Transit future
There seems to be a critical mass here going for TTC and transit related discussion. Road tolls and road pricing? Transit City future? Service improvements? Fair fares? Accessibility?
Setting the Agenda 2010
What's your vision for Toronto?
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Recent Comments
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November 17, 2009 at 4:33 pm |
Funding. Is there a mayoral canditate that will insist that the province return to the pre-Harris days and help fund the operating budget for the TTC?
November 17, 2009 at 4:34 pm |
Kill the polluting private air rail link and create the DRL in it’s place running from Pearson along the rail lines to Union and up to Don Mills Station. This would be the single most important piece of infrastructure in the city as commuters along the 400 series highways could park and take the TTC downtown faster and everyone could get to the airport quickly and cheaply.
November 19, 2009 at 10:58 pm |
Connecting the airport to the TTC transit hubs via subway line or LRT is essential!
November 17, 2009 at 4:48 pm |
Like many city services, the TTC needs to be examined using metrics that include peer group cities. Regardless of the local context and excuses, if Toronto is the only first-tier city without an airport rail link, something is wrong. If Toronto’s fares are higher than any other transit system in North America, something is wrong. If TTC salaries are higher than salaries in Chicago, New York and Boston then something is wrong. If Toronto is building less light rail per decade than Dallas, then something is wrong. Form oversight groups that can make broad comparisons, figure out the big picture, and then go to the politicians with constructive feedback from successful case studies elsewhere to bring Toronto in line with its peers.
November 17, 2009 at 4:57 pm |
EXCELLENT comment ! Too often the comparison to other comparable cities is only used in support of already made decisions, as a way to sell it. A regular statistical report, issued at the same time every year, with proper benchmarks is essential. And perhaps done through an independent arms length (ie non political process) is what’s required. Call it the ‘CITY STATE’ report.
November 17, 2009 at 8:12 pm |
Lot’s of if’s in your comment. Toront’s fares are a bargain compared to Vancouver, and even York Region. Our drivers are paid average. And our ridership surpasses Chicago, Boston, and every other US city (hold New York) by miles. If you want someone to emulate, try Berlin, not Dallas.
November 24, 2009 at 5:33 pm |
The TTC is a vital service as are many services offered in Toronto. In order to keep all of these vital services, we need to demand more for the money that is paid, i.e. our taxes. The fact that the TTC is currently using 20+ year old technology with tokens and tickets is a poor reflection on this city. We should have magnetic stripe or smart cards that can record how far passengers travel and time of day to charge higher rates for peak periods and longer travel times. We need public private partnerships on the huge amount of vacant land owned by the TTC that rests dormant, generating no income and is an eyesore. We need to have a toll system so that people who drive have to pay for the road work and congestion that they cause. Note that for someone outside of Toronto who parks at a TTC station and then uses the TTC to get to downtown, their travel cost per day is now well over $10. It makes one reconsider whether at that cost if the TTC is the better way.
November 18, 2009 at 12:21 am |
An independent review commission needs to be established as soon as possible to investigate plaanning and decision-making processes for public transit in Toronto, followed by a reform implementation plan, and measures to introduce rational solutions to the public transport requirements of this city. The management of TTC needs to be overhauled, as they currently can’t manage timetables for even the simplest and least challenging routes in the City, as evidenced by the performance of the St. Clair West streetcars, where slightly dissimulated anarchy prevails.
The decision to buy more streetcars should also be thoroughly reviewed by an independent export commission to ascertain the wisdom of the whole strategy and the necessity of these purchases, as well as their mode of financing.
November 18, 2009 at 9:00 am |
I’m concerned about the future of transit expansion in Toronto with on-street LRT. This mode of transit which Transit City favours is slower, less likely to attract higher ridership, and less likely to result in economic development around it. With the Province’s commitment to funding transit expansion and possible road tolls in the future, lack of funding is no longer the decisive issue it once was. It’s true that we could get less subway for LRT, but a lot more Torontonians would gain access to a faster and superior mode of transit. For the price of Transit City we could actually get a lot of subway expansion. This is especially important as it becomes harder to drive in the city with the emerging community-focused approach to infrastructure like road narrowing and bike lanes. We need to to make more substantial strides for commuters get around faster by transit.
November 18, 2009 at 10:01 am |
I agree. I think Toronto needs 2 subway lines to make it much more efficient. These could take the place of some of the LRTS in the Transit city plan (Don Mills, Sheppard, Jane). 1) The Downtown relief – from the airport to Union (along the rail line to be cheaper) and then up to Don Mills station. 2) A cross town Sheppard line that could connect Downsview and Sheppard station and could possibly connect with the airport line.
November 26, 2009 at 1:33 pm |
With respect A.R.
My uninformed guess is that the Spadina streetcar line is exactly the opposite of what you have asserted.
Without being in a position to know, I BELIEVE that the LRT on Spadina is faster, MORE likely to attract ridership, and HIGHLY more likely to attract economic development than buses (add to the list cleaner, more esthetic, and more traffic friendly). This built at a fraction of the cost of a subway line.
I am for well planned and connected subway lines but the cost of them makes it imperative that decisions be made for the PUBLIC (vs private) benefit. I am afraid that the Sheppard line was a legacy (to Mel) project which benefitted a relative few but cost the whole.
