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Diesels, Not Hybrids, At Least For Now (Updated)

Updated October 23:  The TTC amended the staff recommendations by adding two clauses, roughly as follows:

  • The TTC should withhold award of the optional 120-bus add-on order for clean diesels with Daimler Buses until the problem with batteries on the existing fleet are resolved.  If this is not done, the TTC should go with an alternative supplier.
  • The TTC should investigate conversion of the 2009 bus puchase from Hybrid to Clean Diesel.  Staff should explore the options for contract termination as well as the impact of the technology change on funding from various sources.

It is unclear how the first point can be achieved given that the cutoff date for exercising the existing contract’s add-on provision is October 31, 2008.

At this point it is clear that the 2010 bus order will be diesel, and there is a strong move to convert the 2009 order as well notwithstanding possible advances in battery technology.

Continue reading →

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A Slightly Less Grand Plan

Ontario’s Finance Minister, Dwight Duncan, yesterday announced that the province will run a half-billion dollar deficit thanks to the international financial upheavals and declining economic outlook.  In this context, I spent the day at a Metrolinx “stakeholders’ meeting” where we discussed details of the Draft Regional Transportation Plan and Investment Strategy.  The whole discussion has a surreal air because nobody is quite sure where the billions to pay for this plan will come from.

There is reasonable agreement about the need for better transit, but much suspicion of whether this plan will join its predecessors on library shelves.

In the informal post-meeting chats, I was asked what I would do if the promissed $11.6-billion MoveOntario money didn’t materialize, if we had to cut back the scope of the “top priority” projects to fit a tighter budget.  This is too big an issue for a short chat, and it deserves a post of its own.

Any budgetary cutback discussion must first consider whether to make the “death of 1000 cuts” or to look hard at big ticket items.  If you need to defer or cut spending, there is more money to be found in large projects than small ones, but we may skip reviews of smaller items that really don’t belong at the top of the pile.

A major problem lies in the dearth of information Metrolinx has published about the detailed performance projections and roles of each component in the plan.  We have demand forecasts only for year 2031 where the combined effect of future job and population growth interact with a completed network.  The published data show only peak point counts, not the demands for each network link.  There is no way to understand which links are cost-effective, and there is no data for intermediate states (such as after the “first 15” are built) to show whether they are an appropriate use of whatever resources might be available.

Metrolinx must publish this information as soon as possible.  Meaningful discussions of cutbacks are impossible without it.

This brings me to the “Business Case Analyses” that are in progress already for some of these lines.  These analyses are proceeding in the old, worn-out style of looking at each project individually rather than collections of projects for their combined effect on the network.  From the 2031 projections, we can see that the regional express rail lines and other new major elements have a big impact on demand on the existing network.  Notably, the forecast overload of the subway system doesn’t materialize because there are other high-capacity lines where the demand can flow.

Meanwhile, the TTC’s report on the north Yonge extension to Richmond Hill raises an old, hare-brained scheme to add a third platform at Bloor-Yonge station for increased capacity.  I won’t go into a detailed discussion here beyond saying that this is horrendously complex and expensive, but at least the TTC finally recognizes that subway capacity involves more than new signalling and more trains. 

The real question, however, is whether the money would be better spent on alternate services to divert riding with new options for travel to the core area.  Should some projects — the Richmond Hill regional express and/or the east leg of the Downtown Relief subway — be moved up as alternatives or as key pre-requisites?  That’s the kind of comparative analysis Metrolinx and the TTC are not doing, but should.

Next we come to project phasing.  Do we really need a line all the way to Richmond Hill?  Is there a shorter “phase I” that will have significant benefits without the cost of the full line?  Analysis on an all-or-nothing basis doesn’t give us staging options.

We need to be open about “the untouchables”, the projects with political clout that soak up billions of dollars because someone wants to see them built.  There is no point in talking about fiscal restraint if billions in proposed spending can’t be reviewed.  A related question is how that “top 15” list came into existence in the first place. 

Some time ago, the Metrolinx Board approved this grab-bag as likely top candidates that should be analyzed in more detail.  However, that analysis isn’t even started for many of them, and there is every possibility that the analyses may show that some projects don’t pull their weight, at least in the short term.  I may be splitting hairs, but that “top 15” has gone from candidates for early study to the definitive list of first projects without benefit of formal approval.  If we are to have a spending review, we must stop assuming that this list has the force of detailed review and blessing.

Oddly, it’s almost an afterthought in the Draft RTP — Metrolinx doesn’t even include a map showing the network with only these lines completed.

The subway to Vaughan is a special case.  There is supposed to be a trust fund holding the funding from Queen’s Park, Ottawa, York Region and Toronto.  Is this money really sitting in a bank somewhere?  Does the provincial share come out of the $11.6-billion MoveOntario pot?  Can we step back and ask questions about why this line is so important?  For starters, someone has to reconcile demand projections in York Region’s own EA that would make the Sheppard subway look busy with the impetus to build this line.  Metrolinx does not break out the section north of Steeles as a separate project, and the published demand for the line gives only the peak point value (likely just north of Downsview Station).

