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| OneCity
transit plan map (http://www.onecitytransitplan.com) |
People in Toronto have long awaited transit. We need it – there’s no question about
it. Toronto’s transportation problems
have caused us to lose much productivity and economic activity. A Metrolinx study illustrates a $2.7 billion*
loss in GDP simply because we’re stuck in transit. This is expected to balloon up t
o a $7.2 billion* loss in GDP by 2031.
*2006 dollars
But how do we resolve it? It’s commonly known that traffic congestion
in Toronto will not get better in the next decade or two. Even if we build transit at a furious pace,
the level of congestion we are facing is only expected to stay the same. And that’s only if we can build transit –
everyone seems to have ideas, but no one seems to want to pay for it.
That’s one aspect of the 2012 OneCity transit plan
brought forward by Councillors Stintz and De Baeremaeker that tries to address what so many conveniently ignore. Yes, we need to pay for it somehow, and
asking taxpayers to pay for it makes sense. Toronto has some of the lowest tax rates in
all of Canada. You certainly do get what
you pay for.
But let’s talk about the actual plan itself. Simply by looking at the map, it is obvious
that it is a conglomeration of transit plans that have amassed over the
years. Lines from the Transit City
proposal are evident, creating the bulk of the ten proposed LRT lines. Some subway extensions from Network 2011 and
before are visible, such as the ‘North York Relief Line’ (which, conveniently,
doesn’t relieve anything at all), a Bloor subway extension to what appears to
be Scarborough Centre, and most famously of all, the Downtown Relief Line
(renamed the Don Mills express line, though it won’t be express and even more
certainly won’t run under Don Mills for most of its route).
Conveniently, it looks like this map is a rehash
of Toronto-related transit in Metrolinx’ champion plan The Big Move. The two even have similar timelines (well –
if one ignores the delays caused by the ‘interest’ in subways by our
car-friendly mayor).
It’s a welcome start, but it doesn’t stop
here. Just like the plans before it,
there are many problems that need to be addressed – and since all the
individual problems from previous plans were never remedied, this plan carries
these issues as well – in bulk.
Let’s discuss each line in some detail, starting
with subways, then LRT, then streetcar/buses.
Proposed Subway Lines
1) Downtown Relief Line (Don Mills Express)
The Downtown line (I prefer this name, so I’m
sticking with it) has been the focus of almost every amateur transit planner in
Toronto for quite a while now. Almost
everyone’s alignment has it heading south on Don Mills from Eglinton, turning
west through Thorncliffe Park, and south onto Pape. Once the line reaches the existing GO
Lakeshore East corridor, everyone’s alignment changes. Some people want it along Queen to
dual-purpose the line with replacement or realignment of the 501 Queen
streetcar and ‘relieving’ the Yonge subway.
Some people want it along King to rid the TTC of one of its highest
ridership routes. Some even have it going down to Union. Everyone’s alignment differs, and this is
going to be an issue for quite a while.
But back to the proposed Downtown line in the
OneCity map. The line seems to head
south on Pape until Queen, then veer west along Queen and finally onto King,
terminating at King station.
This alignment provides some form of relief in
that it encourages some reverse commuting if one were to travel to Ryerson
University or other businesses. But I believe
that the fact that the line does not connect to the University side is a big
mistake. King and Bay is business
central – there are tonnes of riders that would be aching for subway access,
and it’d warrant it. We need to know
where these riders are coming from, and if the 25 Don Mills has the capacity to
bring people down to Eglinton (or if people are even willing to take that bus
to get down to the Downtown line). It’s
good to see that this proposal doesn’t end at Bloor like the Metrolinx version
– this accommodates passengers coming in via the Crosstown.
I also wonder about how the line would be designed,
once it hits high-density downtown. New TTC
stations are gigantic – almost every new station is monstrous in that it
includes a 10m wide platform, a mezzanine, and sometimes even a gigantic bus
terminal. The downtown line will require
different stations. Downtown is cramped,
streets are narrow – if we follow any sort of street alignment, construction is
going to be an absolute pain with such a small easement. The only way I can see stations being built
is if we stack them (i.e. eastbound platform on top of the westbound platform). And then there’s the line delay problem at terminal
crossovers that almost every TTC subway passenger faces. Will the Downtown line be the first to use an
arriere-gare?
