Queen Car

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TTC Service Changes Effective March 30, 2014

On March 30, 2014, the TTC will make changes to many routes.  In the detailed listing linked below, these are broken into four groups for miscellaneous service changes, new construction projects, route restructurings, and seasonal changes.

2014.03.30_Service_Changes

Construction Projects

The 29 Dufferin and 329 Dufferin Night routes will divert southbound via College, Lansdowne and Queen around water main work on Dufferin.  The interlined operation with 316 Ossington will be discontinued until late 2014 when this diversion is scheduled to end.

Reconstruction of the Gardiner Expressway will split the 501 Queen, 301 Queen Night, and 508 Lake Shore routes at Humber Loop.  The schedule will be the same one used in fall 2013 during construction on Lake Shore.  This is planned to last only for one schedule period (to mid May).

The intersection of King & Sumach will be rebuilt to add special work leading to new tracks on Cherry Street.  Streetcar service here is already diverting around the closed bridge east of River and so the construction has no effect on service.

Articulated Buses

7 Bathurst will be scheduled to use 18m articulated buses on weekdays with resulting headway widenings.  The effect is greatest during peak periods when headways widen to match the higher capacity of the vehicles.  The changes by time period are:

  • AM Peak:  6’15” to 9’10”
  • Midday:  8’00” to 9’30”
  • PM Peak:  5’30” to 7’45”
  • Early Evening:  9’00” to 10’00”
  • Late Evening:  12’40” to 12’30”

This route is already notorious for erratic service which will likely become even worse with fewer buses.  I plan to compare vehicle tracking data for this route for the “before” and “after” operations in a future article.

Other Changes

Several routes have new and/or adjusted last trip times to meet last subway trains including an allowance for the time it takes riders to get from the subway platform to the bus.

322 Coxwell and 324 Victoria Park Night Buses will operate directly through Bingham Loop.  Eastbound 322 Coxwell buses will enter the loop at the west end via Bingham and exit directly onto Victoria Park as 324s.  Southbound 324 Victoria Park buses will enter the loop on the streetcar platform from Victoria Park and exit via Bingham to Kingston Road as 322s.

Service on 36 Finch West will be reorganized by removal of the scheduled short turns at Kipling (36A) and Jane (36C), and increase of service on the renamed 36 Humberwood (formerly 36B).

The express service on 35 Jane will be split off as 195 Jane Rocket and it will operate independently of the schedule for the local service.  Because the 195 will run during periods that the 35E does not today, the headways at local stops will widen considerably during many periods.

The 52 Lawrence West and 58 Malton routes will be combined as route 52, and the 58 Malton route number and name will be discontinued.  More service will run east between Lawrence West and Lawrence Stations as a result.  Service on the 52C Culford branch of Lawrence West will be provided at all times by 59 Maple Leaf.  Service in the 52G branch to Martin Grove will continue to run via The Westway over the existing Lawrence 52 route.

The 79 Scarlett Road bus will now have split operation via St. Clair during midday service all days, and during the early evening on weekdays.  This extends a practice already used during the peak period.

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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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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.

Continue reading →

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How Many Streetcars Will Fit at King & Spadina? (Update 2)

Updated July 4, 2013 at 7:50pm:  Observations of actual operations at the intersection for one hour today have been added.  These reveal that the level of service actually operated on all routes (except 508 Lake Shore) is less than advertised.  Although traffic congestion causes some backlogs of westbound cars, the number of movements, especially the west-to-north turn, is low enough to fit within the available traffic signal cycles.  This would not be the case if 100% of the service were operated.

See the end of the article for details.

Updated June 28, 2013 at 6:30pm:  Information on traffic signal timings has been added to this article.

The original article follows the break below.

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Analysis of 501 Queen for Saturday, May 25, 2013

Normally, I would save detailed reviews like this to a general article looking at the Queen route over several months and configurations.  However, a deputation at the June 24, 2013 TTC Board meeting is worth comment now while the issue is fresh in Commissioners’ and management’s mind.

A regular attendee of these meetings complained that he had been severely hampered in attempting to use the Queen car late in the afternoon of May 25 to travel westbound to Long Branch.  As I have recently received the vehicle monitoring data for several routes for Mar 2013 from the TTC, getting an overview of what was happening was quite straightforward.  It is not a pretty picture.

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Spadina Reconstruction News (Updated May 15, 2013)

Updated May 15, 2013 at 1:30 pm:

TTC CEO Andy Byford spoke at a meeting of the York Quay Neighbourhood Association yesterday evening and the status of transit service to Queens Quay was a major topic.  There appears to be some confusion among and within agencies about the date when service will return to Queens Quay on the 510 as a through route and as a streetcar.

The TTC Service Planning memo for the schedule period beginning June 23 says that the current operation is expected to last until the end of that period (late July).  However, Waterfront Toronto and Andy Byford himself speak of November or even December dates.  The TTC website has given June 2013 as a date for service resumption for quite some time, although this is to be corrected, presuming someone knows what the information should be.

