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Why I Voted For Gil Penalosa for Mayor

In the Toronto Mayoral race for 2022, there is only one person I could vote for: Gil Penalosa.

His many policy planks cover a wide variety of topics, some more thoroughly than others, but they share a common goal of making Toronto a better city.

After nearly three years of pandemic, and many more of fiscal austerity before them, Toronto needs to think beyond this to ask what should the city be? What could it be?

Too often we begin with the premise that we cannot afford anything, and plan on that basis.

In John Tory’s Toronto, we see the cumulative effect of spending, when it happens, focused on pet projects like SmartTrack (itself a shadow of the original promise), misplaced priorities (the Gardiner rebuild), and credit taken for programs by others (Ontario’s transit plan). On other areas talk demonstrably exceeds action. The big ticket items are capital works, projects that will not show results for years, while day-to-day services crumble.

I have no illusions that in a Gil Penalosa Toronto all would be perfection. I have already written about shortcomings in the FastLane proposal for a Bus Rapid Transit network. To his credit, Penalosa has released a second policy regarding transit priority, the FastLane Quick Fixes that proposes extensive priority changes for streetcars, especially those already on reserved lanes.

More is needed, including a commitment to much improved service, but my sense is that Penalosa is not stuck on one map as the master solution to transit problems. Too many elections are fought on grand plans, on maps with great promise for the 2030s, but with nothing for today’s transit riders. Steak tomorrow, but gruel today.

Penalosa also proposes reducing fares to $1 for low income riders. This would be a substantial cut below the “Fair Pass” that now gives approximately the same discount as Seniors’ and Students’ fares and therefore offers no benefit to low-income riders in these groups.

The challenge for any new Mayor will be how to pay for everything, and what programs will take priority.

From John Tory, we know that a tax increase below inflation is his target, although the current economic figures give him far more leeway than in past years. However property taxes are only about one third of Toronto’s total revenues, and money from other sources is not a sure thing, notably from the Land Transfer Tax. After a covid-era fare freeze, there is no word on what might happen to TTC fares which accounted for over $1 billion in City revenue in pre-pandemic times.

What we do know is that there will not be new money for anything without offsets elsewhere. The TTC’s 2023 Draft Service Plan includes restructured routes and new services, but they are all on a no-net-cost basis. If you want something new, you have to sacrifice something that’s already there. The TTC will be lucky to achieve even that unless it receives funding to replace covid supports from Ontario and Canada. (Details of the 2023 plan have been shared via consultations with various groups, and they will appear on the TTC’s website soon.)

The same problem applies across the city. We face the combined effect of revenues that do not rise to cover even inflationary costs, let alone new services, and the cutback of pandemic-related subsidies that will dwindle or vanish in 2023 and beyond.

Penalosa would face the same fiscal problems. The next few years will not be easy for Toronto no matter who is in the Mayor’s office. The difference would be the direction, the aim, the choice of top priorities for real change and improvement.

I voted for Gil Penalosa even though the polls show an almost certain Tory win because Toronto’s body politic must see that there is support for an alternative, for a better city. The debate about our future must continue even after the election as Toronto looks ahead to better economic times and to new regimes at both City Hall and Queen’s Park.

For the record: I was not asked for advice on nor did I contribute to any of Penalosa’s policy development.

Election day is Monday October 24, but I have already voted by mail. If you’re thinking of getting my vote, it’s too late.

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Will Line 2 Renewal Ever Happen?

Those of us who can remember back to days before the pandemic, when Andy Byford was the TTC’s CEO, will know that there were frequent questions at the TTC Board about upgrades to the Bloor-Danforth subway, Line 2. All of the focus seemed to be on the Yonge-University-Spadina Line 1 with new signalling, trains and the Vaughan extension.

Byford confirmed that work on a Line 2 plan was underway, but never presented one in public. However, it does not take a lot to work out what might have been in this plan.

  • Automatic Train Control (ATC) signalling to replace the 1960s-era technology still in use.
  • New trains to replace the existing fleet of T-1 trains that would reach their design life of 30 years in the late-2020s.
  • Additional trains for service increases possible with ATC as well as for the Scarborough extension.
  • Additional/new maintenance facilities for a larger Line 2 fleet, plus provision for the then-planned stabling of Relief Line trains at Greenwood Yard.
  • Storage and maintenance facilities for the growing fleet of subway work cars.
  • Potential integration of a western yard project with an extension of Line 2 beyond Kipling Station.

This plan requires a lot of funding that the TTC still does not have, action to launch procurement of long lead time rolling stock and infrastructure, and a level of project co-ordination for which the TTC is not particularly noted.

