by

Stratford Reviewed (4): All’s Well That Ends Well

This week took me back to Stratford for a performance of All’s Well at the Festival Theatre.

The play turns on the premise that a country lass, Helena, orphan daughter a medical doctor of great renown, manages to save the King of France’s life using the most revered of her father’s potions.  For this, she is rewarded with her choice as husband of any man in the King’s power to command.  Of course, she picks the one real idiot, Bertram, a young lord who thinks she is far beneath him and not worthy of his attention.  Although the marriage is enforced by the King, Bertram is off to the wars in Italy, never to return until Helena can win the ring from his finger and carry his child, difficult feats at the best of times over long distances.  But it’s Shakespeare, and there’s always a way involving disguise, seduction and the wooing of the fool with his own ego.

There is much to like in this production directed by Marti Maraden who was briefly part of the troika of Stratford artistic directors who succeeded Richard Monette.  Much to like, but not to love.

Daniela Vlaskalic struck me as a rather one-dimensional Helena, and she doesn’t get to do much more than pine and plot.  Even the plotting depends as much on luck as skill, and one can’t help wondering how Helena managed to be in exactly the right place at the right time.  As the clever daughter of a doctor, one would expect her to show great skill and intelligence (I can’t help thinking by comparison with Kate in Shrew), but that’s not how Vlaskalic plays Helena.

Jeff Lillico as Bertram is saddled with an unsympathetic role from the outset.  He thinks he’s hot stuff even to the point of defying the King’s wishes (a chorus of “off with his head” would have ended the play rather too soon), and despite his behaviour, the King lets Bertram go off to war rather than settling down with his new wife.  When we see Bertram in his military guise, he’s a good if somewhat misguided leader with a friend, Parolles, whose swagger disguises a complete lack of military skill or daring.  Helena does manage to get both ring and child, and in the end Bertram is properly contrite.  He may be a lord, but it’s his generals who know what they are doing.  Fortunately, peace breaks out.

The real strength of this production lies elsewhere. 

Martha Henry is the Countess of Rossillion with the majesty that Henry can muster, but here muted both as Helena’s surrogate mother and as a friend of the King.  I can imagine Martha Henry eating poor Bertram alive for his impudence, but that’s not her role.

Brian Dennehy, in his first Shakespearean role (!), is the King of France.  He’s rather avuncular, and as we first see him, weary of those who cannot relieve his medical problems.  Once cured, there’s strength, but used sparingly.  I liked Dennehy’s reading of the part, although by the end of the performance he had slipped into a somewhat more natural delivery than suited his role.

Stephen Ouimette is Lord Lafew, the King’s right hand man.  He echoes Dennehy’s genteel manner, but tells us much of his private thoughts about other characters with looks rather than words.

Finally, Juan Chioran as Parolles the braggart is a delight.  He is completely full of himself, but easily undone after a mock capture by his own company.  Ever helpful to the “enemy” he quickly gives a complete and unflattering assessment of his compatriots.  This is a wonderful role for any actor, but it should not overshadow the rest of the play as it does here.

In all, this All’s Well took a while to get off the ground, and had delightful spots.  A production worth seeing if you’re in Stratford for something else, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it.

by

Finch West LRT Proposal

The information panels from the Finch West open houses are now online at the project’s website.

A few items of interest from the preliminary plans are:

  • Station designs for both Finch and Finch West stations
  • Design problems for the Highway 400 crossing
  • Options for the western terminal

At both subway stations the LRT will serve, one of the options will be an underground LRT station.  At Yonge Street, a few of the proposals seem a bit far-fetched especially a lengthy “around the block” arrangement that would encircle Finch Station with LRT trackage.

Something that needs to be remembered in whatever design the TTC chooses is the possibility the line will eventually be extended east on Finch.  An east-west alignment for the terminal as well as the capacity for a large volume of transfer movements with the subway are important, and my gut feeling is that the underground scheme will be chosen.

