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Transit and Condos

The TTC keeps on recording new record riderships each year. If there is an increase, we should increase services. Under Rob Ford, however, he orchestrated a reduction in TTC services, to "cut the gravy".

In addition, with the new TR subway trains, we should have discontinued the morning short turning of the Yonge-University-Spadina trains at St. Clair West station. Instead, we continue to get crowding on the trains, as well as scheduling the trains at St. Clair West. Again, to save the "gravy".

With more ridership, we should be be returning to or bettering the previous TTC service. Especially with more people coming to live along ALL the routes. However, it will mean "gravy" for the non-transit people, but a "service excellence, guaranteed" for those who do.
 
W. K. Lis said:
The TTC keeps on recording new record riderships each year. If there is an increase, we should increase services. Under Rob Ford, however, he orchestrated a reduction in TTC services, to "cut the gravy".

In addition, with the new TR subway trains, we should have discontinued the morning short turning of the Yonge-University-Spadina trains at St. Clair West station. Instead, we continue to get crowding on the trains, as well as scheduling the trains at St. Clair West. Again, to save the "gravy".

With more ridership, we should be be returning to or bettering the previous TTC service. Especially with more people coming to live along ALL the routes. However, it will mean "gravy" for the non-transit people, but a "service excellence, guaranteed" for those who do.
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But then, put it another way: if they are getting higher ridership even with the stagnant/reduction in service, why would they want to spend more money? :p It's like getting more revenue without spending more, who wouldn't want that (in a business sense)?
 
if they are getting higher ridership even with the stagnant/reduction in service, why would they want to spend more money? It's like getting more revenue without spending more, who wouldn't want that (in a business sense)?
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Except it's a very bad business model. And one we know very well, and supposedly learned a lesson from.

The ridership increased for the last decade, because service increased. Once you start decreasing service and funding (or increasing fares), ridership will drop accordingly. We will find ourselves right back in the downward death-spiral of the 90's.
 
The TTC isn't a business.

But if it was a business Peter Drucker said: "The singular goal of a company is to create customers".
 
Considering the gridlock on the roads and greater numbers of people moving into condos, I suppose the city can afford to starve the TTC of funds while ridership increases regardless. I'm not sure what it is that causes people to vote for pro-car and anti-ttc people like Ford - it strikes me as a sort of naive optimism that it's possible to turn the clock back to 1960 and the streets will magically be free of traffic if we just believe.

One way or another it seems clear the best best use of transportation dollars at the moment is to improve public transportation, but the current administration will do everything in its power to do the opposite.

Back to the topic at hand: transit and condos.

I agree 100% that construction of the DRL should begin immediately. However there is a need for better public transportation now. I've said it before and I'll say it again - the city should take a look at King and Queen and figure out what can be done to free up the movement of streetcars. The impact of doing so will be greater with the larger streetcars that are coming.

Assuming both cars continue to allow mixed streetcars and automobiles, most changes to improve the movement of streetcars would also improve the movement of cars at the expense of such things as street parking and left turns.

A more enlightened approach would actually remove a few lanes of car traffic in the downtown in exchange for streetcar right of ways, bike lanes and/or wider sidewalks. After all, a lot of downtown condo dwellers are walking to work instead of driving or taking TTC.
 
Hopefully, with the addition of the new streetcars, service along the streetcar routes will improve. There is a shortage of streetcars at the moment. Rob's henchmen did try to reduce the numbers of new streetcars, but it does look we'll have a minimum of 204 new low-floor streetcars.

Unlike buses, the streetcars do not have to return to the carbarns (garages) for refuelling. The streetcars can run 7/24, but really have to be returned for washing, cleaning and maintenance.
 
But overcrowding is only part of the problem - the Queen Streetcar travels at literally a walking pace from Yonge to Bathurst during the evening rush hour. That renders them practically useless for people not traveling further than, let's say, Lansdowne.

It seems like speeding up the movement of the streetcars ought to effectively increase the capacity of the line too, or is my logic off? One if one streetcar makes the entire Queen trip in 4 hours now (just making up numbers for illustration) the same one should be able to make two trips in 4 hours if the movement of traffic on Queen goes twice as fast (not an unrealistic goal as far as I can tell).
 
I definitely think we should look into making our current streetcars much faster. It would be so easy to actually make them into LRT if only we had the willpower to do it.
 
calimehtar said:
But overcrowding is only part of the problem - the Queen Streetcar travels at literally a walking pace from Yonge to Bathurst during the evening rush hour. That renders them practically useless for people not traveling further than, let's say, Lansdowne.

It seems like speeding up the movement of the streetcars ought to effectively increase the capacity of the line too, or is my logic off? One if one streetcar makes the entire Queen trip in 4 hours now (just making up numbers for illustration) the same one should be able to make two trips in 4 hours if the movement of traffic on Queen goes twice as fast (not an unrealistic goal as far as I can tell).
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You can't make the streetcars go faster if there are cars stopped in front of them.

Chicago has a solution, but I can't say I'm a big fan. The pillars were a pain to drive around.

central9.jpg
 
000 said:
It would be great if they found money to bury the Gardiner 4km from Dufferin to Bay, the Big Dig is not much longer and only cost Boston $24 billion...
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If a buried Gardiner were built under the heart of the financial district on a winding course then it might be something reasonably close to being comparable. Burying the Gardiner under its present course would be a relative bargain.

That said, repairing the current structure would be much cheaper still. I'd rather see money put to the DRL, and until it's finished just bite the bullet and close King off as a transit mall. Sure the "war on cars" types would lose their minds, but it would make a huge difference in getting around downtown.
 
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calimehtar said:
It seems like speeding up the movement of the streetcars ought to effectively increase the capacity of the line too, or is my logic off?
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Capacity is based on frequency. Higher speed means higher frequency. For example, if a line is 90 minutes long, it will take 18 streetcars to provide a service of 10 minute frequency. However if the travel time is cut to 45 minutes, with those same 18 streetcars the frequency would be doubled to 5 minutes.

But, aside from the new longer LRVs, I don't think there is much opportunity to increase the capacity of the streetcars since they are so frequent already. Increasing the speed would make the streetcars more efficient, reliable and space them out better (less bunching) and reduce crowding, but I think the overall capacity of the streetcar lines would stay the same. It might worth it anyways just to make transit more convenient and increase ridership, especially with the new LRVs coming.

One thing that's being considered for the Hurontario LRT is have LRVs coupled together to double the capacity of the line. I think TTC should consider something like that if they ever convert all the streetcar lines to modern LRT, which arguably should do in light of Transit City. I don't think it makes sense to have two separate light rail systems within a single transit system. It should be a single light rail network.

And I think ideas like converting Toronto's legacy light rail system into modern light rail became or is becoming a viable option thanks to ongoing intensification of central Toronto. People often think of development as being determined by the infrstructure but it is two-way relationship. The TTC is able to provide a relative high quality service because Toronto is so dense in first place. If you want the TTC to be improved, it doesn't make sense to be against new condos being built.
 
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