This article is a companion to Red Lanes for Jane Street? with a review of the behaviour of local and express service both in travel time and in headway reliability. The area covered is that of the proposed RapidTO Red Lane implementation between Eglinton and Steeles, and the time period is late 2019 to February 2023.
This is a long read with many charts. My intent is to establish how the route operated over the past three years with a detailed look at recent data. This will provide a base level to compare with any changes when and if transit priority measures are implemented. More importantly, the data show how headway reliability, the uneven and unpredictable spacing of buses, is a severe problem contributing at least as much variation in total travel times as the in-vehicle portion of a rider’s experience.
The high points are:
Travel times:
Travel times on Jane between Eglinton and Steeles dropped by about 10 minutes in peak periods at the beginning of the covid pandemic in 2020, and by lesser amounts at other times. That saving gradually disappeared over three years and travel times grew beyond pre-pandemic levels thanks to construction projects on the route most recently in the second half of 2022.
The covid drop likely represents the greatest saving possible through red lanes that would eliminate or at least reduce traffic delays to transit.
Buses on the 935 Jane Express take about 5 minutes less to make the trip than the 35 Jane locals, but the amount varies day-to-day and during different time periods with the greatest saving during the pm peak and the smallest during the early evening.
Headways:
The median values of headways generally lie near the scheduled service level for 35 Jane local service indicating that most trips do operate. This is not true for 935 Jane express where the statistics indicate that, especially in the afternoon and pm peak, service is very erratic and some of the service does not operate.
During some periods, the 85th percentile of headways is very high, especially for the 935 express, showing that riders can encounter long waits for their bus to appear.
Service leaving terminals is not well spaced with pairs, or worse, departing together particularly later in the day. As buses progress along the route, gaps become wider and bunching tightens up, a common behaviour on transit routes.
Examples of service details in February 2023 show a generally laissez-faire approach to service management with little intervention to regulate bus spacing and break up bunching.
The TTC and City of Toronto work on the RapidTO proposal for Jane Street has reached the public consultation stage. There will be an online session on Wednesday, March 8, 2023 from 6-8 pm, and in person Drop Ins on March 22 and 28. Details are on the City’s RapidTO page for the project.
The proposed area for transit priority lies between Eglinton and Steeles Avenues with varying degrees of transit separation.
Options For Discussion
Stop Removals
As with the Eglinton-Kingston-Morningside RapidTO lanes, the Jane Street proposal includes the removal of some bus stops in the name of speeding transit.
The TTC proposes removal of 7 of 38 stops (18%) even if no transit priority is implemented. For options 2 and 3 which provide a relatively high level of priority, there would be a total of 16 stops (42%) removed. For options 4 and 5 which provide a lesser degree of priority, 9 stops (24%) would be removed.
Of the 38 stops, 13 are shared by the local and express services and they are not affected. This means that there are 25 local stops, of which Options 2 and 3 would remove 16, or two-thirds of these stops.
The premise for the Option 1 locations is that these have no crossing protection and, therefore, create a risk for jaywalking pedestrians. The additional stop removals for Options 2 and 3 are justified as “optimizing” the spacing. The proposal changes the route substantially to the spacing of express stops.
The unanswered question is why these stops exist in the first place, and what local traffic pattern to they support. Should the change be to improve pedestrian protection and access rather than simply telling riders they must walk further to reach their bus?
Another important question here is how much of the supposed benefit of the project will be gained from stop removal as opposed to provision of an all-day reserved lane for transit. The TTC touts the travel time saving through transit priority, but does not net this out against increased walking distance to and from stops.
The City’s page includes maps showing the changes in the 4-minute walking distance catchment areas for transit stops. They do not include information about stop usage, population density or the effect on major traffic generators such as schools.
Revised Lane Allocation
Jane Street is different from the Scarborough RapidTO implementation in important ways:
Part of the Scarborough RapidTO area already had reserved bus lanes in peak periods.
Eglinton Avenue and Kingston Road are six lanes wide plus a median/left turn lane in places. Jane is generally a four-lane street with a shared left turn lane.
Here is the typical existing layout.
Options 2 and 3 reserve the curb lane for transit as well for vehicles turning onto and off of Jane Street.
Option 4 assigns the curb lane for high occupancy vehicles, and Option 5 leaves the street as is with selected widening for queue jump lanes where right turns delay traffic today.
How well any of this will be enforced is anyone’s guess, and the situation on King Street does not inspire confidence.
Travel Time Changes
The anticipated changes in travel time are summarized in the table below. Note that these are for trip over the full distance between Steeles and Eglinton.