The TTC is already studying alternatives to the SRT including LRT conversion of the existing line.  The original recommendation to keep Skytrain technology only made sense for a line that remained at its existing length or had a short extension.  The further north it goes (Markham is a mooted destination), the less practical and more expensive Skytrain is relative to LRT.  Keeping the RT was a bad recommendation skewed by a desire to preserve Bombardier’s showcase technology, and we cannot afford to avoid this debate.

On the Sheppard/Finch corridor, current thinking is headed toward an eastward extension of the Finch LRT to Don Mills (where it would connect to the Don Mills line) and a westward extension of the subway to Downsview.  These may be viable projects in the long term, but we have to consider them separately from the original Transit City proposals.  Indeed, the Don Mills LRT isn’t even in the “top 15”, and there isn’t much point building the Finch line east of Yonge until it has something to connect with.

At Finch Station, there are big problems with the bus terminal and with the design of a future LRT interchange.  What happens if the subway extension gets underway and much of the bus operation shifts north?

On Eglinton, a line whose projected peak ridership is similar to both of the subway extensions, but whose extent provides rapid transit service to a far larger area, we are faced with an expensive central tunneled section that cannot be avoided.  Indeed, the size of this project requires that it be started sooner rather than later so that its benefits as a key part of the overall network can be available.

In the Don Mills corridor, should the DRL end at Danforth or continue north to Eglinton with a major transit hub linking the Eglinton and Don Mills LRT lines to the DRL subway?  This won’t be part of the “top 15” list, but the Don Mills Transit City study would make a lot more sense if the TTC stopped trying to shoehorn an LRT right-of-way into Pape or Broadview.  That scheme (and related alignments) are holdovers from the days when this was a BRT study, and this nonsense has to stop.

On the Weston/Brampton rail corridor, why do we persist with the fantasy of the Toronto Air Rail Link (TARL, formerly called “Blue 22”) that will chew up track space for a premium fare service on the same route as a proposed regional express service to Brampton?  How much does the private sector-proponent of the line hope to make from this service?  Can they be bought off?  Is it cheaper to not build Blue 22 and devote the resources to upgrading GO in the same corridor?

What are the possibilities for the CPR North Toronto Subdivision?  What options do we have for cross-region service via this corridor especially as an alternative way for riders from the north-east to get into the city without using the RT/subway network?  Negotiating with CPR won’t be easy, but doing nothing may condemn us to building rapid transit capacity elsewhere we might not actually require.

If there is a common thread in all of this, it’s a simple message:  Metrolinx started off designing a network, and they must not lose sight of the network view of any solutions.  Look at revisions to the plan as a whole, look at where the benefits are greatest in the short term so that we spend what money is available on projects that will show real improvements for transit.

Toronto has decades of making wrong, expensive choices, and transit suffers a well-deserved reputation as an “also ran” thanks to those decisions.  Provincial belt-tightening is just the opportunity we need to focus on what really works, on what we really need.

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TTC’s October Supplementary Agenda

The supplementary agenda for this month has now been posted, and it contains some reports of interest.

At this point, I am only posting links here for information, but will comment on these after the meeting on October 23.

Queen Car Update:  No route changes at this time.  Continue attempts to improve line management.

Transit City Update

Yonge Subway Richmond Hill Extension

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TIFF 2008 Reviews (2)

Those who follow my Film Festival reviews will know that I have missed my personal deadline of Thanksgiving weekend by a long shot.  Now I’m hoping to be done by the end of October.

A great deal of transit-related activity has been getting in the way.

Two films that I saw at the festival have now opened in Toronto, and I am pushing their reviews out the door while they’re still vaguely current.

These are:

  • Religulous
  • Happy-Go-Lucky

Continue reading →

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Clean Subway Stations! Vintage Tiles!

The October TTC agenda includes a report on the Subway Station Appearance Improvement program.

Things are proceeding, but slowly.  One major change will come in stations that have/had ceiling slats over the track areas.  These are hard to clean, and it is simpler to remove them and spray paint the ceiling black.  A similar approach was taken on the walls of Union Station.

There is some irony in this tactic.  Originally, the ceilings were bare plaster, but this made for noisy stations.  Next came sound-absorbing foam, but it quickly turned dark thanks to the ever-present dust in the subway environment.  What to do?  Cover the foam with slats.  Now we have come almost full circle.

Where slats covered station ceilings, they will be removed to provide easy access to all of the conduits hiding underneath.  This will bring on a minimalist look in many locations.  Probably we could paint all of those conduits beautiful colours, but a few millions would be needed (via charitable donations of course) to grease the wheels, hire a prominent architect to select the paint chips, and then give us a half-finished project.  Nobody would think much about maintenance, but there would be a nice photo op.

Speaking of Museum Station, a similar tactic for the outside walls will be installed as a trial at St. Andrew.  An ilustration within the report (page 10) shows the process of removing the old slats.  What do we have underneath?  The original vitrolite tiles!  Catch them while you can!

