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Metrolinx Board Wrapup for May 2010

The Metrolinx Board met on Wednesday, May 19 for an unusually long public session.  Rather than post separate articles, herewith a compendium report.  The major topics are:

  • The Board Speaks!
  • The Managing Director Reports
  • We Have A Vision, We Just Don’t Know What It Is Yet
  • Achieving 5 in 10, or Transit City Rescheduled
  • GO Rail Service Expansion Benefits Cases
  • A Question of Advocacy

The Board Speaks!

Probably the most astounding thing about this meeting, the first anniversary of the “new” Metrolinx, is that the Board members finally found their voices.  I was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to show some indication of earning their keep and actually asking hard questions of staff in public.  We’re not quite there yet, but at least the discussion gave an indication that the Board is thinking about its role.

As regular readers will know, I believe that organizations such as Metrolinx should be publicly accountable through an electoral process and through direct access to one’s representatives.  Boards that answer to nobody but the government which appointed them, and entertain no criticism from the public, can leave much to be desired.

To be fair to Metrolinx, even when it had a political board, much of the “public participation” was managed to achieve concensus with, more or less, what Metrolinx planned to do anyhow.  That other well-known transit board, the TTC, is elected, but has succumbed to the disease of being cheerleaders for the organization right-or-wrong.

Metrolinx has not had to actually do much (as opposed to GO Transit which was simply merged into its new “parent”), and we have yet to see how the Board and the Government will react if Metrolinx badly fouls up any of its projects.

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The Board of Trade Discovers Transit Funding

After years of howling that taxes in Toronto are too high, that no business would dream of locating here, that the Toronto economy is going down the tubes because politicians are not generous enough with their handouts, the business community has discovered transit funding as a major issue.

The Toronto Board of Trade published The Move Ahead:  Funding “The Big Move”, a document arguing that lack of infrastructure investment, specifically in transit, is a serious impediment to economic vitality in the Greater Toronto Area.  The Board’s report is based on a June 2008 Metrolinx report, but adds observations about the mechanics, implications and practicality of various revenue-generating measures, as well as examples of their use in other cities.

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Transit City: Half a Loaf? (Update 4)

Today, May 17, 2010, Metrolinx CEO Rob Prichard addressed the Toronto Board of Trade with an overview of plans for Transit City projects.  The presentation slides are available on the Metrolinx website.

The final transcript version of the accompanying speech is also available online.

Updated May 18 at 6:20pm : An updated version of the Metrolinx plan is now online.  This includes more information about the staging and cash flows for each of the five projects, and confirmation that Metrolinx will be ordering 182 LRVs for the four Transit City lines.

Queen’s Park announced the Ontario Budget in March 2010 including a $4-billion cut to the short-term funding for the “Big 5” Metrolinx projects — VIVA BRT, Sheppard East LRT, Eglinton LRT, Finch West LRT, and Scarborough RT to LRT conversion and extension.  This triggered a vigorous debate between Provincial and Municipal politicians about the real effect of the cut and the true extent of Provincial commitment to transit funding.

The primary concern at Queen’s Park is constraining the growth of the Provincial debt.  In the short term, the Metrolinx projects were seen as easy to shift into future years, beyond the point where debt would be a problem.  However, in political circles, deferral can mean outright cancellation especially if the government changes or another portfolio takes precedence for spending.

Only half of Transit City has any funding commitment to date, and now half of that commitment is in question.  Where does this leave the plan and, more generally, the growth of a robust transit network in the GTA?

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More Toronto Rockets for the TTC

At its meeting on May 6, the TTC approved two add-on orders of Toronto Rocket subway cars.

  • 21 6-car trainsets to replace the H-6 fleet
  • 10 6-car trainsets to provision the Spadina subway extension to Vaughan

The unit cost of the first 21 sets is approximately $15.1-million, while the remaining 10 will cost about $16.3-million each.

These orders will follow the current TR car production at Bombardier’s Thunder Bay plant allowing continuous production at a lower price than if a small Spadina-only order were to be placed closer to the opening date in 2015.

Once these trainsets are delivered, the Yonge-University-Spadina line will operate entirely with TR trains, and the T1 fleet will be shifted to the Bloor-Danforth line.  (The Sheppard line will continue to use T1 equipment that will likely be stored on the YUS, but serviced at Greenwood Carhouse.)

