by

Budget Cut Update

The City of Toronto has announced a number of budget cuts intended to reduce this year’s operating costs and providing a contribution to the shortfall in 2008.  Details can be found in the City’s news release.

Agencies such as the Toronto Police and the TTC whose budgets are managed by separate boards will be up for discussion at future meetings, although some dollar figures are shown in the City announcement.

The TTC will hold a special meeting on September 12 to discuss the budget situation.  (Note that this is addition to the regular meeting on September 19.)  At that point, we may learn more about the options actually under consideration depending on whether or not the City resolves its budgetary shortfall.

In the news release, the City is asking that the Province resume permanent operating budget support for the TTC.  However it is unclear whether this is a request to return to the old Bill Davis formula (68% farebox, 16% Queen’s Park, 16% City) or some other arrangement.

by

What Will We Do With Kingston Road?

Although it was totally ignored by the Transit City announcement, the EA for the Kingston Road corridor is rumbling along through the old, tedious EA process and now awaits approval of its Draft Terms of Reference.  Yes, all that work just to get to the point of asking for approval to actually study something.  A boon for consultants, a waste of time and money for transit.

For those unfamiliar with southern Scarborough, the Danforth Subway was, in many ways, a curse because every route within miles of a station is drawn inexorably to the subway.  There are L-shaped routes, there are U-shaped routes, but don’t try to go from one end of Kingston Road to another unless you have a lot of patience for transferring.

The purpose of the EA is to determine ways in which transit in the Kingston Road corridor can be improved both for travel within the corridor and to the existing subway and streetcar system.  Continuous service within the corridor and to/from downtown are goals for this project.

It is worth noting that although 38 percent of the trips originating in the corridor go downtown, 62 percent do not.  Moreover, as land use changes on Kingston Road, the balance of local and commuting trips may also shift if transit service is supportive of off-peak travel.  Of the trips bound for downtown, the study suggests that a continuous service would divert riding off of the subway.  Possibly, although vastly improved service and reliability will be needed.  The 502/503 are a joke for commuters today especially in the PM peak. Continue reading →

by

St. Clair Extension Trial?

Ray Kennedy writes:

Why doesn’t the TTC take advantage of the current bus substitution to extend service west to Jane Street? This would allow a chance to judge demand for extending the tracks westward.

During a previous substitution I waited on a Saturday afternoon nearly half an hour at Gunn’s Loop for a 71 Runnymede bus to go west to Runnymede to transfer again.  3 buses accumulated in the loop before finally making their way eastward one at a time.  Then, 2 more showed up and sat waiting time.  Finally, a Runnymede bus showed up.  It would have been quite possible for one or two of the five buses to run west rather than sit in the loop.  It’s called service.

Bus substitutions are always tricky things to schedule and often have a lot of padding in the running time.  Right now, there really isn’t much going on on St. Clair, and they will always be early.  In some cases, they will run more or less as the operators feel like it because leaving on time just means a dreary, slow ride across the line.

The TTC’s attitude to this part of the world (the old stockyards) is a good example of how they don’t actively promote ridership.  If St. Clair from Keele to Jane is a potential streetcar line, then there should be a lot more riders than the level of service on the 71 suggests.  Indeed, that service (really a short turn of the longer route), does little to encourage transit use in an area where the land use is changing a lot.

We hear a lot about a “Transit First” policy, but even without recent budget woes, it’s the small neighbourhoods like this that are overlooked.

by

We Get Letters

I have received a number of comments recently that have turned rather more abusive about past efforts by myself and others.  Also, I’ve had comments that attempt to trivialize the advocacy of LRT as railfan nostalgia. 

Please note that anyone who posts such comments will simply fall off the earth as far as my publishing any future feedback they might have, and they should spend their time elsewhere. Continue reading →

by

TTC Funding: The Sky Has Not Fallen, Yet

Today (July 30) on CBC’s Metro Morning, Richard Soberman and David Gunn were interviewed about the proposal to close the Sheppard Subway.  In the same broadcast, on the news, we heard a real estate developer whose dreams of selling new condos on Sheppard were threatened by the loss of a significant marketing tool, the subway.

Soberman and Gunn practically fell over each other talking about how crazy the idea is, but sadly, the conversation never went beyond the Sheppard line to the wider issue of TTC service quality.  Even though that subway proposal only represents 10% of the total “savings” to be found in the TTC budget, it gets all of the air time, all of the ink.  Where is the coverage about all the service cuts on bus and streetcar routes?  About the new services that will never see the light of day?