November 18, 2009 at 11:29 am |
Looking at the TTC, a word that seems to missing from from its operations is automation.
We encourage the purchase of monthly passes, and yet have not upgraded turnstiles to allow for their universal use, and we have machines to allow for their purchase at only a handful of stations.
Paying with tickets, tokens and cash are a thing of the past on transit systems around the world. We should have weekly, monthly and pay as you go passes which you can ‘top up’ or renew on a self-serve basis in machines at all stations.
If service is to improve and subway development is to begin again – LRT is not the answer – we should look to reduce operating costs and automate, where it makes sense.
November 19, 2009 at 1:41 am |
If service costs are to be reduced subway expantion is not the way to go. Indeed the subway is excellent, but only if the ridership justyfies it. By building LRT we can not only build longer lines which ultimatly serve more people but we can bridge that gap betwen what buses cant handel due to over crowding and what would be to few people to warnt a full subway.
Big city’s everywhere have taken to LRT due to its lower building/operating costs in comparison to subways and the volume LRT trains can Handel.
think about this… for the cost of the Sheppard line we could have built an LRT line twice if not three times as long for the same price.
November 18, 2009 at 11:59 am |
Jo-Ann’s comment is correct and just one instance of the overall backwardness and poor planning of public transportation in this City. Now they are applying to increase fares in order to make up for over 100 million dollars of “unexpected” or “unauthorized” expenditure – if what I heard on 96.3FM early this morning is correct. Who exercises any real oversight here? It seems that public officials from the Mayor on down think ratepayers have infinitely deep pockets, such that everytime they get thirsty due to inadequate management they can just go to well and drink some more – this must stop; it is no longer viable. There should be NO fare increase unless and until the exact circumstances giving rise to it are fully explained to the public and the public has an opportunity to voice their opinions about it to their City councillors. More public involvement and inviligation over official and Council operations and decision-making is vital to pull Toronto out of the administrative mess it now finds itself in. This blog Joe has created is an excellent beginning.
November 18, 2009 at 9:47 pm |
Replace the 100K a year token takers with more useful machines.
November 19, 2009 at 1:28 am |
The TTC has its issues but overall it is an excellent system. In recent years the TTC has made huge stryds in providing better service and getting service levels up to where they should be.
The desperate need for system expantion has finally been addressed though the Transit City plan, and bus rout upgrades.
I feel fearful we risk not only losing all the progress made in recent years but going backwards as money and funding is clawed back and budget requirements cant be met due to lack of government subsides.
Toronto’s population is relentlessly on the rise, our roads were built in the 1880′s in some cases we have no other option but to ensure our transit system is top notch to keep our city marketable and more importantly livable.
November 19, 2009 at 1:33 am |
First thing is to stop all this transit City crap and build the DRL. Subways are what it is all about in great city transportation systems. Transit City LRT’s are a waste when you project into the future on what the city will need. We will waste money on them now only to realize 15 years down the line that we should have built a subway. This whole Transit City plan for LRT’s seems to be an acceptance of failure to provide a real a future oriniented transportation system. If you really want to get depressed about this google Montreal Subway system and realize just how much more an impoverished city has done than us. The present plan will spend a decade of our resourses on LRT’s that will be obsolete ten years later if we increase our density as is planned.
For our City to be ambitous and build subways we need two things that we do not have now under he regime of Miller, Mihevc and Giambrone. The first is that taxpayers have to be convinced that their money is not being wasted in Millerville’s general fiscal money pit. The second is that subway projects must be tendered in an open an competitive tendering process without Miller’s present policy that only his Building Trade union friends get the jobs. Present TTC constrction tendering practice is wall to wall Union only that imposes the most restrictive and inefficient union jurisdictional practices in the any construction in the Province except for the famously costly practices of Ontario Hydro/now OPG. Open bidding on subway projects without union monoply restrictions under the City Fair Wages will drop price of construction at minimum 30% to 40% and that can radically change the affordbility calculations on subways. Of course this means that union monopoly suppoters like Mihevc, Giambrome and Miller must not have anything to do with Transit planning.
November 19, 2009 at 9:16 am |
The problem with transit in Toronto isn’t wages, or unions, or whether we get LRT’s or Subways. It’s meddling and lack of support from senior levels of government. We started to build the Eglinton subway, and then the province ordered it stopped and Sheppard continued instead. Plans originating in the province are to build a subway to what is currently pasture in Vaughan, before we build a DRL. The province and the feds insist we have a $1B diesel train with $35 fares to our airport, run by the private sector, while those living along that run are starved of transit. The province is considering that Transit City be a private sector operation. The reason the TTC hasn’t put in better turnstiles is the province promised a GTA fare system 4 years ago and has not yet delivered. (why spend $ to upgrade only to have it obsolete the next year).
Most other large urban regions make their own decisions with money from senior levels of gov’t. Ours is starved of cash and told where and when to build, based on political rather than practical considerations. We would be riding a subway/LRT to the airport now if it weren’t for provincial politicians.
We need to act/think more like New York and European cities. Give us the money, and let us decide based on cost-benefit analyses where to spend first. Not on whether a premier promised a Mexican official that an air-link would be running in time for a Pan-Am Games bid.
