Today, Toronto Council appointed a new slate of members to the six Council positions on the TTC’s Board of Commissioners. They are:
Jamaal Myers, Chair
Josh Matlow
Paul Ainslie (*)
Dianne Saxe
Chris Moise (*)
Stephen Holyday (*)
(*) Members who were reappointed.
The new chair, Jamaal Myers, will be interesting to watch. He has a background in transit advocacy and was once part of the Scarborough Transit Action group. He has also been appointed as Chair of the Toronto Accessibility Advisory Committee.
Having a regular transit rider from an activist background will be a big change for the TTC as it plans for pandemic recovery and improvement.
Josh Matlow has been a thorn in the side of the Scarborough Subway advocates, but he is is not a one-issue candidate. He will bring another important voice to the TTC Board for improvement across the network.
Dianne Saxe comes from an environmentalist background and was the last Environmental Commissioner of Ontario until the position was consolidated with the Auditor General by the Ford government.
The three new members, joining Commissioners Ainslie and Moise, strongly swing the balance on the TTC Board to a concern with transit as a service and with addressing rider needs. As I have written in detailed past articles, all of them must now wrap their heads around how the TTC works (or doesn’t work) and determine priorities for the TTC’s future.
As for TTC management, I have a word of advice: these people actually ride the system and know what day-to-day transit experience looks and feels like. Don’t try to con them with meaningless stats skewed to show the system in the best possible light. Where there are problems, shortfalls between expectation and delivery, tell people so that they can be addressed, and so that riders sense that management is living on the same planet.
The first of the 60 additional streetcars for Toronto’s fleet arrived at the Hillcrest Shops on August 9, 2023. Based on the budgeted cash flow over coming years, delivery of these cars is expected to complete in 2025.
2023: $58.434 million
2024: $193.248
2025: $82.644
2026: $5.759
Total: $340.265 million
Car 4604 at Harvey Shops on August 9, 2023 [Photo from a reader]
The currently active streetcar yards at Leslie, Russell and Roncesvalles can absorb 35 of these cars, but the remaining 25 will need additional storage and servicing facilities elsewhere. The TTC plans to adapt part of their Hillcrest site as a small carhouse that will serve the 512 St. Clair and possibly 511 Bathurst lines. Aside from providing space, this will also reduce dead-head costs for cars that now come to St. Clair from Leslie Barns.
The presentation erroneously states that “New streetcars will begin arriving at TTC facilities by 2025” [p. 2] when quite obviously this will be late in the overall delivery scheme. However, as the first 35 can be accommodated elsewhere, it would make sense that Hillcrest changes do not have to be ready until the latter half of the order arrives.
Some of the project schedule, however, extends into 2027 and this begs the question of why the work will take so long.
Aerial view of Hillcrest from the northeast. [TTC photo]
The TTC plans consultation sessions in the neighbourhood in August, although they have not yet announced dates or locations. Links:
Following Olivia Chow’s election as Mayor of Toronto, the process is now underway to repopulate committee and board appointments that will reflect the Mayor’s and Council’s priorities .
The Striking Committee – Councillors Malik (Chair), Bravo (Vice-Chair), Carroll, McKelvie and Perks – is very different from the crew who managed this process under Mayor Tory. Only Deputy Mayor McKelvie was carried over from previous era.
The City Clerk polled Councillors to determine each member’s interest in a wide variety of positions, and their requests will be considered by the Committee at its meeting on August 10, 2023. Their recommendations will be forwarded to Council for approval at a special meeting on the afternoon the same day.
Up for grabs are six positions on the TTC Board including the Chair and five other seats. The Councillor members’ terms will run to the end of 2024 when the process of juggling appointments will be repeated (standard practice at Council’s mid-term), although the sitting TTC Board members are likely to be reappointed for a further two years.
The remaining four members of the board, non-Council “public” members, will not be up for reappointment until early 2025 or 2027 unless Council rescinds them sooner. Any selections will be affected by the revised membership in the Civic Appointments Committee.
