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Roncesvalles Redesign Public Meeting (Update 2)

Updated March 28: 

I have received reports from various sources that the recent public meetings on this project were a bit of a mess because the project’s representatives could not explain how their preferred option would work, and even supporters were left scratching their heads.  This option is explained, although not illustrated, by a post on the Roncesvalles Village BIA’s website.

The big problem is that the “new” scheme was so recently added to the mix that the project doesn’t have proper illustrations for it, only engineering plan views (looking straight down, in two dimensions, with no sense of how the street would actually work or look for people on it).  There is a somewhat clearer illustration on Bike Toronto’s site, although their drawing does not show clearly how the bike lane would ramp up to sidewalk level at transit stops.

Another surprise, lost in the shuffle, is that almost no parking will be eliminated by this plan.  Roncesvalles, unlike major streets such as St. Clair, has comparatively little traffic, and converting curb lane space to permanent parking and loading zones bounded by sidewalk “bump outs” won’t seriously affect traffic flow.

John Bowker of the BIA writes:

Torontoist is reporting broad opposition at the meeting to the City/TTC proposals. The truth is that the presentation was regrettably weak and unclear. The City and TTC even managed to confuse their own supporters. Many members of the supposedly angry crowd asking about the proposals were actually Roncesvalles Renewed members, all of whom support the pro-transit values underlying the concept proposals. Torontoist also falsely claims the sidewalk plan would eliminate right turn lanes, but anyway …

Lisa Rainford from the Bloor West Villager describes the meeting more accurately, emphasizing confusion over hostility.

The City/TTC presented a plan that reduces parking losses from 26% to eight percent – just 19 spots. And that’s during the day. During the evenings and on weekends, when loading zones are not in use, the plan reduces parking by less than five percent – a mere 11 spots. And the City and TTC were able to do this without affecting traffic flow or greatly altering the original vision of new and enhanced public spaces. This is incredibly good news (at least for businesses), and no one at the meeting even knew. This plan comes as close to having your cake and eating it too as anyone could have hoped.

Update 1, March 26:  The presentation boards and slides are now available on the project’s website.

The City of Toronto will hold a public meeting tonight to present the recommended design for the revitalization of Roncesvalles Avenue.

The meeting will be held

Monday March 23, 2009
6:00pm – 9:00pm (presentation at 7:00 pm)
Howard Jr Public School, 30 Marmaduke St.

Further information is available on the City’s project website and on the Roncesvalles Village website.

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Michael Ignatieff on Transit (Updated)

Updated:  Michael Ignatieff was on CBC’s Metro Morning yesterday (March 23) but, alas, the interview was not deemed worthy of a podcast.  Please see the comment from “Ed” dated today for a precis.  It appears that Ignatieff is still out of touch with the details of what Toronto actually needs.

Over the weekend, I received news from Michael Ignatieff’s “Town Hall” meeting in Halifax.  (For the benefit of foreign readers, Ignatieff is now the Leader of the Opposition in Ottawa, the Liberal Party.) 

Marcus Garnet sent an email to a Transport 2000 list, and this found its way to me.  Below are extracts. Continue reading →

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St. Clair Spring 2009 Update

When I contemplated a title for this article, I felt compelled to include the year simply because this project has gone on for, it seems, forever.  The Environmental Assessment started formally in September 2003.  Detailed community consultation on the approved project began in February 2005.  By way of an attempted legal derailing and reordering of project priorities, we come now to almost the last year of construction.  I say “almost” because the 2009 project will almost certainly spill over into 2010 if past experience is any evidence.

For the benefit of readers who don’t get a chance to visit the line regularly, here is the status as seen on a field trip by your interpid reporter yesterday, March 16. Continue reading →

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Watch Streetcars Live on Next Bus Beta

Next Bus has the TTC streetcar system up in a beta version on their site.

http://www.nextbus.com/predictor/publicMap.shtml?a=ttc&r=501

That link will take you to a display of the Queen car, although as I write this, no service appears to be running west of Humber Loop.  You can select other routes from a menu provided on the page.  Right now there is no Carlton service west of Bathurst or east of Broadview, Dundas cars are all east of Ossington.  Data for St. Clair is reported only for the streetcar portion east of Bathurst.