November 19, 2009 at 9:20 am |
The TTC system is anything but excellent, in too many respects.
The discussion here seems to be pitting LRT against subways. Wrong way to look at it. All are options and all have their place. The issue is what should be done where, and in the case of LRT, whether autos should be allowed onto the tracks in no place, some places, no times, designated times, and how the surrounding traffic environment should be configured. These aspects look to me to be thoroughly under-strategized here.
As for contracting, yes, everything over 100,000 dollars of expenditure should be forcibly open to a transparent procurement process which features international competitive bidding. If this is not the current practice in Toronto, the City could learn much from institutions such as The World Bank about the modalities of structuring and implementing these processes so that the risks of over-pricing, nepostism and corruption are as minimized as they reasonably can be.
November 19, 2009 at 10:52 pm |
Why in Gods name is the city allowing the Georgtown train line to operate using diesel?
November 19, 2009 at 10:56 pm |
This city needs to invest in transit infrastructure to as to slow down the ever increasing traffic jams. Transit infrastructure needs to be an ongoing and increasing investment in clean air. It is essential to the operation of this city.
November 20, 2009 at 10:02 am |
I am a university student in Toronto and rely heavily on public transport not just to travel to and from school everyday but also on weekends etc.
I commend the TTC for making efforts to extend hours, increase bus and subway service and implementing programs such as the BlueRoute.
However, the TTC should remain a service accessible to all and I was very disappointed to hear that fares have been hiked despite popular outrage. With tuition hikes and rising food costs it is unfair and counter productive to expect students to pay the new fares for public transport. The TTC has removed the word public from it’s moral system.
There has also been a decrease in quality in term of litter on buses and subways and the mount of electronic noises produced by passengers which is breaks the by laws but is not enforced. It would be one thing to pay a high price for high quality transit, but to ask more money for less service is appalling.
November 20, 2009 at 11:12 am |
Does anybody ever think of how the poor, or those earning low incomes, the disabled and fixed-income pensioners will conceivably get around with costs of fares rising above their abilities to pay? Public transit is supposed to be the cheapest way to travel. To the financially disadvantaged, fare hikes cripple them from travelling outside an average five to ten block radius from their homes.
How greedy and inconsiderate it is to trap these less fortunate in their own neighbourhoods, limiting their access to the rest of the city? Think of the millions of dollars NOT being spent by residents who can’t afford to get anywhere else. Tourists, as well, will think twice about coming here if it costs them an arm and a leg to get from one attraction to another.
In Ottawa, the transit fare is $3 for 90 minutes. On boarding and paying the fare, a digitally stamped and issued transfer comes out of a small box that allows the rider to go anywhere in the city in any direction PLUS return as long as it’s done in 90 minutes. If a rider needs to go to a doctor’s appointment, for example, they can take the bus to the clinic, see their physician and return all for $3 as long as they are on their way back before their transfer expires.
Use your brains and figure the financially-disadvantaged into the big picture when making plans, TTC!
November 20, 2009 at 12:25 pm |
Hiking transit fares is tantamount to a tax-increase targeting the working-poor of the city. This takes money directly from the pockets of those who have no alternative, and so the businesses that depend on them suffer too.
The TTC is too dependent on fares and should get more money from provincial and federal coffers, along with more guidance and oversight as to how to maximize the budgets. I am not sure Torontonians have any faith in how the transit system is being run. Seems to me like a handful of rookies, guessing their way around in the dark with billions of dollars to misspend.
The federal government is giving away billions in infrastructure development, and yet TTC riders have to shoulder yet another fare hike, in the midst of a recession? Not to mention advertising revenue. How much more advertising will be shoved in our faces on our way to work?
The TTC is an integral part of Toronto (and therefore Canada) and should be cared-for and funded as part of a bigger picture, not as a stand-alone entity. If economic factors make it harder to go to work, people will work less; if it’s harder to go shopping/eating out, people will spend less at businesses; if it’s harder to live in Toronto, people will leave.
November 20, 2009 at 3:38 pm |
The federal gov’t gave money to the TTC and they misused it. Also the TTC blames raising the fare on metro passes. Ok, how is that possible?
November 20, 2009 at 3:40 pm |
I agree with Kate!
November 20, 2009 at 3:44 pm |
I can’t stand the provincial gov’t anymore. i can’t stand the local gov’t giving tickets to people who park on non busy streets. They are all a bunch money suckers!
November 20, 2009 at 4:06 pm |
Transit in today’s Toronto has become an ESSENTIAL SERVICE. Witness that chaos that results when the Eglinton-Bloor line was shut down for a few hours. Also, suburbs all around Toronto center head into the core en masse to do business, to work and to be entertained. Reliable, physical access is critical. Let’s make the TTC an essential service now.
Second: DISASTER PLANNING: We would see chaos, violence and even death should transit access be suddenly stopped for a day or more. What is out city doing to have a plan to deal sith such emergencies? I know there is a provincial initiative on this (which we hear little about), but what about our local response? I recall the great blackout years ago that went surprisingly well, but we were lucky with the timing and the season. We need a backup plan.