That co-ordination issue arises in part from the funding challenge, and the tendency politically to ask for only what is strictly needed for “today’s” work hoping that Santa Claus will arrive in time to fund the rest. This was a direct cause of technical problems with the Line 1 ATC project that was cobbled together over time. It started with a superficially simple desire to replace the then-existing 1950s signals on the original line from Eglinton to Union. The feeling was quite clear: the TTC Board and Council would never commit to a full ATC conversion project because it would be too expensive.

Unfortunately what resulted was a mixed bag of signalling technologies that were incompatible with each other. To rescue the project, Byford recommended ripping out some already-installed equipment so that the line could be standardized. A related decision was that the Vaughan extension would open with ATC in place rather than, as originally planned, a traditional block signal system that would have to be replaced as a separate project.

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TTC Track Construction Update October 9, 2022

A Word About Diversion Notices

I have often written here and on Twitter about the proliferation of service change cards and posters as the constant changes in streetcar routes occur. Combined with conflicting and out-of-date online information, it is common to find at least two different versions of notices at the same stop, not to mention “stop not in service” notices in locations where streetcars are actually running.

Without question, the constant shifts in the operating plan are challenging to keep up with, but the lack of attention to removal of out of date information, particularly when new notices go up at the same location, does not serve riders well at all. Operating staff, in good faith, give out incorrect info leading passengers astray, and I have rescued a few lost travellers over past weeks.

This is a very serious issue given the amount of construction that will affect TTC routes (and not just the streetcar network) in coming years. Riders have enough challenges with service quality without having to divine whatever route their service might be taking today. There is a clear fragmentation of responsibility for keeping route information up-to-date and consistent within the TTC. Even in a recently announced reorganization, the responsibility for “closures and diversions” is in a separate branch (Operations and Infrastructure) of the TTC from “service delivery” (Transportation and Vehicles).

The phrase “Beware of the leopard”, for those who know the reference, seems particularly apt for some TTC “communications”.

The TTC needs to figure out how communications about service plans and changes can be centrally accessed and administered so that all notices speak with the same voice and contain current, accurate information.

Updated October 9, 2022 at 11:40pm: It turns out that there are four pages within the TTC website where service information might be found. At last count, the list includes:

There is the parent Service Advisories which links three of the four above. Some but not all of the items in the Updates page are also displayed on the main page under “Latest News”.

Although the same topic might be found through different pages, the text is not always the same indicating that multiple versions of the information have been posted. In this situation it is easy for their content to drift thanks to selective updating.

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A Walk On New Cherry Street

Out of sight of most in Toronto, the mouth of the Don River has been transformed by Waterfront Toronto with earth moving and landscaping on a scale rarely seen in these parts. The work will shift the Don River’s course and provide floodproofing for a large area to be developed under the name “Villiers Island” after a street in the northern edge of the district.

Cherry Street will shift to the west the equivalent of a short city block, and the New Cherry will eventually have a branch of the Waterfront East streetcar service if the City ever gets around to financing and building it.

Three new bridges were built in Nova Scotia by Cherubini Metal Works. Waterfront Toronto has an article about the design process and, of course, many articles and photos of the overall project. The map below shows the positioning of the three bridges.

The bridges share a common design, but each is unique in its own way.

  • The Cherry Street North bridges, one for road traffic and one for transit, will connect the New Cherry Street across the Keating Channel to a reconfigured Cherry and Queens Quay intersection. Eventually, there will be streetcars on a realigned Queens Quay East as well as south from Distillery Loop connecting to New Cherry. These bridges are red.
  • The Cherry Street South Bridge is a road bridge over the future river connecting New Cherry to the existing road at Polson Street. This bridge is yellow. Depending on the route taken by the new streetcar service, there could be a loop somewhere north of the Ship Channel. If so, the Cherry South bridge will gain a transit twin like the north bridge.
  • The Commissioners Street bridge carries Commissioners Street over the future path of the river. Because of its length, it is a double span. This bridge is orange. Like the Cherry South bridge, it could gain a twin set of spans for transit if trackage is ever extended east from New Cherry either to an extended Broadview Avenue or further east to Leslie Barns at Commissioners & Leslie.

The new river is not yet flooded and so there is water in the old Polson Slip west of the Cherry South Bridge, but the riverbed east and north of there is completely dry as work to prepare it continues.

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TTC Service Changes Effective Sunday, October 9, 2022

There are few service changes in the October schedules taking effect on Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend.

Route 501 Queen streetcar service will be extended nominally to Sunnyside Loop, although pending completion of overhead in the loop, cars will circle Roncesvalles Carhouse instead. The last westbound and first eastbound stops will be on the east side of Roncesvalles at Queen. 501L bus service will continue to operate from Dufferin to Long Branch with a small reduction of service in some periods.