The change in stop access times is averaged over the entire route. This dilutes the effect on riders at specific stops by including many riders whose access distance is unaffected. This understates the impact on those who are directly affected. (Note that at an assumed walking speed of 1m/sec the change in distance is equivalent to the change in walking time in seconds.)
The TTC has beaten the transit priority drum for queue jump lanes for years, with only a few examples to show for their efforts. In this case, the provision of such lanes is by far the most expensive option, the longest to implement because of road reconstruction, and the least beneficial to riders. This is really a tactic that should be reserved for key areas with very high transit vehicle congestion where there is very frequent service and a clear payback.
Option 1
Option 2
Option 3
Option 4
Option 5
Change in bus travel times (mins)
0
-5
-4
-2 to -3
-2
Average change in stop access (m)
None
+55
+55
+45
+44
Change in auto travel times (mins)
0
+3 to +4
+2 to +3
+2 to +3
Minimal
Estimated Cost ($m)
N/A
$4.7
$3.9
$2.5
$10.7
Time to Implement (years)
N/A
1 to 2
1 to 2
1 to 2
3 to 4
In a separate article, I will review the behaviour of the Jane 35/935 local and express services. A few key points from that review are worth making here:
The variation in headways (time between buses) can substantially exceed the travel time savings shown here. Operation of reliably-spaced service would improve the rider experience today with any priority savings coming as gravy on top. Conversely, if headway reliability is not improved, then the benefits of red lanes will be undermined by erratic service.
The difference in travel time for express and local buses over this section of Jane is comparable to the travel time saving foreseen in Option 2 (full bus priority). It is not clear whether this difference would persist especially in Options 2 and 3 where over 60% of the local stops are removed.
Beginning March 26, 2023, the 905 Eglinton East Express bus will run less frequently due to a combination of the new TTC Service Standards and the route’s conversion from standard sized to articulated buses.
The vehicle change was not included in the information in the TTC’s overview report discussed at the February 28 Board Meeting, and service comparisons published by me and others were based on a reasonable assumption of equal vehicle capacity.
New Service Standards
The new standards were included in the 2023 Operating Budget [p. 26]:
Route adjustments will be based on ridership demand in the busiest portion of the route, in the busiest direction and hour within each time period of service.
The realigned service proposes to:
1) Resume pre-COVID vehicle crowding standards in peak periods, which were temporarily suspended during the pandemic to provide more physical distancing. (50 customers per bus, 130 customers per streetcar, 1000/1100 customers per train on average during the busiest hour)
2) Increase the pre-COVID vehicle crowding standard at off-peak periods with capacity for each route and time period planned based on the busiest hour for 45 customers per bus, 90 customers per streetcar, and 600-650 customers per train on average.
There is no reference to articulated bus capacities. In the previous service standards, the peak crowding value was 50% higher for artics, but the offpeak value was only 28% higher. The offpeak ratio was lower because the old standard was based on a seated load, and the artics have proportionately more standee space.
In the table below, the “new” values are based on the budget quotation above with the articulated bus values set at 50% higher than those for standard buses.
Period
Standard Old
Standard New
Artic Old
Artic New
Peak
51
50
77
75
Offpeak
36
45
46
68
The TTC cites 50/bus peak and 45/bus offpeak in the quote above. Therefore the new artic standards would be 75/bus peak and 68/bus offpeak using a 50% capacity increase over standard buses.
The old and new hourly route capacities below are based on vehicle types and planned headways. Note that offpeak capacities generally go up because of the substantial increase in standees. Reductions in peak capacity are very small and could be due to assumptions I have made about the TTC’s vehicle capacity standards.
Period
Old Hdwy
Old Bus/Hr
Old Cap
New Hdwy
New Bus/Hr
New Cap
AM Peak
9’15”
6.5
293
16’00”
3.75
281
Midday
7’30”
8.0
368
10’30”
5.7
388
PM Peak
8’00”
7.5
338
14’00”
4.3
322
Early Eve
11’00”
5.5
198
14’00”
4.3
292
Sat Morning
10’00”
6.0
216
14’00”
4.3
292
Sat Afternoon
10’00”
6.0
216
17’00”
3.5
238
Sun Morning
12’00”
5.0
180
17’30”
3.4
231
Sun Afternoon
10’00”
6.0
216
15’30”
3.9
265
Service Reliability
However, the problem with 905 Eglinton East is not confined to the capacity, but to the reliability of the service. We hear a lot about the wonders of Red Lanes for service, but it does not take long to find examples of erratic spacing between buses.
