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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

Bus improvements coming, but why the secrecy?

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On Sunday, February 17, the TTC will roll-out a series of major service improvements that will finally make a dent in addressing overcrowding. Many of these have been deferred since the fall, when the TTC was forced to find savings to cover the budget shortfall when councillors deferred the vote on the new land transfer and vehicle registration taxes.

UPDATE: I learned yesterday the details, and now can confirm that schedules will change on 45 routes beginning Sunday, February 17. Nearly all of these are service improvements, with decreased headways, and all address crowding on many busy routes across the city, and clears most of the backlog of changes required due to growing ridership. However, there are 21 additional schedule changes that have been identified as necessary, but yet have to be implemented, as the budget and bus fleet can not yet handle them. And if ridership continues to grow as expected this year, the TTC will have to continue to catch-up. Hopefully, it will still be able to implement the later phases on the Ridership Growth Strategy, which includes that minimum daily 20 minute service standard, this year.

Steve Munro has more details posted here.

This information was embargoed until 10AM today to accommodate a media splash at Arrow Road Garage. This is the one fly in the ointment – while many changes increase already high service levels (for example, from 9 to 8 minute service on 58 Malton weekdays), some schedule changes will result in significant changes in arrival times (for example, 129 McCowan North going from every 20 to 15 minutes on Sunday mornings). And with many people away or perhaps enjoying an extended long weekend, the TTC needs to provide more notice, even if it means holding press conferences earlier or after the details are released.

The TTC is often late in having service changes posted (my experience has been anywhere from 4-12 days before) , but background materials, such as the service summary are available a week to two weeks early. Some other transit agencies – notably York Region Transit and Brampton Transit, typically put notices out and new schedules on-line up to two weeks before any major changes.

One interesting note is that bus service on Finch East during the AM peak will have a frequency of every 1 minute, 15 seconds. Perhaps Finch East should have been a Transit City route! 

In a column in Metro from January 31, Ed Drass gives a few hints on what’s in store. Service improvements include midday and limited weekend service on the 39E Finch East Express, one of the TTC’s busiest and longest routes, and a step towards introducing more express routes to service the inner suburbs, and can be seen as a precursor to Transit City. Service levels during rush hour, midday and evenings during the week, and to a lesser extent on weekends, will finally make many buses and streetcars a little more comfortable for patrons.

This fall, the TTC will introduce a second phase of service improvements that will include a new standard for all surface routes – that all routes will run 7 days a week, 18-20 hours a day (essentially eliminating those dashed and dotted routes on the Ride Guide). Furthermore, buses will run at a minimum headway of 20 minutes, a very significant milestone, as it will restore many, if not most, cuts made in the 1990s.

The TTC hopes to implement two RGS changes later this year. First, service will run on all routes whenever the subway is open. If a route exists, it runs 7 days/week, 19 hours/day. Second, no headway will be worse than 20 minutes anywhere.

The TTC is on track on beating its previous ridership record of 1988, when it carried 463 million people a year, with, for the most part, far higher service standards than today. Since then, a recession, fare hikes and then major cuts conspired to drive people away from the TTC. Amongst the casualties were the trolley buses, the remaining PCC fleet (declared surplus after streetcar service levels were cut), and many bus routes, including 3 Ancaster Park, 19 Church, 118 Finch via Allen, 119 Grandravine, and 163 Rustic Road, were eliminated all-together, and slashing evening and weekend service on many others.

But so far, almost uncharacteristically, there has been little public notice about the improvements and changes coming. As of 11AM today, the TTC’s website still lists the latest service changes from January 6. The service summary, a great resource outlining the nuts-and-bolts of bus allocation by garage and route, frequencies, running times and route lengths, (a goldmine of information for transit advocates and enthusiasts, and located here) also has yet to be updated, though these documents usually come out weeks before a service change. Come Sunday or, for those with the long weekend off, Tuesday morning, passengers will be in for a surprise. Albeit for many, this will be a pleasant surprise, but as there will be major changes, transit riders’ regular schedules will be affected, and passengers should not be left in the dark until the last minute.

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15 comments

  1. Ssshhh! Be verry verry quiet.

    Delaying the public notice announcement is a counter-terrorist measure. If you don’t know what the service change will be, the terrorists wouldn’t either.

    Just like keeping trash cans out of a subway platform, it may make the property dirty, but you will be safer (if you don’t slip on the trash).

    Ha!

  2. I found a typo in your bus improvements story ..

    The TTC is on track on beating its previous ridership record of 1988, when it carried 463 million people a year, with, for the most part, fare (far?) higher service standards than today.

    But yeah eh? Tin Can Transit. I feel like a tiny salty fish when riding to work.

  3. It’s a little strange that they still haven’t announced what exactly the service enhancements will be as they are missing out on some free marketing. Regardless, nice to see the TTC back to where it was the day before Harris arrived in 1995. Now it’s time to start building again.

  4. If the TTC were back to where it was before Harris arrived, we’d get our trolley buses and PCCs back, but sadly I don’t think either will ever make a comeback here. The small PCC fleet used to save the day for streetcar service in a snowstorm like today when CRLVs were breaking down all over the place. It would be nice to see a dedicated line for those cars but we still don’t buy into our history enough to do it. Just like the CNG buses that were used to finish off our trolley buses, hybrids are all the rage now, but they’re still not zero-emission vehicles. It’s good to see the long-awaited improvements finally become reality though.

