Vehicles

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Streetcar Fleet and Infrastructure Plans 2011

Plans for the ongoing replacement of streetcars and the allocation of new low floor light rail vehicles (LFLRVs) to routes are contained in the detailed papers for the 2011 TTC Capital Budget.  Also included are the five-year plans for track renewal and the overhead replacement/reconstruction project.

This information should be considered as preliminary, an indication of the type and scope of work the TTC plans to undertake.  Changes to the fleet plan and the rollout of new cars to streetcar routes will affect the infrastructure plans.

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The Ashbridge Carhouse Debate

At its recent meeting, the TTC approved two reports related to the Ashbridge Maintenance and Storage Facility (MSF for short).  One dealt with the removal of contaminated soil and capping of the site at Lake Shore and Leslie, while the other addressed various requests from the City’s Budget Committee regarding site access by streetcars and possible alternative locations for vehicle storage.

The Ashbridge site selection and the proposed route connecting it to the existing streetcar system have been the subject of much debate over the past few years.  The community holds strong, if not always consistent, views on the subject, and has been generally supported by their local Councillors.  As it happens, Leslie Street is a ward boundary with Councillor Fletcher to the west and Councillor McMahon (formerly Councillor and TTC Commissioner Bussin) to the east.

Throughout the process of site selection and design, there has been a sense that “the fix was in” for the Ashbridge property, although purely from the TTC’s viewpoint, it is probably the best site.  The debate, however, isn’t going away, and there were two hours of deputations on the subject at the Commission meeting.  (These preceded the six hours we dedicated souls spent on the proposed service reallocations.)

This article is an attempt to pull together various threads of the debate and comment on them.  For the record, I was not a party to the deputations, nor was I consulted by Councillor McMahon on the details of her proposal.

The City’s website for this project contains all of the background material.

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TTC 2011 Capital Budget

TTC management unveiled its Capital Budget and 10-year forecast on January 12 with a presentation to the Commission, and followed up with a presentation at the City’s Budget Committee on January 14.

Online information about the budget is incomplete.  More troubling, however, the “Blue Books” which contain the details of all capital projects have not yet even been issued to members of the Commission, let alone Councillors or, it would appear, the City’s Budget Analyst who is supposed to digest all of this on Council’s behalf.  Full consideration of the TTC budgets was held over to January 20 by the Budget Committee to await the Analyst’s Notes.

TTC Capital Budget Report

Appendix A: Ten Year Summary

Appendix B: Sources of Funding

Appendix C: Project “Packages” For New Funding Requests

Presentation to City Budget Committee (See Pages 49-70)

Meanwhile, the TTC presented a budget with previously unknown major capital projects and additions to existing ones, but with little explanation of why they are here.

Oddly enough, the City’s Executive Committee only yesterday was in turmoil over unexpected increases in the cost of hosting the Pan Am Games due to unplanned costs for soil remediation and the fact that the project estimate was in 2008 dollars.

The TTC would do well to understand that surprises in budgeting will not be warmly greeted by the City, and moreover that they can have a compounding effect of squeezing available funding for other projects.

In this article, I will give an overview of major points in the budget along with specific comments on a few major issues.  When the “Blue Books” become available (expected later this week) and I get a chance to review the full budget, I will write on major topics such as subway fleet planning and system expansion in detail.

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TTC Meeting Wrapup for December 15, 2010

[My apologies for the lateness of this post.  The last few days have seen a number of distractions and conflicts with blogging in my life, and I am just getting back to it “full time” now.]

The Commission meeting began with two unusual events.  One was a “motion without notice” by newly-minted Commissioner Palacio proposing that the Commission ask Queen’s Park to give the TTC “essential service” status.  (This was a procedural device requiring a 2/3 majority to permit for an “urgent” situation, although with the current Commission makeup, that sort of majority is easy to attain.)  After a brief debate and with only Commissioner Augimeri (the token non-Ford supporter on the Commission) opposed, the motion passed.  The “urgency” was caused by this item’s being up for debate on Council’s agenda for the following day based on a similar motion at Executive Committee earlier in the week.  I have commented on this issue separately.

The other event was an inaugural address by the new Chair, Karen Stintz.  (See Chair Stintz’ blog and scroll down to “My Priorities as TTC Chair”.)  There are four main aims, none of which is worked out in much detail.

