Transit City Update

Actually, there's not much to update. The TTC (or is the City who can tell?) still have their Transit City website up and running - but it doesn't look like there's much action.

I you go on the website, the first picture you'll see is one of a streetcar. I think this goes under the category of "severe marketing faux-pas". There are people who are trying to convice us that the plan is more than simply streetcars - but more and more it seems that's all there is.

When I pressed the link to see the latest news, the first story in the Google news search was about the groundbreaking for New York City's project to join the Long Island RR with Grand Central Station. Now New York is a transit city.

OK - let's look at some of the possible lines:

Eglinton

If built to completion, this will be a very long line - 31 km at a price tag of $2.2 billion. A good chunk of this would be underground - and there is a good stretch of corridor available on Eglinton West to run a route at the side of the street.

It would be interesting to know what the proposed train/station length is for this line. The trouble is that the underground stations could end up being too short. If the line is really rapid, the is plenty of pent up demand that could quickly overwhelm underbuilt stations.

Conversely, it's difficult to run 4 or 5 car trains in the middle of streets due to station requirements. It's totally impractical to keep breaking up and bulding trainsets.

Nat's prognosis -

This is the best of the bunch (and the Transit City website poll agrees by a wide margin.)

It would be better to build this as a metro line. Montreal's new Metro extension to Laval (which had to tunnel under the Riviere Des Prairies) cost about $175 million per KM - so the $2.2 billion could build a Metro type line from about Eglinton and Laird to Eglinton and Jane (11.3 km per Google Maps) with $200 change to spare for equipment.


Don Mills

OK the Don Mills bus is pretty busy - but the street is hardly overwhelmed by buses. I've been going to a client at Leslie and Hwy 7 - and avoiding the DVP on some days. On Don Mills, the reserved lane for buses is pretty well adhered - i.e. cars stay out unless turning.

In some sections, there is room for an LRT - others are too narrow. I have no idea what is planned for the connection to the Bloor Danforth line.

There's a marginal case that this line would serve dense employment - although a good deal of the office space along the corridor is off by a jog along Wynford Drive. Most people would need to transfer to a bus from Don Mills. There are some offices on Don Mills directly- and some manufacturing.

Nat's prognosis -

There's plenty of room to expand surface capacity on Don Mills without sinking $700 on a streetcar line. This line would likeky to closer to true LRT than some of the others - but I can't see stop spacing being elongated more than removing every other stop.

Even at that, the extra walk to the stop would be a gig negative for existing passengers (oh yeah them - don't rain on the LRT parade by talking about them!)

The big problem with the line is that is terminates at Bloor Danforth instead of proceding downtown. B-D is already very busy by the time it comes in from the East at Coxwell or so.

Not sure what to make of this one. The best thing for riders would be a Viva type service to enhance the existing bus service that would run in and out of the Eglinton & Laird terminus of the Eglinton Metro. Eglnton East from Laird is pretty well 6-lanes - so there room to hard reserve a lane at key intersections.

Toronto could learn from Montreal

Ok - a few days of assential-only service, a little leaning on by the province - and Montreal's transit system has a tentative deal with its maintenance workers. It will be interesting to see what wage increases have been agreed upon.

I'll bet there less than the ultra-generous (1 - 1.5% OVER inflation each year) that the TTC granted the Amalgamated Transit Union here in Toronto.

Of course, in Toronto, the TTC commissioners are no deep into the union's pockets that they are choking on the lint. Howard Moscoe publicly telegraphed what HE was willing to pay. Well - we got the on-day wildcat strike anwway.

Montreal seems to understand that it's running a transit system for the riders and residents - rather than Toronto which sees the transit system as a gravy train for union members.

Buying into TTC P.R.

Actually, this site http://transit.toronto.on.ca/ does more than simply buy into TTC b++l s++t - it actually manufactures it.

Appararently, a streetcar derailment has severly damaged the tracks used by a number of streetcar routes West of Bathurst. One of the routes (511 Bathurst) is now routed to Union Station instead of heading to the Ex. Buses are being used for the Harbourfront LRT west of Bathurst.