The TTC’s subway fleet plan, presented as part of the 2010-2014 Capital Budget, foresees an eventual fleet of 69 trains on the YUS calculated as follows:

  • Existing service is 48 trains (T1 equivalent)
  • Add 3 for extension of the short-turn operation to Glencairn
  • Add 5 for growth and closer headways with Automated Train Operation (ATO)
  • Add 9 for extension of the short-turn operation to Wilson (when the Vaughan extension opens)
  • Add 1 for growth in each of 2019 and 2020

This gives a total of 67 “T1” equivalent trains.  At this point, the calculation gets a bit murky, but the outcome is roughly the same.  The TTC deducts the extra capacity of the TR trainsets to reduce train requirements by 7, although this very capacity bump is often mentioned as one of the reasons for buying the TRs in the first place.  However, additional effective capacity will be available through the implementation of ATO.

The TTC talks about this in terms of station dwell time, but I believe this is a red herring.  Passenger loading times have nothing to do with ATO.  What will be possible, however, is for trains to operate at a higher speed on those parts of the line where stations are further apart, and this will not require complete re-engineering of the signal system as would have been the case for the existing block signals.  Faster trips mean that the same number of trains can operate on a shorter headway and, thereby, increase capacity.

After allowing for spares at 13%, the total fleet requirement is 69 trainsets and this is the combined size of the three TR orders now on the books.

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hotdocs 2010 Part I

Yes, readers, it’s that time of the year again when this site veers away from transit (although not completely) and turns to film reviews.

The annual hotdocs festival ran from April 29 to May 9.  Despite competition from concerts, a rather hectic transit/political environment and a birthday party (not mine), I managed to stay in festival mode most of the time.   My reviews will appear over the coming week.

Reviewed here:

  • The Oath
  • Dish: Women, Waitressing & the Art of Service
  • And Everything Is Going Fine
  • Osadné
  • Flawed
  • Small Wonders
  • Matthew Remembered
  • The Player
  • Farewell

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LRV Design Turns to the Public

The TTC has launched a new website devoted to the design of the new Toronto streetcars.  The video on the opening page is a bit cheezy, but the basic idea of the site is to solicit feedback from people about these cars.

I am sitting on a review panel for this process, and in our first meeting the common thread was that we all wanted to talk about more detail than was on offer.  It will be interesting to see what the general feedback is, and how much of it is reflected in the final design.

Meanwhile, Long Branch riders take note:  the graphic for this consultation shows a car signed “501 Long Branch”.  You will get new cars eventually, although they may not show up very often.

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Transit Village

Recent reports (here in the Star) show this week’s version of Transit City according to Queen’s Park.  Needless to say, this does not sit well with the folks at City Hall (Mayor Miller’s letter and comparison table).

Metrolinx claims that the City agreed with the proposed changes, but as David Miller makes quite clear in the letter linked above, this is not the case.  However, it appears that Metrolinx is getting mixed messages, one from the politicians and another from TTC staff.

This scheme is presented as the scaled down, what-we-will-do-now plan, and the construction timelines now reach out 10 years.  Although this is claimed to simply be building in ten years what was originally proposed for eight, this is actually a considerable cutback in the scope of the first phase of Transit City.  There is no indication of when, if ever, more of the plan will be built.

After the surgery, here’s what is left on the map:

  • Sheppard:  Cut back from Meadowvale to Conlins Road (the carhouse site), a relatively small change.
  • Scarborough RT:  Reconstruction is deferred until after the Pan Am Games (sumemr 2015).  Phase 1, as planned by the TTC, will proceed ending at Sheppard, but Phase 2 north to Malvern has no definite construction date.
  • Finch:  Cut back to run from Finch West Station at Keele to Humber College.
    • The section east of Yonge, an invention of Metrolinx in the 2009 funding announcement, deservedly fell off the plan. TTC never took this segment seriously.
    • West from Yonge was part of Metrolinx regional vision for cross-city travel, a vision that is much shorter than a few years ago.
  • Eglinton:  Once touted as a high speed regional link cross the city, this line will now end at Jane.  Although the option of an airport link is in “phase 2”, I suspect that the real agenda, long advocated by some at Metrolinx, may be to bring the Mississauga busway east via the Richview expressway corridor.  This would ensure that Eglinton could never provide the direct, cross-city regional link to the airport so trumpeted by Metrolinx, and would avoid threatening the premium fare air rail link with reasonably priced competition.

The real problem here is that funding “announcements” no longer have any meaning. There is no guarantee anything will be built, or whether the announced scope will actually match the as-built project.

The remants of Transit City, even if they are built, leave anomalies in the network.