November 20, 2009 at 7:12 pm |
The Eglinton LRT to the airport – 4.6 billions dollars – is shortly going to City Council for a decision. This process should be stopped immediately until the TTC posts on its website a complete cost-benefit analysis of various options for providing rail service between downtown Toronto and the airport and public hearings have been held to ascertain the value of these studies. My fear is that this will be a second-rate solution at best – slow, disruptive and behind the times. Shanghai has a MAGLEV running from near the city centre to the airport (a considerable distance) in 12 minutes. Bangkok Thailand is constructing a dedicated (partially over-head) line to Suvarnabhum International Airport, due to open in the not too distant future. Zurich, Frankfurt, Stockholm, London and Paris have had high speed trains and/or subways from their airports to city center for many years. Some of these cities are smaller than Toronto, some larger. What’s being proposed here doesn’t sound to me like international best practice and perhaps may be sub-optimal for Toronto. The public needs to have far more well-informed input into this major decision. AT LEAST until that happens I do NOT support Joe Mihevc voting for this proposal in Council.
November 20, 2009 at 9:55 pm |
The Georgetown Line should have electric trains, like the Lakeshore Line is slated to have. Furthermore these should be EMUs, that is trains where there is an engine in every car, like on a subway. Such trains can accelerate much more quickly than conventional engine pulled trains, so they can then serve more stops without reducing overall trip time. Or conversely, provide a faster trip so more passengers can be moved with the same equipment. The airport should only be one stop on this route, and this should replace the obsolete Blue-22 scheme.
The downtown relief line needs to be built ASAP. King Street from Dufferin to Parliament already has the density to support a subway. Then extend it to Danforth and Pape or Greenwood to provide the shortcut downtown, and then push it up to Eglinton, and finally to Sheppard. I don’t advocate stopping the Transit City LRT lines, as these too are vital to areas of the city that now lack any decent transit, but the DRL must be built also. Can we afford to build it? Why not ask can we afford not to build it?
On the micro-scale, the transit priority signalling as it works now is very poor. The signal delay is automatically triggered, not controlled by the driver. So a driver coming up to a very busy stop is often not finished loading by the time the automatically extended light goes red, and then has to sit through a full red light. If there the light hadn’t been extended, it would have been ready to turn green again by the time the loading was done. Giving the driver control of lengthening the greens and or shortening the reds would be far superior. Transit drivers could time every light so it’s green when they are ready to go.
I also think that we could have much more frequent service on the already frequently served routes if the management basically said, just go as fast as you can. With one proviso. Never get closer than one minute’s travel time (about a block) to the bus or street car in front of you. This would mitigate against the hated “bunching up”, and probably provide more buses or streetcars per hour. (Note I only recommend this for service that is so frequent that people don’t look at the schedule, they just turn up at the stop expecting the next vehicle soon. Probably suitable to service at 10 minute intervals or less.)
November 20, 2009 at 10:39 pm |
The TTC should be free. It’s that simple. Pay for it through car licenses and the general tax base.
TTC employees should be required to look at people and smile. Maybe even say, “Welcome aboard!” or “Good morning!”
November 24, 2009 at 5:50 pm |
I agree that we should be lowering, not hiking, fares. I heard Joe Mihevc on CBC radio say that the latest fare increase will result in the loss of 11 million rides (I’m guessing per year?). To me, that is an unjustifiable loss and a direct attack on the poor. But it is also not very strategic, since a decreased ridership weakens the case for public transit in general. We need to increase, not decrease, access to the TTC. This will increase ridership. More riders helps justify service expansion. This is the kind of growth that Toronto really needs–a PUBLIC transit system that gives more people more mobility. If a fraction of the money spent on car infrastructure was used to lower TTC fares, there would be so many economic gains (the latest congestion reports says we’re losing money due to the inefficiency of people sitting in traffic jams), environmental benefits (cars, so many of which are single passenger, would no longer be the only option for transport), and most importantly, more people could move more freely around the city.
November 22, 2009 at 2:27 pm |
“Does anybody ever think of how the poor, or those earning low incomes, the disabled and fixed-income pensioners will conceivably get around with costs of fares rising above their abilities to pay?”
Evidence shows so far the answer is “NO”.
We have to be careful of trying to break down an issue lkike “poor” into segments that sound morev manageable: “working poor”, “child poverty”, etc.
Poor is poor is poor is poor.
When we divide up such an issue, we feed myths and beliefs that there are “deserving poor” and “undeserving poor”. It is all spin and not useful in finding resolutions.
Either we belief in fairness for all citizens or we choose to have first, second, third and so forth citizens.
I am hopeful that true Canadian values are that we see all citizens as having equal value, if for no other reason than they are human and out neighbours.
I urge the importance of not dividing up and fragmenting over degrees or classes or categories of poverty.
Let’s treat all citizens with the same respect.
November 22, 2009 at 9:48 pm |
There was a recent Road Pricing forum in Toronto recently. It seems that other leading societies are working to integrate road pricing (including mechanisms such as gas tax increases) to enable development of complete streets and Transit.