The following sections review January and February 2023 headways in detail looking at service departing eastbound from Kennedy Station and southbound from Ellesmere. The vital point here is that headway reliability is already not good on this route (as on many others in the network), and past experience shows that when scheduled service is reduced problems like this only get worse. Laissez-faire approaches to service management might work tolerably (at least in management’s eyes) for frequent service, but they fail when service is less frequent.
Service standards accept a six minute window (from -1 to +5 minutes) of “on time” performance relative to the schedule. Combined with the new headways proposed above, this will allow gaps of 20 minutes and more to be counted as “on time”. This is a severe penalty for riders, and can undo much of the benefit of “express” operation.
In many of the charts showing individual headways (left column in the collections below), note how often the data points are spread over a range from 0 to at least 15 minutes or more. The TTC routinely fails to attain the quality of service it claims as a target.
As the TTC adjusts schedules to its new budget limitations, the biggest problem for riders will remain the quality of service as shown in reliable headways (or not). Service quality could deteriorate and further inflame riders who already complain about unpredictable waits for and crowding on buses, or the TTC could actually make good on its claims of better service management.
I will return to this in May after the new schedules have been in operation for six weeks.
The remainder of this article contains detailed charts showing service quality on 905 Eglinton East for those who love all of the details.
This article is a follow-up to my earlier piece about the TTC’s Rapid Transit Expansion report including the effect of Ontario Line construction on the 501 Queen service.
Updated March 1, 2023:
The reason that track installation on Adelaide, which by itself is relatively straightforward, cannot proceed immediately is that nine Toronto Hydro and Bell vaults must be relocated. Metrolinx opted not to do this work, but the City has taken over.
Streetcars will remain on 501 Queen but will divert both ways via Broadview, Dundas and McCaul from May 2023 to March 2024. A bus shuttle will operate over the central portion of the route.
The list of track construction projects for 2023-24 has been clarified.
Back in December 2021, the City approved a report with a very long list of proposed road closures for Ontario Line construction.
The construction at Queen Station will entail a multi-year diversion of 501 Queen service, and the plan was for streetcars to operate:
Eastbound via York, Adelaide and Church
Westbound via Church, Richmond and York
Track already exists for the westbound route, but new track is required on York and on Adelaide for the eastbound diversion.
Much of this work was supposed to have been completed in 2022, with the intent that the diversion would be available in May 2023. Various factors combined to foul up this schedule.
The contract to install new track on York and on Adelaide east to Victoria was, for some reason, to be a Metrolinx responsibility separate from City work on utility upgrades and relocation. This lengthened the potential timespan with two separate procurements, and inevitable delays as one contractor waited for the the other to finish.
Metrolinx was supposed to build the new track on York Street in 2022. This did not happen. According to a recent City report (about which more below), Metrolinx has been preoccupied with the Ontario Line.
Construction on Adelaide west from York to Spadina was done by the City to restore track inactive for many decades and to provide more flexibility for downtown diversions. This went quickly through the fall, and was performed by Midome Construction who were also working on utilities east of York.
For various reasons, notably discovery of unexpected underground Toronto Hydro and Bell plant, the work east on Adelaide from York did not complete in 2022, although it was substantially finished from York to Bay. Some water main connections were incomplete with pipes blocking the curb lanes, and this complicated traffic and transit diversions around a major sinkhole at King and University.
Until quite recently, if one ignored the incomplete work on the diversion trackage, it was possible to think that the streetcars would simply divert as planned beginning in May. This is obviously not going to happen, and it must have been clear to the TTC for months that the 501 Queen service would have to be modified.
The first hint of this was buried in the report under discussion at today’s (February 28, 2023) TTC Board Meeting.
Metrolinx has identified that the potential delay to complete the streetcar detour work will result in approximately 20 months of shuttle bus service commencing in early May 2023. The TTC is still working closely with Metrolinx and the City on exploring options to optimize the construction schedule of the Adelaide civil and streetcar track construction work to reduce the duration of shuttle bus service.
TTC Transit Network Expansion Update at p. 14
The words “shuttle bus” will send hapless TTC riders screaming from the room. There is a long history, particularly in recent years, of the TTC’s incompetence in operating construction shuttles including changing routes with little or no notice, conflicting information online and at stops, and erratic service with shuttles running in packs and taking long layovers at terminals. This was compounded by the number of planned and unplanned construction projects and the overlapped periods of construction on what should have been distinct route and road closures.
The grand daddy of them all is the King-Queen-Queensway-Roncesvalles project where all manner of delays including pandemic effects on work, unexpected utility relocations, slow work by affected companies such as Toronto Hydro, Bell and others, pushed the completion date out to, with luck, July 2023.
