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Suddenly Transit’s A Big Issue Again (2)

[This post continues a thread started last week on the re-emergence of transit as a major political issue.  For part 1 of this item, click here.]

What To Do About Sprawl?

The Province of Ontario intends in its Places to Grow report that suburbs will develop in a form that can better sustain public transit and reduce our dependence on the automobile.  This idea is hardly new, and people have been talking about transit-oriented development for decades.  One major problem is that all that talk had no effect on what was actually built. Continue reading →

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Thunder Track and the Wonder of Queen’s Quay

Today’s jaunt to the St. Lawrence Market took me on a small detour to see the revamped Queen’s Quay complete with bicycle lanes, flowers and grass.  There are some great photos by Peter Hud here.

If we believe the prophets of doom who claim to be traffic engineers in these parts, those photos should be full of fire and brimstone as the wrathful traffic gods rain down on the lost roadspace.  At least there should be a lot of cars.  Strangely not.  A few errant tourists managed to drive east along the transit right-of-way while I was there, but otherwise the calm morning was broken only by sounds of people strolling by, bicycles whirring by and, oh yes, streetcars roaring by. Continue reading →

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A Short Trip to Long Branch

A few days ago, I set out to visit friends in darkest Long Branch (for an East Ender, Long Branch is near the edge of the planet).  My destination, roughly, was Lake Shore and 32nd Street.  I had a few choices of how to get there from home base at Broadview Station:

  1. Subway to Kipling, 44 Kipling South to Lake Shore, 501 Queen to 30th Street
  2. Subway to Islington, 110 Islington South (30th Street branch) to Lake Shore
  3. Subway to Dundas West, 504 King to Sunnyside, 501 Queen to 30th Street

Being a streetcar fan, and trusting on the speedy service available on the broad boulevards of Queensway and Lake Shore, I chose option 3. Continue reading →

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Service Changes Coming in September

For September 2006 we will see many service improvements although these fall largely in the off-peak period as the fleet size constrains the TTC’s ability to run more peak service.  Looking through the long list, I noticed that the Service Planning folks have been squeezing every drop they can out of the available budget by, in some cases, only adding a few extra trips here and there rather than a service change for an entire operating period.  Typically, this extends the shoulder of the rush hour rather than, say, improving service all day long.

Some service improvements originally planned for early 2006 but deferred due to budget deliberations are finally in the schedules, while others remain on hold for future implementation.  Next year’s budget brings with it the big jump in the bus fleet and a concurrent need for additional operating subsidy.  We will see whether the Budget Advisory Committee, Council and the Mayor are willing to put their money where most of their mouths are on transit improvements.

In the long section that follows, I do not give the details of the changes (for that, you can look at the TTC’s own site when they are posted), but only a general idea of what is happening.  I have omitted the minutiae such as garage reassignments and operational changes that do not affect headways. Continue reading →

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The Air Conditioned Streetcar

Car 4041 has been plying Spadina Avenue this week showing off a trial installation of air conditioning on a CLRV.  This morning when I went for a ride, the weather was moderately warm, not boiling, and it was fairly humid.  The car had a partial seated load as it was right behind its leader.

The A/C is nowhere near as aggressive as it is on some buses or on the T1 subway cars.  Moreover, depending on where you are in the car, you may not feel the effect at all because the cool air does not blow out evenly.  If the car were packed and/or if it were much hotter, I doubt that the unit would be able to keep up with the load.

This brings me to the question of having windows that open on air-conditioned vehicles.  Aside from the fact that on cooler days we could save energy by just letting air blow in from outside, if the A/C cannot keep up with the heat and humidity in the car, a sealed car would be even less comfortable than what we have now.

When I rode back north on a non-A/C car, I sat beside the open window and was actually cooler than I had been on 4041.

If this is an example of what we’ll get on new or rebuilt streetcars, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.