Conveniently, the plan also ignores the need for
any sort of subway train yard requirements (though this may be due to how
conceptual this plan is). You can’t hope
that subway trains will disappear overnight and be back in the morning for rush
hour.
2) Bloor-Danforth Extension into Scarborough
This line has been proposed by many as a method of
eliminating the forced transfer from the Scarborough RT (SRT) to the Bloor-Danforth
line. Most iterations of the line illustrate
cutting through what is currently residential, doing a curve to the north and
eventually ending up under McCowan. A station would probably be around the existing
movie theatre area at Scarborough Centre, a fair distance from the existing SRT
station, and finally the line extends up to Sheppard East.
It doesn’t work for me. Firstly, I’m not a fan of abandoning
corridors. Secondly, the SRT is doing a
fine job at carrying the loads it is designed to, and the conversion to LRT
will open the possibility for Eglinton interlining and will increase line
capacity by a ton. Since the SRT is
completely grade separated unlike the other street-running LRT lines, it has
the capability for automated transit control (like the underground section on
Eglinton), which will allow extremely close headways. The conceptual design for the SRT conversion
has a loop for SRT trains to turn back at Kennedy station. This is good – the lack of a crossover will
permit SRT trains to lose line delays that are currently experienced at
terminal stations. Any sort of delay
would be experienced only at the terminal station at Sheppard.
It’s known that Sheppard doesn’t warrant a subway,
thus the LRT option. But what makes
McCowan (and by extension Scarborough) deserve a subway any better? It has even less redevelopment potential,
with the 401 in its way and cuts through suburban areas on a diagonal currently
not supported by roads. The existing SRT
rebuild proposal is fine – it works, and the line will survive and have
capacity for years to come. Not to
mention it’s going to cost us both time and money to change the design
(probably hitting 60, 90% now) simply by scrapping the SRT into a subway.
It would also leave bus operations alone instead of creating a better,
easier system to navigate, save for a small change in running time for route 54
as it will no longer have to loop.
Ridership on the SRT was approximately 40,000 per
day in 2009. The combined ridership
along Eglinton Ave. East of Kennedy Road based on routes 86 and 116 (in
2010-2011) would be about 38,000. I
would rather extend the subway eastward to Kingston Road along Eglinton
Avenue. This will greatly reduce bus
traffic along Eglinton East, providing relief for many of these commuters and
removing their transfer, while providing rapid transit options to those coming
in from north-south routes such as Bellamy and Markham Road. It also provides the ability to break the
Markham Road route into two pieces for better operation. However, this corridor is also earmarked for
LRT via the Scarborough Malvern LRT, so this extension may not be required at
all. Road-running LRT services will
likely not get the same kind of bus feeder system as subway stations do, save
for the Eglinton line.
Not to mention that you can’t build a subway in
four years, so you’d eventually have to either shut down the SRT or replace its
rolling stock (which are not in production, and newest used vehicles are
ATC-equipped from the 90s). Good luck.
3) Sheppard West Extension
The famous ‘North York relief line’ is prominent
on this map, providing a link from Don Mills all the way across to what will be
Sheppard West station. It’s said to only have one new station at Bathurst. This may be helpful in that people that
currently transfer at Sheppard-Yonge may want to ensure that they have a seat
heading south by crossing over to the other side, generating ridership for the
Spadina line. It will certainly help TTC
subway operations as it will allow trains to head to and from Wilson yard to
the Yonge line. But is it worth the high capital cost?
The Expert Advisory panel that looked at whether
subway or LRT was the choice for Sheppard East also determined that it may be
feasible to run the Spadina line and Sheppard line as one to generate the
ridership required to sustain a subway, as both are currently not running close
to their capacity at all hours. However,
the TTC’s previous experience with interlining is sour as the small number of
lines would mean that almost the entire system would be stopped if there were
to be a delay on a single line.