  5. Is this for every bus route? I’ve read that about four times now and I’m still dubious. My home bus route — the Jones line — is so underused that I find it hard to believe the TTC would be willing to invest in it to woo riders back. As of now, it only runs six days a week, and outside of peak hours, only every thirty minutes, with the last bus tootling off before 11 PM (!!!). If these service improvements go through, this would be a huge change. I have to wonder whether riders would be seduced to use it more then.

  6. Back in the 1960s thee were express routes on Eglinton East and West and several other east-west
    axis streets. These buses stopped only at places where other bus routes would intersect. An Eglintonn West Express would have its first stop at Bathurst St. then Oakwood then Dufferin and so on.

    I don’t believe they made local stop near the outermost ends of their respective routes.

    I lived near Oakwood and Eglinton and I would board the Eglinton West Express in front of the A&P just west of Oakwood. The bus would go on to Bathurst and straight in to the subway station.

    Granted it was a rush hour service, but it shows how much more service we had then than we do now.

  7. I notice so many people blaming Mike Harris for the problems, but he now works for the Fraser Institute, a right-wing think tank, and Magna International, and probably makes more than David Miller, it’s too ironic!

    The one thing I cannot stand about the TTC is the squeeling sound from the rails from King to Union Station, and along St. Clair there’s this air pressure problem, somewhere along that routc underground.

    Aside from that anybody who takes the Shepperd Bus to the station who lives West of Yonge Street waits forever, and meanwhile the express buses from Downsview Station go by one by one while your frezzing your buns off, or sweltering in the heat, that route needs a real fix-up.

    And have you seen the washrooms? Why can’t they get corportaions to donate the money to revamp the washrooms, so they look more like the washrooms at the Empress Theatre that would be kept clean, because hellhole’s can’t be cleaned!

    And I got some other great suggestions about revitalizing the stations using community artists to put up permanent stencil-art in stations, and more.

  8. “Squealing wheels”? You have got to be kidding. There used to be a time that the squealing was so loud, everyone had to put their fingers into their ears. The same with streetcars in their loops.
    Then they found out that the streetcars were quiet whenever it rained or snowed. The moisture quieted the squeal a lot. That is why there are puddles on the streetcar loops and wet flange grooves on subway curves. The water quiets the noise. Unless the water dries up or is shut off, then the noise could come back.
    They are experimenting with other methods that don’t use water, since water will freeze in winter.

  9. I’m told the hush-hush is to maximize the “media hit” and make sure the news is spread far and wide. Of course the news is that the anti-crowding expansion is here — but the news is also that it’s brought to you by the mayor and the chair.
    Also, what IS the normal protocol for service changes? How soon do they go out… to the media, to ttc.ca, to individual bus stops?

  10. One interesting note is that bus service on Finch East during the AM peak will have a frequency of every 1 minute, 15 seconds. Perhaps Finch East should have been a Transit City route!

    I don’t know about that. But it’s certainly more evidence of why the stubway needs to be finished, rather than crippled permanently by the existing Transfer City plan.

    Think about it. A lot of these riders are going to the subway from Scarborough, where the stubway doesn’t go. For example the 39E express goes local till Warden, then express with stops only at Vic Park, then Don Mills, then Finch.

    Meanwhile, they’re even upgrading the Sheppard East bus route that runs where the stubway doesn’t.

  11. This is great news- What a Valentine’s present from the city for us transit users. Hope the #100 Flemington Park gets a few new buses and the #95 York Mills needs a few of these extra buses as well.

  12. David–that rush hour express service on Eglinton from Oakwood might have worked in the 60s, but it wouldn’t now. There’s two lanes going east between Oakwood and Marlee–one for transit and the other that’s chock full of very slow moving cars. That express bus would just get stuck behind whatever non-express bus is in front of it in the transit lane.

    Of course, the proposed Eglinton underground light rail is the real way to do it.

  13. NEW service standards?! How about simply IMPLEMENTING the current ones?!

    I don’t see how setting the bar even higher is anything but a load of PR hot air when there is no mechanism in place to ensure that the TTC is accountable for MEETING their service standards.

    Last week I was attempting to take the 196 from Downsview Station to York U at 11:15am. I was the first person on the platform, and I stood there, outside, for a good TWELVE MINUTES in the bitter cold as SEVENTY-FIVE PEOPLE lined up behind me (I counted). When the bus finally came, 25 of those people were still left on the platform as more joined their ranks. This happens fairly regularly when I go to York. This is what busts my chops:

    1. Apparently current service at 11:15am is 2min 30s, and is being improved to every 2min 15s.

    2. There were THREE 196 buses not 30 feet away sitting empty, idling their engines in the bus “parking area” during the 12 minutes I was standing there.

    3. It was one of the idling buses that eventually came around and picked us up. Even if there was some reason why the buses couldn’t leave the station, there is absolutely no reason why the 196 couldn’t idle AT the platform like all the buses for other routes do, and provide some shelter for the waiting passengers.

    I don’t just want empty promises of better service, I want some accountability. I want to be able to complain to someone when the service is below standard, and I want someone to DO SOMETHING about it when I do.

  14. melissa,
    please realize that the city is doing the best they can!The driver was on break and had every right to let you stand there until the shift started. You see those are the rules, the rules I have been fighting for years.With little or no co-operation from those who have felt this is a good government.But dont dismay in another three years you and others will have a chance to change this government,…

    “YES WE CAN”