  • Sharpen the client focus.  A troubling note here is that “clients” is read to include “funders”, and getting value for money is considered a matter of customer satisfaction.  I agree, although probably not as Chair Stintz would like, from the point of view that money well managed and spent can give us more and better service.  This runs headlong into the next point …
  • Realign transit expansion plans.  Chair Stintz takes the Ford party line that voters want underground transit, although she also wants to stay in line with the regional view of Metrolinx and the funding of state of good repair projects.  Voters may want underground transit, but whether we can afford it or need it in the larger context is quite another matter.
  • Invest every dollar wisely.  If I comment on this, I will start to repeat myself.
  • Embrace new ways of doing business.  This point is rather vague and the only concrete proposal is a change in the Commission’s composition.  The real problem, as we have discussed at length on this site before, is the question of who would be “qualified” and “appropriate” to sit on the TTC board, what their agendas might be, and which masters they really served.

I wish Chair Stintz well in a very difficult role in difficult times.  The TTC and the transit system is a large, complex organization, and its effect on the City of Toronto is greater and more long-lasting than most other agencies Councillors direct.  Collisions between being “pro transit” and being part of “Team Ford” are likely to come as soon as the 2011 budget process, and certainly as Council begins to look at planning for 2012 and beyond.

Union Station Second Platform & Concourse Improvements

This report, authorizing a contract for the construction work on this project, was approved, but not until after considerable questioning by Commissioner Minnan-Wong who is greatly perturbed by the increasing cost of the project.  How did it get from $90-million to $137m (not including work funded from various TTC facility improvement lines in the Capital Budget), and who was paying for the added cost?

The project is funded primarily by Waterfront Toronto which, in turn, has a nest egg contributed by the City, Queen’s Park and Ottawa in equal measure.  WFT agreed to fund the increased cost, and the money was redirected from the cancelled Front Street Extension project.  The cost increase comes mainly from changes in the design to accommodate the City’s own Union Station project as well as the complexity of rebuilding a major subway station while it remains in operation.

The project gets underway in January 2011.

Ashbridge’s Bay Maintenance Facility

This topic was the subject of several deputations by members of the Community and by area Councillors, as well as some debate among the Commissioners.  The primary issues raised were:

  • Why was the cost of site preparation not included in the original project budget?
  • Are there other properties owned by the TTC or by City agencies that could be used either in place of the proposed Ashbridge’s Bay site, or that could allow the TTC to shuffle existing uses among sites to free up space for the new streetcar yard elsewhere?
  • Is the land that would be used for the new facility needed for future expansion of the sewage treatment plant next door?

A few points are worth noting.

  • Any change in site would require a new Transit Project Assessment that would take the better part of a year to complete.
  • A site in New Toronto owned by the City’s agency Build Toronto was previously rejected by the TTC as being too small, although at 24 acres it exceeds the property requirements for a new facility.  The real issue here may be that Build Toronto hopes to reap $50-million from the site, considerably more than they would be paid, if anything, by the TTC.
  • The Lever site south of Eastern Avenue near Broadview was previously rejected for being partly unavailable, but that condition no longer applies.
  • The need for expanding the sewage treatment plant had been ruled out during the study for the Ashbridge’s Bay site, but in any event would require taking of the existing open space and berm which some local residents are defending against the TTC project.
  • The scope of work planned for existing carhouses keeps changing.  For example, a proposed expansion of Russell Carhouse to be used as a temporary facility for work on the prototype streetcars, and later as a major collision repair shops, has been dropped.  This work will now be done at Hillcrest in the bays used for maintaining the articulated streetcars (ALRVs).

TTC management will report back on these issues early in 2011.

Again, the question of project budgeting came up.  There is a still unsettled battle between TTC and City finance staff about whether the TTC can spend money on a project whose scope and cost have changed without first obtaining Council approval.  Because the TTC board delayed action on awarding this contract, the issue has not yet come to a head, but may do as part of the 2011 budget process.  A revised project scope for this facility will be included in the overall Capital Budget and this may, or may not, attract attention.  As I understand current Council policy, only if the revised scope is approved by Council through an updated budget would the TTC actually have the authority to proceed.

New Overhead Facility Lease

As I mentioned in the preview of this meeting’s agenda, management recommended that the Commission relocate its overhead maintenance crew to new quarters to be leased for five years.  This will allow for expansion of the crew to undertake major reconstruction of the streetcar overhead infrastructure.

This report was approved without comment.

