Streetcars

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My New Streetcar [Updated]

This has already been covered in other blogs such as spacing and Transit Toronto, but there are a few observations I want to add to others’ comments.

The TTC launched their public consultation for a new streetcar design (stop already folks — I know it’s a “Light Rail Vehicle”, but real people out there call them “streetcars”) at the last TTC meeting.  Information flyers appeared on TTC vehicles and a website sprang to life.  This is an excellent example of the sort of co-ordinated announcement that is possible when an organization actually thinks about getting its message out.

The TTC wants to show people examples of modern car designs and ask their input on what’s important for the fleet that will serve Toronto for many decades to come.  Bombardier has a partial Minneapolis car in town that will be on view at Dundas Square on Thursday, June 28 from noon to 8:00 pm.

Other public sessions (at this point it is uncertain whether the demo car will be on site) will be held at Finch Station (June 25), Scarborough Town Centre (June 26) and the Albion Centre (June 27).

[James Bow has advised that the mockup car will only be at Dundas Square, not the other locations.]

As someone who works at STC, I will be thrilled to see a display of possible new streetcars just outside the door (I can see the existing ones at Broadview Station from my living room), but it will be bittersweet.

The SRT line was supposed to be an LRT line originally and parts of it were engineered for that technology — the loop and the original low platform at Kennedy — and the signs at Kennedy even had LRT pictographs on them on opening day.  Instead we got an expensive orphan technology, and the planned extension to Malvern was never built.

The TTC studied the question of replacing the RT with LRT and their consultant, Richard Soberman, was clearly leaning to that conclusion at the public meetings.  Then something changed, and the idea of LRT conversion was presented in as negative light as possible.  With the recent funding change relieving the City of responsibility for capital spending on major lines like this, the decision on technology really is out of the City’s hands.  Nominally, it’s the GTTA’s decision, but I fear that the need to prop up the reputation of the technology will trump any other issues.

On Tuesday the 25th, we will have the irony of a display about new streetcars at a location they will never serve.

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MoveOntario 2020 [Updated]

The Ontario government is announcing a huge program of transit improvements and funding.  Details are available on the Premier’s website.

Note to those who come to this item after about 10:30 on June 15:  Many comments were posted earlier today before I had added my own review of the announcement.  They reflect the developing level of information (there are still some gaps) as well as some gentle urging that I get on with writing about this.

Whether it’s just an election promise or a real plan for transit improvements in southern Ontario, Queen’s Park’s announcement today raises the bar very high.  Not only will Ontario fund 2/3 of the cost of transit capital works, the sheer number of lines and services, including several nobody ever thought to see in print, sets this apart from all previous announcements.

There have been a few.  Continue reading →

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New Light Rail Vehicle Update

The TTC agenda for next week includes a report on the status of the new LRV project.

Seven companies expressed interest in bidding, although one dropped out.  They are:

  • AnsaldoBreda
  • Bombardier
  • Kinkisharyo (No longer participating)
  • Mytram
  • Siemens
  • Skoda
  • Vossioh-Kiepe

The TTC plans to include public participation in the evaluation of possible new cars.  This will include a website (presumably not designed by the wizards responsible for the existing one), and would-be vendors will be asked to provide a car for viewing.  I suspect that this will cull a few more from the list as the expense of bringing a car to Toronto is substantial, and only someone with deep pockets and a fair hope of winning the bid would undertake this.

The current plan is to award a contract in June 2008 with the prototype cars delivered in 2010.  Cynics among us will point out that this corresponds with the next municipal election cycle.

The nub of this issue is funding.  Council is pursuing a tri-partite arrangement with Queen’s Park and Ottawa, a scheme that could very well see this in limbo for years. 

We don’t have years.  The cars proposed here will only cover replacement of the existing fleet let alone expansion into new routes.  Maybe with our “new revenue tools”, Council will shoulder more of the cost locally and we will stop holding the transit system hostage to three-way political haggling.

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Preliminary Specs for New Streetcars

Tony Turrittin of Transport 2000 sent along a copy of a note explaining to potential bidders the kind of requirements that would appear in the specifications for new streetcars.  I am publishing it here to save on answering ongoing queries about what the TTC plans to do.  Note that this is a shortened version of the original text to retain the core information about the Commission’s technical requirements. Continue reading →

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The Plan for New Streetcars

Last week, the TTC adopted a plan for rejuvenation of the streetcar fleet that will see the first new cars on the street by 2011.  It’s taken a long time to get a plan that keeps everyone happy including the financial beagles, but this one seems to be acceptable to all.

