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A Look At Candidates’ Transit Policies: Jane Pitfield

In the interest of full disclosure, I will state up front that I am supporting David Miller.  All the same, the two serious candidates’ platforms deserve review and comment, and I will start with Jane Pitfield.  In another post, I will look at David Miller.

If you are or represent or support one of the other 257 candidates for Mayor, please do not write me asking for equal time.  This is a private blog and I am not bound by fair time rules like the CBC.  As far as I am concerned, there are only two candidates worth looking at in this race, and I am not going to waste time and space on the rest.  They have their own blogs anyhow. Continue reading →

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Two Kilometers a Year

We hear a lot from subway advocates about the need for an ongoing project to expand the subway system.  Leaving aside the question of how we will pay for it, what would we actually see for our efforts?

The building rate proposed is two km/year.  If we were going to build west from Yonge Street and we started today, it would be late 2010 before we reached Jane Street, late 2014 to reach the western boundary of the city, somewhere like the airport for example.  Every penny we could scrounge would go into that line, and by 2015 we would still have big transit problems in most of the city.  This assumes we start tomorrow, and we all know that nothing will happen for at least two years while we debate where the line will go, design it and get EA approval.

If we are serious about expanding the transit network in a meaningful timeframe, we have two choices:

  • build much more than two km/year and be prepared to pay for it, or
  • use something other than subways to expand transit capacity, and build lots of that.

Mayoral hopefuls and other subway advocates need to be honest about the costs and benefits of their plans.  The two km rate was once floated by Rick Ducharme, back when we actually thought that would cost $200-million or so.  The Sheppard Subway, our most recent project, was 6 km long and cost us almost $1-billion not including the vehicles that were purchased separately.  Even allowing for the huge expense of the junction at Yonge Street, $200-million hasn’t bought two km of subway for a long time.

I will return to the issues involved in building LRT in a future post and will incorporate many of the comments that are stacked up in feedbacks from various readers that have accumulated in my inbox.

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Where Will We Put Everyone?

[After excursions by Swan Boat, proposals for alternative station names and, to some of you, endless reviews from the Film Festival, we now return to our regular programming.]

The TTC meeting agenda for October is a bit on the thin side, but one item is worth comment — the Chief General Manager’s monthly report for August.  Strictly speaking, this is July 30 to August 26 so that the calenders line up with past years and direct comparisons are possible without correcting for weekends.  Continue reading →

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The Future of Transit: Swan Boats!

Back in the early days of this board, I posted an item co-authored with my good friend Sarah concerning the use of Swan Boats as a solution to transport technology in the Don Valley corridor.

You laughed!  You scoffed!  You doubted our pride and professionalism! From that day forward, only movie reviews and endless arguments for LRT graced these pages.

Until today!

Now all will be revealed!  The future of Toronto’s transit is canals and swan boats!

He’s gone mad, you say!  He must be drunk, or worse, you say!  But, no, it is true!

First the canals:  CNN today reported that Panama citizens will vote on a $5-billion project to widen the Panama Canal, while Nicaragua is thinking of building its own canal at a price of only $18-billion.  Let’s put this in context.  The canal is 51 miles (81.6 km) long, and that translates to a cost/km of a mere $221-million.

That’s for a whacking great canal to handle huge ocean freighters and take them across the continental divide.  Looking at the proposed Spadina extension’s cost, this is a competitive technology!

Now we turn to the vehicles.  Swan  boats are available (On sale now!  Two week delivery!) for a mere $28,997 (US).  Just go to this site if you don’t believe me. [The URL no longer works.]

People are so fond of making comparisons on vehicle cost — let’s look at a swan boat.  It holds 12 people, hence a cost per seat of about $2,400.

The design load of a bus is around 50 and the current products seat around 30.  At a capital cost of roughly $600K, this is $12,000 per passenger or $20,000 per seat.

Subway cars have a design load of about 200 and seat about 75.  They cost roughly $3-million, for a cost per passenger of $15,000 and a cost per seat of $40,000.

It’s no contest!  Toronto must immediately abandon all plans for unproven technologies and start building canals for swan boats.  Only with this visionary plan will the future of Toronto’s transportation system be safe!

