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Ridership Growth Strategy for the Island Ferries

The April 10th meeting of Toronto’s Parks and Environment Committee will consider a proposal to give two-for-one fares for adults travelling on the ferries between 5 and 9 pm (except for special event days on holidays and weekends) from the Victoria Day to the Labour Day weekend.

Most people leave the island in the late afternoon after a hard day at the beach.  The Parks Department reckons that there is a growing population who live downtown near the ferry docks for whom the island could be a welcome evening spot.  The ferries are running with available capacity, and the cheaper fares are not expected to cost the city anything.

Fortunately, the GTTA has yet to demand that total fare integration be provided so that a rider can board a GO Train in Barrie and travel seamlessly to Hanlan’s Point.

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How Many People Will Fit on a Bus?

Many discussions here lately have included comments about building networks of “bus rapid transit (BRT) as the truly low-cost solution to our transit woes.

Meanwhile, the TTC regularly trots out a chart showing the relative capacities of various modes.  This appears most recently in the Environmental Assessment materials for the eastern waterfront projects.  One of the many appearances can be found in the presentation materials for the West Donlands public meeting held last week.  (Warning:  this file is over 11 mb if you are on a slow link.)

The TTC claims that buses can handle demands of 6,000 per hour or more.  Let’s do the math. Continue reading →

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Unravelling the Discussions

I was astounded at the number and length of responses not just to the Transit City announcement, but to my suggestion that the City walk away from supporting the Spadina Subway extension.

Discussions in those and several spinoff areas have become mixed together, and in the interest of clarity, I am planning to start new, separate threads.  For example, the Waterfront West line belongs in a thread of its own as do some other items.

When these are set up, I will close off comments on the original posts.

Thanks to all who have written.

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Spadina Subway? What Spadina Subway?

For three years, we have pretended that the Spadina Subway extension was a worthwhile project.  We hoped that  lobbyists from York University and their pals at Queen’s Park would look kindly on poor little Toronto.  Maybe they would give us more powers in a City of Toronto Act.  Maybe they would actually start paying for social services that are really a provincial responsibility.  Maybe they would give us better, ongoing funding for transit.

Three years of tugging our forelocks and saying “please, sir, we want some more” were a total waste of time.  All of the transit spending and social services budget relief go to the 905 and Toronto gets nothing.

Toronto has new taxing powers, and it should use them.  Build the city with the “revenue tools” we have and stop being so dependent on other governments.

We have been duped into an unworkable formula of 1/3 shares by the federal, provincial and municipal governments.  This makes every project, every funding request, hostage to federal and provincial whims most of which avoid spending on Toronto.  Yes, it’s outrageous that we get less transit funding than cities in any other major country, but we should stop holding our breath for this to change.

Now Toronto needs to make its spending priorities fit a Toronto agenda, not one for Queen’s Park.

The Spadina Subway extension exists for two reasons:

  • The combined force of York University’s lobbying and the Finance Minister’s desire to see a subway into his riding.
  • The long-standing resistance of the TTC to examine and promote any alternatives to subway extensions.

Any realistic examination of “value for money” would have killed this line, and especially the extension into Vaughan, long ago.  Any proper examination of alternatives would have examined an extensive network of LRT, busways and commuter rail to serve this sector.  That debate hides in back corridors because nobody in power wants to challenge the inevitability of a subway to York University and beyond, nobody wants to support a fair analysis of alternatives.

Toronto should withdraw support for the Spadina Subway immediately.

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Ontario Budget: More of the Same

The Ontario budget, announced earlier today, contains nothing new to support transit systems around Toronto.  Basically, Queen’s Park is piggy backing on the projects already underway, the same grab-bag of schemes funded by the federal announcement last week.

There is a potload of money under the general heading of “infrastructure”, but no indication of how much, if any, is available for proposals such as Transit City or ongoing funding of transit operations.

Queen’s Park listened to the call to upload some social spending, but only for the 905.  Currently, the 905 municipalities pay part of the cost of social programs in the 416.  This cost will be taken over by the province.  However, none of the costs now borne by the City of Toronto will be assumed, and Toronto is left in just as much of a budgetary mess as they were before this budget.

Clearly, Ontario’s Liberals are going after the same block of 905 voters as the Ottawa Tories on the assumption that we Torontonians will vote Liberal/NDP even if Queen’s Park bleeds the city dry.