Post Secondary Student Metropasses

A large crowd of students demonstrated on Nathan Phillips Square before the TTC meeting, and they moved into the Committee Room to support speakers on this issue.

The Commission decided that students in Private Career Colleges who have full time programs (defined as 20 or more hours/week) would be eligible for student metropass pricing.  This will come into effect probably for February 2011.  Other groups, notably students at Community Colleges, will be the subject of a separate report early in the new year.

Most interesting about this issue was the fact that the Commission made no attempt to dismiss the request on the grounds of budget constraints or equity with other riders.  This particular room full of students got an uncharacteristically warm reception from an agency whose usual response to requests for subsidies is “go elsewhere”.  The Commission (partly in their other role as Councillors) is spending the “surplus” in the TTC budget even though this may not last into 2011.  The presence of a well-known former politician as the legal counsel government relations consultant for the Ontario Association of Career Colleges may have had something to do with the success of this student appeal.

Transit Service Variety Village

After an impassioned deputation by Councillor Crawford, one of the new faces at City Council, and a staff presentation outlining the problems involved and the options available to serve Variety Village, the Commission decided to go forward with a staff proposal to increase the hours of service on the Variety Village Community Link bus so that instead of ending at 7:00 pm, the service will run until 10:00 pm.  Moreover, the frequency will be improved from hourly to half-hourly.  Both changes take effect in January 2011.

Unknown to most would-be riders, this service is available to any transit rider, not just to Wheel Trans users.  The combination of longer hours and better service are expected to improve riding on this route.  A report on the success of the improved service and on alternative ways to serve Variety Village will come forward no later than June 2011 with the intention that any changes would be implemented in September.

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TTC Meeting Preview — December 2010 (Updated)

Updated Dec. 11, 2010 at 2:20 pm: The section on the site remediation report for the proposed Ashbridges Bay carhouse has been updated to reflect a June 2010 report on a possible alternative site near Broadview and Eastern.

Original article from Dec. 10, 2010:

The new Toronto Transit Commission dominated by political supporters of Mayor Ford will hold its first substantive meeting on December 15, 2010.  Among items of interest on the agenda are:

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Forged in Steel

Over the past week, CBC’s Metro Morning looked at the relationship between Toronto and its streetcars, its transit system and the Provincial GO/Metrolinx system.

On Monday, Nov. 22, Matt Galloway spoke with a retired streetcar operator about the problems of sharing the road.

Mary Wiens’ series began on Nov. 23:

  1. Should we get rid of streetcars?
  2. What will the new streetcar fleet bring us?
  3. Crusty old engineer Ed Levy talks about a city that’s great at doing studies, but not so good at building.
  4. Leslie Woo talks about the relationship between Metrolinx and the TTC, briefly mentioning Transit City, but says nothing definitive (this episode will be available sometime on Nov. 26)

Little in these pieces will be new to regular readers here, but I wanted to alert those who don’t listen to Metro Morning (or are outside of its territory) of how Toronto’s top-rated morning show is handling this issue.

Streetcar routes are on the front line of a much bigger problem of improving transit service.  At a time when the political winds are shifting behind those who drive, and for whom transit is a necessary but expensive service used by others, the evolution of support for real transit improvements will be interesting to watch.

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The Future of Streetcars in Toronto

Correction Nov. 7, 2010: An error in the spreadsheet calculating the number of vehicles required for 501 Queen in 2020 (either Flexity streetcar or replacement bus) caused these numbers to be understated.  I have replaced the spreadsheets and modified the text in the article where appropriate.

The election of Rob Ford as Mayor of Toronto brought deep concerns to many about the future of transit as witnessed in the comment threads elsewhere on this site.  Much of this focussed on the existing streetcar network and the planned Transit City lines, but transit as a whole is a larger issue.

This article is not intended as the definitive defense of streetcars.  Indeed, the whole idea of “defending” them starts from a negative perception.  The challenge for those of us who see a future for streetcars and LRT is to advocate for them, for the role they can play in decades to come.  We also have to be honest about the tradeoffs.  No technology — buses, trolley buses, streetcars, LRT, subways, gondolas, dirigibles, even swan boats — is without its problems and limitations.  Pretending that any one of them is “the answer” is hopelessly shortsighted regardless of which one you might prefer.