What pains me most is the total absence of anyone “official” from Council talking about how these cuts (a) are a terrible idea and (b) don’t have to happen.  I’m a Miller supporter, but the Mayor has been conspicuously absent along with TTC Chair Adam Giambrone.  This leaves the media field open to doom-and-gloom coverage.

If this goes on very long, the TTC cuts become real, if only in people’s minds, because that’s all we will be hearing.  The great promises of better transit will just be a memory, if that.  Transit City and MoveOntario will just be two more grand announcements of better days for transit that went absolutely nowhere because this city hasn’t got the guts to pay its way.

Next winter, while you wait for a bus that is late and packed, remember all those speeches about “living within our means” and “government waste”.

This is not a question of “if the money can be found” — not finding the money to expand and improve the TTC is really not an option as anyone reading recent studies of the GTA’s transit needs will know.  Building our future transit network needs long-term dedication to funding. 

Often we hear about how Queen’s Park or Ottawa won’t create a dedicated funding stream for transit (or various other municipal services), but Toronto is just as bad.  One year Council will agree to a certain funding level, but the moment some uppity constituent demands lower taxes, the TTC is one of the first to lose its funding.

Being pro-transit isn’t something you do on alternate Thursdays, it’s a full time requirement and needs predictable, long-term revenue to sustain the vision some Councillors profess for transit.

So where is the Mayor?  Where is Adam Giambrone?

We need them to restore a positive view of transit and of what our city can be, and we need them now.

Postscript:  No sooner do I post this in frustration, but the Mayor pops up to tell the Police Board and TTC “make those cuts now, don’t wait until the fall”.  Nothing like confidence to start off my morning.  (July 31)

by

Lost Signs: Hula Hoop Man

One of my favourite street signs has disappeared.

Northbound on Spadina Crescent at Russell Street, there is a pedestrian crossing into the grounds of 1 Spadina Crescent, originally Knox College.  There was also the standard “walking man” crossing sign in plain view especially to riders of the Spadina Streetcar as it rounded the circle.

Over a year ago, someone added a hula hoop giving the impression that, just maybe, 1 Spadina Crescent was home to an international competition — maybe the Hula Hoop Man was the only one still, er, standing after all these years.

Then, probably after the publicity it got, someone cleaned off the hoop, but the sharp-eyed could see a ghostly ring.  Who knows what Hula Hoop Man got up to in the dead of night, a spin or two by the moonlight.

Now, alas, there is a traffic light about to be activated and Hula Hoop Man is gone.

Let’s hope that his replacement doesn’t spend too much time holding up the Spadina streetcars.

by

Will We Get It Right This Time?

In a previous post, I mentioned two background reports written by IBI Group for the Ministry of Transportation.  These can be found on the GTTA’s What’s New page.

If you’re pressed for time, read the Stratgic Transit Directions report as its companion, Needs and Opportunities, duplicates a lot of the material.  At the risk of seeming to cherry-pick sections that support positions I have advocated here, I will give a few excerpts and observations.

Travel demand in the GTAH (Greater Toronto plus Hamilton) is projected to increase substantially over the period 2001-2031 (2001 is the base year because the transportation survey data for 2006 was not available when these studies were written).  Even with massive investment in transit, the overall modal split for transit will stay much lower than needed to avoid massive traffic congestion, especially in the 905.  This is not to say that transit is a bad investment, but the problem is so great that the aggressive proposals included here won’t keep up with growth in travel demand. Continue reading →

by

Ten Years of Spadina Streetcars

Today, July 27, 2007, marks the tenth anniversary of the Spadina streetcar/LRT.  Despite the transit crises of past weeks, we celebrate an important birthday for the Spadina line and for our transit system.

I started writing this piece for the Jane’s Walk series back in late April, but there was just too much else going on, and it didn’t get finished in time.

Without Jane Jacobs and the many who fought beside her, there would be no Spadina streetcar, the heart of the Annex would be an expressway, and the renaissance of Spadina south from College would not have happened.  Indeed, had the road designers had their way, Dundas would be widened out to six lanes through downtown to the DVP, and much of Chinatown would be arterial roads bereft of late 19th century architecture.

The many condos whose populations fill the King-Spadina-Front area would not be there because western downtown would be like so many other expressway cities, a sterile land of interchanges and new office blocks, but no people. Continue reading →