St. Clair Car

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Toronto Deserves Better Transit Service Now! Part 4: Streetcar Riders Count Too

Much discussion of improved service has talked about bus riders in the suburbs who have long trips and whose bus routes lost peak service when the crowding standards were rolled back in 2012.

Peak period crowding standards had never been improved for streetcars because there were no spare vehicles, and so there was nothing to roll back. However, over past decades, that shortage of streetcars limited peak service in a way that the bus system didn’t have to deal with.  This was compounded by two factors:

  • The TTC opened a new Spadina-Harbourfront line without increasing the fleet.  This was possible because service cuts on the early 1990s left Toronto with “spare” streetcars.
  • The project to buy new streetcars dragged on for years thanks both to the embrace of 100% low floor technology, and the obstructions posed by Mayor Ford to streetcar and LRT plans in general.

Between 1998 and 2014, the total number of streetcars scheduled for the peak periods has risen only 10%, and there is no headroom for further growth with the existing fleet. Indeed, service quality is compromised by vehicle failures, and the scheduled service may not all get out of the carhouse.

This year, the TTC will finally take delivery of the first “production” vehicles in its new fleet, and claims that service will operate as of August 31, 2014 on 510 Spadina with the new cars.  Whether the line will convert 100% to the new fleet in one go remains to be seen.

The TTC Fleet Plan contains no provision for improving service on any streetcar route beyond the higher capacity that new cars will provide. This will come only as the new fleet rolls out line-by-line and some routes will wait until late this decade to see more capacity (and even then with less frequent service).  Existing cars would be retired at a rate that matches or exceeds the new fleet’s ability to replace service, and would also eliminate any spare capacity for growth on lines running older cars.

This is what passes for responsible planning in an organization that claims a dedication to “customer service”.

This article looks at each streetcar route in turn and at a possible revised fleet plan that would make provision for short term improvements as the new fleet arrives.

Continue reading →

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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.

Continue reading →

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OneCity Plan Reviewed

The OneCity plan has much to recommend it even though in the details it is far from perfect.

The funding scheme requires Queen’s Park to modify the handling of assessment value changes, and they are already cool to this scheme.  Why OneCity proponents could not simply and honestly say “we need a 1.9% tax hike every year for the next four years” (not unlike the ongoing 9% increases to pay for Toronto Water infrastructure upgrades) is baffling.  A discussion about transit is needlessly diverted into debates about arcane ways of implementing a tax increase without quite calling it what it is.

On the bright side, Toronto may leave behind the technology wars and the posturing of one neighbourhood against another to get their own projects built.  Talking about transit as a city-wide good is essential to break the logjam of decades where parochialism ruled.  Couple this with a revenue stream that could actually be depended on, and the plan has a fighting chance.  Ah, there’s the rub — actually finding funding at some level of government to pay for all of this.

Rob Ford’s subway plan depended on the supposed generosity of Metrolinx to redirect committed funding to the Ford Plan (complete with some faulty arithmetic).  Similarly, the OneCity plan depends for its first big project on money already earmarked by Metrolinx to the Scarborough RT to LRT conversion.  If this goes ahead, we would have a new subway funded roughly 80% by Queen’s Park and 20% by Toronto.  Not a bad deal, but not an arrangement we are likely to see for any other line.

On the eastern waterfront, there is already $90m on the table from Waterfront Toronto (itself funded by three levels of government), and OneCity proposes to spend another @200m or so to top up this project.  Whether all $200m would be City money, or would have to wait for other partners to buy in is unclear.

Toronto must make some hard decisions about a “Plan B” if the Ottawa refuses to play while the Tories remain in power.  Even if we saw an NDP (or an NDP/Liberal) government, I wouldn’t hold my breath for money flowing to Toronto (and other Canadian cities) overnight.  A federal presence is a long term strategy, and spending plans in Toronto must be framed with that in mind.

Sitting on our hands waiting for Premier McGuinty or would-be PM Mulcair to engineer two rainbows complete with pots of gold landing in Nathan Phillips Square would be a dead wrong strategy.  Bang the drum all we might for a “one cent solution” or a “National Transit Strategy”, Toronto needs to get on with debating our transit needs whether funding is already in place or not.  Knowing what we need and want makes for a much stronger argument to pull in funding partners.

In some cases, Toronto may be best to go it alone on some of the smaller projects, or be prepared to fund at a higher level than 1/3.  If transit is important, it should not be held hostage by waiting for a funding partner who will never show up.

The briefing package for OneCity is available online.

My comments on the political aspects of OneCity are over at the Torontoist site.