It appears that the TTC is keeping this hush-hush. With the recent announcement of the 'Transit City - LRT" boondoggle - er plan - the last thing the TTC wants is everyone seeing how easily the service can be disrupted.

Well - James Bow writes this up as positive - something that was planned:

The planned reconstruction of the tracks on Fleet Street in May will replace the dilapidated trackage with smooth, well-built private right-of-way, and fast moving streetcars once the service is restored.

What c++p! Boys, men, guys and their trains. Maybe Bow's dad never bought him a toy train set. When are people like this going to realise that Toronto isn't their private train layout. PULEASE Jim/James - go into your basement and set up some toy trains - and leave us the h++l alone!

To LRT or not to LRT

I've been away from the blogosphere for a while. Regular work has been simply too demanding to make a serious effort here. I'm commuting a long distance by car each day - so little chance to check out what's really happenning on transit.

The big 'news' has been the TTC announcement of its plan to build streetcar lanes on many city streets. These include Finch, Jane, Don Mills and Eglinton (ok - I always mispell this one - no comments from the peanut gallery please!.)

To me, the only route that makes complete sense is the Eglinton line. A large chunk of is planned to be underground - from about Laird in the East to Keele in the West. The total price tag for this line is $2.2 billion. The total price tag (if you believe) projections for the entire scheme is $6.1 billion.

The rest of the lines are likely to end up as street car lines - despite protestations from the TTC and transit narcissists (er I mean transit advocates.) Streetcar lines are completely useless for long distance travel. They're passable for 2-3 km hops in the core - the type of trip that account for most of their ridership today.

I guess I'm not alone. The poll on the Transit City website asks which of the new lines people would ride. 83.6% of respondents selected the Eglinton line!!!!

The Sheppard East line came in 2nd at 5.1%.

I think it would be better to scratch the other lines from the plan. Build a proper subway under Englinton. To build a tunnel for an LRT - and then have to retofit it a few years later for a full subway would mean that citizens would buy into transit - and then have to do without for a numebr of years while the line is rebuilt. Even if the tunnel is initially wide enough for heavy rail subway, the infrastructure would have to be torn out to changeover to the upgraded equipment. Station platforms would need to be lengthened and built up.

New streetcars for the TTC?

New TTC Chair Adam Giambrone has commented per the following report:

Canadian Press - Dec 28 2006 - TTC looking at new approach

that the TTC may revisit the current plan to refurbish at least half of the current CLRV fleet. (The CLRVs are the shorter streetcars.) Per the rather short article:

Last summer, the plant was the lone bidder on a $110-million contract to refurbish 96 older streetcars and then-TTC chairman Howard Moscoe predicted the contract would be awarded by the fall.

However, new TTC chairman Adam Giambrone said yesterday the commission is now looking at replacing the entire 195-streetcar fleet.

Refurbishing the fleet would carry an estimated cost of $245 million compared to more than double that to replace it, at the going rate of $3 million per car.

Well who knows what will happen. My crystal ball is telling me that the $3 million / car is not realistic. While there are small vehicles available on the market, they won't run on the TTC existing track/overhead power network.

The Skoda-Inekon in use in Portland, Oregon (see this link) have a price tag of about $3 million (CAD). However, these would need major redesign to run here:

Turning radius

The Skoda cars have a minumum turning radius of 60 ft - whereas the existing network in Toronto requires vehicles to handle a 36' radius turn.

Gauge

The Portland cars run on standard gauge (4' 8 1/2" in North America) - where TTC track is 4' 10 7/8"

Power supply

The Portland cars use 750 Vdc power - whereas the power supply in Toronto is 600 Vdc.

Xmas transit observations #2 - The St. Clair debacle

OK, for Christmas I broke down and drove to have family Christmas. I wasn't going to haul all my loot back home on the TTC. (Good thing, one of my gifts was a heavy cast-iron, enamled lined dutch-oven. It's actually more of a man's cooking tool - but that won't stop me from using it.)

