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Flash! Transit Created Suburbia!

In a flight of fancy which even the most ardent conservatives on this blog have never attempted, Lawrence Solomon wrote in yesterday’s National Post about the creation of suburbia. It’s all the fault of megaprojects by governments to build transit to the hinterlands. Really!

He starts off with the Statscan report that more trips are taken by car today than in years gone by, moves on to the BC $14-billion announcement for transit expansion and finally turns his sights on MoveOntario’s $17.5-billion. All of this encourages sprawl according to Solomon.

In Toronto, it’s all the TTC’s fault:

Before the province of Ontario directed the Toronto Transit Commission to service Toronto’s outer suburbs in the early 1950s, the suburbs were largely rural and undeveloped, with densities so uniformly low that they could support but a handful of public transit lines. Only after the province stepped in by creating Metropolitan Toronto as a vehicle for massive infrastructure spending in the suburbs did sprawl on a grand scale unfold. Within a decade, the TTC’s route mileage increased by 75%, almost all of it to accommodate the suburbs and almost all of it uneconomic. In the process, the TTC — until the advent of Metropolitan government a self-sufficient enterprise that helped make Toronto one of the continent’s most compact cities — became a burden for city taxpayers and an arch agent of sprawl.

This convenient rewriting of history ignores the fact that we didn’t even have a subway on Bloor Street until 1966, and then only from Keele to Woodbine. Suburban bus expansion got underway seriously after the subway was extended into Etobicoke, Scarborough and later North York. The real financial crunch for the TTC came in 1972 with the elimination of the zone fares at the insistence of suburbanites whose tax dollars were helping to pay for the TTC. By then, suburban sprawl was well-entrenched.

Solomon’s feet completely leave the ground with this gem:

… when politicians first started promoting a Greater Toronto, they recognized that the city’s transit systems, then privately owned, were a great deterrent to the desire for the rapid outward expansion of the city that was then in vogue. Privately owned public transit companies were interested in providing service to paying customers, not in developing routes that met the development dreams of local politicians.

… Only after the government did, indeed, seize the private transit companies could dreams of a Greater Toronto be realized. With profits from transit diverted from private shareholders to a public purpose — uneconomic routes servicing low-density areas — sprawl made its debut in Toronto.

In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the TTC has in been in public hands since 1921, and it was created because the predecessor Toronto Railway Company refused to extend service in such unprofitable, low-density suburbs as North Toronto, the Danforth, Bloor West Village and St. Clair Avenue West. Moreover, the city system was falling apart thanks to years of disinvestment, a classic problem with a private sector more bent on maximizing profits than on providing service.

With the creation of Metro Toronto in 1954, the TTC took over the small private bus companies serving the old suburbs, but major service improvements would not come until the late 1960s and early 1970s. Those companies couldn’t possibly have funded the scale of suburban service expansion we have seen, and even the TTC did a less-than-stellar job. “Leading development with transit” was a phrase heard only in planning seminars, not at Council tables, as the suburbs grew.

The solution to everything would, of course, be an expressway network, not a transit system, and that juggernaut wasn’t stopped until nearly two decades after Metro came into being.

I have no problems debating the merits and faults of public sector investment in transit expansion, but the idea that somehow we wouldn’t have had suburbs sprawling beyond Barrie, Oshawa, Guelph and Burlington without transit is utter nonsense. Sprawl was built by and for the car, and transit has little chance of ever catching up.

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Waterfront West January 2008 Update — Part II

[Yes, I know it’s February, but I had hoped to finish this post sooner.]

In the first part of this thread, I discussed the WWLRT plans from Dufferin Street west to Sunnyside. Now, let’s look at the route through Exhibition Place and into downtown.

The presentation materials from the Environmental Assessment are on the City’s website.

Dufferin to Strachan Through Exhibition Place

Four routes were evaluated:

  1. Extend west from the existing Exhibition Loop to Dufferin Street. This option includes relocation of the GO Station to just east of Dufferin, and the construction of a new Dufferin bridge over the rail/expressway corridor.
  2. Turn north at Strachan Avenue crossing the rail/expressway corridor and running west to Dufferin along the south edge of Liberty Village.
  3. Turn south at Strachan Avenue, follow the north side of Lake Shore to a southerly projection of Dufferin Street, then turn north to Dufferin Loop.
  4. Identical to the previous version except following the south side of Lake Shore.

The first option is preferred because it is by far the cheapest to build and has little impact on its surroundings in part, of course, because it is also the shortest.

The second option ranks highest for the Land Use criterion because it would serve Liberty Village rather than a collection of mostly empty parking lots. However, this comes at an impact on the Natural Environment that is undesirable for reasons not explained in the online material. (I was not at the public meeting and if someone knows the details, please comment here.) This begs an interesting question that, but for the environmental issues, this route would be a strong contender.

The remaining options, actually numbered 3A and 3B, are the longest and most expensive and rank lower on other criteria, although not fatally. The question remains of what to do about service to Ontario Place and to any future development of the lands on the Lake Shore side of the CNE grounds.