4) Yonge Subway Extension
York Region Rapid Transit Corporation has been pushing
for this extension once it became evident that the line to Richmond Hill Centre
wouldn’t be coming anytime soon. It
makes sense in that lots of buses would be removed from Yonge Street between
Finch and Steeles. The TTC will be
extending the tail tracks north of Finch Station (currently scheduled for 2014)
to approximately Drewry – might as well bring the line all the way to Steeles
to eliminate bus traffic. Over 100 buses
pass through this area per hour – that is a huge amount of traffic. The subway extension is worth it and
should’ve (also, was to) been done a while ago.
The capital cost is worth saving the ten-fifteen minutes trudging up and
down Yonge Street during rush hour, benefitting all riders on the crowded
Steeles buses and YRT/Viva passengers.
Plus, as a side advantage, it’d finally stop the Steeles East and
Steeles West passengers that get off along Yonge, and certainly stop the
passengers that try to get off the Steeles East Express at Yonge/Steeles. IT
DOESN’T STOP THERE.
5) I-METRO-E (Scarborough Express line)
Originally put forward by Markham councillor Jim
Jones, the I-METRO-E is a repurposing of the existing Stouffville GO corridor
for rapid transit. We’re looking at a subway
line on a corridor that currently has one track. There is no space on some of the right of way
to put another two tracks.
Yes, another two tracks. You cannot run rapid transit (knowing TTC,
probably a 5’30” headway at first; 150 seconds at best with ATC) on the same
line as GO trains without a bypass track.
Since there is no way of properly scheduling rapid transit such that
trains will show up at this location at this exact time, trains cannot easily
weave around each other. Therefore,
three tracks are required, reminiscent of New York City subway operations,
where two outside tracks are local and the centre is peak directional
express. There’s no space – you need to
expropriate a lot, and this includes people’s backyards. As an example, try to design the other two platforms
at Agincourt while minimizing costs (i.e. keeping as much of the existing
station as possible) – where’s the other platform going to go? You will never achieve an 86 minute running
time with only two tracks.
Regardless, that’s not the only problem that lies
in this proposal. It expects to get
downtown using the Lakeshore East corridor.
That corridor is saturated with freight, VIA Rail and GO Transit. You’ll never get away with putting rapid
transit on it. No more tracks fit on
it. Not to mention that Union Station is
currently at capacity, and double berthing will only provide capacity for a
short while (i.e. an end-of-pipe approach).
Perhaps it would be better to feed passengers onto the Bloor/Eglinton
lines at Kennedy.
Another problem – fleet requirements. If it becomes a subway line it’s almost
guaranteed to be using Toronto Rocket cars.
Where are you going to store there?
Doesn’t look like there’s space for two more tracks, never mind a new
yard.
Let’s stick with double tracking and GO
electrification. Even 12-car BiLevel
trains running hourly will definitely open up a ton of capacity. Study the AMT Deux-Montagnes line – it’s a
single track for most of the way, and even allows bidirectional electrical
operation.
6) Etobicoke Express
Quite simply, this is not happening. The OneCity plan calls for complete redesign
of the Air Rail Link into a commuter subway.
This may sound good, but it completely alienates the ARL concept.
It is not meant to be a commuter line. It is meant for you to get from Union to
Pearson in the quickest time possible, hassle free. It is not going to stop up to ten, fifteen
times, lengthening an airport commuter’s travel time to forty, fifty
minutes. It is a premium express
service. Other cities have premium
airport expresses, so what’s wrong with Toronto having one?
Not to mention that TTC will have a heck of a good
time trying to convince GO to allow it to use a corridor that will be saturated
with GO and VIA Rail trains in the future.
Rapid transit berthing will bring even more issues
to Union Station. Let’s stick with the
Sumitomo DMUs for now; electrification will happen and the ARL will continue to
keep its premium status. Heck, with
electrification, the running time will reduce and it will become even more
premium. Station design is too far
ahead. We’re not wasting money to change
it.
I would rather a subway line be stuck under
Weston. GO will be double-tracking and
introducing all-day service on its routes sometime soon, and this will help
alleviate midday transit requirements.
The Weston mobility hub will be rebuilt into a destination.
That’s it for subways. Onto LRT.
1) Don Mills LRT
This is imported from Transit City, except now it
terminates at Eglinton. This needs
better scope definition as it is another route that could be both subway and
LRT. What kind of turnover is prevalent
on the existing route 25? Could we run a
route 25E instead?