This is a trial.  Don’t complain to me if it doesn’t work.  That’s what trials are for.  Apparently there are still cars with no GPS units, and this causes problems.  Of course it is possible that the service really is that screwed up, but one quick cross-check is to compare the number of cars shown on the display with the number of runs that should be in service.  For example, the Bathurst route shows only two cars even though four are supposed to be in service at this hour.

The site requires that you have Java installed to use the live map feature.

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Fare By Distance? Not When It Suits GO (Updated)

Today, GO Transit implements a 25-cent across the board increase in all fares.  Writing in the Star, Tess Kalinowski reports displeasure among commuters who have been slapped with higher relative increases for short trips than for long ones.

This isn’t the first time GO increased fares disproportionately, but the cumulative effect sets a pattern.

One commuter who travels from Old Cummer to Union complained that:

… the flat-fare hike means riders who live in Toronto are subsidizing passengers travelling from places such as Hamilton and Barrie.

“Over the last five years, I’ve seen my fares go up 27 per cent. Somebody from Barrie has seen their rates go up 9 per cent, Oshawa 14 per cent, Hamilton 10 per cent,” he said.

In response, GO replies that many costs have nothing to do with how far someone travels:

Transit officials defended the increase, saying many of the system’s costs, such as snow removal, station improvements and communications, are fixed and have nothing to do with distance. They also worry about discouraging riders from farther afield by pricing them out of the system.

Strange, that argument.  It’s precisely the one for which I, among others, have been villified when suggesting a flat (or at least flatter) GTA-wide fare policy.  Long distance riders are subsidised with free parking, new make-work garage building, and proportionately lower fares relative to the resources they consume.  Why?  Because we don’t want them driving to and from work.  The costs — both physical to provide and maintain infrastructure, and social to consume so much land with unproductive roadways and a low-density lifestyle — are greater than what it takes to subsidise their commute by GO.

As regulars here know, I have a big problem with parking construction as an alternative to improved local feeder bus services.  This issue will only grow as GO becomes less of a peak period carrier and more of an all day regional rapid transit system.  That’s one of the many areas Metrolinx, in its less than infinite wisdom, chose to ignore.  We won’t have “Mobility Hubs” complete with soaring interiors and palm trees as Metrolinx envisions if stations are surrounded by parking garages, and those who cannot afford to dedicate a car to all-day storage at a GO lot will still be isolated from regional transit services.

Finally, those who advocate for fare-by-distance as a “benefit” of the “Presto!” card (or whatever technology is eventually adopted) should compare notes with the folks at GO for whom high costs for long trips are a very bad idea indeed.  Queen’s Park and its agencies don’t seem to have a consistent view of how we should price transit.  There is no perfect system, and all of them will distribute benefits and rewards inequitably.

Metrolinx could do everyone a big favour by looking at the impact of various options for fare structures, including the wider issues of local service funding and the broad social value of mobility for everyone.  Will they will have the fortitude to take on this issue (and revenue tools in general) rather than studying only infrastructure we may never be able to afford to build and operate?

Update 1, March 14 at 3:50 pm:  Andrew Salmons of Milton has created an online petition requesting not only a reversal of today’s increase, but a lowering of GO’s cost recovery ratio so that fares could be reduced.

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Waterfront East Surfaces At Last (Update 1)

Update 1, March 5:

The presentation materials from the CLC meeting on March 2 (discussed below) are now available online.  (Warning: 7.5MB file)

On March 2, I attended what is likely the final meeting of the Community Liaison Committee (CLC) for the Waterfront East LRT project.  Further discussion of this subject will now be consolidated with the Queen’s Quay redesign project.

The primary outstanding issue from our discussions going back a few years was the location and number of portals from the Bay Street tunnel to the eastern branch of the Harbourfront route.  Options involving a swing west into Harbour Street, down York Street or down Yonge Street were rejected in an earlier round as being impractical for various reasons involving available space and gradients needed to reach the surface within available city blocks.

