forever St. Clair project is beginning to look as if it might complete in our lifetime.  Eastward from Dufferin, new track is under construction, and the excavation is completed all the way to Oakwood.  Once this section is connected at both ends, there will be continuous track once more from Yonge to just west of Caledonia.  It’s a start.

Meanwhile, road and sidewalk construction is underway on the south side of St. Clair east of Winona, and Oakwood is less of a disaster area albeit not yet completely opened.  West of Caledonia, utility and sidewalk work progressed west from the Newmarket Subdivision bridge, and is further along on the north than the south side.

Some comments on other threads here suggest that the design will change the underpass between Old Weston Road and Keele.  Any proposal to widen the road here would certainly not be a quick project.  The plans shown in the EA involve no widening (see detailed layout part 1, page 2), nor is any shown in the February 2009 version (see pages 5 through 7).  If someone has other, definitive information, please let me know.

Dundas

Work has just begun on watermain construction west of Bathurst Street.  This is supposed to end for September, but I will be astounded, given recent experiences with construction delays, if this happens.

All Carlton cars run to Dundas West Station, while the Dundas car goes to Bathurst Station, and a Dundas bus runs from Keele Station to Wolseley Loop.  Dundas streetcar service eastbound from Bathurst depends on how many cars actually reach Bathurst Station because short turns would miss the connection completely.

Roncesvalles

Overhead has been removed on Roncesvalles from Dundas to north of the carhouse except at the Howard Park crossing which now only has the east-west tangent wire for the eventual return of the Carlton car.

The streetcar track will be removed over the next two months to simplify watermain work, and will be replaced in 2010 on its new alignment as the street itself is rebuilt to the new design.  Considering that there has been streetcar service on Roncesvalles since 1908 (first a shuttle, then the Queen car, finally the King car), the absence of track and overhead will be a strange sight indeed.

Proposed changes at Queen and Roncesvalles are on hold, I believe, pending resolution of design issues including the eventual route of the Waterfront West LRT in this area.

Queen

Due to watermain and track construction, service on the Queen and Downtowner cars began diverting today as previously reported.  (For those who carp, with justification, about TTC signs, the diversion notice calls the route “Downtown” with a map showing the eastbound diversion running on Lombard, not Adelaide.)  This is expected to be in place for eight weeks.

Meanwhile, utility work west of Gladstone has reduced Queen to a single lane westbound through the underpass, and west from Noble (one west of Dufferin), construction occupies both curb lanes.

It will be interesting to see whether cars still take extended layovers at the ends of their trips, or simply short turn a lot.

Meanwhile, although the work is not visible from Queen, riders on the rail line above can see the considerable progress on the excavation of the new Dufferin Street approach from the north that will eliminate the jog at Queen for all traffic.  Just getting rid of the left turn queues in both directions should improve the streetcar and bus operations here.

History of the Roncesvalles Shuttle from John F. Bromley

RONCESVALLES

Operational periods: 1908; 1909-1911; <1914-1921

Continue reading →

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Church Street Track Construction Begins (Updated)

Updated July 13 at 10:45 am:

The TTC has updated its track construction schedule to co-ordinate with City watermain work.

  • Church Street is done in two pieces as described in the original article.
  • Parliament Street is deferred to 2010.
  • Wellington and Victoria Streets are deferred to 2013.

Thanks to David S. Crawford of the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association for this information.

Original post:

Through the 2009 and 2010 construction seasons, TTC and the City will be rebuilding streetcar track and watermains on Church from Carlton to King.  The work notice has been posted on the TTC’s site.

There will be three phases to this work. Continue reading →

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Restructuring the Queen Car

The TTC Agenda for July 9 included a report on Queen streetcar operations.  Most of this deals with line management techniques, and is discussed in the preceding article on this site.

For the period October 18 to November 21, 2009, the TTC will experiment with splitting the line in one of two ways.  The specifics have not yet been decided.

  • Split the route at Humber Loop into the original 507 Long Branch and 501 Queen routes.
  • Create two overlapping routes with Long Branch cars operating east to Church or Parliament, and Queen cars operating west to Bathurst or Shaw.

