Sick transit: Toronto's transit system is mediocre

[doady]

Why should Steeles be a YRT route? That makes no sense...the only thing it would accomplish is slash ridership by about 2/3.

It should be a YRT route because a lot of people in York Region use it and York Region should be paying for it.

Another problem w/canning those routes on behalf of MT + York is that it inconveniences the Metropasser...

Who said that they would no longer accept TTC fares? There are plenty of examples in the GTA where the buses accept fares from two systems. The TTC routes 32B and 58B accept MT fares, and the TTC routes north of Steeles accept YRT fares. And apparently MT route 19 accepts Brampton fares along its entire route.

 

[dashingdan]

doady, why on earth would ttc stop running its burnhamthorpe bus? seriously, that is completely senseless. make mississauga transit run it? why on earth for? the 26 runs on burnhamthorpe, and drops people off in etobicoke before it reaches islington, and to mississauga it picks people up. personally i would prefer the 26 and similar buses not pick up anyone within toronto. as it stands, it takes way too long to get to islington from square one, and what you're proposing would make it take even longer. thanks, but no thanks. the system as it works right now at least makes sense.

 

[adma]

Who said that they would no longer accept TTC fares? There are plenty of examples in the GTA where the buses accept fares from two systems. The TTC routes 32B and 58B accept MT fares, and the TTC routes north of Steeles accept YRT fares. And apparently MT route 19 accepts Brampton fares along its entire route.

Yes, but what's the "other way around" situation--esp. w/Metropasses?

If they don't do so already, well, if your system is applied, they should certainly *start*...

 

[roch5220]

There's always a million people getting on and off at various stops between Don Mills and McCowan on the 39

Well, with millions of people getting on and off between Don Mills and McCowan, a subway line would for sure be an instant success.

The TTC is still doing a good job with great subway and bus frequencies. Its true more money is needed for capital projects, but the current system is far from mediocre.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

"Well, with millions of people getting on and off between Don Mills and McCowan, a subway line would for sure be an instant success."

Not if they finish Sheppard...in many ways, the Sheppard line is still the better route - light rail in the hydro corridor north of Finch would also work. Kind of a shame, as, west of Yonge, Finch is clearly a better route than Sheppard.

Finch is busy because it has three main superbusy nodes, at Don Mills, Warden, and McCowan...a subway stop at each of these points could see 50,000+ riders a day, depending on how buses funnel into them and assuming more towers go up, but the other stops would all be Summerhills and Chesters (if there are many other stops...it could be express-ish). These nodes would also be well-served by north/south rapid transit lines, DRL, etc.

Traffic on Finch is nowhere near bad enough that the subway would win out over buses when travelling short distances, especially since wait times for buses are invariably sub-2 minutes during rush hour...I don't think I've ever waited longer than 5 minutes for one in my life. Really, the thing Finch needs most is accordion buses to speed up the convoys, and limited-stop express routes.

 

[bizorky]

If anything, one of the larger criticisms about transit has to do with poor integration in the whole GTA region. Some links between municipal systems are very good; others are pretty poor.

In terms of the subway, I agree that the Sheppard line should be finished. The potential for this line is unrealized, and will remain so until it is concluded. Sometimes it looks as if it were simply forgotten. The trouble is that any talk of subway building always ends up as a "this line versus that line" debate. It suggests that there are still a number of very good reasons to extend a number (if not all) the lines over time.

 

[drum118]

I did a report on TTC Route 50 and MT 26 and it was presented to the TTC commissioners in the fall of 2004. TTC was to do a report on it, but still sitting there.

Bottom line is the fact that TTC can walk away and save $1 million in operating cost and still get money for its tickets, tokens and pass's. The only thing TTC will loose is the cash fare.

There will be no change to TTC riders using MT 26 as it will operate like TTC 50 once it is in Toronto.

MT will use TTC transfer in Toronto.

MT riders will see a change going west as they will no required to pay a fare when they get on the bus at Islington. They will pay their fare when they get on the next MT bus.

Downside for MT will be riders who do not use any MT service to get on MT in the first place and that is a small %. MT lost is made up by TTC cash fare riders.

MT operates over 12 minutes in Toronto and generates no cost recover and doing TTC 50 it will.

TTC current riders would see better service than TTC offer today and would see late night service before part of the Blue service kicks in.

MT will have to start service earlier than it does now and that is no problem since there is a plan to do so in the pipe line now.

MT needs to operate every 10 minutes from Sq One today, but the issues surrounding Burnhamthorpe is stopping it now. MT 26 carries 15,000 riders a day now and has lost more riders because of the service. MT 26 was the 2nd largest travel route until a few years ago when it is was pass but MT 1/1c routes.

Talking about Steeles, how about adding BT route 11 route to the mix as it now going to see 7.5 services in September. Finch to Shoppers World.

Unless a subway line is carrying over 120,000 riders a day, it better off using LRT's. Anything else other than an LRT line is a waste of money.

You could build an LRT in place of the York U BRT and run it up Jane St to Wonderland for $678 million and that less than haft of the cost of building the subway only up to Hwy 7.

Steeles like Finch needs an LRT line in the first place in its own ROW.

 

[doady]

doady, why on earth would ttc stop running its burnhamthorpe bus? seriously, that is completely senseless. make mississauga transit run it? why on earth for? the 26 runs on burnhamthorpe, and drops people off in etobicoke before it reaches islington, and to mississauga it picks people up. personally i would prefer the 26 and similar buses not pick up anyone within toronto. as it stands, it takes way too long to get to islington from square one, and what you're proposing would make it take even longer. thanks, but no thanks. the system as it works right now at least makes sense.

Because the TTC would save a lot of money and MT would get much higher revenue on the 26/206 and thus offer much better service. It is a win-win situation for everyone.

The situation right now the MT and TTC Burnhamthorpe routes overlap and residents in Etobicoke complain about the amount of buses which forced MT to reduce the frequencies of the 26 and to reroute the express bus off Burnhamthorpe. How does that make sense in any way?

 

[dashingdan]

By better service you mean more frequent service, but that doesn't equate to better. The 3 runs more often than the 26, and the 26 runs more often than the 206, but my preference is 206 first, then 26, and then 20, and lastly 3. Who cares if it comes very often but it takes forever to get to its destination? It's like a pileup of streetcars moving nowhere fast.

 

[TdotTrickyRicky]

Saying that the TTC fairs better then other North American systems is inadequate, we should be comparing to international peers. Such a comparison in my opinion backs the writers opinion that our transit system is mediocre. There are two issues here, level of service and customer service. Frequencies are not actually that bad in many areas. Where we fail in my opinion is the coverage of mass rail lines. Street level service like bus and light rail are fine but underground mass rail is the work horse that provides real benefits in terms of commute time increases and congestion. Customer service is another issue where the TTC fails in my opinion, that is why I am such a huge proponent of dynamic wait time signal boards. Even if such a system costed 100 million to implement the benefit would exceed using the same money to increase the actual service level because knowing when the next transit vehicle is coming is more important then having a transit vehicle come less often.

 

[unimaginative2]

The TTC is pretty strong, even by international standards, in terms of frequency and overall coverage. It's extremely weak in terms of customer service, travel times, and mass transit coverage.

 

[Mark Dowling]

the NP article doesn't mention the huge subsidy cut which led to service cutbacks and plummeting ridership - but NP readers like subsidy cuts...