2) Finch West LRT Phase 2
This was imported from Transit City, except
funding has lowered its priority. Not
absolutely necessary as passengers can be accommodated by articulated buses
once Finch West LRT phase one is complete, and transit service heading west
will increase due to the new subway access.
3) Finch West LRT (Airport Extension)
What kind of alignment is this? This line is
poorly drawn. Study it first before
putting it there. From what it looks
like, it’d be easier for it to parallel or even somehow use the ARL spur
line. But this seriously needs more study
– a quick Google maps search illustrates the line passing through a large park.
4) ECLRT Phase 2
This is imported from Transit City. It’s welcome, but I’d rather have it branch
off into two lines – one will go to the airport, and one will enter
Mississauga. However, this will mean
service that is twice the headway of that in Toronto. There could always be a
short turn service in Mississauga if necessary.
5) Waterfront West LRT
This is imported from Transit City. A new line
would extend from the existing Exhibition Loop parallel to the Gardiner
Expressway, and connect with existing streetcar tracks at King Street. It suffers from capacity issues at Union Station,
and would run TTC-gauge LRVs. It is
questionable to see if this is actually ‘rapid’ as it shares much of its
corridor with conventional streetcar routes.
I would prefer this become a 500-series streetcar route, if it were to
ever be built.
6) Jane LRT
This is imported from Transit City. I am
unfamiliar with the alignment, but I understand from other transit advocates
that the road is too narrow at some portions for a median ROW (looks to be
south of Lawrence), inflating costs to either elevate or dig.
7) SELRT Malvern Branch
The Malvern branch of the SELRT is an ill-conceived
method of accommodating Malvern Centre passengers that would’ve taken the
SRT.
8) SELRT Zoo Branch
Why?
Ridership to the zoo is only seasonally high; we need to take a look at
where passengers are coming in from. There
is a reason the Zoo Rocket failed. The Zoo Rocket had an average number of 26
passengers per bus. This line would have
too many sunk costs and it’d be infeasible to run transit service all the time
to the Zoo.
9) SELRT Meadowvale Extension
Not really much to say here, except that it’d
extend the LRT route further into suburbia.
I can’t say much due to lack of familiarity with the alignment, but it
looks like it’d only attract put another hundred houses in range of rapid
transit at a fairly high capital cost.
10) Scarborough Malvern LRT
There isn’t much to say here either, other than a
direct port from the Transit City plan.
I can’t say much due to lack of familiarity with the alignment.
Now, finally: buses and streetcars.
1) Ellesmere BRT
This bus service may be run as a DRT Pulse service
instead, since Durham Region is interested in providing a direct transit
service to Scarborough Centre. But as a
DRT Pulse service rather than a TTC service, it may not be attractive to TTC
customers based on the fare policy. It
may be attractive to UTSC students commuting from Scarborough Centre.
2) Kingston Road BRT
This is from the Transit City bus plan. I am unfamiliar with this corridor, but the
Kingston Road bus (route 12) only had 6400 daily riders in 2011.
3) Wilson BRT
Why along Wilson?
Does it deserve BRT better than say Finch East or Dufferin? I think articulated buses would be good
enough to serve this route.
4) St Clair Streetcar Extension
Not a problem – can be extended, but must loop
somewhere, and expropriation will definitely be required for this. The streetcar cannot connect with Jane LRT
due to gauge change.
5) Waterfront East Streetcar
No one wants to fund Union Station capacity
improvements. A new portal will be
needed on Queens Quay east of Bay for this streetcar to happen, but no one
wants to provide the money. I don’t
believe the TTC has budgeted for streetcars to run on this route as well.
All that said, let’s move onto general issues that
need to be dealt with.
Why is conventional transit, i.e. local bus and
streetcar, completely ignored in this proposal?
This only attempts to fund rapid transit improvements – but not fund
regular operations. This rapid transit
plan will increase operating costs by a lot, and the system must be prepared to
fund these operating costs. The TTC must
be prepared to increase its workforce. Maintenance
costs for LRT lines will likely be covered by Metrolinx. Small improvements
like queue-jump lanes, all-door boarding, and transit priority signals will enhance
transit at small capital costs. It’s not always about making the map look good.
