Urban Affairs

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How Network Structure Matters — The Birth of the Grid in Toronto

Robert Wightman left an interesting comment that begins by linking to Jarrett Walker’s piece on Portland’s 30th anniversary of their grid-based transit network.

Toronto’s grid is almost a half-century old.  With it we avoided having the 60’s growth turn into the rambling sort of suburban transit system found so often in the 905.  Here is Robert’s comment:

Jarrett Walker has an interesting article on his web site about the 30th anniversary of the grid in Portland. Next September is the 50th anniversary of the TTC’s implementation of the suburban grid system in the then OUTER REACHES OF Toronto. Before that date if you wanted to go from Lawrence and Warden TO DON MILLS  AND LAWRENCE you took a bus (Pharmacy IIRC) to Luttrell Loop, the Bloor car to Pape and the Don Mills Bus to Lawrence. After that date is was a straight 10 to 12 minute ride instead of a 90 minutes sightseeing tour of Scarborough, Toronto, Leaside and North York.

I will bet that are not many at the TTC who realize what a monumental effect that decision had on the growth of transit usage in Toronto, especially the suburbs. This anniversary should not be forgotten and the people who were responsible should be honoured, probably posthumously unfortunately. The foresight and courage of these people to take a major risk and change all the suburban bus routes to form a cross city grid is a major factor in the TTC’s current success.

I have PDF files of the early 1963 and late ’63 ride guides and the difference in coverage is amazing. What is also noticeable IIRC is that the Sheppard bus ran from Dufferin to Warden or Kennedy, the Finch bus from Dufferin to Leslie or Don Mills. Most of the outer 416 was still farmland.

Maybe Steve could start a new thread on this topic and anyone who has any relevant information could add to it. The TTC should also play up this anniversary as it was a major game changer in Toronto and the planning should be remembered.

The grid is, of course, absolute poison to those who believe a transit system’s job is to take them from their front door radially to the subway system.  Even with our grid, the network is still very subway-centric looking at service quality for anyone who wants to travel around the suburbs.

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Looking Back: Services to the CNE

With all the recent talk about Ontario Place, and with Exhibition season almost upon us, I thought this would be a good excuse for photos of streetcar services to the Ex.  Decades ago, the CNE raised much bigger crowds and there was a time it really was a showcase, an “exhibition”.  I remember when the “Better Living Centre” was brand new, and its intent was to give fairgoers a look at all that was new and exciting in household goods.  The Internet didn’t exist yet, and the phenomenon of the shopping mall full of goods manufactured anywhere but here was in its infancy.

The TTC ran many streetcar services into the Ex over the years, and parades of cars would leave the grounds following the evening fireworks.  (Transit Toronto has a short history of the CNE services on its website.)

The photos here have been chosen not just for the fact that cars might be operating on Exhibition routes, but also for interesting details about what is, or is not, still in the city today. Continue reading →

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So You Want To Be A Transit Commissioner (Update 2)

Updated June 21, 2012 at 7:15 pm

Two media reports indicate that the City Clerk has taken umbrage at comments in this article, and I feel compelled to reply.  As a general note, my quarrel was primarily with the TTC’s representative, not with the Clerk’s staff.

From Inside Toronto:

Recent information sessions held for aspiring civilian TTC commissioners were always intended as informal drop-in sessions rather than organized meetings, said a spokesperson for the city on Wednesday.

Martin Herzog characterized the four sessions, two of which took place Tuesday in Scarborough and North York, as an opportunity for individuals interested in applying to join the TTC board to get further information about the application process.

Herzog was responding to criticism that emerged this week on how the sessions were run.

“The sessions were never designed to be meetings with formal presentations,” said Herzog, the city’s acting manager for governance structures and corporate performance. “There was no formula for this.”

And later:

Online criticism of the information sessions is completely inaccurate, said Herzog.

“There’s some stuff trickling around full of factual errors,” he said.