To start the ball rolling on the technical review of the OneCity network, here are my thoughts on each of the proposals in the network. Throughout the discussions that will inevitably follow, it is vital that politicians, advocates, gurus of all flavours not become wedded to the fine details. Many of these lines won’t be built for decades, if ever, and we can discuss the pros and cons without becoming mired in conversations about the colour of station tiles.

Continue reading →

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Service Changes in July 2011

In a previous post, I described the diversions that will begin on July 11 around the reconstruction of the King/Bathurst grand union.

Beginning July 18 and continuing until early September, the 506 Carlton diversion around the Gerrard Street bridge, originally announced for June 19, will actually get underway.  Trackwork on the bridge has been in rough shape with slow orders for some time.  The planned date for return of streetcars to Gerrard Street is September 11.

Westbound service will run via Broadview, Dundas and Parliament.  Eastbound service will run via Parliament, Queen and Broadview.  Cars have been added to the schedule to compensate for the added mileage.

Effective July 31:

192 Airport Rocket: On the northbound trip, buses will serve the upper level bus stop at Jetliner first, then the arrival level at Terminal 1 and the arrival level at Terminal 3.  On the southbound trip, buses will exit the Airport via the ramp to southbound Hwy 427.  These changes are intended to free up running time to improve service reliability.

504 King: Streetcar service will return to Roncesvalles Avenue, although King cars will continue their diversion around the track and overhead work in Parkdale via Shaw and Queen.  There are only minor changes to some off-peak headways so that the running times work out.  However, I suspect with the traffic congestion on Queen and the inevitable streetcar short turns, service on Roncesvalles will not be as good as what is now provided by a dedicated bus shuttle.

Runnymede Station: The construction at Runnymede Station is supposed to be officially completed now, and 71 Runnymede, 77 Swansea and 79 Scarlett Road will return to their normal routings.

512 St. Clair: Overhead between St. Clair and St. Clair West stations will be retrofitted for pantograph compatibility.  Buses will replace streetcars on this section of the route after 10:00 pm weekdays, and all day on weekends.  The TTC claims that there will be timed transfers at St. Clair West.  Regular service resumes on September 4.

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Analysis of 512 St. Clair Operations for July 2010 — Part III (Headways)

In two previous articles, I have reviewed the St. Clair car during its first month of operation on the new right-of-way over the complete route from Yonge to Keele.  Running times during busy periods are down compared with April 2007, when the only right-of-way was between Bathurst and Yonge Streets.  However, the situation with headways, an important factor in how riders perceive service quality, is quite another matter.

For the entire period of construction, the idea of regular, scheduled service was something of a fairy tale on St. Clair, and both the streetcars and buses made their way such as they could along the route.  One would commonly see vehicles taking long terminal layovers, and headways were not a big priority.

In analyses of other routes, there is a common factor that is independent of the route’s length, the time of the year, the weather, eclipses or any other phenomena:  vehicles do not leave terminals on a regular spacing.  They leave when they get around to it, a practice abetted by the TTC’s standard that ±3 minutes is considered to be “on time”.  Pairs of vehicles can travel together on routes with short headways and remain within this standard.

Continue reading →

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Analysis of 512 St. Clair Operations for July 2010 — Part II (Link Times) (Updated)

In the first article of this series, I gave an overview of the data for one day’s operation on the 512 St. Clair route in July 2010.  Here, I will review link times (the time taken to get from one location to another) on the route for the entire month, and compare this with data from April 2007 when the St. Clair car last ran over its full length from Yonge to Keele.

Updated December 29, 2010 at 9:50 am:

A set of charts has been added comparing the running times between Keele and Yonge for April 2007 and July 2010.  See the end of the article for links and commentary.

Continue reading →

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Analysis of 512 St. Clair Operations for July 2010 — Part I (Introduction)

Updated at 3:20 pm, December 27: The scale on the headway charts has been changed to 30 minutes with 3-minute gridlines, and on the link time charts to 18 minutes with 3-minute gridlines.  The intent is to spread out the data points to give a better view of the fine details.

[My apologies for the appearance of this series many months after the fact.  It took quite a while to get the GPS-f0rmat data from the TTC for reasons unknown.

I look forward to the plans for an Open Data access to data for all routes as a regular online service so that this type of analysis will not require special requests for data extracts.  Whether the “new” TTC goes ahead with providing this data remains to be seen, although “transparency” is supposed to be a watchword in the new administration.]

June 30, 2010, brought streetcar service to the full St. Clair route out to Gunn’s Loop for the first time since 2007.  In an earlier article, I reviewed the line’s operation in April 2007.  This was a “before” snapshot intended as a comparison to the “after” construction line behaviour for which we have waited so long.  Now we can look at the “new” St. Clair to see the benefits, such as they might be.