  • Finch West is an isolated route with its own carhouse to support one line only slightly longer than than SRT.  Who knows when or if the Jane line (another user of the Finch carhouse) will ever connect Finch to the rest of the network?  I fear that Finch may never actually be started.
  • Sheppard does not include a potential extension south to UTSC.  This connection was openly discussed by folks at Metrolinx and the TTC as a way of serving the games site and giving the Sheppard line a substantial eastern destination.  However, it has disappeared from the plan even though it would be sensible and a worthwhile addition to TC.
  • On the SRT, riders must make do with current technology, although life (by way of second-hand Vancouver cars) might be breathed into it.  As you freeze on platforms for the next several winters, send cards of thanks to Queen’s Park.
  • Meanwhile, Malvern Town Centre gets no service at all.  This is quite a come-down from its original role as a major terminus.

The SRT Project

In related news, the TTC decided today to include the underground connection from the SRT to the Sheppard line (price premium $65m) as an alternative design in the project’s EA to placate the local community.  TTC did a poor job of presenting the surface LRT option and making it seem far worse (noise, vibration, sleepless nights) than is likely.  It fell to Vice-chair Joe Mihevc to champion TTC track technology, but the damage had been done.

I could not help comparing the warmth of reception and sensitivty to this neighbourhood’s concerns with the shabby treatment given to the Weston and Mt. Dennis deputations about the Eglinton line’s configuration at Black Creek and Weston Road.

One remaining uncertainty is the modification needed on the Sheppard LRT to provide for eventual construction of an underground connection to the SRT extension.

The TTC also discussed the mechanics of replacement bus service during the SRT reconstruction.  Staff claim this will require 70 buses/hour.  This shuttle and its service level trigger the need for a temporary terminal at Kennedy.  Nobody seems to have realized that if the SRT closes after Sheppard opens, some demand now funnelled to the SRT from north of 401 can be taken west to Don Mills via the Sheppard line.

Other Transit City Routes

No funding has been announced and no dates settled for the remaining Transit City routes:

  • Don Mills:  This route is tied up with discussions about a possible Downtown Relief Subway.  Where the money will come from to pay for any of this is unknown.
  • Jane, Scarborough-Malvern and Waterfront West are completely in limbo awaiting word on their position in the overall Metrolinx priority list.

There is no word on how Queen’s Park would fund the rest of The Big Move including these remaining Transit City lines, the second phases of the funded projects, or additional regional services.

The Lost Network

What we have lost with these cuts is the network view of transit.  Fragments of lines, only what we can squeeze out of the budget, will leave us with a disjointed network failing many of the original hopes and aims of Transit City.

Many other projects, part of the Metrolinx regional plan, are nowhere to be seen.

Unless sustained, substantial funding comes into play, we will be back to endless debates on one line at a time.

Dalton McGuinty could have been the transit Premier, but his focus has moved to other areas.  Transit City is only a shadow of the original scheme, and ongoing funding for TTC operations and maintenance are well below the level needed to run this large transit system.

Transit takes a long view, the determination to hold out through long economic and political cycles. How many more decades must we wait for real commitment to transit at Queen’s Park?

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How Many Cars Reach Long Branch? (Update 4)

Updated May 7, 2010 at 12:10 am:  On May 6, the TTC directed staff to report back to the June Commission meeting with further analysis of the Dundas West option for the Long Branch service.  With luck, this will give staff a chance to moderate their position and show real tradeoffs between the pros and cons of this proposal.

Updated May 6, 2010 at noon:  My presentation to the TTC is linked here for convenience.

Updated May 5, 2010 at 09:50 am:  By popular demand, charts sho wing the distribution of headways by length of hadway, time of day and date have been added. 

Updated May 4, 2010 at 12:45 pm:  Charts have been added showing the proportion of service reaching various locations on the route by date and time of day.

Updated May 3, 2010 at 11:30 am:  Comments and charts showing the headways on Lake Shore have been added.

As a follow-up to the question of splitting the Queen car back into separate routes with a dedicated service on Lake Shore Boulevard West, I crunched through the vehicle monitoring data for that route for October and November 2009.  These data were obtained to allow an analysis of the Dufferin/Broadview split operation, but I have been pre-occupied with other things and have not published any comments yet on what seemed to be a dead issue.

The analysis here looks at only one aspect of the route, the service on the west end of the 501 Queen line.