There are no “factual errors” in my article, and methinks the Clerk doth protest too much.  Whether it was the original intent or not, Monday’s “drop in” turned into a 90-minute Q&A with the TTC’s Vince Rodo that had no prepared content, but lots of remarks that left a bad taste in my mouth particularly when coupled with earlier comments from a member of Council who sits on the Civic Appointments Committee.

As I reported, the Clerk’s Office had prepared a briefing package for those who attended and it contained a great deal of well-organized material culled from the City’s website.

From NOW:

Joe Borowiec of the city manager’s office dismisses the suggestion the external headhunting process has made outreach to the general public redundant. He says Munro misunderstood the intent of the public sessions, and that they were intended to be drop-in sessions rather than formal meetings.

Borowiec says that the city manager’s office is required to open the process to the public and insists that that all applications will be taken seriously.

“There’s no reason why someone who walks in off the street and picks up a form would not be a successful applicant,” Borowiec says. “We’re not looking to limit it to only corporate directors. We’re looking to reach out and communicate with anybody and everybody out there because we don’t know where those possible candidates are.”

That’s not what Rodo (the seeker of “Barons of industry”)  said, and it’s not what the specifications for the job state.  If Council actually intends director-level experience as a “nice to have”, not a “must have”, then they need to say that explicitly in the job ad.

Meanwhile, in answer to all who have asked, I will not be applying.  Becoming a Commissioner would severely compromise my ability to comment independently and to interact with various agencies and my now-peers in the journalistic/blogging community.  Much more can be achieved as an independent external voice.

Continue reading →

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Looking Back: Moving House on a Grand Scale

March 31, 1972, brought an unusual sight to downtown Toronto.  An 1822 house, originally the home of Sir William Campbell, sixth Chief Justice of Upper Canada, moved from Adelaide and Frederick Streets in the old Town of York to its current site at Queen and University.  It was the Town’s oldest remaining building.  (Although The Grange behind the Art Gallery on Dundas Street dates from 1817, it was built out in the countryside, far from the few blocks of the original town.)  Campbell House sat in an area now booming with condo development and rejuvenated warehouses, but then a run-down district where an old house just got in the way of a parking lot expansion.

As I write this, we are celebrating Victoria Day weekend.  Victoria herself was only 3 when Campbell House was built.

Moving the house was quite a challenge as the following photographs show.

Looking back at these pictures, I was amazed at how close the crowd following the move was to the building. In these days of Health & Safety Officers (with liability lawyers in close pursuit), the crowd would be kept back for blocks.

Continue reading →

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A Look Back: Rail Grinder W28

There was a time when the TTC had a fleet of surface work cars:  rail grinders, flat cars, cranes, a sand car, snow ploughs and sweepers.  They’re all gone (a few survive in museums), and maintenance of the surface system uses much more prosaic vehicles.

My favourite was W28, originally Toronto Civic Railway 57, that operated as a rail grinder from 1955 until it was replaced with a PCC rail-grinding train in 1976.

As an early Easter gift to readers, here is a photo gallery of W28 from 1967-8.

Continue reading →

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Where Should We Go From Here?

Toronto Council’s vote to reconstitute the Toronto Transit Commission may give the new board a better political balance and break Mayor Ford’s stranglehold on transit policy, but that is only the beginning of the work facing our city.

First up will be the March 21 vote on the Sheppard East subway-vs-LRT issue.  Already, the Ford camp claims that it almost has the votes needed to spike the LRT scheme and forge ahead with subway plans.  Even if LRT prevails, a close margin could provide incentive for attempts to derail the project.  The “new” TTC will be in a tenuous position if the momentum of the governance vote does not continue through to the choice of technology.

The future of the TTC, its board and of transit in Toronto is much bigger than the Sheppard decision.  We have a “new” board, and later in 2012 it will grow by the addition of four “citizen” members.  What should this board be doing?

Continue reading →

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TTC Coup Planned for March 5 Council Meeting (Updated)

Updated Mar. 2, 2012 at 8:45pm:  It now appears that rather than proposing a slate of potential new Commissioners, the process will be to have open nominations from the floor and an election.