Five options were studied in detail, of which one will be the recommended option going forward.  These options were:

  • Bay Street between Lake Shore and Harbour.  Under this option, the existing west portal and Queen’s Quay Station would be abandoned, and a new common surface stop would be created on Bay north of Queen’s Quay.  This option is physically constructible, but poses serious operational problems due to congestion of pedestrians, road and LRT traffic at the Bay & Queen’s Quay intersection.
  • Bay Street between Queen’s Quay and Harbour.  This option will not fit, physically, in the space available.  There is not enough room for tracks to rise to the surface to a “landing” before the special work for a surface intersection with Queen’s Quay.
  • Queen’s Quay between Bay and Yonge Streets.  In this option the portal would lie east of Bay and the stop would be just east of Yonge.  This scheme poses many problems because the road is constrained on both sides by existing buildings.  Access to these buildings, as well as the continuity of pedestrian and cycling areas planned for the street would be difficult or impossible.  This scheme is not viable.
  • Queen’s Quay between Yonge and Freeland Streets.  In this option, the line runs in tunnel to Yonge and then rises to street level just west of Freeland.  The station would be just east of Freeland.  This area has enough room to allow the Queen’s Quay design to be continued through the portal area, and has no adverse traffic impacts.  The Toronto Star building north of the proposed portal has no ground level retail that would be injured by the portal’s presence, and any new building on the south side can be designed for its environment.  This is the recommended option.
  • Queen’s Quay between Freeland and Cooper Streets.  In this option, the line would run in tunnel including an underground station at Yonge, and would rise in a portal in front of the Queen’s Quay LCBO.  The first surface stop would be near Jarvis Street.  This option was rejected primarily because of cost.

Initially, the line will be ended in a temporary loop near Parliament Street at a location to be determined.  A separate study is reviewing the redesign of the Don Mouth area including connection of the Cherry Street LRT through to hook up with the Queen’s Quay East line.

Construction of the new tunnel east from Bay will include modification of the existing structure under the intersection at Queen’s Quay so that a full “T” junction including a through east-west track can be installed.  This would allow a direct service linking the western and eastern waterfronts and on through to the Distillery District or the Port Lands.

The TTC also discussed the expansion of Union Station Loop, but their design has not changed noticeably for over a year.  Some fine tuning is required to bring their scheme into alignment with the proposed Union Station redevelopment plan and its new retail and GO concourses.

The first meeting of the consolidated LRT and Queen’s Quay Design CLCs will occur on March 11, and I expect to have more details on the overall scheme for the line in the larger context of the Queen’s Quay redesign project.

There will be a public drop in centre for these projects on Saturday March 28.  The final version of the Environmental Assessment for the Queen’s Quay East line will go to the TTC in May and to Council in July.  Assuming funding, the line would likely begin operating roughly in 2013.

I will post links to relevant documents as they appear online, as well as details of the drop in centre on March 28.

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Coming Soon

The past few weeks have been rather quiet for news, and I, along with half of Toronto, have been getting over a bad cold that dampened my enthusiasm for writing.

Very little of substance happened at the February TTC and Metrolinx meetings, and that’s why there was virtually nothing here about them.

Recently, I received the vehicle monitoring data for Queen and related routes for the months of December 2008 and January 2009, and I have just started to work on formatting it for analysis and comment.  This period includes some truly appalling weather, as well as different approaches to line management.  It also brings GPS location to the route (most of the time, most of the vehicles), and this has required some programming changes in the analysis software.  (The data are still quirky, but in a different way.)

I hope to start publishing articles based on these new data in a week or two.

Meanwhile, work by Waterfront Toronto and TTC on the Queen’s Quay east line has surfaced after a long hiatus, and I hope to report on updated plans for this project soon.

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Metrolinx Manages Public Participation

In today’s Globe and Mail, Jeff Gray has an article about the a Positioning and Communications Strategy dated July 10, 2008 from Metrolinx.  Gray had requested this document from Metrolinx via a Freedom of Information request, and what came back contained one deletion on its final page.