Today there are only five Councillors on the Board and there is one vacancy.
Councillors who have asked to be considered for the TTC Board are: Ainslie, Burnside, Holyday, Mantas, Matlow, Moise and Myers. Of these, all but Matlow and Myers are already on the Board, and Burnside is Chair. (The Vice-Chair is chosen from among the citizen members.)
The Striking Committee and Council should aim to create a TTC Board that actively pursues policies to improve transit. This includes public debates about just what we, as a city, expect of the system. Wringing their hands and saying “we can’t afford anything, so we won’t bother trying” should not be an option.
There are huge challenges financial (the City’s budget deficit), political (the Ford government at Queen’s Park) and organizational (the less-than-steller performance of and reputed poisonous environment under CEO Rick Leary). Any would-be Commissioner who views their job as simply showing up for meetings now and then to hear good news stories should seek work elsewhere.
The TTC has just embarked on consultation for its 5-Year Service Plan and a Customer Experience Action Plan. This might have been a business-as-usual plan under Mayor Tory entrenching a “Board approved” set of targets driven by a conservative agenda.
Toronto needs much more, an aspiration not just for “better” transit, but for a greater relevance of transit to riders across the city. Even if our goal is out of reach in the short term, we should aim high.
Updated July 31, 2023 at 11:20 am: Photos from the 2001 reconstruction of Broadview have been added for comparison.
Early in July, construction began to replace the track on Broadview from Gerrard to Broadview Station Loop. Phase one runs south from Sparkhall to just north of Gerrard, and phase two will run north to Danforth.
The City has announced that the Broadview/Danforth intersection will be closed from August 14 to September 4.
The work on phase one is in various states of completion and provides a mix of views of how the new track will be installed. Excavation for phase two has just started.
At the beginning of the project, strings of tangent (straight) track were welded and stockpiled just north of Gerrard. This section will be rebuilt late in the overall work once the pile of track has been depleted.
There are many curves on this section of Broadview beside Riverdale Park, and the curved rails were pre-bent at the TTC’s track shop before delivery to the worksite.
This track was one of the earliest sections built with the now standard method using steel ties and Pandrol clips, with three separate layers of concrete: foundation, around the ties, and around the track. As much as possible, only the top layer is excavated exposing the existing ties. This greatly simplifies track replacement, but it has taken three decades for most of the system to reach the point where full excavation is no longer needed. (This tactic was not implemented for intersections until several years later, and so most special work replacements still involve full excavation and pouring of a new foundation.)
All track is installed with a rubber sleeve both for vibration isolation and to reduce water penetration around the rails.
On Monday, July 24 at 6:45, a southbound SRT train was leaving Ellesmere Station when its rear car derailed. This was not simply a case of slipping off of the tracks, but a more complex incident in which:
The rear car of the train broke away from the other three cars.
The truck (or bogie, the undercarriage holding the wheels and motor) at the rear of this car was detached from the car.
A section of the reaction rail which is part of the propulsion system broke away from the guideway.
The car came to rest with one end leaning against the guideway’s fence and a low sidewall. Fortunately, this is a location where a derailed car could not fall any distance.
Five passengers were taken to hospital with minor injuries.
The line remains closed with shuttle buses ferrying riders, and the TTC has announced that the line will remain closed for at least three weeks pending an investigation of the cause of this accident. That will take us until at least mid-August.
It is not certain if the line, which was planned to shut down permanently in mid-November, will ever re-open depending on the cause of the derailment, the amount and cost of work to remediate it, and the limited time during which this expense would have any benefit.
Updated July 27 at 10:20pm: The proposed schedule for the SRT right-of-way conversion to a busway has been added to the article to clarify that “Winter 2025” really means the end, not the beginning, of 2025.
For the convenience of readers, especially those out of town who might not have followed this event in detail, here are links to many articles which include a wealth of photos.