The Globe and Mail’s Kelly Grant reports that there will be a move by TTC Chair Karen Stintz and her supporters to unseat the Gang of Five responsible for the firing of Gary Webster at next week’s Council Meeting.

Updated:  Tess Kalinowski and Paul Maloney from the Star weigh in on the story.

The original “compromise” allegedly worked out with Mayor Ford for an updated TTC had been for an 11-member board with 5 “citizen” members and 6 Councillors, one of whom would be appointed as Chair by Council.  Any upheaval would wait until June after the choice of citizen members was completed.

Recent news from the Mayor, his brother Doug, and other supporters shows that “compromise” is the last word on their mind when it comes to transit planning.  In quick succession, recent days brought us proposals for new taxes and fees, development charges, a casino, a lottery and even a new set of toll expressways to allow Doug to get downtown without congestion.  Each of these schemes has been more outrageous, ill-considered, hare-brained and short-lived as its predecessor.

Clearly, the Fords’ policy brains-trust is spinning out of control in a desperate attempt to find any way to bring credibility to a Sheppard Subway funding plan.  A few Councillors are gullible enough (or still afraid enough of the Mayor) to go along with this charade, but we will see how all that works out at a special Council meeting of March 21.

Meanwhile, housecleaning now, not in June, is absolutely essential at the TTC to prevent the Commission from highjacking Council’s transit priorities.

Stintz now proposes to dissolve the existing Commission and replace it on an interim basis with seven Councillors.  Four citizen members with transit expertise (not, I fervently hope, the political hacks such as Gordon Chong who once graced that board with the dubious value of their presence) will be added in June once the search process completes.

The proposed new Commission would include current Chair Stintz, former Vice-Chair Mihevc, current Vice-Chair Milczyn, current Commissioners Augimeri and Parker, plus Councillors de Baeremaeker and Colle.  Only one of these, Milczyn, hails from the former Ford camp, and his position has been wavering.

Updated:  Although the procedure now appears to be nominations and votes from the floor, we can expect that Council will divide into two camps, and that serious lobbying will occur for the handful of swing votes in the “mushy middle”.

Procedurally, this is possible because a report discussing the makeup of the Commission is on the March 5 agenda.  Its original intent was to help Ford bolster his control of the board, but the timing has blown that scheme up in his face.  If the left-centre group on Council succeeds in ripping the TTC from Ford’s control, we can be sure to see more moves to box in the Mayor and strip him of powers granted by Council.

A vote to replace the Commission will also be a straw vote on the future of the Sheppard LRT and of LRT plans in general because to lose the TTC will be a major political and strategic blow to Mayor Ford with more to come.

Some may argue that this will give him exactly the platform he needs for re-election (“they won’t let me fulfill the mandate you voters gave me”), but that argument will only play to Ford’s dwindling base.  What Toronto, and any potential challenger to Ford, needs is a demonstration that Ford’s way is not the only option, and that the city can be a better place if run with a more progressive and collegial outlook at Council.

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“So are they all, all honourable men”

Rob Ford’s Gang of Five turned its knives today on Gary Webster, the much-respected Chief General Manager of the TTC.  At a special meeting called for the purpose of discussing “personnel matters”, the Commission thrashed out Webster’s future and, it is rumoured, that of other senior staff at the TTC.

After three hours in private session, the Commissioners emerged to confirm what had been decided, that Webster’s contract would be terminated in accordance with its “without cause” section.  Although we don’t know the details, this almost certainly means that Webster will earn not only his pay for the remainder of the contract, but a penalty payment for early termination.

The recently recruited Chief Operating Officer, Andy Byford, takes over as interim CGM, an utterly thankless task in the poisonous environment of City Hall.  Whether he will be chosen to replace Webster, or would even want to, remains to be seen.

The TTC will launch into a search for a new CGM, but no sane, let alone respectable senior manager from another transit agency will want a position whose primary role is to kiss the mayor’s ass.