An uncensored copy of that page found its way to the Globe and Mail, and the missing text makes for interesting reading.  Under the heading “Consultation Process”, we find:

Our consultation period needs to be tightly structured and telescoped.  The last thing we need is for this to be highjacked by nimbies or local politicians on the make.  These should be mainly informational briefings.  We should salt the sessions with supporters.  An orgy of consultation will mire this in controversy and delay.

Metrolinx Chair Rob MacIsaac disavows this text saying “those are not my words” and that the paragraph in question was “something that I did not especially agree with”.

I will take MacIsaac at his word, but two critical points remain:

  • These may not be MacIsaac’s words, they are somebody’s or they wouldn’t have appeared in this paper.  They show a mindset bent not just on controlling and streamlining public participation, but of treating any criticism as a force to be neutralized rather than as constructive alternatives to the Gospel of Metrolinx.
  • The nature of the advice in this paragraph, although embarrassing, is no different in character from the sort of comments found throughout the document.  The text was severed on the ground that it was confidential advice to the government, an excuse that is transparently inappropriate.  The Privacy Commission has ruled on several occasions that embarrassment is not valid grounds for withholding information.  Who decided to sever this paragraph from the version sent to the Globe?  Did Rob MacIsaac participate in this decision?

Metrolinx public participation was, in fact, largely structured as information sessions with limited scope for meaningful input.  As the Regional Plan went through various drafts, some public, others private, there was a consistent sense that actually changing anything was almost impossible.

Critiques of demand projections and network structures were met with claims that it was too expensive and time consuming to look at alternatives even though (a) that’s what planning is all about and (b) more recently published Metrolinx studies show clearly that refinements continued to be made in the demand model and network layout.

Metrolinx professes a love of public participation, but their planning process is quite secretive and controlled.  Even the “public advisory committee” is subject to a gag agreement, and this group is expected to provide support for the RTP.  The last time I looked, “public advice” was public, and members of advisory bodies are free to dissent.  If Metrolinx wants trained seals, just hire more consultants.

The process of detailed benefits case analysis is conducted completely out of the public eye, and even when reports emerge, the data in them is too superficial to permit an analysis of how the results were calculated.

Quite recently, indeed, there has been a change in the methodology that causes the value of auto trips diverted to transit to be priced at a much higher level (compare the Scarborough RT and VIVA BCA reports) with the effect that the financial “benefit” of the transit investment appears greater than it might actually be.  This is the hallmark of an agency in a defensive mode trying to put the best possible face on its work.

Metrolinx could be doing a lot of good work, but this is undermined by its secrecy and its distrust of the very communities it serves.  If Metrolinx assumes that opponents are all nimbies or politicians “on the make” at Metrolinx’ expense, then it is short-changing the public.  Indeed, if the politicians on the Board are grandstanding when they don’t happen to agree with the Chair, this shows contempt for the foundations of the organization.

MacIsaac may not have written those words, but whoever did, and whoever approved hiding them from the Globe do not belong in the public service.

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The TTC “Crime Wave”

Recently, the local media have run low on things to sensationalize.  No governments are falling, the budget debate at City Hall is boring everyone to tears and we’re all in “wait and see” mode until Queen’s Park tells us just how broke they are at the end of March.

Into these doldrums fell a few stories that have been blown out of proportion:

  • January 22:  A shooting at Osgoode Station brought chaos to the afternoon rush hour and the first round of “is the TTC safe to ride” publicity.  In time, we learned that the shooter and victim knew each other, and the wanted suspect has turned himself in to police.
  • February 12:  A man was stabbed at Wilson Station.  No further details are available.
  • February 13:  At Dufferin Station, three teenagers were pushed from the platform in front of an incoming train.  One managed not to fall, the others dropped to track level and, through quick thinking, wound up under the platform overhang.  One of them sustained foot injuries from the train.  The assailant was pursued and captured by various passengers and TTC staff, and is now known to have mental problems that could be the root of his actions.
  • February 23:  A youth boarded the Ossington bus and was recognized by two passengers.  The youth was shot, non-fatally, and the incident continued outside on the street.  A weapon has been recovered, and it is clear that the parties involved know each other. 

