Tuesday, June 2 was a long day for members of Toronto Council’s Executive Committee. Many transportation issues were on the agenda including Union Station Revitalization, Western Waterfront Master Plan, Queen’s Quay redesign, and the Gardiner Expressway replacement EA.
As if that wasn’t enough, an open house for the Scarborough RT extension took me out for a ride on the Milner bus.
This transit blogging is harder than my pre-retirement work! Continue reading
Metrolinx has now released Part 2 of the Draft Environmental Report for the Georgetown South Service Expansion Project, and will hold a series of Open Houses over the next few weeks.
I will add more details to this post once I have a chance to digest several hundred pages of online information.
Updated 6:15 pm:
Mark Dowling sent along a note about a rather bizarre statement in the Metrolinx document:
Are Metrolinx trying to pull a fast one? Section 5.1.7 Page 204 (page 216 of the PDF):
“At present there are no electric double-deck commuter cars that can legally operate on North America railway lines.”
What would they call these then? Or has this fleet been retired by METRA since 02?
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Metra_Electric_train.jpg
- Link to the photo used in the Wikipedia article
In any case, nobody said they had to be EMUs, did they? (Although EMU would have its advantages, obviously).
It’s this sort of thing that makes one wonder about the accuracy of so much else Metrolinx produces, or of the (possibly unintentional) bias in their studies.
This article presents information on the proposed Waterfront West connection at Sunnyside and its relationship to the Waterfront West Master Plan, as well as the proposed design for the section west of Humber Loop.
Due to the article’s length, I have placed the break here. Continue reading
Disclaimer: Although I am the Vice-Chair of Toronto’s Union Station Revitalization Public Advisory Group, this article represents my own opinions, not necessarily those of USRPAG who have not had a chance to discuss this matter since the release of the report linked below.
On June 2, Toronto’s Executive Committee will consider a staff report recommending that the Union Station Revitalization project proceed at a total cost of $640-million. This project is dependent on funding approvals from Queen’s Park and Ottawa which are expected to materialize over the coming months. Continue reading
This week, the TTC announced that it has record ridership for the past twelve months of 470.8-million. This continues an upward trend from last year, and indicates that TTC demand may be insulated from the effects of the economic downturn. Possibly a shift from auto to transit riding is offsetting any reduction in employment or recreational traffic.
The Chief General Manager’s Report for the first quarter of 2009 notes that although ridership continues to grow, revenue is below budget. Why? More Metropasses were sold than expected in January-March, and this trend is continuing into the second quarter. The TTC had budgeted on a higher average fare-per-ride, and the more who travel with passes, the lower this average falls.
Rumours of budget related service cuts started to surface a few weeks ago, and one change effective June 21 is explicitly listed as being due to budget. (I will report on that in a separate post on June service changes.) This is an odd state of affairs considering that there is a buffer for service growth on the TTC”s budget, and there has been no report to the Commission of pending service cuts (or of deferred service improvements).
Moreover, in a separate report, the TTC plans to launch an ad campaign seeking organizations to be part of a Metropass Affinity Program where pass holders would receive discounts to products or events. The intention is, wait for it, to sell more Metropasses by making them even more attractive.
The TTC has a long-standing love-hate relationship with the Metropass going right back to its origins 29 years ago. Each pass is seen, by some, as a loss of revenue, a loss of individual fares that might otherwise be collected. Of course, a pass is also an incentive for users to ride the system and get all those “free” extra trips, exactly the sort of mindset an auto driver operates in every day.
Those 260,000 monthly pass holders are now responsible for over half of the adult trips on the TTC. Budgets and fare policies must recognize that there is a demand for flat rate purchase of transit services, and that this market will grow both through pricing incentives and improved service. Cutbacks because too many people buy passes are a laughable, but unfortunately predictable response to what should be a transit success story.
The TTC has been examining several possible sites for a new carhouse and shops to store and maintain the fleet of new streetcars. A status report appeared on the May 28 supplementary agenda, but this does not include the presentation materials.