The idea that Queen would see 20 months of shuttle buses before the streetcar diversion would be ready is a testament to fouled up planning. The work should never have been divided between Metrolinx and the City but consolidated as a single contract with a goal of completion as fast as possible.
We now know, courtesy of the Star’s reporting that the delay will be only ten months instead of twenty thanks to the City’s contract consolidation. That’s an improvement, but it should never have been necessary.
For the TTC’s part, this continues a sad tale of communications and consultation foul-ups. The need for shuttles would clearly have been known months ago. How exactly they will operate is totally unknown because the TTC has issued no guidance on this. Will there be shuttles downtown? Over the entire route? Will the route be split to make it more manageable and give different routing options for eastern and western legs?
This should have been a public discussion months ago even if some details were still to be nailed down rather than a surprise landing on already-suffering riders who have dealt with many disruptions on Queen and other routes.
There are several planned track and road construction projects on Queen and King Street in coming years, and I learned recently that several of these have been deferred to reduce overlaps and conflicts. The revised schedule has not been published, and yet this will be essential to any discussion of transit service through the Ontario Line’s construction period. These include:
Scheduled for 2023, but deferred:
King West from Close to Strachan.
Queen East from Parliament to River.
Queen East from Carlaw to Greenwood.
Queen at Degrassi. Revision to streetcar power distribution for Ontario Line. 2023, date TBA.
Scheduled for 2024:
Queen West from O’Hara to Triller. 2024.
Queen East from Davies to Carlaw. 2024 (likely during Metrolinx work at Degrassi underpass).
King West from Strachan to Spadina. 2024.
Bathurst Street from Queen to Front
Scheduled for 2024, but deferred:
King East at Church (intersection).
The City, TTC and Metrolinx owe everyone an apology for this cock-up, and a commitment to resolve conflicting schedules and publish credible plans as soon as possible.
At its meeting on February 28, the TTC Board will receive a report summarizing the status of most of the rapid transit plans in Toronto. This article condenses the TTC report and reorders some sections to group related items together.
Dominant among many projects are, of course, the “big four” provincial projects: Ontario Line, Scarborough Subway, Yonge North Subway, and Eglinton West LRT extension.
Project Status Overview
The effect of major projects elbowing everything else aside is clear in the table below. Some projects do not have in service dates because they are not funded, and the timing of that (when and if it occurs) will determine when various lines can open.
Not shown in this table are several major projects that pop up from time to time:
Bloor-Yonge Station Expansion
Waterfront West LRT from Dufferin to The Queensway
Bloor West subway extension
New Line 2 fleet and yard at Kipling (Obico yard property)
Sheppard East subway extension
Platform Edge Doors
Of these, only the Bloor-Yonge project has funding, and some are only a glimmer in various politicians’ eyes.
In response to budgetary limitations, the TTC will be modifying service on several routes in two waves of changes. The first will occur on Sunday, March 26 and the second on Sunday, May 6. Details of the second wave are not yet available.
The first wave is detailed in a report to the TTC Board for its meeting of February 28, 2023.
This report shows the changes in headways and service levels on affected routes. It is not as detailed as the Service Memo that will come out just before these schedules are implemented, nor as the Scheduled Service Summary. When the fine details including changes in travel time and vehicle allocations are available, I will publish the usual breakdown.
Updated February 23, 2023 at 9:00am: A table consolidating old and new headways where changes occur has been added. The times in this table is shown in “mm:ss” format rather than in decimal minutes as in the original tables. The new version is at the end of the article.
Updated February 23, 2023 at 10:00pm: The tables in this article have been consolidated for simplicity. All times are now shown in mm’ss” format. The new version is at the end of the article replacing the version that was added earlier.
My apologies for the constant reformatting. With the widespread desire to see what the changes would be, I pushed the original tables out faster than I might otherwise, and my readers got to watch as I tweaked the format. The intent is to have a standard chart that will be used for all future comparisons of service.
Changes of Special Note
Within the list of changes, there are a few worth highlighting:
Subway Services
Service on 2 Bloor-Danforth will improve slightly in the AM peak, but will drop in other periods notably late evenings when trains will operate every 8 rather than every 5 minutes on weekdays.
Service on 4 Sheppard will be cut from 4 trains at all times to 3 with a corresponding widening of headways from 5’30” to 7’20”.
Express Services
Service will be suspended on the following routes and periods:
935 Jane Express weekday evenings
941 Keele Express weekday midday
943 Kennedy Express peak periods
984 Sheppard West Express weekends
In most cases, the local service will not be improved to compensate, and indeed there are local service cuts as well.
501 Queen Streetcar
Weekday service on 501 Queen will be reduced considerably except late evenings.