On two weekends, service did not operate over the entire line due to street festivals.  No sooner was streetcar service restored to Keele, but it vanished again on July 3-4, and again on July 17-18.

This article reviews the basic information available and some of the analysis I have done using a single weekday as an example. Continue reading →

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LRT For Toronto

Royson James has a pair of columns in the Toronto Star discussing the perennial LRT vs subway transit debates.

City needs a transit lesson (Nov. 17, 2010)

Commuters won’t fill LRTs, much less subways (Nov. 19, 2010)

James sets out the pros and cons without becoming mired in either side’s arguments.  As with any overview, there are points for or against either technology that are not made with the vigour that advocates would prefer.  The important issue, however, is not to choose one technology to the exclusion of the other, but to look at the appropriate one for each implementation.

One critical issue — regardless of which side one might be on — is the matter of land use and how the evolution of Toronto will affect demand on routes and the overall network.  There are two fundamentally different views of of future development — the Official Plan’s “Avenues” with major streets lined by mid-rise buildings and shops giving an active pedestrian environment at ground level, or the more traditional “tower in a park” design that has shaped much of Toronto’s growth since the 1960s.  A third variant has appeared over the past decade — both tall and dense, as exemplified by the railway lands, parts of Liberty Village and most recently the Queen West Triangle (Queen & Dovercourt).

Each of these produces transit demands which vary both due to the built form and to the neighbourhood in which development occurs.  A building located in an existing walkable neighbourhood with shops and transit will have very different transportation demands than the same building located on a suburban arterial where the nearest shop is the mall a short drive or a lonely, windy walk away.

The perennial myth about subways is that their high capacity will be consumed by redevelopment around stations.  This is utter hogwash.  The Yonge line is full well north of Eglinton not with Willowdale condo dwellers, but with traffic fed in on surface routes.  Developments along the line add to the demand, but the subway exists to serve a much wider catchment area.  Similarly, the BD subway depends on feeder services to many stations, and the decades-long absence of nearby development did not prevent the buildup of demand eastbound from Etobicoke or westbound from Scarborough.

LRT lies somewhere in between by serving both busy “local” corridors and, in some cases, acting almost like a subway in speed, if not capacity.  We must remember that the SRT would have been an LRT line (and to Malvern too, decades ago) but for Queen’s Park’s intervention with the ICTS technology.  Regardless of technology, it is a medium capacity line whose principal function is to feed the BD subway at Kennedy and, much more recently, to serve the high-density residential development at Scarborough Town Centre, developments that did not occur until decades after the SRT opened.

In many ways, LRT has always been a misunderstood, orphan technology in Toronto.  Some within the TTC have never accepted the retention of streetcars, much less the creation of an LRT alternative to full-blown subway construction.  At a time when LRT was coming back into favour around the world, Toronto pursued ICTS and lost the chance to show what real LRT could do.  At more than double the cost of the LRT proposal, ICTS “proved” that there was no cheap way to implement transit lines, and system expansion stalled.  The TTC did nothing to advance the LRT alternative.

Spadina, Harbourfront and St. Clair are really not LRT, but rather upgraded streetcar lines.  That statement brings me to a common question:  what’s the difference between streetcars, LRT and “Heavy Rapid Transit” (or HRT)?  Everyone knows what subways, streetcars and buses are, but things get mushy in the space between them.

The boundary between HRT and LRT is fairly straightforward:  if the technology cannot run at grade in medians or crossing streets and walkways, then it’s HRT regardless of what vehicle actually operates on the structure.  There can be “light” railways such as the SRT, or full-blown subways, but in either case the lines are confined to an exclusive right-of-way.  This imposes costs and complexities wherever they are built.

The boundary between LRT and streetcar is not as clear-cut.  How exclusive is the right-of-way?  How much mixed-traffic operation does a route have?  How aggressive is the traffic signal priority?  Do passengers board through all doors?  How far apart are the stations?  How long are the vehicles or trains?  All of these issues and more produce a range of answers, and there is no magic point at which a light blinks on “LRT”.  That’s the strength of the technology — LRT does not have to be the same thing all the time on every metre of a route or a network.  The challenge is to strike a balance between the “light” and “rapid” parts of the name — exclusivity and speed versus the footprint a line can have in a street and neighbourhood.

The term “LRT” has been oversold in Toronto.  We have never seen something in the style of other Canadian LRT implementations in Edmonton or Calgary.  We lost that chance when the Scarborough LRT became the “RT”.  It’s still dubious whether we will see that route incorporated into an LRT network, or swallowed by a subway extension.

Toronto’s “LRT” routes run through downtown areas with frequent cross-streets where traffic signals grudgingly give priority to transit (but just as often serve to delay it).  They have slow on-board fare collection with high-floor cars and low-floor platforms.  They suffer a planning context where transit must fight to be acknowledged.