Of the fourteen sites considered, only six, all in the Port Lands, were large enough to hold both the maintenance shops and storage space for cars.
Of these sites, the more northerly ones are most likely to be of greatest interest as they require the shortest connection to the existing system. Site number 1 immediately north of the Ashbridges Bay water treatment plant brings some local controversy because the space, although not formally parkland, is green space in the community.
Future plans call for retention of Russell and Roncesvalles carhouses. In the short term, these will be needed for the remaining ALRV and CLRV fleets. Longer term, they would require major changes or rebuilding to house cars from the new fleet.
Planning for the Eglinton LRT continues as described in a report at the May 28 Commission meeting. Major points in this report include:
The next round of public consultation including updated designs will occur in June. There will be six open houses between June 15 and 25 from 6:30 to 9:00 pm:
The TTC has confirmed that the Sheppard East LRT will come west into Don Mills Station rather than terminating at Consumers Road, but the design at Don Mills is still under review.
Just to recap from the previous article on this topic, the preferred design at Don Mills would have seen the LRT at the same level as the subway. The track layout would have given a staggered layout with the LRT pulling into a stub track that was cut into a lengthened subway platform (see illustration in the TTC report). The actual track and platform layout (not shown) would have had a second platform further back for use when the stub track was occupied.
This was an alternative to both of the layout options in the EA document (see pages 6 and 7 of part 2 of the EA Report). The first version shows a connection on the south side of the concourse level at Don Mills Station, while the second is at the same level as the subway.
For the concourse connection, it is important to note the relative position of the existing subway station and structures at its western end. From TTC staff, I have learned that there is a potential conflict between a fan shaft and a future north-south Don Mills LRT tunnel, but that the TTC believes this tunnel can be fitted in. Any junction between the Sheppard and Don Mills LRTs at concourse level must deal with this constraint.
For the subway level connection, the original scheme placed the LRT platform well east of the subway station, and created a long walking transfer for passengers. The revised design with the stub track cut into the subway platform shortens the distance by offsetting the LRT and subway tracks and reducing clearance requirements for buffer zones.
When Queen’s Park announced that the Sheppard East line would be through-routed via Don Mills to Finch, this completely changed the parameters for Don Mills Station. TTC staff are reviewing design options for this scheme, and it will likely place the LRT station at concourse level.
The discussion by Commissioners also included a desire that any designs for this first wave of LRT lines take into account integration with the second set of Transit City lines. At Don Mills, there is the obvious problem of how the station will operate once there is a Don Mills LRT providing through north-south service, and how combined Finch/Sheppard and Don Mills services will fit on the surface between Sheppard and Finch.
In response to modern fire safety codes, the TTC has an ongoing program to add secondary exits at many subway stations. Note that these must be completely separate paths out of the station. Two stairways leading to a common mezzanine count as one exit because a fire in the common area could block access to the surface from platform level.
As an example, the new exits at Broadview take a path up to the bus and streetcar loop that is not connected to the original path up to the main entrance.
Planning for most of the new exits had assumed that they would be “exit only” facilities as this makes them cheaper to build. However, access to stations is improved if these exits can also be entrances. To that end, changes are proposed for five stations.
Frankly, I can’t see why the TTC wouldn’t design second entrances (not just exits) right from the outset, and I hope that this will be the standard from now on.
According to today’s Star, Metrolinx will today announce the commencement of a study of electrification. Although this had been planned sometime in the future, the dates were vague depending on which report one read. Indeed, GO seemed to be leaning more to continued diesel operation with a mix of local and express trains rather than using inherently faster electric trains for all services.
This is a great victory for the Clean Train Coalition who will release “The Better Move”, a response to Metrolinx’ Regional Plan, “The Big Move”, at a press conference on Wednesday (May 27).
The West Toronto Chapter of the Professional Engineers of Ontario plans to set up a subcommittee to study the electrification issue, and will hold a meeting on the evening of May 27. Mike Sullivan from the Weston Community Coalition will be speaking. The meeting is open to the public, but pre-registration is required. For information, please see the PEO Chapter’s flyer.
Steve Munro 