Reality is that like it or not in our lifetime the automobile culture that we are building everything to accommodate will transform dramatically. Part of that transformation is an infrastructure reconcilliation that takes a pragmatic tax base approach to infrastructure renewal and transit investment. The more effective we are at meeting emerging energy scarcity issues the more competitive our local economy will be in the near an long term. We should be making choices that have a time horizon of 20 years + that borrow from proven models from other global cities that are reconciling similar issues.
November 24, 2009 at 11:33 am |
we need to elect representatives who are not afraid to tackle the ugly question of how to pay for all of this new infrastructure as well as the operating and maintenance costs for these expanded services. a real debate needs to begin NOW. topics should include:
- dynamic congestion charging
- HOT (high-occupancy toll) lanes
- dedicated fuel taxes (provincial/federal levels)
- parking taxes (local)
- registration and licensing fee adjustments
- zoned fares (paying the true cost of travel)
- timed fares (impacts on ridership and revenues)
TransLink in BC receives a gas tax of $0.15/litre to pay for projects. to me this is something that should be pushed for at the municipal level. currently gas taxes go into general coffers to be spent on anything, including services outside of the GTA. this is unacceptable. toronto cannot afford to be subsidizing road construction in northern ontario. we have enough problems of our own!
November 24, 2009 at 12:13 pm |
I have been saving up my response to this thread until today to let everyone else fight again the transit battles that rage on other sites including my own.
This is the first of two or three posts.
Funding:
There’s no question that Queen’s Park needs to come up with a predictable amount of money to support operations rather than ad-hoc grants. However, there are a few hard truths that advocates need to recognize in constructing a new formula:
Total operating costs will rise faster than inflation as a result of riding growth even without any special attempts to attract riders through service or fare policy. Additional schemes such as Transit City Bus Plan, the LRT network and subway extensions will also add to total and to net operating costs.
Any formula which gives Toronto “X” amount of money based on some metric like population and normal inflation might not keep pace with the overall improvement in transit service we want to see in a truly “Transit City”.
On the capital budget side, it is not long ago that the TTC thought $400-million per year was going to be enough to handle its needs, but now they are up to $600-million and that’s with a lot of cuts in the “out years”. As with operating, if there is a revenue source (say tolls or gas tax) that rises roughly with inflation, it may not keep up with actual needs especially if TTC management persists in chronically underestimating their needs and leaving major projects out of the budget until after it is approved.
In other words, be careful what you ask for. We may get “today’s” ask only to discover it is inadequate to our needs tomorrow.
On the City side of things, any shortfall from Queen’s Park will come from fares or more subsidy or service. The City needs to recognize that its financial support for the TTC will grow. The idea of freezing subsidy levels will lead inevitably to a budget crisis.
From Ottawa, it would be nice to get money, but that’s a major change in federal policy quite unlikely with the current regime, and frankly not very likely with whatever might replace it whenever there is a meaningful opposition again. Propose better federal funding as a national goal, but don’t budget with that assumption. Toronto got itself into a real mess on that account — inventing a federal third for all transit capital programs and then complaining when we didn’t get the money. (The new streetcars are a special case where the feds changed the rules midway through the game on “stimulus” funding.)
Any candidate who claims to be pro-transit must not just talk about how they will huff and puff and blow down Queen’s Park, but explain how the city will pursue a transit agenda in a time of constrained means and with realistic expectations about funding.
The word “tax” or some equivalent is long overdue in this conversation.
Fares:
Like subsidies, fares will have to go up eventually. There is an attempt now in progress to drive the farebox recovery down to a new target, 60%. I believe this misses important policy questions.
Recent declines in the recovery rate have been generated both by fare freezes but also by service increases without a corresponding fare hike. If we are to get the level down to 60%, does this mean that we run the current level of service with more subsidy, or more service at a lower cost recovery, or some combination of these? Do we use new fare schemes such as a two-hour transfer privilege to make the service received per individual fare worth more, reduce the number of fares needed for some shorter trips and simplify fare validation based on time rather than on route?
What do we do when, however it is achieved, the level is down to 60%? From that date forward, fares will have to rise lock-step with TTC costs, and we will be back to the usual arguments about how fares are unaffordable. Trying to lower the recovery rate only defers this problem, but does not eliminate it.
A related issue here is the way we collect and account for fares. Those who cannot afford to lay out $100+ all at the start of the month for a pass are forced to pay fares at a higher rate than those who get passes especially on subscription. Any new smart card system must be able to handle situations where passengers take varying numbers of trips and are billed based on usage over time with a declining incremental cost.
“Billed” could mean a monthly charge against a credit card or against a stored value card that users top up from time to time. Once someone’s history shows they are a frequent user, they should be charged (for stored value cards) based on that historical pattern without having a big jump in fares at the start of the month.
The fare system should allow anyone to benefit from heavy-usage discounts without having to front all of the money for a pass each month.
The trip multiple on student/senior passes was bumped several years ago as a revenue grab, and this is another target for a gradual decline to “historic” levels. More generally, we need to decide what is an “appropriate” discount for this class of rider.
There needs to be a serious debate about fare by distance versus by time, or possibly an amalgamation of both (ie ride for X time as long as you stay within a certain geographic territory).
All of this is an essential pre-requisite to smart card implementation, and many of these changes could drive down the farebox recovery rate. Again my question is which of many strategies should be used to achieve the new target? If all we do is to freeze fares, the other unequities will remain in the system.