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The Queen Car is Fine as it Is, Thank You (Updated)

The TTC agenda for May 6 includes a report on the proposed restructuring of route 501 Queen in two optional ways:

  • Return to the old setup with a separate 507 Long Branch service west of Humber Loop, or
  • Operate a 507 service to Dundas West Station overlapping 501 Queen service between Humber and Roncesvalles.

Needless to say, TTC staff recommend against any changes.

The Humber option never made sense because:

  • The connection at Humber Loop is in an isolated location where passengers do not feel secure, especially at off hours, and
  • Short turns of 501 Queen cars at Sunnyside leave a gap in the route and cause highly unpredictable travel times for passengers trying to transfer between the 501 and 507 in either direction.

Since the construction of much new development on The Queensway, the provision of reliable service is more important than ever.

The Dundas West option is designed to address several problems, none of which are addressed by the TTC report:

  • Move the transfer point east from Humber Loop to Roncesvalles.
  • Provide additional service on The Queensway that is not affected by short-turns further east.
  • Provide additional service on Roncesvalles to partly compensate for the frequent short-turning of 504 King cars (once that route returns to its normal configuration).

The TTC report lists many favourable aspects of the 507 Dundas West option:

  • The restored 507 route would operate with CLRVs freeing up five ALRVs for use on the 504 King route.  This is the equivalent of adding 2.5 CLRVs worth of capacity to the 504 in the peak period, but no value is attached to this by the TTC.
  • Service would be improved between Humber and Roncesvalles, and between Queen and Bloor on Ronces.  This is stated relative to the scheduled service, but a good deal of this service never actually reaches the terminals especially when there are disruptions downtown.  Nearly 10,000 trips per day would benefit from these improvements.
  • A small number of trips between Lake Shore Blvd. and the Bloor/Dundas area would have one less transfer.
  • The TTC does not mention the benefit of reliable service on Lake Shore, the value this would have in reduced wait times for riders there, and increased riding that could result.

On the down side, the TTC claims:

  • About 2,500 trips per day that travel from points east of Roncesvalles to west of Humber Loop would be inconvenienced by this arrangement, an that about 300 rides per day would be lost due to this change.  When I first proposed the 507 Dundas West service, the scheme included improved service on the 508 specifically to preserve through trip options.  This was not included in the scheme the TTC reviewed.
  • There would be little benefit for the Neville-Humber service because the west end of the line is not a source of congestion and service disruption.  This is exactly the reason for splitting off the 507 service so that it can benefit from the relatively trouble-free environment.  Also, with the 501 service having shorter trips, operators would not be faced with interminable runs across the city before they get a break. 
  • The TTC claims that sharing the platform at Dundas West between the 504 and 507 services could cause delays similar to what happened when the Dundas and King routes shared a common track.  I beg to differ.  First, the 507 service is less frequent, and there is a runaround track available if a 507 is so early arriving at Dundas West that it would hold a King car from leaving.

After all of this, the report concludes that “overall, the change would make service better for customers”.

However, the TTC rejects the scheme because it is estimated to have a marginal cost of about $825k annually.  As mentioned above, they give no credit for the value of the additional capacity provided on the King line by reassignment of equipment nor for the ridership effect of more reliable service.  Indeed, the only ridership change the TTC cites is the potential loss of 300 rides per day from the loss of a transfer-free trip through Humber Loop.

In discussing the route’s history, the TTC states that the amalgamation in 1995 was intended to eliminate the transfer at Humber.  What they omit is that this change was made primarily to reduce operating costs.  The decline in service quality west of Humber has long been a complaint from the community, and it is a direct result of the restructuring coupled with general service cutbacks on streetcar routes through the 1990s.

The report includes a chart showing ridership declines on the route, and the TTC argues that the fall occurred before the routes were amalgamated due to declining employment.  The TTC neglects to mention a large cut in service on the Long Branch car in the early 1990s that drove away riding even before the route’s amalgamation with the Queen car.

An important note about the Long Branch route, something evident in a previous TTC report on the subject and to anyone who rides the line, is that there is considerable local demand that never gets east of Humber Loop.  Service that is managed (and short turned) on the basis of somewhat empty vehicles at Roncesvalles will short-change riders who don’t board until west of Humber.  This is particularly so during off-peak periods.

The TTC report is self-serving with selective analysis intended to put their preferred option, do nothing, in the best possible light.

At a minimum, the TTC needs to carry out a trial operation of the 507 Dundas West option following restorarion of streetcar service on Roncesvalles late in 2010.  This trial needs to run long enough to allow meaningful analysis.  A related service change should be improvement of the 508 Lake Shore route to provide more through peak period trips to and from downtown via King Street.