A notorious aspect of TTC budgeting is that ridership projections are stated relative to last year’s budget, not relative to last year’s actual riding.
With a system bursting at the seams, everyone is waiting for the new service coming in the fall when the Ridership Growth Strategy finally starts to kick in. But, wait a minute, the TTC’s plans are not all they seem to be. Continue reading
This post has been updated by correcting a bad link to the TTC’s site, and by enabling comments.
The TTC has finally delivered up a report in reply to my deputation last August on the question of why the RT should not be converted to LRT in the context of (a) a larger Scarborough LRT network and (b) the request from the Scarborough Caucus to extend the line into Malvern. No big surprise. The TTC really doesn’t want to convert the line.
The report can be found at:
http://www.ttc.ca/postings/gso-comrpt/documents/report/f3085/_conv.htm
The argument in brief is that there is no customer benefit of a conversion, that it would require a prolonged closure of the line and that the Malvern extension cost would be equal no matter what technology was chosen. Continue reading
Two pieces of news caught my eye today, and somehow they seem to fit in the same post.
First up is a report in next week’s TTC agenda about the extension of the Bloor Subway. At the January 31 meeting, there was a request that staff update information on the planned line in light of a proposed development near the East Mall. The reply to this can be found on the TTC’s website here:
http://www.ttc.ca/postings/gso-comrpt/documents/report/f3087/_conv.htm
In this report, we learn that an Environmental Assessment was already approved for this back in 1994, although it is somewhat out of date. Blowing the dust off of the EA would set us back about $3-million.
The intriguing information is that the estimated cost of the extension in 2007 dollars is roughly $1-billion for 3.7 km to Queensway and The West Mall, and a further $500-million for 1.5 km to get to a Dixie Station in Mississauga. This translates to $270-million/km to get to West Mall, and a staggering $333-million/km to get to Dixie. Underground alignments are assumed in both cases, and the report is silent on whether this cost is just for construction or also includes additional subway cars to operate the extended line.
In other news, the Canadian Mint has announced that it will produce a new 100 kilogram gold coin at a face value of $1-million, but with an actual gold content (and price to buy one) over twice that. There is an article on the Globe & Mail’s website about it here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070222.wrmint22/BNStory/Business/
although this may not last forever as the Globe tends to archive things fairly quickly.
For all of you who are saving up to build your very own subway line, this might be just the thing you need. Imagine if people saw a pile of million-dollar coins. At $270-million/km, or $270,000/metre, each coin would buy (at face value) not quite four metres of subway, or eight metres if you melted it down.
Who needs new tokens?
Christopher Dunn sent me a link to a few pages dealing with historic streetcar operations in San Francisco. Everyone knows about the cable cars, but there is a large fleet of antique cars including many PCCs. The PCC fleet is painted in colours of many different transit systems, one of which is Toronto.
You can read about the F-Market historic streetcar route here: http://www.streetcar.org/mim/streetcars/index.html.
Be sure to follow all the links to different parts of this site to see the fleet and the sheer effort that has gone into making this an integral tourist attraction and part of the transit system.
Not to be missed is the section on the “E-line”, the new line on the Embarcadero (the place where they tore down the inner city expressway). Anyone thinking about how we might build on the waterfront and what transit can look like needs to visit this page.
Oh yes — the “Toronto” car (really ex-Minneapolis by way of Newark) is here:
http://www.streetcar.org/mim/streetcars/fleet/pcc/1074/index.html
This post is for the benefit of those from afar who have an interest in theatres. The Revue Cinema, closed since last June, suffered a horrible loss on Sunday when its marquee collapsed under the weight of snow and ice. The Torontoist site has a full writeup and links to photos new and old.
I’ve always loved the Revue and remember learning all about “foreign” films there decades ago.
http://www.torontoist.com/archives/2007/02/revue_cinema_ma_1.php
David Crawford wrote a while ago …
You may want to put [this] somewhere, or on your pile of “interesting but irrelevant ideas”!