At Finch West Station, there are two main options:  surface or underground.  The surface option has two variants.  Either this would emulate the classic streetcar/subway interface such as we see downtown with passengers walking to sidewalk subway entrances, or there would be a centre platform with connections directly to the mezzanine level of the subway.  The latter is my preference.

The western terminus is not settled yet, but the Woodbine Live centre is certainly an extension option.  Totally absent from the panels is any discussion of an airport connection.  The possible alignment shows up on an overview of all transit studies, but as part of a Hydro corridor scheme. 

Finally, I must congratulate the TTC in finding a photo of an attractive substation, a lovely brick structure that would actually complement any neighbourhood rather than the dull bunkers we have seen in previous open houses.  Who knows?  Transit City may launch a whole new generation of “hummer houses”, a disappearing feature of the Toronto landscape.

by

Analysis of Route 39 Finch East: Part II — Monthly Views

In this post, I will review the behaviour of the Finch East route over the month of December 2006.  As I mentioned in Part I, the schedules have changed a bit since then, most notably in the extension of a frequent service to Neilson Road in the PM peak period.

First let’s look at where all the buses went outbound, and how well-spaced the service was.  This chart shows the destination of all buses eastbound from Victoria Park.  The horizontal spacing measures the headway at that location, and the vertical axis measures how far the bus actually went.  The ongoing problem with service reliability to Neilson Road is quite evident on all weekdays except for those when special schedules operated.

Destinations eastbound from Victoria Park

In this chart, any short turns at Seneca College have already been filtered out as they are west of the reference location.

On every weekday, the clustering of vehicles is evident and this even show up at times during periods of the supposedly 12 minute headway to Neilson Road. There is a variation in what I can only call the “texture” of the service from day to day, but the overall pattern is clear. When service is very frequent, close management is not generally needed as long as the overall scheme is maintained. However, as is evident, there are gaps and when these are on the less-frequently served part of the route, they can be quite large. Continue reading →

by

Analysis of Route 39 Finch East: Part I — Introduction

When I started the analysis of operations on various routes, I requested data for a number of suburban lines as well as the downtown streetcar routes.  Up until now, I have only published material on 29 Dufferin, but it’s worthwhile getting some of the other data out in view before it is completely stale.

The data in this series come from December 2006, but the conditions on Finch have not changed too much in the interim.  The service is not as complete a mess as we have seen on some of the major streetcar routes, but it is far from perfect.  It’s worthwhile looking at how a frequent bus route operates in conditions that should be generally favourable to transit service.

As I have done before, I will start with Christmas Day 2006 because this shows the basics including the route’s behaviour when there is no excessive passenger demand or traffic congestion.  For contrast, I will also present a weekday Friday, December 1, 2006. Continue reading →

by

Harbourfront Tunnel Slow Order

In a spectacular piece of bad timing, the TTC has instituted a slow order in the tunnel between Union and Queen’s Quay Stations for track repairs due to problems with the concrete.

One can’t help wondering why they didn’t find and fix whatever was wrong earlier this year when the line was closed down elsewhere.  Were they hoping to save this for next winter, but lost the gamble?

Meanwhile, operators have been directed as follows:

To all operators on the 509 and 510 routes, the following announcement should be read to your customers when entering the tunnel on the Harbourfront route and when leaving Union Station.  The announcement may help the customers understand the slow speeds required.

YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE:

SLOW VEHICLE OPERATION IS IN EFFECT WITHIN THE TUNNEL.  THEREFORE, IT WILL TAKE A FEW EXTRA MINUTES TO REACH

UNION STATION (INBOUND) (or)

QUEEN’S QUAY (OUTBOUND)

YOUR PATIENCE IS APPRECIATED.

The TTC’s website is silent on this situation.  Any added information would be appreciated.

by

A Scourge of Scratchitti

My daily commute gives me a chance to look at the SRT in all its glory.  Lately, I have noticed that there is either an explosive growth in scratchitti on SRT cars, or that the TTC has simply stopped replacing the glass.