Out of curiousity, I drove back along St. Clair W - from about Christie all the way to Mt. Pleasant. The roadway between Vaughan and Yonge now has the streetcar ROW built. Some observations:

1. The lanes are on the narrow end.
2. The lanes are constantly curving left and right to accomodate turning lanes and streetcar platforms.
3. The turning lanes are quite modest in length - between one and four passenger car lengths

This is at odds with what I've read in other places. There was a rather strident letter in The Star a few weeks back accusing the city of building a monster roadway on that stretch. The assertion is blatantly false. Due to the narrow lanes and the curving back and forth, there is really about 1 1/2 usebale traffic lanes when no vehicles are parked.

The roadway on the Bathhurst to Yonge stretch is likely to cause a significant congestion problem - but not a catastrophic one. The primary reason is that there is little in the way of commercial activity.

The same can't be said for the remainder. If the same design is followed West of Vaughan, the street will be at a standstill. Any type of commercial loading or construction requiring trucks to get in and out of sidestreets, loading areas etc, will cause traffic backups. In some cases trucks will need to mount the ROW to be able to back into loading areas.

Xmas transit observations #1 - Mobility impairment

I hope some judge doesn't object to the overtly Christian title to this post - and make me move it to the footnote.

Anyway, I have a few weeks off over these holidays. This is allowing an escape from my the commute to my current assignment - and the one hour commute each way. I've become an expert on the QEW and Gardiner expressways.

Over the break, I'm trying to do as little driving as possible - walking and using transit instead. I thought I'd blog on a couple of things I found.

The first is that an large (and I'm guessing increasing) proportion of TTC riders have some level of mobility "impairment". These impairments fall into two categories - of those who can actually use most of the system:

1. Those who require a cane or other support to walk
2. Those who have noticeable difficulty walking - and more in ascending and descending
3. Those who have a baby stroller (these people are not physcally impaired - but their mobility is.)

Why am I mentioning this? Well these people have an especially difficult time reaching, boarding and alighting from the TTCs streetcars. Streetcars make life difficult for these people. In addition, streetcar average speed is noticeably slowed by the high proportion of riders who fall into these categories. In comparison, most of Montreal's surface routes (which use buses) are already low floor.

No one really knows when the TTC will get low-floor streetcars (or LRV or whatever). Just another example of transit narcissism winning out over people.

The damage they've done

In a rather rantish guest column in yesterday's National Post, Howard Levine - a former city councillor criticizes the streetcar project on St. Clair West.

SOme of Mr. Levine's points are valid. The effort does indeed suffer from:

myopia, Toronto-centrism and a refusal to learn from experience in other cities

But he's got to be joking if he thinks the project is about making St. Clair more of a artery for automobikle traffic. Other that during rush hour, the street will have only one lane each way for cars and trucks. There are modest-length turning lanes at signalized intersections. With the ROW barrier, these are needed to allow residents and delivery vehicles to make left turns and U-turns.

This citizen has examined the lanes and the whole setup. The most servere sidewalks cuts are to accomodate the wider platforms. The traffic lanes are - if anything - slightly narrower than standard in Toronto. The lanes must accomodate commercial traffic. There must be enough space for delivery vans and trucks to maveuvre in and out of loading areas without bringing traffic to a halt while they do 8-point turns.

Let's be clear. The sidewalk cuts and the general assault on the liveability and attractiveness of the street ARE BECAUSE OF THE STREETCARS.

The true myopia is the refusal to look at the success of cities - notably Montreal - in running successful and popular transit operations without streetcars. Mr. Levine can blame himself for helping foist the idea of keeping these in service.

Spadina - The good, the bad and the ugly

OK! - I've successfully managed to switch to Beta Blogger - not to be confused with Beta Blocker.

To continue with more observations from yesterday's long walk. After I reached St. Clair & Bathurst, I headed down to Spadina - to check out the 'LRT' and the general scene.

Well - first the good news. The adult media store pictured above is closing. Sorry guys - this has to count as good news in my books.