Candidates need to understand that fare policy isn’t just a case of saying “I will make things better for students, or the poor, or whoever gets the most people out to a public meeting”. Candidates must understand that there are many options, few of them simple.
November 24, 2009 at 2:52 pm |
(Second of two parts)
Technology debates:
Many of the comments above deal with technology issues such as subway vs LRT, or the Georgetown corridor, airport service and the electrification debate.
Some of these are appropriate to a municipal campaign, but they have to be in context.
What has troubled me about many anti-Transit City comments (not just here) is that they are tinged with an anti-Miller undercurrent. We cannot go into the next election trying to demolish the platform of the incumbent, unless our goal is also to radically change Council.
The LRT vs subway debate is not an either/or question. LRT is suitable for some corridors, but not for all. Subways are overkill in some locations, and yet we build, or propose to build, them anyhow. A big problem here is that Toronto has never built real LRT. Spadina and St. Clair are at the low end of what can even be called LRT, and they are more streetcars on reserved lanes. The signal priority is arranged to favour cars, not transit, and there is no sense of street design that takes transit and pedestrians first (a thread we heard last week in the Designing Transit Cities symposium).
The upheaval of construction, especially on St. Clair, combined with the incompetent project management, have given “LRT” a bad name across the city when this could have been an example of what could be done. “Don’t give us St. Clair” is the rallying cry against LRT lines even though I am quite convinced the subway engineers will be able to screw up Eglinton just as badly when they start tunnelling, let along excavations for stations. Even that would be blamed on “LRT”.
A platform for the next campaign could promise a subway to every corner of the city, and it would be just as doomed as the earlier versions of the 80s and 90s. Funding would limit how much was built, only the densest of corridors would be served, and much of the city would remain without better transit.
Building the DRL is not a fight against LRT proponents. It is a fight against the TTC and a few decades of lobbying for more suburban rapid transit. The policy debate is not the technology, it is the need to recognize that we need more transit capacity in the central part of the city (and not just on the subway). We can fight each other forever over technology without recognizing the importance of a network of services.
As for the commuter rail network, of course the heavy routes should be electrified, and the airport should be served by public, not private, operations. As a platform, we need to consider how to get around the fact that Metrolinx has a study that won’t report for a year, but does have an extensive terms of reference? Until we see some output from the study — the preliminary info in public sessions, a sense of the study’s direction, an assurance that Queen’s Park regards GO as a vital public asset, not as a dumping ground for unproven technology (the hydrogen train) — we won’t even have a handle on where to attack or support what will be proposed.
Does anyone want to take on SNC Lavalin over the private operation of the ARL? Is this an even more version of Porter Air and the Island Bridge?
At this point we have the Transit City LRT network, a proposed express bus overlay to that network, and the Metrolinx regional plan. All of them can use some adjustment, but we don’t need to throw them out and start from scratch. That’s a great way to save money on construction while wasting it on more consultants. The major point for all of them is that funding is uncertain beyond announced projects, and there is no long term plan to fund construction or operation of these networks, nor of the local systems that will feed into them. A platform that concentrates on spending only on new construction, or some pet project (the DRL could be perceived that way if we are not careful) taking precedence over everything else, ignores much larger problems with the network.
Forty years ago, people could get away with dismissing LRT as old fashioned streetcars. Not any more — there are too many examples around the world where this is used to good effect.
Fare Collection:
Yes we need smart cards. I discussed some of the issues re how fares are charged in the previous post, but there is also the technology issue.
Presto in its current form cannot handle the complexity of the TTC’s fare structure and transfer requirements. If we are building a regional network and fare system, we cannot be stuck with a technology that does very well for a system with 100 buses.
It is also worrying that the TTC implementation has a cost pushing $450 million, and it is unclear why this number is so high or who will fund the project.
Meanwhile, we need to think of fares in a regional context, including GO, rather than simply as a replication of the TTC, YRT, Viva, etc etc fare structures. This has considerable implications for cross-border fare sharing and the revenue that would come to the TTC as a separate system (or the revenue available to fund service within Toronto in an amalgamated system, should one be proposed).
November 26, 2009 at 9:52 am |
I totally agree with this SNC Lavalin idea for the ARL. Yes, to enhance your point, if we can get someone to run that like Porter runs its airline ops it will be a huge step up that will force the TTC to a customer service model. This is an excellent comparison.
November 24, 2009 at 3:25 pm |
Transit Future, as this section is appropriately called, is to build transit today and in the future, not for tomorrow, but for the many years beyond that. The Government wants the Union-Pearson Rail Link to be built in time for the 2015 Pan and Parapan American Games to be hosted by Toronto. This Rail Link needs to be built for the many years beyond the Games. Having said this, the 2015 Pan and Parapan American Games can serve as the impetus to do something great and inspiring with the UPRL; however, it should only be built when the Government/SNC Lavalin can build it using the cleanest and greenest technology. We need to lead by legacy not by legitimizing unethical leverage.
Rather than SNC Lavalin, a private company, running highly polluting (noise, air, visually, etc), yes even if they will be tier 4, diesel trains to bring in 10 000 plus high performance athletes, officials and visitors, SNC needs to be thinking about the whole picture. Torontonians need to be thinking about the whole picture. Part of that picture is that this is now an international issue.