I can’t remember the last time I was on a car that had none at all, and things have now developed to the point where there are layers with one tagger overwriting another.  This problem is also starting to show up on the subway and in some stations.

The TTC embarked on a station cleanliness program last year and it has shown some results (with notable exceptions), but my sense is that scratchitti is getting out of hand.

I would be interested in hearing reports from other parts of the system.  This sort of problem is symptomatic of an organization that may have given up trying, and the real worry is what other invisible maintenance is also left for another day.

by

Coming Soon

We’re in a slow news period for the next few weeks, and this is a good time to catch up on some unfinished business.

Way back when I started working on route analyses, I obtained data for several routes that have languished on my hard drive waiting to be transformed into beautiful charts.  Over the past few days, I have been working on 35 Finch East and expect to publish some of the results over the weekend.

Other routes for which I have unpublished data are Finch West, Don Mills, Victoria Park, Bathurst Bus, Carlton and Dundas.  Although this is for December 2006, TTC operations have not changed all that much, and it’s still worth looking at these routes.  I don’t expect to get through them all in August, but I’ll publish what I can.

Some of you may ask “doesn’t he have anything else to do now that it’s stopped raining?”  Well, yes, I wonder that too, but my sense of public duty [you can groan here] calls me back.  There’s another trip to Stratford coming up, concerts in Toronto, and planning for the Film Festival.  Don’t worry.  I will get out into the world now and then! 

by

How Many People Will Ride the Eglinton Line? (Updated)

[Update:  As promised, I have received the updated ridership projections TTC is using for Transit City.  They have been added in the body of this post.]

Recently, there has been a lot of ink about the technology choice for an Eglinton rapid transit line, whatever it may turn out to be.  Earlier this weekend, after a nagging period when I thought the ridership projections looked a bit off, I went back to the source material to check.

In the Globe article on July 24, Adam Giambrone says that the route’s projected 9,000 riders in the peak hour of the morning rush in 2021 don’t justify a subway.   Hmmm.  9,000 you say?

[This section has been updated.]

Let’s have a look at the original Transit City projections and the revised values now in use as part of the EAs in progress.  Original values are in parentheses.  Current values are for 2031 and reflect anticipated population and employment growth, although further refinements are possible as the EAs progress.

  • Eglinton:  5,000-5400 (4,700) (see below)
  • Scarborough-Malvern:  4,600-5000 (3,900)
  • Don Mills:  2,600-3000 (2,900)
  • Sheppard East:  3,000 (2,700)
  • Jane:  1,700-2,200 (2,700)
  • Finch West:  2,300-2,800 (2,300)
  • Waterfront West:  2,000-2,400 in 2021 (Taken from EA document) (2,200)

The revised values are current while the originals date from March 2007.

The Eglinton projections do not include Airport ridership.  However, traffic to Pearson will generally not co-incide with the peak time, location and direction and is unlikely to make much if any impact on the required level of service.

In the Sheppard EA, there is a note that peak ridership on a full Sheppard Subway to STC is projected to be about 5,000/hour versus 3,000 projected for the LRT east of Don Mills.  This appears to support arguments that a subway network will attract more riders, but the TTC also notes that the majority of the additional riders are merely diverted from other transit services.  What is unclear is the impact of less accessible transit service for local trips and the effect on transit usage and pedestrian amenities in the areas between subway stations.

If we look at the Eglinton projection of 5,400, we can expect that a full subway would attract more riders, but still well below the level needed to justify that level of capital investment, and still leaving the question of what other routes these riders might have used.

Even with revisions, none of the lines was expected to come anywhere near subway-level demand.  I am particular struck by the drop in the estimated demand on Jane which begs the question of whether it is an appropriate corridor for this technology.