Technical Difficulties: The Scarborough RT accident was absolutely predictable as policy-makers and riders have been aware of it’s deterioration for almost 20 years
The TTC will make several changes to its services on July 30, although this round is more of a “fixer upper” to correct problems with some existing schedules rather than major changes.
Weekday evening subway service will be formally restored to every 6 minutes or better on Lines 1 & 2. Streetcar service in the east end will be reorganized to correct schedule problems and reflect progress on construction work (much of these changes are already in effect). Several bus route schedules will be updated to improve reliability including use of common headways on overlapped sections.
At the TTC Board meeting on July 12, 2023, there was a brief discussion of the problem of short turns on streetcar lines. The information provided by management was, shall we say, less than a full accounting of what is actually going on.
This issue flared up many years ago particularly with short turns of service in The Beach among other areas, and in general a problem with erratic, gap-filled service on the outer ends of routes. TTC management committed to reducing or eliminating this problem, and to that end there was a “no short turns” policy that everybody seemed to know about at the operational level, but which was officially denied.
The stats did go down, but looking under the covers showed that not all was well:
Short turns are a bona fide service management tactic for dealing with delays to restore even spacing of service. There is nothing wrong with a short turn of some cars in a parade because this will restore service sooner than if every car trundles to the terminal and they return in a pack.
The official count of short turns fell to almost zero. However, this was due in part to selective reporting that was clear to (a) anyone actually riding the system and (b) anyone looking at vehicle tracking data.
Rick Leary got the equivalent of a gold star from the Board who frankly did not know any better, but occasionally wondered why claims of improved service did not align with complaints from constituents. The standard excuses for occasional upsets due to congestion and construction were regularly trotted out even though service could be erratic at times and locations when these were clearly impossible.
The charts below from the July 2023 CEO’s Report show the official count of short turns on the streetcar and bus network. An important factor in comparing the two is that the buses overall have many routes where congestion and construction do not affect most, if any, trips. The figures are not broken out by route to flag the “bad actors”. Moreover, the values are presented as a percentage of all trips so that time-of-day effects are hidden.
The “no short turns” policy implementation is quite clear in the data from Fall 2018 through Spring 2019. In reviewing actual short turn counts from tracking data, I have found that the values are consistently under-reported, and they do not represent actual conditions. For example, the proportion of service outbound on 501 Queen from downtown (as counted at Woodbine vs Greenwood) reaching Neville Park ranges from 100% to below 50% in January to June 2023.
Updated July 15, 2023: In June 2023, the TTC changed its reporting of short turns from an absolute number to a percentage. The scale of these charts does not make sense because the streetcar chart claims it is per 1000 departures, but cites a percentage (per 100). For comparison, the May 2023 charts are below.
I have written many times on this site about service quality and there are many factors at play including:
Unreasonably short or long scheduled travel times. This may sound like an odd pairing, but both can produce erratic service.
Too short times lead to short turns to keep operators on time especially for crew changes.
Too long times lead to extended layovers at terminals.
Lack of headway discipline at terminals and along routes.
Lack of headway management for vehicles re-entering service from a short turn to “split” a gap rather than simply running behind a through vehicle and carrying few passengers.
There are, of course, ad hoc situations where accidents, short-term construction or special events produce conditions that are not “standard”. These are normal and have to be managed to the degree possible. One side effect of the overall reduction in service on streetcar lines to a 10 minute level on many routes is that there is no spare capacity when delays occur, and wider headways make the effect on riders of any missing vehicle (either not in service or short-turned) greater.
This is not the first time the system encountered that problem, and tuning out surplus capacity has been a generic issue across the network any time budget “efficiency” takes precedence over service. The phrase “adjusting service to meet demand” goes back over four decades.