Lest I appear to be unfairly carping about the TTC’s ability to look good while saving money, I must applaud the basic housecleaning practices they are using and hope that they will remain and improve, not fall victim to budget cuts.  However, we seem to be moving in the direction of dulling already functional, but not beautiful, stations down to a level of poverty.  As a temporary measure, this may do, but for the future, especially for new and rebuilt stations, we need to do better.

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Metrolinx Backgrounders: Where Will They Ride?

From October 20 to 30, Metrolinx will host a series of public meetings for those interested in commenting on the draft Regional Transportation Plan.  Four background papers are now available on the RTP page providing additional information about various aspects of the plan:

  • Climate Change and Energy Conservation
  • Transit Technologies
  • Modelling Methodology and Results
  • Mobility Hubs

This article deals primarily with the modelling of ridership, likely the most important of the four backgrounders because it shows how the proposed network is hoped to behave and the impact it will have on travel in the GTAH.

There are many caveats in this process set out in some detail in the report, and I won’t replicate them here beyond the standard warning that any model is only as good as the data it is fed, that the likelihood that the real world will match the modelled one falls off as we move into the future, and the basic fact that models cannot project the effects of changes beyond the range of known circumstances.  We know what changes are expected in population, jobs and housing fairly well for a 5 to 10 year horizon, but the 25 year view is hazy.  We know how people react to comparatively small changes in the relative cost of travel, but we don’t know what happens when changes are large and sudden.  Metrolinx is quite open about these problems, as anyone publishing modelled data should be, and it is important that we view the projected network behaviour in this light.

From my own point of view, there is a much more profound problem.  The only data shown in the backgrounder are for a completed network of routes in 2031.  If anything is certain about Metrolinx, it is that the proposed network will not all be built, and will not be built when or where today’s draft plan suggests.  The draft RTP itself acknowledges that this is a conceptual plan and is subject to change.

Moreover, the primary discussion today is about what will be done with the $11.6-billion of MoveOntario money we hope to see from Queen’s Park, plus, if the gods smile on us, an additional $6-million from Ottawa.  That’s less than half of the total cost of the RTP, and does not cover any costs for local transit systems such as ongoing maintenance, fleet expansion and service improvements.

Whatever is built, the work will happen in stages.  From a simple marketing viewpoint, if nothing else, it would be useful to know what the situation will be in five, ten, fifteen years as new routes come onstream.  Will the public (and the politicians who depend on that public for support of large public works like the RTP) see significant change in a meaningful timeframe?  What will we have to show for all the money we will spend?

Metrolinx already has a short list of projects to start immediately, in effect a seven-year plan, plus a fifteen-year plan in the RTP.  However, the backgrounder only shows the situation on a 25-year horizon. 

How much of the demand projected so far in the future comes from existing or soon-to-be trips, and how much depends on building or rebuilding that is decades off?  If we only look at the 25-year timeframe, we will see projections skewed by populations and jobs that won’t exist for at least a decade.

How will travel patterns behave when only a third or a half of the network is in place?  Will we have temporary crowding problems caused by an inapt (or inept) sequencing of projects?

The second major flaw lies in the presentation of the projected data.  The backgrounder gives us figures for the AM peak and the peak point on each line, but does not show the volumes on links within the network or even identify where the peak points are (although in many cases they are easy to guess).  Evaluation of proposed routes is difficult if we don’t know the contribution each link makes to the network as a whole, or the impact addition of a new route has on links in the existing system.  Decisions about project staging, how much of a new route should be built when, depend on knowing the time periods when each stage would be most effective for the region as a whole.

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TTC Website: Where Are The Planning Reports? (Updated)

With much fanfare, the TTC launched its new website earlier this year.  Improvements are coming soon, we are told, but meanwhile a goodly chunk of the old website has vanished, one that policy wonks like me and other readers of this blog find quite useful.

Yes, it’s the Service Planning page.  You can still read this page by using the search engine on the City of Toronto’s site and pulling up the cached copy of the page.  Don’t try the actual page or links within the cached copy because you will be redirected to the new site.  If you want to find something listed on that page, you will have to craft a search query and hope that there’s a cached copy of what you want.  Needless to say, any documents created after August 2008 are not linked here because that’s when maintenance on the old page stopped.

I have inquired about this situation, and the official story is that the TTC is working on making the old content accessible.  Meanwhile, the content is equally unavailable to everyone, and I am not quite sure that’s what is intended by “accessibility”.

The TTC seems quite content to publish its Commission Reports through the most primitive of interfaces rather than using the standard meeting and report format developed by the City Clerk’s office for its agendas.  This is really rather embarrassing, although at least they are no longer publishing documents that contained draft text and editorial comments, and there’s a fighting chance that the illustrations will actually show up.  Appendices and carry-in presentations to the Commission are still a challenge, however.

Sadly, this is one more example of a half-finished TTC project that starts with the best of intentions, but appears as if someone forgot about it along the way.

Updated October 11, 1:00 pm:  As a convenience to readers, the current TTC service summary is available on my site.  It’s a sad affair when the fans/advocates have to host official content because an organization can’t get its own act together.

TTC Service Summary Effective 2008-08-31