Life in Toronto continues after the 2015 Games, using sustainable and renewable energy practices and sources all the while, not because of peak oil, but because we simply know better. And so, we must do better. SNC must do better. All three levels of government must do better. The money can be found in the most ethical way to make a clean and green UPRL a reality.
The Games are held in Toronto and involve all three levels of government. All three levels of government need to work together on the cleanest and greenest transit possible. I’m hearing too much of “this isn’t our jurisdiction”, “we have no power”, “we can’t do anything else”. All city councillors, the mayor and the mayoral candidates need to be talking about this issue. The same goes for all MPPs and MPs. The politicians who will be elected in the upcoming elections will care deeply about clean, green and ethical transit.
If there isn’t a hidden deal, then someone or some organization needs to come out with new information that makes this deal make sense.
Likewise, the Georgetown South Service Expansion needs to start with the cleanest and greenest technology available. The irony is that even though the tier 4 diesel trains don’t exist yet, they are an outdated solution suggested by the Minister of the Environment, a solution that needs revamping in order to protect the health and well-being of the various people who live and work along the corridor. This deal needs to take into account that anyone who builds or takes the Union-Pearson Rail Link is responsible and liable for the increase in health issues that will result from the current plan. This includes the many people taking the UPRL from other countries.
There are shortages of doctors. There are wait lists to see Doctors and for treatment. How will they handle the increase of patients from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, cancers, and reproductive and developmental disorders as a result of the increase in diesel trains? Are we moving to private health care? Municipalities need to have more say.
Finally, I am writing to thank you for ensuring the Georgetown South Service Expansion and the Union-Pearson Rail Link will be the cleanest and greenest trains from the outset. It is so wonderful that these trains are going to be electric, using energy from renewable sources. This is really going to put Toronto, Ontario and Canada on the map. By the very nature of these projects, the average person will become more conscious, responsible and aware and feel they are doing their part for the environment and the health and well-being of Torontonians and commuters when riding the trains.
Now that we’ve won the bid for the Pan Am Games, these two projects are something for Torontonians to really take pride in. As the High Performance athletes take the Air Rail Link, they will take great pride knowing they are contributing to the first ever green Pan Am Games, the health and well-being of Torontonians, and our clean city. Moreover, they will appreciate having the best air quality to attain their peak performance. Not only that, these electric trains will be the best thing for the people who work and live in Toronto, especially those close to the line, like myself, my partner, our 4 year old son and our cat. Thank you once again for making the best choice for all involved.
November 24, 2009 at 4:39 pm |
None of this (Steve Munro) deals with fixing the problems at their roots. Capital expenditures need to be financed by issuing long-term debt, not by raising fares, raising taxes and pounding on the doors of senior governments who have no interest in the matter. Operational efficiency needs to be maximized in order to contain cost increases or actually decrease them. That is why a review of operating procedures on the TTC by outside expertise is necessary. The methods of procurement need to be transparent and internationally competitive so that the cost:effectiveness of capital investsments is maximized. Planning processes need to be reviewed to determine whether current planning processes are delivering the most cost:effective answers for the transit issues they are attempting to address. I’m less interested in who the institutions are, who the Mayor is, and who the Chairman of TTC is than I am in the processes described here and the people who will see clear to putting them in place.
November 24, 2009 at 5:28 pm |
(Third of Two Parts, with apologies to Douglas Adams)
Various comments here talk about making the TTC “more efficient”, but this term needs to be clarified in order to make sense in the context of an election platform.
Let’s get the nasty one out of the way up front: If by “efficient” one means “screw the unions”, this is not a helpful position. Despite many complaints that TTC staff are overpaid, the TTC continues to have problems recruiting, and wages in Toronto are comparable to those for full time positions elsewhere in the GTA transit systems. Notching those wages down is not something the TTC can do on its own, although the next round of bargaining (2011) needs to recognize that the current contract slipped through at the end of what is now seen as the generous era of 3% increases.
Remarks about the $100K club are also unhelpful as they ignore the issue of overtime and simply don’t deal with the fact that the base rate for operators is much lower.
The issue at the TTC is how it uses the workforce it has. This is as much a management issue as it may be a union issue.
Service is a big “efficiency” issue — how is it managed? does the TTC trade too much on “traffic congestion” as an excuse for not providing reliable service? why are even lines that have reserved rights-of-way operating with erratic service?
Another aspect of “efficiency” is the question of full vs empty vehicles and what exactly is meant by “service”. If to be efficient means providing as little service as possible, that produces a very different transit system than one with minimum standards of service. Why do we run empty subway trains on parts of the network at 1 am, but complain when empty buses or streetcars pass by? Rider expectations of service are important, and running more service than strictly necessary is a policy decision.
TTC budgeting leaves a lot to be desired. The recently approved fare increase included claims about ongoing costs that need to be substantiated, and if true should be built into any funding/fare model.
Capital projects appear out of thin air or have large unexpected increases in budget lines.
“Service” also includes online access to information. The TTC is taking quite a while to catch up with major systems elsewhere. Why? The flip side of this is that increased IT presence represents a new cost for the TTC. There may be offsetting savings, but don’t count on this given the generally low level of customer service already available at TTC.