What is quite striking in the evaluation is the complete isolation of study for the Lake Shore routes west of Dufferin and those to the east. At no point is consideration given to an alignment that stays on Lake Shore all the way from Sunnyside to Strachan Avenue. This is a good example of how the “divide and conquer” approach to an alternative analysis can eliminate options by selectively ignoring them.

A similar issue can be seen in the evaluation of the options for connecting the WWLRT to the existing system at Sunnyside where the Colborne Lodge Road scheme is downgraded because it is “More difficult to connect streetcars to other routes and TTC transit facility at Roncesvalles.” Oddly enough, the study ignores the planned connection at Dufferin Street as one of the possible connections to Roncesvalles Carhouse.

Exhibition to Union Station

As this part of the study is only now getting underway, we’re back at the first steps where basic options are reviewed and eliminated. After a brief look at various bus options as well as streetcars in mixed traffic, the option of streetcars on dedicated lanes is the one carried forward for detailed review. This is no surprise considering the context that all other lines in the study area are similar implementations.

Next comes the choice of alignment in which two options — Front Street or Bremner Boulevard — are compared at a cursory level. The Front Street alignment is rejected because of, among other things, “Greater connectivity to Waterfront West streetcars and Union Station”.

You may recall a few paragraphs back I talked about an alignment of the WWLRT on the north side of the rail/expressway corridor. Quite obviously, if this were the chosen alignment from Dufferin to Strachan, then a similar alignment eastward from there would connect well with it. Again, this is an example of a segmented alternative analysis dismissing options because of assumptions made regarding other sections of the line.

Without question, an alignment north of the railway has its own problems, but by structuring the analysis as the TTC has, this alignment is discarded without proper study even though it would, by their own admission, provide better service to Liberty Village.

Moreover, the TTC has not considered the rather obvious possibility that a route could come east through Liberty Village and a local version of Front Street as far as Bathurst, then jog south to Bremner Boulevard. Obviously, an all-Front route right over to Union would run into problems with street space, not to mention proposed major changes in road use in the Union Station Precinct.

The next stage of the EA will look at alternatives in the chosen alignment via Fort York and Bremner and will discard any discussion of a Front Street alignment because the EA process has already filtered them out. This sort of approach gives Environmental Assessments a bad name.

Ridership Projections

Projections for the section of the line west of Dufferin are included in the EA materials. These show 2000 to 2400 peak period trips eastbound at Dufferin, and (by an ad hoc rule about the distribution of trips within the peak) means a peak hour of about 1200 rides. To this we must add the riders who will board east of Dufferin, although the route through Exhibition Place itself will add almost nothing. From Strachan to Bathurst, we will pick up demand from the new condos, but these folks will also be served by the existing Harbourfront line via Queen’s Quay and Fleet.

Once the line reaches Bremner Boulevard (by whatever route), it will serve the new condos under construction west of Spadina, and all of this riding will try to fit into Union Station Loop via a new connection to the tunnel via the basement of the Air Canada Centre at Bay and Bremner.

The operational complexity of Union Station Loop with the many waterfront services remains a concern to many people involved both in the waterfront transit studies and Union Station itself. Detailed design and operational planning for this component must proceed immediately so that we understand the implications of focussing all of these new lines on a single terminal.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The TTC needs to address the fact that there are many separate current and future demands for transit in, broadly speaking, the West Waterfront, and stop trying to design one facility that will somehow serve all of them. Here are the questions the EA must address:

  • Why is the projected demand west of Sunnyside so low even though population is growing in the Queensway and Lake Shore Corridor? What are the destinations of people living in these areas, and how much is the simulated demand affected by travel time?
  • What benefits could be achieved with an alignment following the north side of the rail corridor west from Bathurst to Dufferin and possibly beyond?
  • How will Ontario Place, the south side of Exhibition Place and the Western Waterfront (which gave its name to this line in the first place) be served in the future, and should this be a separate route from a line serving Front Street, Liberty Village and south Parkdale?
  • How will the Bremner Boulevard line interoperate at Union Station with other waterfront services?

Now that we are finally studying the entire WWLRT route, we must see how the various parts of the line can fit together to provide attractive routes into a previously ignored part of the city.

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“Evergreen” Won’t Be LRT in Vancouver

To no great surprise, Translink has announced that the Evergreen line will be built using Skytrain technology, not as a conventional LRT line.

I have always wondered how this LRT scheme managed to get a foothold in a city so dedicated to one mode and where LRT proposals had constantly been sidelined. Indeed, building one orphan line off in the burbs hardly made sense.

The business case rests on faster travel times for ALRT which translate into higher future ridership (a claim that has been used consistently for modal comparisons in other corridors) and on lower operating costs at least in part because the line would be an extension of an existing system.

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Joe Mihevc Visits St. Clair West Station

There is a post on youtube by Joe Mihevc, Vice-Chair of the TTC, showing the situation at St. Clair West Station that has kept streetcars out of the loop for months.

When the contractor started to excavate to install a new expansion joint, they found electrical cables buried in the concrete that were not on the station plans. These are being rerouted.

I talked to the Vice-Chair last week, and the TTC hopes to have the streetcars fully back into the station in about a month.

