In 2005, prior to the TTC unveiling the Transit City Light Rail Plan, there was a document and presentation called “Building a Transit City”, related to the 2003 ridership growth strategy.
On Friday, the TTC unveiled its “Transit City Bus Plan”, an interesting and detailed document that would see 21 bus routes outside the Transit City LRT Plan be provided with all-day 10-minute service and new or improved express buses on 15 bus routes, including the second-stage Transit City LRT routes: Don Mills, Jane, and Morningside (Scarborough-Malvern). However, the new or improved express bus routes are not planned to be fully rolled out until 2014 (though some routes will see improvements starting in 2011) .
Even so, the route improvements and more express buses are important as the alternative would be to cut back on the bus fleet once busy bus routes like 32 Eglinton West, 34 Eglinton East, 36 Finch West are replaced by LRT and the York subway extension is completed.
These Transit City bus routes for the most part fill the large gaps between proposed LRT routes and represent most of the busiest routes in the surface network. The inclusion of the 94 Wellesley is a bit curious, given its proximity to the Bloor-Yonge Subway.
The document also states that starting in the fall of 2011, the TTC would start implementing 20 minute or better service across the network. In 2008, when the TTC rolled out all-day service on nearly all of its regular routes, each was to run every 20, instead of every 30 minutes. At least this initiative has not been shelved, though sadly delayed.
Further down the report, the TTC identified some additional bus priority measures, including bus queue-jump lanes, bus-only lanes and busways in several corridors, including the under-construction York University busway, and the planned Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) along Kingston Road between Victoria Park and Eglinton. New busways include Wilson Ave. from the Wilson subway station to Keele Street for the governmental complex redevelopment including a new hospital, and from Kipling Station west to the Mississauga border, even though the Dundas corridor in Mississauga is promoted for LRT. There’s even plans for moving bus stops to the “far-side” position to take advantage of existing and new traffic light priority systems in the network.
However, there are some changes that could come immediately: some important base routes, like 41 Keele, have late evening service of 24 minutes (most major north-south routes run every 15 minutes during this time period). We will not see the results in any of these improvements until 2010, and many routes will not improve for five years.
9 comments
Both my current and future bus routes would see improvement under this plan. With any luck, my condo will be finished before 2014 rolls around, and I’ll never have to care about the improvements to the 84 Sheppard West.
The inclusion of the 94 Wellesley is a bit curious, given its proximity to the Bloor-Yonge Subway.
Yeah, but it carries MASSIVE traffic from St. Jamestown residents (among others). I’d guess that’s why it’s included.
Interesting stuff, thank you!
What about requiring all-day 10 minute service on all streetcar routes, such as 502 Downtowner?
Re: Wellesley — on first look, I wonder if there are a few routes in there because they are low-hanging fruit — they are already scheduled at reasonably high frequencies at all hours of the day and are not overly long, and therefore they would not require a significant investment to push to the all-day 10-minute threshold. Coxwell and Pape are a couple of others (not that I am complaining about those).
A less cynical way of looking at it — the fact that these are already operating at high frequencies even in the late evening shows that they are already reasonably high-performing routes that would warrant inclusion in a 10-minute network, as opposed to, say, Leslie, which fills in the grid but only has enough riders to warrant half-hourly service outside of rush hour.
Glad they are planning to increase the frequency of the 102 Markham Rd. bus route, I will definitely benefit from this Transit City Bus Plan. I was very excited about the Transit City LRT plan but was a little disappointed that I wouldn’t benefit from it, but, still glad the city was investing in this Light Rail Plan.
On another note to help increase ridership I see they have gotten rid of the seperated bus platforms at Victoria Park Station and are getting ready to construct a single level shared platform for the different routes that use that station making transfers much more convenient and might even increase ridership if it is more comfortable to make a transfer. Again I am glad the TTC is making this investment I just hope they do something similar for Warden Station which I use the most. It too has the archaic seperated bus platforms that we transit users have to navigate stairs to reach our respective buses. I think Warden Station deserves similar treatment that Victoria Park is receiving. It would be great if they could construct an Island type of platform that Kennedy Station and Scarborough Town Centre has. It is much more convenient for us transit users to use the system at those stations which are much more user friendly especially in unpleasant weather( at least we are somewhat protected from the elements at Kennedy compared to Warden Station. It is easier to see your bus as well.
Come on TTC, a lot of the Bus/Subway stations are really well designed, hopefully the whole network will have such thought put into all the stations throughout- that will definitely help increase ridership.
Warden and Islington, which both have the same individual bus bays as the old Victoria Park design, have reconstruction plans, but no date has been set.
Islington was to be part of a site redevelopment, but that fell through. I believe that at Warden, the city is seeking interested parties to develop parcels at the corner of Warden and St. Clair.
Great plan, just something I’d like to add: The TCBRT routes will have both local and express service, but what about TCLRT routes? Obviously bus service would be reduced, but there should be some local service for in-between stops.
If TCLRT stops are so close together that local service is not needed, while TCBRT has spaced out express stops along side local service, the latter is going to be more appealing imo.
Like it or not, the TTC is essentially a bus network plus a subway spine. I would guess that most TTC trips begin or end on a bus/streetcar, and the system is very well designed indeed (compared to other cities at least) when it comes to transferring smoothly between subway and bus. So, this is a pretty important document and something to be hopeful about.
I did not see any mention though as to two minor aspects that would improve the speed and reliability of buses:
– vehicle design – TTC should really be moving towards buses with three sets of doors on a regular bus and four sets on a bendy-bus. Would greatly cut down on loading/unloading time at stops. See Oakland for an example (http://bit.ly/Dos5U)
– fare payment – obviously a complex issue tied to other parts of the TTC, but plunking coins into a box or having to flash the driver a pass at a single loading point does nothing for speed. Move payment off the bus so all doors can be used. This can be fixed even without putting everyone on an Oyster card – just install hundreds (!) of these machines along the Transit City Bus routes (http://bit.ly/2nLEL8)
As a rueful Torontonian reading in Tokyo about more buses in Toronto, I can only wonder why Toronto keeps aiming so low.