Purchasing was mentioned by one writer. The TTC’s procurement process is already quite onerous for some suppliers who complain about the difficulty of doing business with the TTC. Over the past few years, some bidders have attempted to circumvent the process with lobbying efforts, but the Commission is always firm in rejecting such an approach.
Is the suggestion that the TTC is wasting money by awarding contracts wrongly, or by disqualifying cheaper sources?
For vehicle procurement, there is no question that there are favoured vendors of both buses and rail vehicles. This brings us to difficult questions about local and provincial economic development policies. It’s not enough to complain about this — what would be an alternative policy?
Provincial meddling skews a lot of transit decisions, and not just at the TTC. How should this be addressed in an election platform?
Should environmental concerns take precedence over economic ones even if they come at additional cost? Are there soft costs and benefits that don’t show up on the balance sheet?
Do the benefit of transit’s availability and attractiveness, the ability to live a transit lifestyle, or of avoiding multiple-car families on small budgets, outweight the balance sheet “costs” of transit? Is a candidate willing to make the argument for transit as a public good?
(At this point I have to leave for the Wychwood Barns session, and will close off here.)
November 24, 2009 at 11:48 pm |
We urgently need to think about 3 key topics related to the TTC:
1 – High prices
2 – Poor communication between TTC employees as well as with their employers
3 – Lack of punctuality.
1 – Let’s face the fact: money doesn’t grow on trees. To support the Transit System more, the Government will have to cut back on other services. So the main question here is what are the Government’s priorities? Also, why are some TTC employees so excessively well paid?
It would be worth it to take a look at more successful systems and see what is not working so well in the TTC. For example, the Metro of Porto (Portugal) is relatively new and cost a fortune to get ready. Still, the fare prices are fair and affordable. Of course, Portugal isn’t among the most developed countries in the world, which contributes to people’s unawareness of some incredibly advanced systems or services. But some websites pictured it well, as is the case of http://www.hamiltonlightrail.com/article/metro_de_porto_portugal/
If a city like Porto can do it, why is it so difficult for a city like Toronto? (This is where I start to question myself about how accurate it is to say Toronto is way more developed)
2 – This topic seems to have been forgotten, but most of us have been affected by it one way or another. How many times have you (and all the other passengers) been asked to leave a bus for some (sometimes not very clear) reason? The driver usually gives you a transfer and says you can take another bus that is close behind the one you are on. No problem. But what if this second bus is amost full and some people have to wait for yet another one? This third one WON’T take you, because the driver doesn’t believe you were asked to leave the first bus you were on, even though you have a transfer. Why? Because this driver hasn’t been informed.
Other example is when the subway is working all night on special occasions. You get a transfer at the initial subway station, get off at your destination and then wait for a bus or streetcar. Again, the driver of the bus or streetcar WON’T take you, the reason being “The subway is closed”. How is it possible that bus and streetcar drivers don’t know anything about special events and the subway working beyong its normal hours?
3 – Here, I am referring to buses and streetcars. So many times commuters have to wait longer than half an hour only to see two or three buses/streetcars coming in a row, which again leads to incredibly long waiting times for everyone who misses those – not to mention the waste of space when the last one is riding nearly without passengers. While we know traffic congestion results in less punctuality, there should be a way to prevent that more than one bus/streetcar comes at a time, so that there is more balance. Again, better communication between drivers is the key.
This being said, some other topics like the lack of respect shown by some TTC employees towards commuters as well as their unwillingness to help with simple questions at times could be pointed at too.
November 25, 2009 at 9:53 am |
Efficiency starts with sound economic and social planning and design criteria for the reform and expansion of the infrastructure. It continues through implementation of capital expenditures with transparent international competitive bidding for ALL goods and services above a certain (low) threshold of cost. Then it continues through to operations, key amongst which is scheduling, which can only be configured properly with good real-time system usage data entry point by entry point. To do that, the TTC needs to get rid of tickets and tokens and use modern electronic access media characteristic of the 21st century – not the 1950s. Efficiency also carries through into the system’s maintenance policies, procedures, costs and procurement processes. Efficiency carries through to financial management of the commissions cash flow and cash reserves. The list goes on. This isn’y only or even mainly about labour unions. Yes, they must pay fair, competitive wages – that is a given, but how those workers are deployed is another efficiency question. When one sees the commission raising fares, it is a good time to ask questions about whether efficiency is being optimized in all these areas, or whether fare increases could be mitigated by efficiency improvements in all aspects of the TTC’s operations.
November 25, 2009 at 4:33 pm |
This is a reply to Mark Segal’s comment about capital expenditures and fares. Fares do not support the capital projects except to the degree that expanding the system adds to its net cost. The policy decision is whether this added cost should be added to the fare base or to subsidies.
As for long term debt, the City is moving to 30-year debt to take advantage of low interest rates, but generally tries to maximise capital-from-current to avoid future interest charges.
The policy issue is how much we want to pay in ongoing debt costs, and by extension how extensive a system we want to build. It’s like buying a house — you may want a $50 million mansion, but you can only afford to pay for a modest six-room house.