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A Rose By Any Other Name (Updated)

Profound thanks to the many readers who commented on this item!  Based on all this feedback, not to mention my own preferences, the list of new station names is almost complete.  Here’s what it looks like now:

Bloor-Danforth East:

Scarborough Junction, Massey Creek, Dentonia Park, East Toronto, North Beach, East York, Linsmore, [Donlands], Ελλας, Riverdale, Playter, [Castle Frank, Sherbourne]

Bloor-Danforth West: 

Roy’s Square, Yorkville, Rochdale, Lowther, The Annex, Willowvale, [Ossington], Brockton, [Lansdowne], West Toronto, Parkside, [High Park], Swansea, Baby Point, [Old Mill], Kingsway, Montgomery, Six Points

Yonge:

Finch’s, Willowdale, Lansing, Hogg’s Hollow, Muir Gardens, Rebellion, Belt Line, Avoca, North Toronto, Crescent, Roy’s Square, Rainbow, Carlton, O’Keefe’s Lane, City Hall, Melinda, Royal York

University/Spadina: 

[St. Andrew], Osgoode Hall, [St. Patrick], Taddle Creek, Planetarium, Rochdale, Lowther, Casa Loma, Wells Hill, York, Viewmount, [Lawrence West], Arc en Ciel, Downsview, Wilson Heights.

I am amused that we have two “rainbows” one in each official language.  Moreover, the one formerly known as Wellesley has the most boring decor on the system.  Just imagine what a few inspired decorators could do! 

The original post and comments follow below. Continue reading →

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Toronto International Film Festival Reviews — Part 5 of 5

And finally, we come to the end of it all.  Apologies for the delay — urgent family business has kept me pre-occupied and I am just starting to deal with the backlog.

This installment includes:

  • L’Intouchable
  • The Island
  • The Silence
  • The Magic Flute
  • When the Levees Broke:  A Requiem in Four Acts
  • Amazing Grace

Days 9 and 10 may look like I was really slowing down, but in fact one of those films (the documentary about New Orleans) is four hours long.  I wouldn’t want you to think that I was shirking.  Mind you, the sleep in on Saturday morning for a late start at the Festival was quite nice.

Another Festival over, but there’s always next year, not to mention the myriad other cinema, music and theatre events around town.  If you have come this far, thanks for reading!

Continue reading →

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Coming Soon (October edition)

Transit issues:

  • A discussion of route economics (thanks to all who have sent feedbacks — I am holding on to your comments to incorporate in one post)
  • Further comments about service reliability, a topic that is getting a lot of coverage these days
  • A commentary on the whole LRT versus guideway business that will be my final word on the subject
  • Whatever intriguing goodies surface at the October TTC meeting (usually the pre-election agenda is rather dull, but if there’s anything worth reporting, you will see it here)
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To Toll or Not To Toll

Today’s Metro Morning included a discussion of road tolls as a way to fund public transit.  Let’s put this in perspective.

The Gardiner Expressway report talks about a toll equivalent to a transit fare, and it would generate $130-million annually.  What can we get for $130-million?

  • Over 150 new buses per year, or
  • 15 to 20 percent improvement in TTC service, or
  • A 3 year project to build all of the eastern waterfront transit improvements, or
  • A 10 year project to rebuild and expand Scarborough’s transit network, or
  • A 20 year project to build the Spadina Subway to Vaughan

There is an unfortunate tendency to talk about funding sources such as tolls without putting them in context.  We know that the TTC’s own Capital Budget projections require about $1-billion annually for the next 10 years.  This includes about $3-billion worth of subway construction.

We keep talking about better transit, but we need to be honest about the amount of money involved.  $130-million a year is small change beside the Board of Trade’s estimate that congestion costs the GTA $1.8-billion.  Tolls might raise some money, but they are not going to solve all of our funding problems by a long shot, especially if we add major road projects like the Gardiner to our project list.

Any government thinking of funding transit has to face up to one basic fact:  tax revenue (whatever you call it) has to go up.  The only question is which pocket you pick.

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Toronto International Film Festival Reviews — Part 4 of 5

This installment contains reviews of:

  • Dixie Chicks — Shut Up and Sing
  • My Best Friend / Mon Meilleur Ami
  • Fay Grim
  • Grbavica
  • This Is England
  • Zwartboek / Black Book
  • Snow Cake

As the Festival wears on,  I sometimes run out of steam (only 3 films on Thursday), and there was always the fear that the best of the Festival was behind me.  No chance.  There are some excellent films in this group. Continue reading →