60/960 Steeles West
The 60C peak period service west of Pioneer Village Station to Kipling will be suspended.
Service Improvements
The 128 Stanley Greene bus was approved by the Board in the 2021 Service Plan, but was not yet implemented. It will begin operation during peak periods on a half-hourly headway.
The 335 Jane Night Bus will operate every 20 minutes rather than half hourly Monday-Friday (which effectively means Tuesday to Saturday).
The 336 Finch West Night Bus will operate every 10 minutes rather than half hourly after 5am Monday-Friday.
These changes are presented in the context of improvements to Neighbourhood Improvement Areas. The same cannot be said for the many service cuts affecting NIAs.
Construction continues on Roncesvalles and on The Queensway. Track work is complete at the intersection, but still in progress between Glendale and Parkside.
According to the latest email update from the city, Roncesvalles Avenue is expected to re-open by mid-March, and streetcar service should resume at the start of May.
After the track and road works on The Queensway are completed, the TTC overhead system must be installed. Streetcar service west of Sunnyside Loop would resume in “the summer”, but with no specific date.
Conversion of overhead on King west from Bathurst to Roncesvalles for pantograph operation is in progress. Segments are in various stages all the way from complete to not yet started with about 50% completion overall. 504 King streetcar service now ends at Bathurst, although many cars turn back at Spadina. 504C King bus service runs between downtown and Dundas West Station via Parkside until Roncesvalles re-opens in March.
The photos below show:
Stop construction southbound on Roncesvalles at The Queesway
Sunnyside Loop, now the temporary western terminus of 501 Queen service. The intersection at The Queensway and Sunnyside will be signalled, but this is not yet activated.
The Queensway at Glendale (St. Joseph’s Hospital)
Looking north on Roncesvalles from QueenSunnyside LoopLeaving Sunnyside LoopLooking west on The Queensway to GlendaleEastbound stop at GlendaleAll photos by the author taken on Feb. 20, 2023
On February 17, I did an interview on CBC’s Metro Morning about the potential legacy of John Tory for Toronto’s transit system. Here is a link to my recording of it.
As and when CBC posts the interview on their own site, I will flip the link over to them.
A major question facing transit advocates today is the degree to which TTC service is less frequent than in the pre-pandemic era, and more recently how it will be changing on a month-to-month basis.
As I write this on February 15, 2023, service changes were introduced a few days ago, and many more are planned for March 26, 2023. The TTC plans to release details of the March changes in its agenda for their Board meeting on February 28 for which the agenda should be available about a week in advance.
For each schedule change, I have published a detailed table showing old and new headways (the interval between vehicles), the changes in scheduled trip times, and the number of vehicles assigned to each route. This information is important for seeing that detail, but for a general audience, a simpler representation of the changes is needed.
In mid 2022, I published a comparison of May 2022 service levels with January 2020 to illustrate the degree to which service had changed between the pre-pandemic period and what, at the time, was thought to be the start of a strong recovery through 2022. This article includes tables in the same format comparing:
January 2020 to January 2023 as an update to the previous article, and
January 2023 to February 2023 showing the changes, where they occurred, on February 12, 2023.
In future articles about service changes I will include both the usual detailed spreadsheet as well as a chart showing the changes in the consolidated view used here. This will allow readers to quickly see where major changes occur, or not.
Updated February 16, 2023 at 12:45am: The pdf chart sets and some pages within the article have been replaced to correct an error in 76 Royal York South.
Prologue: When I started to write this story, John Tory was still Mayor of Toronto and the dynamics of City-Province relations assumed he was in charge. The context for these discussions was soon to change.
The Toronto Region Board of Trade holds a yearly “transportation summit”, and on February 8, 2023, this focused on the Greater Toronto Area’s transit, plans for the future, and the aftermath of the covid pandemic.
The TRBoT is no wild-eyed radical institution. The regional economy and businesses are at the heart of causes it advocates.
Both in the introductory remarks and in comments by speakers sprinkled through the day, the economic effect of traffic congestion was a mantra. This sets the framework for the importance of both transit and road projects, depending on who is speaking. The latest factoid describing Toronto’s problems is that we have the third worst congestion in North America and the seventh worst in the world.
A problem with this hand-wringing is that there is little acknowledgement that some particularly bad locations are related to major infrastructure projects such as the Gardiner Expressway rebuild and various rapid transit lines. Moreover, goods movement has severe problems in areas that historically have poor transit and show little chance of seeing any in the near future. No single project will solve the problem of many-to-many trips patterns that now depend almost totally on roads and private vehicles.
Steve Munro 