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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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Where Is The TTC’s Customer Liaison Panel? (Updated)

I have finally received a reply from the TTC to my query about the Customer Liaison Panel.  My original query went out on November 14, and I sent a follow-up on November 27.  Here, slightly edited, is a reply from Chris Upfold.

I don’t think you’ll be surprised that I don’t think they need to meet in public / have a web presence / etc. to be an effective consultative and steering body.

The model for ACAT is quite different. They are representing a particular part of society that, by their very nature, can have higher instances of social exclusion. For that very reason of social exclusion it is critical that a body like ACAT (for which I’m also responsible) have a public voice that can ensure they are heard above the general demands / wants of customers. The majority of our customers don’t need that same voice given they have the ability to feed back to us on a plethora of items in a multitude of ways – not least of which are our Town Halls and Meet the Managers.

The CLP meet on at least a monthly basis and have broad authority to ask the TTC to present to them on any initiatives or services. They’ve looked at route management for surface and subway, our complaints procedure, our communications plans, PRESTO plans, wayfinding, fare policies etc. etc. We also use them to give strategic and tactical feedback into options that we are looking at. They review some TTC Board papers at an early consultative stage so that the recommendations we are making are strong and supportable for customers.

Given that they do these things before they reach the public eye (or indeed are ready for the public eye) I think it’s absolutely necessary that they happen in private. As I say there is plenty of opportunity for customers to feed back in public. All of the members have signed NDA’s [Non-disclosure agreements] specifically for this reason.

I don’t think they need to “earn their keep in public” to have huge value for the TTC.

That’s all very nice, but the operative word in this group’s title is “Liaison”, and they can’t do much of that by meeting in private and reviewing management proposals, a privilege that may exceed even what is extended to some members of the TTC Board.  Without any public presence, they certainly cannot be spoken of as “representing” anyone.

When the Customer Service Advisory Panel proposed the formation of a liaison group, their recommendation was very heavily weighted to TTC management, unsurprising considering that the whole CSAP exercise was a big cheerleading session highjacked by management.  This is the same process that gave us more things riders had to do for the TTC, than the TTC had to do for its riders.

The site on which it was originally posted (ttcpanel.ca) no longer exists, but the report is available through an archive site.

Recommendation 1C: Customer Service Advisory Group

The TTC should institute a governance structure in order to ensure that the recommendations made by the CSAP, as well as future initiatives, are considered, implemented, and followed through to completion.

It is recommended that a Customer Service Advisory Group be created, consisting of:

  • 2-3 TTC Commissioners
  • 1-2 outside customer service specialists
  • The Chief General Manager of the TTC [now styled as the CEO]
  • The new Chief Customer Service Officer

Plus other appropriate members of the senior management staff.

In addition, this committee could include TTC employees and members of the public.

Quite clearly, the intent was for an internal panel to monitor and support the rollout of customer service improvements, and the public was very  much an afterthought.

By the time the CLP was actually constituted, the balance was completely changed with the majority of members coming from the public through an appointment process.  This might suggest a more public presence, but that’s not what we actually see.

The original article from November 29 follows the break below.

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TTC Harvey Shops Open House

The TTC has announced an Open House at Harvey Shops on Bathurst Street:

The Toronto Transit Commission is holding an open house at its historic Harvey Shop facility on Sat., Nov. 23 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. All proceeds from the open house will go to the United Way.

Located at the TTC’s Hillcrest Complex, 1138 Bathurst St., Harvey Shop is the major maintenance facility for the streetcar fleet and component manufacturer for subway cars and buses.

Visitors to the Harvey Shop open house can climb aboard the vintage PCC and Peter Witt streetcars, as well as the new low-floor accessible streetcar, the new 60-foot accessible articulated bus and the TTC Command bus. Volunteers will be on hand to provide a guided tour.

Admission is $5 for adults and $2 for children.

 

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TTC Board Meeting November 18, 2013 (Updated)

Updated November 19, 2013 at 2:00 pm:  The continued Board meeting will occur on Wednesday, November 20 at TTC Head Office in the old board room, 7th floor, 1900 Yonge Street above Davisville Station.

Updated November 18, 2013 at 10:20pm:  Because of the long special meeting of City Countil and the large number of people registered to give deputations at the TTC meeting, the Board was unable to complete its agenda today.  The meeting will resume on Wednesday, November 20 at 1:00 pm.

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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.

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Crosstown LRT Interchanges with the Yonge-University-Spadina Subway

The TTC meeting agenda for November 18 includes a report on the proposed designs for the connections at Eglinton and at Eglinton West Stations between the existing subway line and the Crosstown LRT now under construction.

Eglinton is a particularly complex station because the location is constrained by nearby buildings, the platform space is already at a premium with four existing links between the subway and mezzanine levels, and this is expected to be a busy transfer location.

Eglinton West is somewhat simpler in part because the existing station is offset from Eglinton Avenue and the link between the two stations will occur at the south end of the existing structure.

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Yonge Subway Shutdown Between Eglinton and St. Clair Postponed to 2016

TTC CEO Andy Byford has issued a letter to members of the Commission and to Council advising that a planned shutdown of the subway for major reconstruction in the vicinity of Davisville Station has been put off until 2016.  In the meantime, sufficient repairs will be done to keep trains moving at a reasonable speed through this section.

The underlying problem, quite literally, is that the foundation and drainage below the track have failed causing the track to be unstable.  The condition has been addressed off-and-on for a few years with slow orders, but this does not solve the problem.

This and other areas of the subway system with wood tie/stone ballast track will be 60 years old in 2014. This is well past the normal operating life for such systems.

Detailed investigations have determined that in addition to normal wear and tear, the area below the stone ballast and the associated subgrade drainage systems have both failed, allowing enough movement of the track system to cause abnormal track movement which, in turn, can cause the signal system to fail safe. Subway service in the area is safe, but reliability on our busiest line is not where it needs to be.

The TTC will have to dig down substantially below track level, and this is the sort of maintenance that cannot be carried out overnight of on a weekend.  The number of buses and operators needed to bridge this section of the line is well into the hundreds, and the TTC does not have these resources.  Short shutdowns may be attempted and these will be co-ordinated with other work in the same section of the route.

If ever there were a need to demonstrate that subways do not last 100 years, as some short-sighted advocates claim, this is a perfect example.  The Yonge line is now 60 years old and parts of it are showing their age.  Indeed, another  section at Lawrence Station also requires major repairs even though it is barely 40 years old.

Read the full memo.