Streetcar Fleet Plan January 2007

Note that the version here is a low-res PDF file so that readers don’t have to wait forever for the bigger version to dribble down the line. Continue reading →

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Always A Car In Sight (2)

Not long ago, I wrote about the changing level of service on the streetcar system over the past 50 years in Always A Car In Sight.  Just to recap, my intentions were threefold:

  • Show how much service was actually operated and how many people a network of streetcar lines could carry.  If this could be done in mixed traffic, then it certainly could be achieved with some form of reserved right-of-way.
  • Document the changing service levels especially since 1980 first as the TTC saw the heavy streetcar routes as an easy place to save money, and later where service levels threaten the attractiveness of transit service.
  • Demonstrate why the Bloor-Danforth subway is so different from current and recent subway schemes by virtue of the very heavy, established ridership in the corridor the Bloor line serves.

This produced a number of comments as you can see in the post, but a few other points have come up here and in other threads. Continue reading →

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New Streetcars Sooner, Not Later? (Updated)

[This item has been updated to correct some typos, and to add a concluding paragraph that I forgot to put in before publishing it.] 

Yesterday’s Toronto Sun reported that a proposal for 100 of the CLRVs to be refurbished by Bombardier’s Thunder Bay plant is on hold.  Some history is needed to put this in context.

For quite some time, the TTC has looked at new or refurbished streetcars.  New cars always seemed to have an astronomical price tag, but refurbishing was neither cheap nor a long-term option.

Any price quoted for a new streetcar, commonly $3- to $5-million per vehicle, provoked sticker shock.  Oddly, nobody ever mentioned the size of the vehicles in this discussion.  Given the TTC’s long anti-streetcar history (now mellowed to grudgingly accept that there is a place for LRT), the suspicious among us might think that this was a deliberate strategy to make streetcars look prohibitively expensive.

Current talk is for a $3-million car that will be larger even than an ALRV or subway car, and that’s not a bad price for a vehicle of that size (more about service impacts later).  If we can actually get new cars for that price, the comparison against a $1-million CLRV retrofit doesn’t look so bad (almost twice the car and at least double the lifespan for about three times the money). Continue reading →

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TTC Capital Budget: Where Will The Money Come From?

In between many screenings at the Film Festival, I took the opportunity to write up the TTC’s Capital Budget presentation from August 30.  The information here is a combination of the TTC staff presentation, remarks by Ted Tyndorf, Chief Planner for Toronto, and my own opinions.  This is intended mainly as a view of the most recent TTC thoughts on the subject. 

Here are the high points:

  • Expenditures on transit have been deferred over and over again, with most big-ticket attention going to a handful of subway lines.  This is not sustainable.
  • Population and ridership growth is happening faster than predicted, and significant investment in new and improved service is essential.
  • The goals of the Official Plan and Building a Transit City are not worth a penny if we are not going to invest in transit.
  • The TTC budget projections push some projects further into the future than is reasonable if we are going to lead population growth with transit, for example, the Transit First policy for the eastern waterfront. 
  • There is no provision for many new lines including the proposed LRT/BRT network in Scarborough or anything in the Don Mills corridor.

I will take up the issue of where we should go next with transit planning in a future post, likely over the weekend.  Meanwhile, the gory details. Continue reading →

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The Air Conditioned Streetcar

Car 4041 has been plying Spadina Avenue this week showing off a trial installation of air conditioning on a CLRV.  This morning when I went for a ride, the weather was moderately warm, not boiling, and it was fairly humid.  The car had a partial seated load as it was right behind its leader.

The A/C is nowhere near as aggressive as it is on some buses or on the T1 subway cars.  Moreover, depending on where you are in the car, you may not feel the effect at all because the cool air does not blow out evenly.  If the car were packed and/or if it were much hotter, I doubt that the unit would be able to keep up with the load.

This brings me to the question of having windows that open on air-conditioned vehicles.  Aside from the fact that on cooler days we could save energy by just letting air blow in from outside, if the A/C cannot keep up with the heat and humidity in the car, a sealed car would be even less comfortable than what we have now.

When I rode back north on a non-A/C car, I sat beside the open window and was actually cooler than I had been on 4041.

If this is an example of what we’ll get on new or rebuilt streetcars, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.