Some routes have added trips to serve school trips and other time-of-day specific demands (details in the linked spreadsheet):

  • 9 Bellamy
  • 25 Don Mills
  • 37 Islington
  • 42 Cummer
  • 84 Sheppard West
  • 96 Wilson

New express stops are added on:

  • 905 Eglinton East Express
  • 985 Sheppard East Express

Seasonal changes:

  • 86 Scarborough Saturday late evening service adjusted for earlier Terra Lumina closing time.
  • 172 Cherry Beach weekend service suspended (weekday service will operate until November 18).
  • 175 Bluffer’s Park service suspended.

Miscellaneous:

  • 31B Greenwood to Eastern Ave service end-of-line location shifted west from Minto to Knox and Eastern.
  • 55 Warren Park adjusted to consistently leave Jane Station on the :15 and :45 after the hour.
  • 506 Carlton shifted from Roncesvalles Carhouse to Leslie Barns.
  • 600 Run As Directed crews reduced.

2022.10.09_Service_Changes

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Service Standards, Metrics and the CEO’s Report (II)

This article continues a review of what the TTC aims for, at least on paper, in service quality, and how their success (or lack of it) in providing good service is reported for public and political consumption. The framework for this commentary is the CEO’s Report, using the August 2022 version as a reference point.

I deliberately broke this discussion into two parts. The first looked at the various figures related to system performance are presented and how they reveal or hide critical information.

See: Service Standards, Metrics and the CEO’s Report (I)

The TTC Board is notoriously unwilling to get into the weeds on system statistics, operations and finances. Superficial analyses in the CEO report give them nice pictures and charts to look at, but that is not the same as a discussion of key issues and future risk. This is vital in any planning for recovery from a pandemic that will continue to affect the TTC in 2023 and beyond. There is a separate detailed quarterly report that reviews finances and the state of major capital projects, but it does not address many issues notably the cost and capability for growth as ridership returns to the system.

While it may suit those who run the TTC and the City to keep this discussion under wraps, that cannot be done for long as the 2023 budgets will be upon us immediately after the coming municipal election. There is a lot of great talk about the importance of transit, but this does not translate into real understanding and support beyond a few very large construction projects. (That statement applies equally to Metrolinx and GO, but my focus here is on the TTC.)

Key points:

  • Although fare revenue recovery is reported, this is not matched against cost growth. Fares have been frozen through the pandemic. Even at recovery to 100 percent of pre-pandemic ridership, the proportion of costs borne by fares will have fallen and the need for subsidy will be higher. “Full service” will cost more in 2023 than it did in 2020, even without the added cost of improving beyond historic levels.
  • Ridership recovery takes place at a different rate on different routes and modes, not to mention time-of-day.
  • Underutilized fleets provide a reserve for service improvements, provided there are drivers for the vehicles, up to the point where the need for spare buses and streetcars limits service growth. After that point, growth hits a knee in the cost curve as new capital assets must be acquired.
  • Asset reliability is reported as the proportion of scheduled service actually operated, but with no sense of how much reserve exists in the fleet.
  • Fleet reliability is reported in a way that prevents direct comparison between segments, notably various types of buses. Although there is a target for reliability, the degree to which this is exceeded (in effect the headroom for better utilization) is not reported.
  • Service reliability and quality are reported on broad averages across routes and days, with no indication of the variation across the system. Purported “on time” metrics do not reveal actual rider experience.
  • There is no report of:
    • the amount of scheduled service that does not operate because no driver is available;
    • the utilization and effectiveness of Run-As-Directed buses;
    • the amount of bunching and gaps as a proportion of service operated;
    • routes with demand, service levels, crowding and headway reliability issues.

This review does not look at the WheelTrans system and accessibility in general because it has a raft of issues of its own on matters such as adequacy of service, dispatching, the online booking interface, qualification for service and the TTC’s attempt to shift riders at least partly onto the “conventional” system through the “Family of Services” program. An important issue for WheelTrans overall is that it is entirely funded by the City of Toronto with no assistance from other governments. This makes it particularly vulnerable to penny-pinching efforts by those who guard our “precious tax dollars”.

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504A King Service Returns to Distillery Loop

Effective October 1, 2022, the 504A branch of the King car will return to Distillery Loop. The 504B branch will continue to operate to Broadview Station via Parliament and Queen as shown below.

Source: TTC Service Notice

This is a temporary arrangement pending completion of the re-electrification of switches at King and Sumach. Once that is completed, expected within a few days, the 504B will revert to the standard route via King between Parliament and the Don Bridge. If this situation lasts to Monday, October 3 or later, the 503 Kingston Road car will also continue to divert via Queen and Parliament.