Implementation of an overlapped service is constrained by the number of available cars as well as by track layouts and the location of electrified switches for turnbacks.

There are arguments to be made for either configuration, but the first one does have the problem that if Queen service is disrupted in the west end, the link to Long Branch will be lost as most Queen cars will turn at Sunnyside.  Conversely, an overlapped route will force anyone travelling from west of the overlap area to east of it to transfer. Continue reading →

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Queen Car Operation Update

At its meeting on July 9, 2009, the TTC considered a staff report about operation of the Queen 501 streetcar service.  This reviews various attempts at line management and scheduling as well as their effects on service as measured by short turn counts as well as the number of wide gaps between cars.

For the period October 18 to November 21, 2009, the TTC will experiment with splitting the 501 into two separate overlapping routes, although the exact termini of the routes is not yet decided.

The Queen car has been the source of many complaints about service quality, and I have written several articles here examining the actual behaviour of the route in detail based on TTC vehicle monitoring data.  The most vocal complaints arise in The Beach, and much effort has focussed on that end of the line, but problems also exist on Lake Shore.  Concerns to the west emerged during recent public meetings on the proposed Waterfront West LRT line where providing basic, reliable service today was more important to residents than a new LRT service in the distant future. Continue reading →

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When Is A Park Not A Park?

Those of you who know Broadview Station will remember the years of construction we who live nearby suffered through as the station gained new streetcar platforms, elevators, an enlarged lobby, a lot of fixes to leaky ceilings, and now roof repairs.  Through much of this the triangle of land between the streetcar loop and sidewalk was transformed from a park to a construction staging area and then, miraculously, our park came back, somewhat gentrified, last year.

That property had been held by the TTC for years in anticipation of, yes, redevelopment, although everyone nearby thought it was a park.  It wasn’t.

Until now.  This week, the TTC will officially declare the land surplus to its needs, and set in motion a transfer to the City Parks Department.  I’m not sure that there will be dancing in the streets, but at last our park is safe from being turned into a rather oddly shaped condo.

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Some Things Take A Little Time

Oh dear, oh dear!  That poor old overworked, underappreciated TTC!

The Spadina car opened in July 1997, and one thing immediately obvious to anyone who bothered to look was that “transit priority signalling” was simply not working the way that phrase might imply to mere mortals who ride the service.  Indeed, a newspaper article by Stephen Wickens has taken on legendary status with the claim (valid under some circumstances) that a trip down Bathurst to Western Hospital in mixed traffic makes better time than the Spadina car and its right-of-way.  I’m not going to revisit that debate here .

In June 2005, I spoke to the issue of non-priority for Spadina cars at a Commission meeting.  At that time, then Vice-Chair Olivia Chow moved that staff take the necessary action to implement priority signalling by September 2005 where it is not already active and report back by September 2006 on the impact; and that the recommendations in my submission be forwarded to TTC and City staff with a joint report to fall meetings, presumably in 2005.

The due date for this report has always been a few months away, and I have had the honour of holding the longest outstanding report request at the TTC for some time.  I was expecting the report in April, but that month came and went.  Now, according to this week’s agenda, the report will be at the Commission meeting of December 16, 2009.

That is at least still “fall”, by a few days, albeit not the one Olivia Chow had in mind.

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Analysis of 501 Queen Service Winter 2008/2009: Part II Long Branch to Parkside

In the previous installment, I reviewed the headway patterns for the 501 Queen route outbound to terminals at Neville, Humber and Long Branch.  Now I will turn to the operation of the west end of the route between Long Branch and Parkside Drive.  I used Parkside (the east side of High Park, and the continuation of Keele Street south of Bloor) as the eastern end of the measurement because it is at the end of the private right-of-way and because this avoids problems with variations caused by operations at Roncesvalles.

The charts presented here show headways (the frequency and regularity of service) as well as link times (the time needed to traverse part of the route).  Headways are important to riders because they show how predictable service will be, and they also bear on riding comfort because crowding is directly affected by regularity of service.  Link times are important for service planning because they show where and when congestion occurs, and how predictable (or not) the running time between locations will be. Continue reading →