Part of the confusion may arise from the fact that streetcar service will be suspended for reconstruction of the intersections at King and at Dundas and this will require bus replacement on the route.  Those buses will be able to run through to Queen’s Quay replacing the shuttle and so there will be “through” service, just not with streetcars.

I have asked the TTC for definitive information on the date for resumption of streetcar service to Queens Quay.

The Service Planning  memo also notes that a planned shutdown for reconstruction of the platform at Spadina Station Loop has been deferred to 2014.  One can only hope that this will include changes to allow two LFLRVs to serve the platform simultaneously for unloading and loading.

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Downtown Traffic Operations Study

The City of Toronto is studying transportation in the downtown.  The study area is bounded roughly by Lake Shore Boulevard/Harbour Street, Queen Street, Jarvis Street, and Bathurst Street.  The scope extends just north of Dundas between University and Yonge.

The intent is to find short-to-medium term improvements that are possible:

… getting more out of the existing transportation infrastructure, in an attempt to make travel in the downtown less challenging and more efficient for all road users.

There will be an Open House for this study in the rotunda of Metro Hall (John Street south of King) on Wednesday, March 27 from noon to 9:30pm.  The study’s website includes a link to a short survey of travel patterns.

This post will be used as a repository for updates on the study as well as comments from readers.

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York Street Construction News

The City of Toronto has issued a preliminary notice regarding the reconstruction of York Street from Wellington to Queen.

This will include pavement and sidewalk reconstruction, water main work, and the installation of new track.  This work includes replacement of the intersection at Queen & York, but not at King & York which is comparatively new.

Only the northbound track will be retained and, as I understand current plans, the special work at Adelaide Street will be removed.  If at a future date, the TTC decides to reactivate Adelaide Street from Charlotte east to Victoria, the York Street intersection will be dealt with at that time.

The City is studying Richmond and Adelaide Streets with a view to installing cycling lanes, and the reconstruction of Adelaide will depend on the design that emerges from this process.  A related issue is the ongoing construction of condos along Adelaide requiring curb lane occupancy and causing  damage to the road from heavy trucks.

Co-ordination with the Spadina & King project during August will be needed to ensure that there is one street clear for King and Queen services through downtown.

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Past and Future Streetcar Service Capacity

Now that the first Low Floor Light Rail Vehicle (LFLRV) is rolling through Toronto streets on test runs, the question of service quality and capacity for streetcar routes is once again an issue.

The most recent TTC document setting out their intended use of the new fleet appeared in the 2013 Capital Budget Blue Books.  These are not available online, but I presented the TTC’s fleet plan in an article last fall.  From the numbers of vehicles to be assigned to each route, one can work back to the service frequency and capacity numbers.  In general, peak period headways get a bit wider, but the capacity goes up, in some cases dramatically.

The TTC faces two challenges: one on the budget, and one in operations.

Toronto Council has been extremely stingy with operating subsidies and “flat lined” the TTC over the past two budget cycles.  Hard liners will want the TTC to simply replace service on an equivalent capacity basis and maximize the savings in operator costs.  This would be a disaster for service quality even if the TTC actually ran cars on the headways they advertise.

On the operational side, any increase in headways brings even wider gaps when the service is upset by weather, random delays and short turns.  It is already a matter of record that the largest drop in riding over the past two decades came on the lines where 50-foot long CLRVs (the standard Toronto cars) were replaced by 75-foot long ALRVs (the articulated version) on an equivalent capacity basis.  Falling riding led to reduced service and the familiar downward spiral.  This must not happen when the new fleet rolls out across the system.

Since at least the mid-1990s, the TTC has told us that they cannot improve streetcar service because they have no spare cars.  In part, they are the victims of their own fleet planning.  The TTC originally rebuilt some of its old PCC cars (the fleet preceding the current one) in order to have enough to expand operations on the Harbourfront and Spadina lines.  However, by the mid-1990s, service cuts on many routes thanks to the economic downturn in that decade and the subsidy cuts by the Harris government, reduced the fleet requirements to the point where the PCCs could be retired and the Spadina line opened without buying any new cars.  When riding started to grow again, the TTC had no spare vehicles to improve service, and to make matters worse, the fleet was entering a period of lower reliability thanks, in part, to poor design.

Toronto waited a long time for new cars to be ordered, and this process was delayed both by the decision to go with all low-floor cars, and by political meddling at City Hall.  New residential construction along the streetcar lines pushes up demand, but the TTC cannot respond with better service until they have more cars.

Recent discussions about the new cars have included comments about how we cannot possibly have more streetcars on the road.  What many people forget is that the streetcar services were once much better than today.  In this article, I will look back at service levels once operated in Toronto, and at the service that we might see if the TTC actually operates the new fleet in the manner their Fleet Plan claims.

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