I read the TTC Mandate from the City www site today. Makes one wonder why the Toronto Island Ferry is not part of the TTC – I think it maybe used to be? The island ferry service is doubtless something the TTC does not want to take over but water transportation (ie an expanded ferry service) is something which could help move people if it were properly integrated into the public transit network.
Mandate
The Commission is responsible for the consolidation, co-ordination and planning of all forms of local passenger transportation within the urban area of Toronto, except for railways incorporated under federal and provincial statutes, and taxis.
The Commission’s functions are to construct, maintain and operate a local passenger transportation system, and to establish new passenger transportation services where required. The Commission may also operate parking lots in connection with the transit system, and may enter into an agreement with municipalities or persons situated within 40 kilometers of Toronto, to operate a local transportation service.
Ah yes, the TTC used to have a marine division called the “Ferry Department”. It was merged into the new Metropolitan Toronto Parks Department in 1954.
Of course, there would be some challenges if this were still a TTC operation.
Finally, will Swan Boats ply the waters of the Don, and will the TTC go into competition with Porter Air?
On January 31, the TTC passed an amended version of its capital budget. There is a good PDF of the report including amendments on the city’s website as part of the Budget Committee agenda at:
http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2007/bu/bgrd/backgroundfile-1646.pdf
Some noteworthy amendments:
The report details the funding issues and the shortfalls between what is committed by various governments and programs and what is required. Almost at the end is a chart showing the combined funding requirements of various programs. Note that it still includes a future Sheppard Subway project because the TTC has not (yet) formally changed their mind on the technology to be used for this.
I received the following note from James McArthur:
I was just curious to hear your take on the need to significantly expand the capacity of Bloor/Yonge Stn. particularly because of the bottlenecks in the mezzanine and stair/escalator areas (these are really bad even outside rush hour).
I saw that Adam Giambrone mentioned renovating the lower level (for aethetic reasons I gather), but has any consideration been given to this problem? How can you solve it w/o spending hundred’s of millions?ill the TTC even try? Can the system carry more riders if they don’t?
Steve: Years ago, the TTC had a plan for expanding the capacity of Bloor Yonge that was breathtaking in its scope. Fortunately, the only part they actually built was the widened platforms on the upper level and the removal of the central pillars. The whole scheme involved moving the Yonge line tracks further apart and adding a centre platform. Vertical access was a real problem, not to mention construction at the north end where the station is physically inside of the Bay.
The scheme also involved new platforms outside of the existing tracks on the Bloor level. Access between all of the platforms was complex, and construction issues, were very, very difficult. The station sits in an old stream bed and much work would have to be done by hand in a pressurized environment.
Oh yes — the station would close for at least six months. Trains would run through without stopping and bus shuttles would take people from Rosedale to Wellesley.
Adding capacity to the Bloor line’s platform is very difficult because the station is inside of the Bay building including some of the structural columns that hold it up. This is a major issue in any move to increase capacity on the Yonge line through resignalling. If the Bloor line cannot take passengers away as fast as the Yonge line delivers them, then congestion will be worse than it is today.
Headways, as we have discussed here before, are constrained on the Bloor line by turnaround times at terminals. Even if we had more platforms, escalators and stairways, we would not be able to have more trains.
The real issue with Bloor-Yonge is the number of people coming through it who could be taken to the core via an alternate route be that GO Transit or a “downtown relief line” of some flavour. It may be cheaper and provide better service in a network sense to look at new capacity into the core rather than trying to pack more people through the Bloor-Yonge interchange.
Trips through the little-used legs of the Wye between Bay, St. George and Museum Stations will be standard operation for six weekends from February 24 to March 31, 2007. Thank to Tim Bryant for pointing out the change in the planned start date. The TTC page on this event is here:
www.toronto.ca/ttc/bloor_danforth_weekend_tunnel_construction.htm
This unusual operation is required to permit work on the tunnel west of Upper Bay Station where the Bloor line passes under the Park Plaza Hotel. This can only be achieved by closing the line for a few days at a time. Conveniently, the wye is in just the right location to permit a subway “diversion”, not the sort of thing you see every day. Continue reading
Recently, I received a few feedbacks that seemed more appropriate to a new thread, and so here they are. Continue reading
Steve Munro 