I previously said that asking taxpayers to fund
this makes sense. But when I say
taxpayers, I don’t mean Toronto taxpayers.
I mean GTA taxpayers that will be using this transit network. Simply because you live outside the municipal
boundaries doesn’t mean you can escape these costs. We need to be fair and if you’re a
suburbanite that happens to use this transit system or happens to drive in
Toronto, you need to help pay for easing congestion.
This plan needs to tackle improved bus and
streetcar operations, such as moving to headway-based route management and using
higher capacity vehicles (i.e. articulated buses) to reduce frequency for
better, more consistent service. The TTC is already looking at using
articulated buses on six routes, four of which will receive rapid transit
improvements in this plan (and two of which are already receiving rapid
transit, based on the Metrolinx 5-in-10 plan).
Articulated buses should be re-introduced on routes that used to have
them, such as 39 Finch East (or 199 Finch Rocket) and 53 Steeles East. Bunching is notorious on these routes.
Even adopting the Transit City Bus Plan (TCBP) will
bring massive improvements to bus operations.
It planned to add or improve express bus service to 15 bus routes, and it
would certainly be a welcome change.
However, it was highly dependent on LRT lines being in operation to free
up buses. Aspects of the TCBP were
highly customer-centric, such as more shelters and next vehicle arrival signs
inside shelters, which is conformant with the new TTC CEO’s customer-oriented
view.
The streetcar system is already going to receive
new, higher capacity vehicles, and this will help route management in that they
will be less frequent, so easier to manage.
From a customer view, this is slightly worse, but it means more
consistent service throughout the network.
It also needs to look at fare systems. Are you going to stick with a flat fare
system? Are you going to charge by
distance? What technology are you going
to embrace?
What will these rapid transit requirements mean to
the road landscape? Will we embrace
non-automobile forms of transport, such as walking and biking? Or will we be stuck with autocentric design?
What kind of redevelopment is planned in the
vicinity of these lines for Toronto? We
can’t keep on building sprawl. Could
lines be built in hydro corridors? What
kind of ridership would be attracted to a line built in the Scarborough hydro
corridor (i.e. the corridor that extends from approx. Eglinton and Victoria
Park to Sheppard and Meadowvale)?
Where will all these trains be stored? Toronto’s running out of space.
What kind of stop spacing and frequency are we
looking at here for LRT routes? Is it
good to provide a service with stops frequent enough that no bus service is
required? Or should we adopt larger stop
spacing and provide a feeder bus service parallel to the LRT?
What is ‘BRT’ in this proposal? Is it the same system as say York Region’s
viva? Is it simply articulated buses
running in mixed traffic? Is it a direct
port of New York’s Select Bus Service? It’s
not clear what this exactly is, and how it’d improve transit. It could simply be more frequent buses that
bunch for all we know. This is another
concept that needs better scope definition.
As stated, this plan needs more study, and I think
The Big Move 2.0 will cover a lot of the same ground. Let’s wait for that to come out before we
adopt a plan, because this plan only considers Toronto and ignores all the
growing municipalities around it that are responsible for a lot of the
congestion experienced. At least the Big Move 2.0 will cover both goods
movement and passenger movement, something that tends to be ignored in transit
studies (i.e. freight traffic on Lakeshore).
We need to look at this holistically; Toronto doesn’t function on its
own – everyone needs to work together if we want to truly build a transit
system that benefits us all. We can’t
keep drawing lines on a map and say that’s what we’re building without looking
at the big picture.
Lastly, what will this improved transit network
mean in terms of the environment? It
will consume quite a bit more energy than the current system does – where are
we getting this energy from? Is it
renewable? Human systems are completely
non-sustainable – i.e. we consume more than we produce. Power requirements are simply going to
escalate, and costs will as well. So do
we really need to expand our transit system to great extents? Could we not redesign a city that brings you
close to work? North American energy
requirements are excessively more than that overseas – why? Are we able to establish ourselves as the
leading city in North America?
It really all boils down to this: as people, what
do we really need?
Make a plan, stick with it.