The election brought a great deal of what I will politely call bovine effluent to the debate on the transit system, and many vital issues were simply ignored.  Nobody talked about fares, only about the technology to collect them.  Rapid transit networks were conceived to fit within funding that candidates thought could be available, rather than starting with the question “what do we need” and then addressing the cost and implementation.  Regional transit was ignored, except for occasional hopes that Metrolinx, that bastion of clear-headed thinking and far-reaching financial planning, would take at least part of the TTC off of our hands.

Transit City was the heart of much debate.  Whether your platform was “more of the same” or “Miller’s plans must be garbage”, campaigns ignored the fact that transit is much more than Transit City.

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Buses vs Streetcars: The View from the TTC

A recent Globe and Mail report explains how the TTC poured cold water on Rob Ford’s proposal to phase out streetcars and eliminate the Transit City LRT lines.  The details behind this article were posted on the City of Toronto’s website yesterday in the section dedicated to answering questions from candidates.  (Other TTC-related questions appear first, and readers should scroll down to the heading “Present Transit City Plans & Commitments”.)

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A Few Myths About Subway Capacity (Updated)

Updated October 18 at 10:15 am: A few comments about system reliability during bad weather have been added as a postscript to this article.

In a recent post, I wrote about the TTC’s Capital Budget and the projects that are creeping into view as the true cost of adding capacity to the subway becomes evident.

Once upon a time, the TTC was really worried about the capacity of Bloor-Yonge Station, and came up with a scheme to add a third central platform on the upper (Yonge) level, and possibly a second, eastbound platform on the lower (Bloor) level.  Interest in this project faded with the dwindling riding of the mid-1990s, but it never completely vanished.  Plans such as a Richmond Hill extension raised concerns about YUS capacity even before recent ridership growth took back the “surplus” capacity available for many years to hide the problem.

Independently of the third platform proposal, the TTC came up with a plan to add to the number of trains on the line.  If only they could convert to automatic train control (ATC), they could decrease the headway of trains and add to the line’s capacity.  In practice, what happened was that the TTC had to replace the existing, worn out signal system anyhow, but really wanted other governments to buy into the project.  At that point, ATC’s justification became not only the rejuvenation of the subway (a maintenance project), but a way to add capacity at lower cost than building a new line.

Of course, the trains the TTC was running, the H-series cars and the newer T1 fleet, are not equipped for ATC.  A retrofit of the T1 fleet is possible but expensive, and this drives a “need” for a completely new fleet simply to make use of ATC on the Yonge line.  In earlier fleet plans, the TTC treated the entire system as one pool and simply counted trains regardless of which type they might be.  Now, however, they need a “YUS” fleet that can run ATC and a “BD” fleet that will run with conventional manual controls.  (It is unclear what will happen if a BD train finds its way onto YUS trackage, say, for a diversion.)

With the recent, overdue arrival of the first TR train in Toronto, there were bold statements by the Mayor no less (although he was just parroting the TTC) about how these new cars would allow a 40% increase in subway capacity.  Well, yes, maybe, but there’s a catch.  Several catches, in fact.

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Toronto Rockets Are Here, But Not Rolling Yet

On October 14, Torontonians finally got a look at their new “Toronto Rocket” subway cars, although to do so they had to wade through a bevy of politicians and media.  Many stirring speeches were heard from all levels of government, and from the manufacturer, Bombardier.  Any mention of keeping jobs in Canada brought rousing applause.

The new cars have been some time coming going back to an order in 2006 that should have been on the rails last year.  Delays with suppliers are blamed, notably the doors.  One wonders why the contract wasn’t simply given to another supplier, or if other factors were involved leaving the doors as a handy scapegoat.

There are two striking features of these cars, one physical, and one technical:

  • From the passengers’ viewpoint, a six car trainset is one continuous space.  This will allow people to roam through the train to better distribute loads, and also frees up space used for mid-train cabs and car ends to become part of the passenger compartment.
  • From the technical point of view, not only are these trains equipped for Automatic Train Control, they are supposed to be much, much more reliable than their predecessors.  We shall see, given that the T1 cars were, themself, supposed to be a huge improvement over the H-series equipment they replaced.

For the next five months or so, the TTC will be testing its first sets of cars, and revenue service is expected in spring 2011.  Over the next four years, leading up to the Spadina Subway Extension opening in 2015 (itself not a sure thing), the H4, H5 and H6 equipment will be phased out of service, and much of the T1 fleet will shift to the Bloor-Danforth line.  (I will write about fleet planning in a separate article.)

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