These are all serious incidents, but they must be seen in the larger context of the city as a whole.  Violent crime happens in many places — shopping malls, car parks, dance clubs both downtown and suburban, even in the 905, although the Toronto media tend not to report such things unless the story is just too juicy to leave alone.

In two of the cases above, the parties were known to each other, in one case we have no information, and one case is clearly a disturbed person.  These events could have just as easily happened on the street such as the Dundas Square Boxing Day shooting in 2005.

Somehow, this has become a TTC Crime Wave.  One reporter (from CBC Radio) actually dredged up an incident where a girl riding on a bus had been hit by a stray bullet from an incident on the street nearby.  That’s not TTC crime, that’s street crime, and it shows how desperate some in the media are to manufacture a story.

At Queen’s Park, MPP Mike Colle, formerly Chair of the TTC, has introduced a Private Member’s Bill to make crimes on transit property subject to special penalties.  Already, several legal beagles have pointed out that this would be ultra vires (beyond provincial jurisdiction) because such crimes are federal matters under the Criminal Code.  However, it got Colle a “sparsely attended press conference” according to the Globe, and one short news cycle.

Violent crime in Toronto should not be ignored, but we risk wasting a lot of time demonizing the TTC as if it were inherently unsafe.  The TTC is a place where lots of people travel, and by extension events of all kinds will happen there.  Some types of activity may be deterred by cameras, at least for those criminals who understand or care that their actions are recorded for posterity.

This may contribute to TTC safety by pushing the violent crime elsewhere.  The larger benefit of monitoring applies to typical onboard crimes such as pickpocketing and “stealth” sexual assaults that exploit the crowded conditions on vehicles.

Finally, I am appalled by the complete lack of attention to the issue of mental health and whether the Dufferin Station incident may have been preventable not by platform doors, but by treatment of an existing condition.

Platform doors, bluntly, are a make-work project for the TTC.  The politicians can’t very well say that they are against them as it’s a motherhood issue.  However, we’ve now seen a back-back-burner project leap to the forefront, partly as a reinforcement for “we need automatic train control now”.  The TTC needs to be more responsible in its capital planning than hoping for an increase in “crime on the subway” to generate funding for its projects.

To the TTC’s credit, various spokepeople, notably Chief General Manager Gary Webster, have been quite measured in their response.  The rest of the TTC and Toronto’s media need a similar, responsible approach.

Jeff Gray in the Globe has an article with an overview of recent events.

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Is McGuinty Impatient With Metrolinx?

A story in last Sunday’s Toronto Sun claimed that Premier McGuinty is miffed at delays by municipal politicians that  get in the way of spending money on transit.  Reaction from sitting members of the Metrolinx board reads quite the opposite (both in that article and a followup piece), and my own take on the Board from personal observation is that they are getting on very well.  They would love to spend money if only Queen’s Park would actually let them.

The problem lies with the part-time chair, Rob MacIsaac, who doesn’t understand the difference between being a leader and being a dictator.  Some of the decisions have not gone his way, and major debates are still in progress on two large groups of projects:

  • Eglinton and Scarborough RT/LRT.  Before the draft regional plan even came out, MacIsaac plumped for an updated RT technology line along Eglinton in complete defiance of Toronto’s stated desire to build this route as LRT.  Moreover, Eglinton and Scarborough are pushed as one continuous route from Malvern to the airport.  MacIsaac was rightly criticised for jumping the gun on his own regional plan, but he wasn’t too happy about it.
  • Yonge Richmond Hill Subway.  This is a high priority project for many, but Toronto had the temerity to suggest that more was involved than just building more subway track.  There is the capacity of the existing line and its stations to take into account.

In both cases there are valid technical and planning arguments to be heard.  Some at Metrolinx seem to think the Regional Plan, which describes itself as a guideline, not as a cast-in-stone design, is inviolate and to question it is just about treasonous.  This is total hogwash.