Service standards that allow for some empty space on vehicles are important because they guarantee some flexibility to absorb small problems without service collapsing. An analogy for motorists is that a highway totally jammed with cars does not move traffic at all well, and some empty space is necessary to ensure the road is usable. On transit, empty space is viewed as waste while on our roads no congestion is a holy grail.
The remainder of this article reviews the short-turning situation on most streetcar routes and the underlying causes.
When I receive the detailed plans for coming schedule periods, I will post the usual omnibus articles.
Updated July 13, 2023: The eastern terminus of the 506C bus has been corrected to Victoria Park Station.
Updated July 14, 2023: The 506 Carlton street service will resume on Gerrard East to Coxwell on Monday, July 17.
Updated July 15, 2023: The map of the revised 506 Carlton routing has been posted by the TTC.
Week of July 17 (Updated)
With the completion of water main and track work at Coxwell & Lower Gerrard, the 506 Carlton cars will be extended east from Broadview via Coxwell to Woodbine Loop on July 17. Service to Victoria Park Station will continue to be provided by the 506C Carlton bus.
Through bus service on Coxwell from Danforth to Queen will be restored on July 30 when 22 Coxwell return.
July 30
Several changes will occur on Sunday, July 30 including adjustments in response to demand levels, scheduling improvements and construction work.
The 31 Greenwood bus route which has been operating temporarily via an expanded south end loop will be permanently extended to Queen & Eastern Avenue.
The 506 Carlton route will be shifted to Dundas West Station as its western terminus to permit water main construction on Howard Park Avenue.
September 3
Streetcar service will return to Long Branch with 501 Queen cars running to Humber Loop, and 507 Long Branch cars from Humber to Long Branch. The peak period 508 Lake Shore (via King) will also return.
Streetcar service will return to Upper Gerrard and Main Street Station with completion of construction work there.
Streetcars will be replaced on Queen East and on St. Clair for construction.
On 501 Queen, the Ontario Line work at Degrassi (east of Broadview) will require bus service in place of streetcars. As previously announced, the temporary 505 Dundas service to Woodbine Loop will be routed via Gerrard and Coxwell due to the Metrolinx work on Queen.
On St. Clair, reconstruction of St. Clair West Station Loop will require buses over the entire 512 route. This will also affect 33 Forest Hill and 126 Christie (which will interline rather than looping at St. Clair West), and 90 Vaughan which will be extended south to Bathurst Station.
Reconstruction of Dufferin Loop will alter the south end loop arrangements for the 29/929 Dufferin services, and the 504B King to Dufferin service will be extended to Roncesvalles.
The duration of these new construction projects has not been announced.
The Toronto Region Board of Trade recently published a review of municipal transit systems against an overall set of targets. Intriguingly, this document goes by two names:
Needs Improvement: Toronto Region Transit Report Cards is the title cited on the main announcement page for this report.
Needs Improvement: Getting to World-Class Transit is the actual title on page 1 of the report itself.
To little surprise, the most mature among the municipal systems received the highest grades: Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton and Waterloo Region. The challenge with any grading system, assuming that it is uniformly applied, is the structure and goals used in any evaluation.
Updated July 12 at 11:10pm: Comments by Darwin O’Connor of TransSee.ca regarding reliability metrics are now reflected in the text of this article.
Updated July 10, 2023 at 3:00 pm: The City of Guelph had their grade upped from a D+ in the original rankings to a C+ based on service reliability which is quite high on that system. This raises a few key questions:
Was the “reliability” metric cited by Guelph the same as the one used by the Board of Trade for other systems? Just what does Guelph’s claimed reliability score of 88% mean?
(Updated) Darwin O’Connor, who calculated the reliability metrics for the Board of Trade Report, advises that he also provided the Guelph score and used the same methodology as for other cities where tracking data were available.
Reliability counts for 35% of the total mark. Was Guelph scored zero on this simply because the Board of Trade didn’t have service tracking data for them?
