New TTC streetcars to offer better ride, but longer waits
Read More: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...rs-to-offer-better-ride-but-longer-waits.html
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The TTC plans to widen the headways — the gap between streetcars coming down the line — on most of its routes at rush hour once the fleet of 204 new, accessible Bombardier streetcars comes online by the end of the decade. Off-peak headways will mostly remain the same, as will the problematic Queen route. On other routes, however, rush hour waits will increase slightly. Transit officials say riders will be rewarded with more reliable service and, because the new vehicles are bigger, they won’t have to wait two or three cars to board.
- But city Councillor Gord Perks (Parkdale-High Park) doesn’t accept the trade-off. He sees is as a customer service setback and says he will argue at council in favour of approving the purchase this year of an additional 60 streetcars — a move that would cost $366 million, starting with $53 million this year. TTC officials say the decision can wait a year but Perks fears that pushing off the purchase puts it at risk. With those 60 cars, the TTC says it wouldn’t need to increase wait times or, even if it did so temporarily, it could roll them back as the extra cars are introduced. --- It doesn’t matter that the waits will only be a minute or two longer, said Perks. “When I’m waiting on a cold day, I don’t care that there’s an empty seat further up the line,” he said.
- The wait for a streetcar has been climbing since 1990. Twenty-five years ago, the gap between streetcars on Dundas was three minutes, 15 seconds. Today it is five minutes and 15 seconds. When the new streetcars come online, the TTC plans gaps of six minutes, 45 seconds in the morning peak. “It is a daily occurrence to watch somebody give up and take a taxi,” said Perks, who admits that two or three times a month he offers to split a cab with other people at his stop. The TTC says that with fewer cars on a route — 204 new cars compared with the existing fleet of 247 — the service will be better managed. Riders won’t have the frustration of waiting a long time and then having two or three cars show up at their stop.
- But Perks doesn’t believe that. “You have to accept there will be idiots making left turns and delivery vans inappropriately parked and two people with strollers at the same stop . . . One little mistake creates the bunching and when you have bigger headways the likelihood of something going wrong between two cars is increased,” he said. TTC commissioner Joe Mihevc agrees that longer headways are a negative. But they make the most difference during the off-peak, when waits tend to be longer anyway, he said — and those waits won’t change. “The issue in the peak is crowding. In the off-peak it’s waiting,” said the Ward 21, St. Paul’s, councillor, who championed the separate streetcar lane on St. Clair.
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505 Dundas:
Current: 5 minutes, 15 seconds
Planned: 6 minutes, 45 seconds
504 King:
Current: 1 minutes, 51 seconds
Planned: 2 minutes, 10 seconds
512 St. Clair:
Current: 2 minutes, 50 seconds
Planned: 4 minutes, 10 seconds
510 Spadina:
Current: 2 minutes, 30 seconds
Planned: 3 minutes, 30 seconds
511 Bathurst:
Current: 4 minutes, 15 seconds
Planned: 5 minutes