Metrolinx screwed up badly in two ways.  First it conducted much of its planning in secret, despite a lot of pro forma public consultation, and changes to the general direction of the plan were not well received.  Second, Metrolinx has produced a network and associated demand model for 2031 that may work perfectly well provided that we built it all and the wheels don’t come off anywhere in the meantime.  What they did not look at is a “Plan B” in case we don’t have enough money, or even a staging exercise of how interim versions of the network will perform.

There are things to like and things deserving of valid, constructive criticism in the plan, but the word “NIMBY” is heard more and more these days as a catch-all epithet to drown out real debate.  This is unworthy of the plan and of the Premier’s goals with MoveOntario 2020.

The Sun reports:

But instead of a dragon slayer, there is growing concern that the Metrolinx board, dominated by municipal politicians, is enabling red tape, funding disputes, resident opposition and parochial decision-making.

Those who have expressed concern with the “consensus” goverance model include its chair and, sources tell Sun Media, Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Dalton McGuinty doesn’t sit in the meetings, and we have to assume that someone is whispering in his ear claiming all is not well in Metrolinxland.  Chair MacIsaac does, but his Board has a mind of its own.

Red tape?  Look no further than the byzantine approval process for projects that were already proposed by municipalities and annonced as part of MoveOntario. 

  • The TTC can study all it likes, but it’s on the City of Toronto’s dime unless Metrolinx feels the project is worthy of design funding.
  • Then we get a super-fast Transit EA, but it’s so fast that we have to do a lot of work before even officially starting it so that we have some idea of what we might be building.
  • Then we have to submit not only the EA, but also put up with the “Benefits Case Analysis”, a process that brings a bunch of dubious economic arguments to evaluating options for a line.  They sound good, but the intent is to wrap some quasi private sector value for money analysis around the project, and the methodology is open to question because so much underlying information is not published.  The BCA may completely overturn the results of the EA, or of other network plans, but there is no way to challenge it, much less review its content.
  • When the BCA doesn’t come out the way it is expected (see Scarborough RT BCA which actually supports conversion to LRT), we have to find some way to delay even further such as linking this with another project (the Eglinton line).
  • Construction is dependent on provincial budgetary decisions, even though MoveOntario was supposed to be financed with borrowed money and paid for after lines actually started to run.

Funding disputes?  Well, that’s no surprise given that the original $11.6-billion from MoveOntario assumed that Ottawa would kick in a 1/3 share and top up the pot to about $18-billion.  Fat chance, but it allowed McGuinty to announce a list of projects he couldn’t possibly pay for, never mind the inevitable inflation in projected costs for all of them.  When money is tight, politicians jockey for position in the queue.

Toronto isn’t trying to block the Richmond Hill subway, but there are many valid questions about the timing of various projects such as Richmond Hill GO improvements and alternative ways of adding to subway capacity.  The problem here is as much with TTC staff as with the politicians.  When Metrolinx own demand projections show that there may be a better set of projects that would accomplish all of the goals, and Toronto says “we think you should look at these options”, that’s not obstructionism, that’s trying to build the network in an optimal way.

Resident opposition?  That sounds like the Weston Corridor debate, something that has been largely outside of Metrolinx until the recent reassignment of the study from GO.

Parochial decision making?  The Metrolinx Board is a model of co-operation.  If anything, Metrolinx itself has failed to address funding concerns for local transit systems without which the regional plan is meaningless.  Local policians may be forgiven for wondering how they will pay for their share of the whole system.  That’s a policy problem from Queen’s Park, not the Board.

If the Premier’s has sleepless nights thanks to such a biased view of Metrolinx operation, it doesn’t say much for his ability to collect political intelligence.  On the other hand, if he has a private agenda requiring hands on management by his office, he should tell everyone what it is and stop pretending the regions have anything to do with transportation.  Wear the problems and the challenges, don’t just show up for the photo ops.

If the Sun article clearly reflects Rob MacIsaac’s view of his own Board, then he has some explaining to do.  “Leaders” don’t slag their own.  That part-time job at Mohawk College should become full time.

[For those who are just coming to this article, there is a long comment about the role of politicians and “professionals”.]