Before the vote, some of the Commissioners spoke to the issue.  Maria Augimeri spoke passionately about the role of the Commission asking “who do you serve”.  Does the Commission exist as puppets of the mayor, or as a responsible body serving the citizens of Toronto?  John Parker spoke extremely briefly merely noting the words “without just cause”.  Both Augimeri and Parker would join Chair Karen Stintz and Vice-Chair Peter Milczyn in voting against the termination.

Ford’s minions — Frank Di Giorgio, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Norm Kelly, Vince Crisanti and Cesar Palacio — could have kept their mouths shut, but no politician can resist a chance for a sanctimonious speech.

Di Giorgio talked about the relationship between previous mayors and CGMs noting that both David Gunn and Rick Ducharme had left under strained relationships with past administrations.  What he neglected to mention was that Webster was threatened not by a professional disagreement, but by Mayor Ford’s mistaken belief that staff owe him a personal allegiance supporting whatever position he might take.  Di Giorgio actually said that excellence in a CGM means the ability to perform tasks set by the leader of the city, by the Mayor.

That’s not how professional staffs work in Canada, and indeed this concept violates both Council’s code of ethics (which provides that staff work for all members of Council without favour) and the Professional Engineer’s code that regards tailoring advice to suit the opinion of the hearer, rather than facts and the professional opinion of the engineer, as a form of misconduct.

Norm Kelly praised Webster, but tempered this by saying that his good deeds lay in the past, while the TTC needs someone to “lead us into the future”.  That will be a very dark future if this decision stands without a change in TTC governance.

In the best tradition of stories with black-hatted villains, there were boos, hissing and calls of “shame” from the public.  This is the most disgusting example of political manipulation, of abuse of power, that I have seen in 40 years of TTC and Council-watching.  Toronto is soiled by this action.

Council now faces the task of bringing Mayor Ford and his lackeys to heel, of driving home the basic fact that power rests with Council, not the Mayor no matter how delusional he or his toadies may be in thinking him Rob the First, The Great and Powerful.

The next opportunity will come at the Council Meeting of March 5-6 when a proposed change in the makeup of the Transit Commission, recently passed by the Ford-dominated Executive Committee, comes to Council for discussion.  The outcome may not be to Ford’s liking.  His actions, the moves of a spoiled child, a bully who cannot stand losing a fight, will only harden opposition to his reign.  Council can and should act to strip the TTC of Ford allies, especially the five responsible for Webster’s dismissal.  There will be no transit progress in Toronto while a tinpot potentate interferes with the execution of Council’s will, strangles the transit system for funding and service, while promising subways he and the City cannot possibly afford to build.

[The title of this article is from Marc Antony’s speech from Julius Ceasar, Act III, Scene 2, in which he mocks Caesar’s assassins and their dubious self-justification.]

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TTC Board May Try To Fire Chief General Manager

The Toronto Star reports that a special meeting of the TTC Board has been called for February 21 to consider the firing of Chief General Manager Gary Webster.

In a clear retaliation against the block of Council who endorsed an LRT plan for Toronto, the block of Commissioners dominated by Mayor Ford have called for this special meeting using a procedure similar to the one used by Karen Stintz and her allies to call a special Council meeting on the LRT plans.

If correct, this will be a clear retaliation against TTC’s Chief General Manager Gary Webster who has spoken against proposals for expansion of the subway network, and by extension against Stintz who has defended Webster from previous attacks by the Ford administration.

From the viewpoint of political strategy, now is the time for Council to hold yet another special meeting to seize control of the Transit Commission.  This could be done either by prematurely ending the terms of sitting members, or by increasing the size of the Commission and diluting Ford’s influence with enough extra members to ensure a majority that represented the broader view of Council rather than of the Mayor.

Will Council make such a move, or will they sit on their hands?  This is the first challenge, but certainly not the last, in taming Mayor Ford’s control of the City’s agencies.