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Route 501 Queen in December/January 2007/08 (Part 2: East vs West)

In the previous post, I presented the information about the destinations of cars on 501 Queen with details over the month.  One issue right at the end of that post was the eternal east-vs-west debate:

Does the Beach get more service than High Park?  Are more cars short-turned in the west end than the east end to keep the Beachers happy?

Although there appears to be some indication this might have developed in late January, overall the level of short-turning is quite bad at both ends of the line, usually in equal measure. Continue reading →

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Route 501 Queen in December/January 2007/08 (Part 1: Short Turns)

In anticipation of a TTC report on measures to improve service on the Queen car, there will be a series of posts here over the Victoria Day weekend.  These will review data for December 2007 and January 2008 on 501 Queen and related routes.

I am going to take a different approach in the sequence of articles from earlier rounds.  In those analyses, I began with the graphic timetables of route operations showing first Christmas Day 2006 and then moving on to other days of interest.  Later came Headway and Link Time analyses for individual days, and later for the month as a whole.  Finally came charts showing the short-turning and service reliability as seen outbound from Yonge Street.

In practice, now that this entire process is fairly well understood (at least by me), I am going to turn things around and work “backwards” from the monthly charts to specific days.  The monthly summaries reveal days and locations where interesting events or practices might be found, and of course they also show the overall pattern of transit service.

I have made some changes in the charts both to make the headings “friendlier”, and I plan to standardize on the filenames I used for the linked PDFs.  (Really!  I promise!)  Some of the changes that readers have asked for will not be found in this version such as expanding the daily graphs to have more per day (and hence fewer hours per page).  This is a tradeoff between having charts that are too busy and spreading peaks over multiple pages.  Also, I have deliberately kept the pages in letter size format so that people can print them without having legal sized paper.

For this first set of comments, here are the charts of vehicle destinations outbound from Yonge Street.

December 2007 Westbound to Humber and Long Branch

December 2007 Eastbound to Neville

January 2008 Westbound to Humber and Long Branch

January 2008 Eastbound to Neville

These take some explaining, but they provide a lot of information. Continue reading →

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Station Redesign for Pape and Islington

The TTC agenda for May 21 includes full PDF versions of the reports on the planned redesign of Pape and Islington stations.

The file for Pape Station is about 5.5MB, while the one for Islington Station is about 2.8MB.  A notable change at Islington is the disappearance of the proposed SNC-Lavalin building on the former bus loop site, although this remains available for development.

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Subway Entrance Identification (Update 2)

In an unusual move, the full version of a report (almost a 70MB PDF) of a design charrette on entrance identification is available on the TTC’s report website.  If you want it, grab it while it’s still there as this situation may not be permanent.

I will add comments here after I have a chance to digest it.

Update 1:  I got all the way down to the last page after the file downloaded, and there was a pair of photos of the existing sign at Osgoode Station and a proposed replacement.  The “new” one looked terribly familiar.

A quick visit to the City Archives confirmed my worst fears:

You can see a sign that looks remarkably similar at the opening of the Yonge Subway in 1954, or at the opening of the University line in 1963.

Here is the original entrance on the south side of Bloor east of Yonge.

The old signs used the shape of the TTC flying keystone (the wings were added for the “Rapid Transit” image to the original 1921 design), and this was simplified to make the signs cheaper to build and maintain by the time the Bloor line opened in 1966. The main differences between the 1954 and the 2008 versions are the use of the “modern” TTC colours in 2008, and the absence of the word “SUBWAY” across the wings of the sign.

Update 2: As a public service, I have put a condensed version (1.3MB) of the TTC’s file on my site.

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Why “Professionals” Didn’t Design Transit City

Now and then, word reaches me that some of the professional transit folk in these parts have their noses out of joint because Transit City wasn’t designed by their elite brotherhood.

Some of them want more subways.

Some of them want more Bus Rapid Transit.

Some of them think the lines are in the wrong place.

Well, I hate to disappoint them, but Transit City didn’t get designed to their liking for some very good reasons. Continue reading →

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Metrolinx White Papers Available for Review

The official version of the Metrolinx White Papers 1 and 2 are now available for review and comment. 

For those who read the draft versions in the agenda of the April 25 Board Meeting, the major change lies in the addition of appendices discussing alternative test cases and the challenges of achieving the Ontario targets for reduced environmental impact of the transportation network.

Appendix E reviews two alternatives to the test cases already discussed.

  • Model B2 starts with the original “radial” network, but adds six major highways highways plus a ten percent increase in regional arterial capacity through road widenings in the 905.  It is also based on the land use scheme from the “linear” network because the population densities of the radial and web schemes would overwhelm the road capacity in the 905.  More about that later.
  • Model C2 starts with the original “web” network , but omits planned provincial and municipal road improvements, the highway 407 east extension, and the proposed 404 and 427 extensions.

The results are not very surprising. Continue reading →

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Service Changes Effective Sunday, May 11, 2008 (Updated)

Many service changes will take effect this Sunday.  Broadly speaking, they fall into three categories:

  • Improvements to handle overcrowding
  • Season changes (mainly services to university and college campuses, and to parks)
  • Construction changes

I have listed only one of the construction changes.  Weekend service on 512 St. Clair will be reduced slightly because cars will now be stored at Hillcrest Yard and it is not necessary to have all cars in service all of the time.

A number of the “seasonal” changes involving longer hours of service will likely stay in place in September.  In November 2008, if the planned implementation of 30-minute minimum frequencies on all routes while the subway is operating goes ahead, these services would become permanent.  There is no point in removing them for a few months between the end of the summer and the implementation of the Ridership Growth Strategy policy for hours of service.

Service Changes for May 2008

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A Short Trip to New Toronto

Now and then, in the interest of actually experiencing the wonderful transit system I write about so much, I make a longer-than-usual journey  that could work brilliantly or be a complete disaster.  Today was the occasion for such a journey.

My mission:  Travel from Scarborough Town Centre starting at 5:30 pm to Fifth Street in New Toronto for a 7:30 pm meeting of the Lakeshore Planning Council. Continue reading →

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Coming Soon – May 2008 (Updated)

Things have been a bit quiet here, but fear not, new postings are in the works.

Right now, I am hard at work on data for the Queen route for December 2007 and January 2008, and I hope to publish information from this analysis by the weekend or early next week.

December 2007 was much worse, as we all know, than December 2006, and the charts from 2007 show the effects of the bad weather.

I have not yet turned to January’s data to see if there was some visible change in operating strategy regarding short-turns following the public meetings in December.  As usual, each new set of data brings its own wrinkles, and I have been further streamlining the programs that digest the data.  December is the guinea pig, and when I turn to January, it should be a fast process to generate another month’s set of charts.

I know that a few of you are waiting patiently (or impatiently — you know who you are) for this information.  These things take time, and I’m doing the work in odd moments when I’m not embroiled in blogging about labour relations, or attending and reviewing films, or various other pursuits some of which actually don’t have a thing to do with transit!

Updated:  I now have the details of the service changes taking effect this weekend and will summarize them likely on Saturday.

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hotdocs 2008 (Part 5)

Here is last set of hotdocs reviews for 2008!  My screenings this year were cut a bit short by the combined effect of the TTC strike and other weekend plans.  Even with a few days out for transit meetings, other cultural events and visiting friends, hotdocs was a great way to spend a week.  The films were overall very much worth seeing — either I picked particularly well, or there is less filler here than in the main film festival in September.

Included in this set:

  • Dear Zachary:  A Letter to a Son About His Father
  • Primary
  • Crisis:  Behind a Presidential Commitment

Continue reading →