Now the not so good news. The Spadina 'LRT' - which means 'Ligh Rail Transit' - was running with heavy bunching. No - this doesn't mean that the merchants were bringing in bananas on the streetcars. It means that the streetcars were running in bunches. On my walk from Bloor to Queen, I saw:

2 occurences of a single streetcar
3 occurrences of two streetcars running together
1 occurence of three streetcars running together
1 occurence of four streetcars running together

Now the theory of dedicated ROWs is that that they're supposed to stop bunching. I guess that's just like the theory that streetcar service can carry more riders than buses - one that doesn't hold water.

The ugly? The street still has a big graffitti problem. A little less trash on the ground - but still quite an unappealing vista. 

More on St. Clair - the sidewalk recedes

Another picture from my walking tour yesterday.
This shows a section where the sidewalk has been pushed back by the streetcar requirements. Other than relatively short queueing lanes at Yonge and at Bathurst, all the sidewalk cuts I saw were to accomodate the new wider platforms.

If we're going to be stuck with this beast, the wider platforms are a requirement. Even the new platforms aren't that wide.

Streetcar fanatic Steve Munro blames the sidewalk cuts in the ever-evil road engineers. However, this isn't what this gal found.

On the section East of Bathurst, the sidewalk gets relatively little use. As I explained yesterday, the stretch is largely devoid of retail. Now if any section of the sidewalk West of Bathurst gets treatment similar to what you see in the picture, it may well be the death sentence for that retail strip.

Observations during a St. Clair W walkabout

Here's a picture of the work in process (let's not say progress!) on St. Clair W.



I took this and a few others on a long walkabout today. I guess I should have been home writing about all those topics I promised to write about in my previous post. However, don't you think that a blog with a few pictures is better.

This picture is from St. Clair W - maybe 5 blocks from Yonge. What struck me here was that the streetcar ROW being constructed doesn't seem to be raised above the street that far. I didn't have a ruler with me - but it seems to be only 4 or 5 inches.

Now on this stretch of the street, this observation is largely moot. I don't think traffic patterns will be affected that much. There is very little in the waty of a retail presence - and hence few delivery vehicle.

However, west of Bathurst, I don't see much that will stop motorists and commecial vehicles from popping up onto the 'dedicated ROW'. Between Bathurst and the end of the line, St. Clair is almost continuously retai/commercial - which means very high frequency of delivery and pickup - which will block the single lane of traffic. Other than certain low-to-the ground sporty cars, most vehicles can make over a 4-5 inch curb.

Assuming this actually gets built West of Bathurst, I won't be surprised if the dedicated ROW is not so dedicated a few months into operation. I wonder what Joe Mihevc will think then.

The State of the TTC

In the next few posts, I'll be writing about the performance of the TTC. I'm going to attempt to be as factual and data-based as possible.

Before we get started, I'll note that there are no perfect statistics on anything in our quantum-mechanics based universe. Nevertheless, some statistics are good enough - and are in line with other datasets - to be the basis for drawing inferences. (I was recently posting on another website - whose owner has decided not to publish some of my calculations. I endeavour not to treat anyone in the same fashion. This individual continually downplayed statistics he didn't like.)

I'll be looking at the following:

1. Ridership,
2. Costs,
3. Service quality,
4. Employee morale,
5. Leadership,
6. and lastly Governance

A new venture

Welcome to this newly created space on the World Wide Web.

My intent is to devote this modest portion of the electronic ether to ideas on improving transit and general mobility in this metropolis. There are a number of sites which purport to fufill the same purpose. However, in my experience, these are more poorly-camouflaged, politcally-aligned blogs than true rider/citizen-oriented spaces.

I became interested in this subject over the last few years. Toronto is my adopted home. I've lived in many cities in Canada, the US and Britain. Only in Toronto have I encountered the severe politicization of transit and transportation - and only here have I seen a city with such a crisis.

Over the last few months, I've done some independent research and analysis. What I've found has left me:

1. Deeply worried about the direction of transit - the TTC in particular.
2. Firmly convinced that the causes and solutions lie mainly with us - and less with higher levels of government.

I hope you enjoy the posts that follow. I'll welcome and address all well-intended comments.