Monday’s headlines

15 comments

1. City owes $200M extra in sick leave
   http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/698058

   How the Mayor can justify making the city’s offer to the union public while sitting on this information should raise eyebrows.

2. Re: Sea of Concrete:

   “Too much was sacrificed for what boils down to slightly improved service during rush hour but virtually empty streetcars the rest of the time, Raymond argues.”

   Well, of course. You could build the greatest light rail line in the world but no one would ride it if it was only 100 ft long and went nowhere. Wait until St. Clair is fully complete before making such inane comments. Or argue for even more rail across the entire width of the city to see the infrastructure bring maximum benefits.

3. Something smells about Giambrone playing down the Ashbridges plant leak as if it was no big deal. A plant build to keep sewage out of the lake didn’t notice they were dumping directly into lake for more than 3 days. Giambrone and everyone on the Public Service Committee should be demanded answers and accountablity. This is like having a car plant and nobody notices that you haven’t produced any cars for 3 days. You cannot just, ‘not notice,’ something that is the very core purpose of the plant without some really serious breakdowns like those that occurred at Walkerton.

4. iSkyscraper, I don’t find the comments in that article you mentioned inane. Whether you agree with the St. Clair project or not, the implementation has been an absolute mess. It should not be unexpected that some people in the area have strong feelings about it, particularly when their livelihood is at stake. What I do find inane are comments that talk about the “greatest light rail line in the world” without any reference to length or destination — as your post seems to do.

5. I am trying to scold the sound-bite media, like Metro, from focusing on “no one will use it” or “it’s only slightly faster” as a reason for streetcar opponents (of which Toronto has plenty) to argue that additional lines should not be built. These are diversions. Yes, St. Clair is a complete disaster in terms of streetscape design, stop placement, fare payment, construction scheduling and a million other things. But Toronto needs more streetcars, more rail, more anything with steel wheels — or it will stagnate relative to its peers. Sorry if I am a bit harsh in my tone.

6. Glen, what do you expect from a mayor who doesn’t know the difference between “eliminated” and “phased-out”? Thanks for the link.

7. How about scolding the propaganda wielding councillors? Suggesting that merely being a streetcar, sorry LRT, that ridership will increase, then pointing to spurious statistics…….

   From the Star, Adam Giambrone states: “The Spadina line went through the same growing pains as St. Clair, but 12 years out, ridership has “almost doubled” and there’s a huge increase in reliability, Giambrone argues. “Three or four years from now, things will be good on St. Clair.”

   What determines ridership if whether it is applicable for the riders origin / destination. Also if it is cost/time effective. When the Globe and Mail looked into the Spadina LRT in 2005 it found..

   “We found that:

   Instead of living up to pre-construction reports that streetcars on dedicated lanes would cut travel time from Bloor Street to Queen’s Quay by 5 minutes — the environmental assessment boasted of up to 10 minutes in savings — the 510 appears to take longer than the buses that plied the route from 1948 to 1997. A TTC document obtained last month says the trip takes one minute longer in the afternoon rush hour than in 1990. Data on historical and current transfers indicate a 17-minute bus trip in 1993 now takes 19 minutes by streetcar.

   The 510 may be the slowest of all routes between the Bloor-Danforth and Queen Street. Travel times on TTC transfers put Bloor-to-Queen trips at 12 minutes on Spadina, 8 minutes on Bathurst and 10 minutes on other routes.

   The TTC says ridership on Spadina is up 30 per cent since 1997, the year the line opened. But when compared with 1992, the last year before construction tore up the street and cut into ridership, Spadina appears to be down 1.5 per cent, while overall TTC ridership is up about 3.4 per cent.

   TTC cost-to-revenue ratio lists show the Spadina and Harbourfront lines (now considered one for accounting purposes) have plunged to 35th-best among the TTC’s 132 surface routes. In 1997, they were No. 1 and No. 9, respectively, with the Spadina bus one of only seven routes turning a profit.

   The only finding that Mitch Stambler, the TTC’s manager of service planning, strongly disputes is the question of whether the streetcars are slower than the old buses, although the numbers we’ve used came from the TTC.
   “

8. Giambrone is correct in concept but the TTC has design issues in execution. Fare control, stops, platform height, ROW landscaping, vehicles, construction management and even the maps all need to be copied from other cities rather than half-backwards reinvented every time. But these deficiencies should only be used to argue for more rail, not less. Get the tracks in the ground and the rest can be fixed over time. As someone who encourages growth of the downtown core I’m sure you would agree that the more the network effect kicks in, the better it is for downtown.

   If you want to see the effect of a too-short LRT, check out Buffalo. Their merchants enjoy plenty of peace and quiet along streets that never got an expanded rail network. I’m sure they greatly enjoy their efficient buses with no passengers serving a downtown with no businesses and no residents.

   Damn the torpedoes, Toronto, and keep laying track.

9. the right-of-way projects aren’t supposed to make streetcar routes faster, for heaven’s sake. they are supposed to make the service more reliable, meaning that vehicles come at regular and reliable intervals. (there’s an argument to be made for emergency vehicle access too, but it has its problems.)

   how many of you were living in toronto in the era of the spadina bus? good luck finding anybody who used to take that bus during the 1990s who is unhappy with today’s streetcar arrangement.

   anyway, if you have ever cursed the ttc after waiting more than 30 minutes for a streetcar and then seen five of them in a row, then you should be a fan of the rights-of-way.

10. It’s been 14 months since Igor Kenk’s arrest and he won’t go to trial until February? He’ll be in jail all this time?
    I wouldn’t be surprised if the charges were dismissed, it’s ridiculous how slow our process is.

11. Glen: I’m pretty sure the ridership of the 510 is quite a bit above the 1992 Spadina 77 bus peak, as nfitz explained to you in this urban toronto thread back in feb:

    http://www.urbantoronto.ca/showthread.php?p=237553#post237553
    And of course, 1992 is right around the time that service was slashed across

12. Re: Ashbridges spill… why Councillor Giambrone is still regarded by some as having any credibility on this issue or any other is beyond me.

13. Andrew,

    It is difficult to get figures to make a true comparison. I do recall niftz’s response. Afterwards I tried to get a clearer picture of the ridership. Alas it is difficult. Combining the ridership with the Harbour-front LRT, and taking into account the huge increase in residents served by that line, has made meaningful comparisons difficult.

    That being said, the TTC and specifically Giambrone, has implied that the mere change from a bus route to a LRT, will increase ridership. For what little evidence there is to support that, it ignores the cost of doing so. I am sure changing from an LRT to a chauffeur driven limousine service would also increase ridership.

    The cost effectiveness should also not be ignored!

    Going from a bus route to an LRT, by itself, will not cause ridership to ‘double’. Besides, no one is ever going to write a song about the Spadina LRT.

14. Glen: I think you’ve got it a little backwards. Going from LRT to chauffeur would probably lead to a precipitous *drop* in ridership. Sure, the service is more attractive. But limos just couldn’t handle the capacity of an LRT.

    Ok, so that was a (not terribly funny) joke. But I think it sort of illustrates the point that going from bus to LRT alone could indeed have helped increase ridership. Double, maybe not. But the 77 could not deal with what the 510 can. (which isn’t to say that every capacity improvement should be supported regardless of cost, obviously.)

    You are right, however, that Spadina LRT doesn’t have the same ring as the Shuffle Demons’ classic.

15. ummm… i think there’s a song about the spadina bus because it was an experience to ride – always full to capacity, hot and humid from the crowd, lurching in and out of lanes for the whole route.