This change will reduce streetcar congestion at Broadview Station because only half of the service will go that far east on the line. It will also eliminate some of the wheel squeal problems at King and Parliament, although not completely until the 504B service returns to its normal route.

Service will return to the Sumach and Cherry Streets that have been without reliable service since the beginning of August. The 504 shuttle bus was extremely erratic with very wide gaps in service, and it as cancelled completely on September 4 even though signs remained on transit shelters advertising its existence. The area is also served by the 121 Esplanade-River bus which has its own problems with reliability.

Updated October 1, 2022 at 7:10 am: The west end of the King car will divert to Wolseley Loop at Queen and Bathurst rather than operating to Exhibition Loop due to trackwork on Fleet Street. This also affects 511 Bathurst which diverts east to Charlotte Loop and 509 Harbourfront which short turns at Spadina and is replaced by a bus shuttle from the to the Exhibition. Normal service resumes on Monday, October 3.

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Gil Penalosa Embraces Bus Rapid Transit

Updated Sept 29/22 at 7pm: A link to and short commentary on the TTCRiders mayoral candidate poll has been added at the end of the article.

Gil Penalosa, the primary challenger to Mayor John Tory’s re-election bid, released a transit platform this week. In place of Light Rapid Transit such as the Finch West line now under construction, Penalosa advocates a network of Bus Rapid Transit under the moniker FastLane.

My reaction, quite simply, was “is that all there is?”

This map ignores large parts of Toronto, and the platform is silent on Penalosa’s view on what might happen with the transit system as a whole. There is an unhappy echo of John Tory’s SmartTrack scheme eight years ago in the amount of empty space on that map.

Notable by their absence are several projects in various states of planning and engineering including many RapidTO corridors, both bus and streetcar, and the Waterfront LRT extensions. These may not figure in Penalosa’s transit view, but any candidate should at least explain where they stand on current planning proposals. Are they deferred? Replaced by an alternative? Dropped? Also missing are planned BRT corridors on Ellesmere and on Dundas West.

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An Update Re Subway Special Work

There was a conversation recently in comments on this blog about a perceived improvement in the noise (or lack of it) of subway trains on special work (switches and crossovers, also known as “frogs”) at Lawrence and Keele Stations. I postulated a few possible answers, but wrote to the TTC to ask what they had done.

Their response, from Stuart Green, Senior Communications Specialist, confirms what I had expected and provides additional details.

Lawrence Double Cross-Over

  • It is an improved design with different type of heel that eliminates the joint at the heel of the switch.
  • Two turnouts are now flange bearing lift frogs that means continuous rail at the crossing – no jumping over the toe of the frog.
  • Newer rails that have no end battering at the joints
  • New ballast that provides better load transfer and required stiffness/flexibility to track.

Keele Double Cross-Over

  • New double cross-over is of the same design with some improvement in the design to make it smoother. The main reasons for smoother ride are new rails and new frog that do not have any end battering or excessive wear.
  • New ballast that provides better load transfer and required stiffness/flexibility to track.
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Eglinton Crosstown Delayed (Again)

In what must be the most anti-climactic news on the planet, Phil Verster, Metrolinx President and CEO, has announced that the Eglinton Crosstown Line 5 will not open as planned. I will let Metrolinx speak for themselves.

Statement regarding the Eglinton Crosstown LRT

Sept. 23, 2022

Today, Metrolinx President & CEO Phil Verster issued the following statement:

We had expected the Eglinton Crosstown LRT to be fully built, thoroughly tested, and in service this fall in accordance with our project agreement with Crosslinx Transit Solutions, the construction consortium responsible for building the project.

Unfortunately, while progress has been made, Crosslinx Transit Solutions have fallen behind schedule, are unable to finalize construction and testing, and therefore the system will not be operational on this timeline.

We know construction has been difficult for commuters, communities, and businesses along the Eglinton corridor. We are doing everything to hold Crosslinx Transit Solutions accountable and to redouble efforts to meet their commitments and complete the work quickly so we can welcome riders onto a complete, tested, and fully operational Eglinton Crosstown LRT as soon as possible.

Source: Metrolinx Blog

Anyone who has followed the construction project, to the degree it is visible at street level, would have trouble believing the line would be ready in 2022. Only a week ago, the project’s Twitter account announced that they had just finished structural steel at Eglinton Station. This is nowhere near the same as putting the last touch of paint on a building.

The TTC budgeted for a first quarter 2023 startup with training in advance, but that date sounds iffy considering Verster made no mention of a handover date from the builder, let along commissioning and opening the line.

If only Metrolinx were less secretive, less inclined to give us only “good news”, there would be more trust in their breathless announcements for all projects, not just Eglinton.

The key question, however, is not “when will it open”, but “how long has Metrolinx known”.