Reliability data are also listed as “Not Available” for Oakville and Milton. Considering that neither of them has a 15 minute service area, awarding them substantial marks for being “on time” with what they do run would be boost that might not be fairly earned.
(Updated) O’Connor replies: “TransSee is unable to provide reliability data for Oakville because their API doesn’t have a method to get all vehicle locations at once. I also didn’t have tracking data for Milton because my data source is unofficial. I expect if it was included they would get a better mark like Guelph did.”
If anything, this gaffe reveals sloppiness in the Board’s methodology and the typical problem of looking only at the high level summary without poking “under the covers” to verify the results. The Board of Trade should try harder for accuracy and completeness on their next transit outing.
The Board regards the ability to move workers, students and residents as an important economic goal, and the absence of good transit as a drag on the region’s economy.
“Improving transit is critical to addressing our reputation as North America’s third-most congested city – a key barrier to the economic competitiveness of our region,” said Jan De Silva, President & CEO of the Toronto Region Board of Trade. “These report cards highlight where we’re falling short and, as a result, what we can look to as we seek to provide a world class transit network that will better-connect workers to jobs, students to school, and residents to their lives.”
TRBOT Media Release, July 5, 2023
There is a fundamental difference between a mere evaluation of our transit systems versus each other, and one that would qualify systems as “world class”. That term sets a much higher threshold, and there is no sense that the Board of Trade took this into account when constructing its grading system.
Updated July 10, 2023 at 3pm: The chart below is the revised version showing Guelph with a C+ grade.
“Getting to an A” is the premise behind the review, but much less clear is whether that “A” will actually bring the type of transit network and service to be truly competitive, to be “world class”.
The Board acknowledges the limitations of its review and notes that some conditions “are the result of a historical lack of investment and operational resources”. That is a delicate way of saying that transit has not been a priority at the political and social level. As population and travel growth shift the emphasis toward transit, “… suburban cities now find themselves pressured to stand up an urban-quality transit system that helps residents move within and throughout the region …”.
Key findings include:
The combination of network coverage (where there are routes close to people and destinations) and service is poor in most of the region.
Service reliability is particularly bad in Toronto with only 58% of trips meeting an “on time” standard.
Another important factor is that a line on a map does not guarantee good service, or service at the time and to the destination a rider might require. GO Transit, a system notably absent from the Board’s analysis, looks good on a map, but not quite so good on the timetable.
For an organization like the Board of Trade, this is a rare recognition that transit is more than a handful of high profile construction projects. A dominant car-oriented culture led directly to the congestion that bedevils the region. Cars enable travel throughout the region, but a corresponding web of transit service never developed. Our collective focus on big ticket projects to support commuting traffic primarily to Toronto’s core left other travel to lower-quality bus service, if that.
In all the hoopla about billions in “transit investment” we forget that over a decade ago the Metrolinx regional plan clearly showed that their proposed network would at best keep congestion from worsening, but would not relieve the underlying problem.
In this article, I will review the scoring system and the goals it seeks to achieve, what the Board considers worthy of an “A” grade. Are we aiming high, or is our definition of “world class” merely good enough to remove some of the more embarrassing gaps in our region’s transit network?
For those wanting the answer up front, no, I believe that the Board, and by extension the political voices they represent, are aiming low. Either they would give everyone an “A” grade for middling improvements, or they would be forced to admit that “world class” is out of reach.
The target for “frequent” transit service is not exactly high. If we were evaluating a road network on a similar basis, we would be happy with two lane roads on a roughly 1.6km grid. That would be a square from roughly Bloor to Dundas, and from Yonge to a bit west of Spadina. The roads would only require capacity for 200 people/hour each way equivalent to four full buses on a 15 minute headway. Some roads would close every evening and all weekend.
That is hardly a “World Class” transit service. The target coverage and service level befit a rural area with cows and sheep grazing by the roadside, not an urban transit system. This target understates the true shortfall in transit as a viable travel alternative.
Steve Munro 