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Some Things You Just Have To Say

I received a comment from Roger Bal in the thread about Trams to the Airport, and this really deserves a post all of its own.

Roger comments:

Steve, I believe you are too one sided and political and you failed to see the proposal of LRT I mentioned via the rail corridor. It seems to me it’s either your way or the highway with every proposal and idea that is put forward by anyone.

gettorontomoving is just an idea like other ideas brought forward time and time again through out the years. Why does someone’s political affiliation have to do with an idea. Anytime a new road is mentioned or brought forward your underwear becomes fouled. Remember that we all share the roads and that’s the way it should be. Cars and our population is going up and nothing you say will change that. The ideas of roads being added to vacant land beside railway tracks shouldn’t be political. Those ideas are valid and they benefit everyone and it eliminates a lot of unused lands in our city. I don’t view the world as everything being political.

I dissed the gettorontomoving scheme not for its LRT to the airport, but for its expressway extensions as shown on their map, specifically:

  • The Weston Corridor expressway as a southerly extension of Highway 400 to the Gardiner
  • The Spadina expressway extension to St. Clair
  • The DVP branch through East York and Scarborough via the hydro corridor

These roads are overwhelmingly designed to funnel traffic into the core, but it’s unclear where it will go when it gets there. They will do little or nothing to relieve congestion on the outer 416 and 905 road networks. I might have greater faith that someone was genuinely interested in road problems if they concentrated their efforts in those regions. Continue reading →

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Two Years

January 31, 2006 saw the first post on this blog, a retrospective of my Film Festival reviews from years past. That was something just to get the wheels turning, and the reviews took a back seat to transit right from the start.

Over two years, this site became an important venue for discussions about many aspects of transit planning, operations and funding, not to mention the odd flight of fancy. All of this could not happen without the readers and contributors to the site.

We don’t always agree, some have even marched away in a huff, but overall the level of conversation here is worth the effort of writing the original material and editing the comments as they come in. Thanks to all the regular contributors for keeping me on my toes and taking discussions down unexpected pathways.

Special thanks go to my friend Trevor who hosts this site on his system. Technology has its challenges, and regulars here have probably noticed that after a period of instability, things are more or less back to normal. It’s a long story. Let’s just say that the past few months have been challenging.

Yes, there will be more posts with oddles of charts about service even though I am now working with year-old data. The situation on the ground hasn’t changed all that much and it’s worth looking at other routes.

Yes, I will continue to argue from a position that we should consider LRT first and move to other technologies only when they are appropriate. I am sure that the definition of “appropriate” will fill many comments.

Yes, I will maintain my belief that transit really can make a difference even if it will take decades to see the effect on parts of the GTA. Doing nothing is easy, but unproductive. We have wasted far too long on bad projects that have more to do with political favouritism and support for the engineering and construction industries than with useful development of the Toronto region.

To the staff of transit and planning agencies around town who yearn for better days, don’t give up yet. I may be a feisty opponent when we disagree, but good plans that can make Toronto’s transit great will (almost) always have my support.

To the politicians, learn how to get things done. Announcements won’t make service on the Queen car any better, and won’t build a millimeter of rapid transit, whatever technology you may prefer.

Thanks to everyone who has sent supporting messages, with a special salute to the professional media for their compliments. I’m not a working writer, but enjoy both the act of putting my ideas “on paper” and the cut and thrust of moderating all those comments.

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Waterfront West January 2008 Update — Part I

The presentation materials from last week’s public meetings on the Waterfront West LRT Environmental Assessments are now online.

Several new and interesting aspects of the proposals appear in this round including:

  • Additional alternative routes between the Queensway and Dufferin Street
  • Preliminary information about the Exhibition to Union Station components of the line

I will summarize each of options, but for all of the gory details, please visit the project site.

In response to issues raised at previous public meetings, several additional aligments or variations have been examined for the section of the line west from Dufferin Street to The Queensway. These are shown in maps and in textual descriptions.
Continue reading →

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The Construction Industry Discovers Transit

Today, the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario (RCCAO) released a study called “Transportation Opportunities in the Greater Toronto Area — Building on Transit City and Move Ontario 2020”.

Dr. Richard Soberman, author of the study, is the grand old man of transportation planning in these parts. I first met him at the offices of the Metro Toronto Transportation Plan Review up under the rafters of Old City Hall in the early 1970s. We go back a long way. Richard gives humourous public presentations, but more than jokes are needed in planning something as complex as the GTA’s future transit network.

As I read through the RCCAO Report making copious notes, I couldn’t help seeing many places where Soberman advocates what is already happening, or can easily be melded into current plans. However, he writes with a tone suggesting that his 99 pages are miraculous pearls, revelations dropped from the heavens for the adoration of we poor mortals. Soberman sets up a field full of straw men: short-sighted fools, politicians dominated by boundaries rather than embracing regions, advocates, planners and even fellow engineers with vested interests in the status quo.

As I started to write this post, my thought was “where can I begin”? Let’s start with the basic premises. My apologies if I misrepresent something, and for definitive info I refer you to the website.
Continue reading →