There is only so much road space and money to go around.  Subways make for flashy announcements and lots of work for the construction industry, but endless waits by riders whose trips are not served by the most recent subway extension. LRT lines (and busways while we’re on the subject) take space that would otherwise be used by motorists.  On some arterials, this space is available, but on many it is not (even VIVA’s BRT network is constrained in places by a narrow right-of-way).

LRT advocates have an uphill battle because Toronto’s version of this technology pleases few.  St. Clair was a disaster for “LRT” (and for transit in general) — there were too many design tradeoffs and construction was appallingly mismanaged.  Operations have improved over “the old days”, but still depend on keen route supervisors who actually manage the service rather than letting cars roam back and forth in packs taking generous layovers at terminals.  We may be rid of traffic congestion, but not the infamous TTC culture.

The political climate may shift back to one where we make announcements to appear to be “doing something”, even if that won’t bear fruit for a decade or more.  Such plans will serve only small parts of the GTA when finished (if ever), we will have yet another “lost generation” of transit investment.  Decisions about how to build, where to build, what to build are difficult and need more than an endless supply of magic markers, maps and press kits.

We have seen how a proposed LRT network suffered from funding cutbacks.  Major new revenue streams (tolls, regional taxes) cannot be implemented in the current political climate without a huge fight and an expenditure of political capital nobody seems willing to make today.

“The Big Move” could turn out to be little more than a modest expansion of GO Transit, busways, and a few rail lines of indeterminate technology within Toronto.  That’s not a network, and certainly not a recipe for convincing people that transit can offer an alternative to driving.  The challenge is to find a plan, a network, a quality of transit service that people are willing to pay for, however the money is raised.

LRT has a role as do full-blown subways and busways with each fitting into the mix under the right circumstances.  Advocates would do well to focus on the strength of each technology rather than trying to justify a full network of one option.  The goal is to improve and expand transit, not to prove that my subway is better than your streetcar.

Footnote:

Within James’ second article, the TTC is quoted as saying that ridership on the King car is 1,800 per hour.  It’s worth noting that the AM peak service is 30 cars/hour of which 7 trips are served by ALRVs.  The TTC’s service design capacity is 74 for CLRVs and 108 for ALRVs, and this gives a total for the route of about 2,450.  Crush capacity is higher.  A common complaint from riders is that they cannot get on, and this suggests that the demand cited by the TTC is rather lower than the actual level.

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Service Changes for November/December 2010 & January 2011

There are few changes in service planned for the remainder of 2010, but many improvements for January 2011.

Continuing riding increases on the TTC network will pose an early problem for the new Commission in that these service improvements are driven by loading standards.  If the Commission wishes to save money by reducing (worsening) the standard, then it will have to answer to riders for the effect this will have.  Service is the only thing that the TTC has to sell, and cutbacks, as we have seen before, are counterproductive.

Service on the 28A Davisville to Brick Works which operates only on Saturdays was planned to be dropped in October, but will continue operation through the winter to serve ongoing weekend activities at the Don Valley Brick Works.

Effective Sunday, November 21:

501 Queen: Weekend bus replacement from Dundas West Station to Long Branch will end, and streetcar service will resume 7 days/week west of Roncesvalles.

504 King Shuttle: The weekend shuttle service on Roncesvalles will revert to the weekday routing as through operation with the 501 shuttle will not be required.

49 Bloor West: Early morning service on Saturday will change from every 20 to every 24 minutes to improve reliability.  The average load will rise from 27 to 32 which remains below the service standard of 38.

145 Humber Bay Express: The Park Lawn short turn service will be extended to Mimico Avenue and Royal York to reach customers on Lake Shore west of Park Lawn.  There are no additional trips, but schedules will be adjusted to reflect the extra mileage and actual operating conditions on the route.

39 Finch East and 199 Finch Rocket: Early evening running times on weekdays will be increased to reflect actual operating conditions.

Standby buses scheduled at various divisions will be revised to reflect the additional need for service on weekends before Christmas.  Offsetting reductions will occur on weekday peak standbys.

165 Weston Road North: Seasonal service to Canada’s Wonderland ends.

Effective December 19, 2010:

504 King: Service will return to Roncesvalles Avenue.  The schedules to be operated are identical to those in effect in May 2009, and these will stay in effect until the January 2, 2011 schedule period when weekend service improvements that were made in September 2009 will also be included.

2010.12.19 King Service Comparison

Effective January 2, 2011:

Riding increases on many routes trigger additional service as shown in the table linked below.

2011.01.02 Service Changes

The Steeles East route will be extended into Morningside Heights.

2011.01.02 Steeles East Map