[End of Update]

Eglinton is a particularly important case because it is at least two separate routes west and east of Yonge, and the demand accumulating at any point will be affected by what routes and services intersect it.  For example, as on the bus service, riding east of Eglinton West Station will be lower than to the west because many trips will transfer to the Spadina subway.  East of Yonge, the provision of an alternate, fast route to Danforth or further south via a Don Mills or Downtown Relief line will drain much load that would otherwise continue west to the Yonge Subway.

Many months ago, I asked Metrolinx to release the detailed ridership projections for each component and segment of their various “test case” networks.  I was assured that this information would be published concurrently with the draft Regional Transportation Plan.  Alas, that plan sits in limbo and will not appear until, at best, late September.  The modelling is for the test cases was done long ago, and there is no reason Metrolinx should keep the results secret. 

Of course, the numbers may not back up some of the plans people have for various rapid transit schemes, and the data could set off a debate about just what sort of network is really needed.

The last thing we need is a huge rush this fall to ram through a draft plan just so that Queen’s Park can announce something in time for the next election.  Given both the economic situation and the frosty reception from Ottawa to fund MoveOntario, let alone Metrolinx, the pressure to approve something, anything may have waned a tad.

Without question we need to spend more on transit, but let’s do so where and how it’s demonstrably needed rather than pre-announcing routes and technologies. 

by

Scarborough-Malvern and Finch West LRT EAs (Update 1)

The first round of public meetings for the Scarborough-Malvern line will be held on July 23rd and 24th.  Meetings for the Finch West line will follow on July 29th, August 6th and 7th.

Scarborough-Malvern Project Site

Finch West Project Site

Updated July 30:  The Scarborough-Malvern display panels are now available online.  Note that on Page 13 the peak ridership forecast is now 4,600 to 5,000 per hour.  This change from earlier estimates (3,900) I reported is due to the incorporation of updated population and employment projections, and the change to 2031 as the reference year to match the estimates in Metrolinx studies.

Various routes from Kingston Road north to Malvern via UofT Scarborough Campus are shown in the display.  The preferred route travels north on Morningside as far as Sheppard, then west (via shared trackage with the Sheppard East LRT), the north via Neilson to Malvern Town Centre.  The alignment would be generally in the middle of roads except possibly near UTSC depending on what design would best serve that campus.

The Finch West site now was a FAQ which gives a projected peak ridership for the line of 2,300 to 2,800 per hour.  The lower figure matches the earlier published 2021 estimate.  I am not sure if the two studies are drawing on the same source of ridership estimates, and I will follow this up with the planners.

by

Analysis of Route 512 St. Clair — Part 3: When Things Go Wrong

In this, the final installment of the St. Clair analysis, I will look at the problem of short turning, as well as the details of operations on some days when service was disrupted. 

Previous installments included full-month charts of headway and link time behaviour.  To start off here, the chart linked below shows the destinations and spacings of cars westbound from Yonge Street.  As in previous route analyses, the spacing between the vertical bars allows quick identification of headway irregularities, and the length of the bars shows how far the cars actually went on the line.

Westbound Destinations from Yonge

A few caveats in reading the charts:

  • Only cars (and buses) leaving Yonge Street westbound are shown.  If a westbound trip originated at St. Clair West Station, it is not included.
  • When I did the analysis, there were reference points at Bathurst and at Dufferin.  The short turn charts cannot distinguish between cars going only to Vaughan (and thence to Roncesvalles Carhouse) and those going to Oakwood because both points are in between the same pair of reference locations.  Reasonable assumptions about which destination applies can be based on the time of day when a westbound carhouse trip is likely, or not.  (This is a problem of my own creation by the choice of reference points and has nothing to do with the TTC’s data.)
  • Starting at about 11am on Friday, April 20 through Sunday, April 22, streetcar service operated between Yonge and St. Clair West Station with buses going further west.  A few trips show up on the “short turn charts” which were operated by buses that came through to Yonge Street and therefore were picked up in the westbound analysis.

Continue reading →