Express buses for Toronto

[Towered]

Buses? For a city of this size and importance? Just wonderful. I think if we were to start promoting bus transit it would send the wrong signal to senior levels of government. They would think "Toronto seems to think buses are good enough for them so there's no need to give them capital funding for anything that's actually substantial."

 

[doady]

Wow, I lost my whole post.

Interesting how that busway then will be useless 18 hours a day Monday-Friday, and 24 hours a day on weekends based on MT's (and your) thinking.

GO 45/46/47/48 are future transitway routes and combined they already provide very frequent off-peak service. No weekend service though.

Thinking of this extremely frequent off-peak express bus service, it is hard to say 905 doesn't have any off-peak transit ridership. So many 905 corridors have 5-13 minute midday weekday bus service: Southdown/Erin Mills, Eglinton, Hurontario, Dundas, Queen, Steeles, Yonge, Simcoe, Highway 2, Highway 7, and of course Highway 403 and Highway 407... Obviously the demand is there. I think the 107 should have been a 24/7 service.

The talk about off-peak and all day express service misses one important point: transit, like all other transportation networks, should be designed around peak traffic flows, capacity-wise and cost-wise. The 110 works because it can easily bypass the rush hour gridlock using existing infrastructure. As Mr. Engineer pointed out, no fancy buses or stops or marketing needed, and 110 still has amazing ridership and MT still manages to have much better ridership than YRT overall. I don't think BRT-lite in Toronto could work as well during the peak. Can express bus in Toronto be cost-effective, reliable and fast during rush hour without any upgrade to the roads? Probably not. Certainly the 401 is out of the question.

Unless something is done to facilitate peak bus flows, the most cost effective way to improve transit is too scale back the bus service. Think of where the buses are most congested and frequent: Yonge between Finch and Steeles, and Dundas between East Mall and Kipling. Expand the subway along these corridors and take all those buses off the road, improve service for so many bus riders, and at the same time cut costs, instead of spending an excessive amount of money on fancy buses, stops and marketing that do not make the system more cost-effective or convenient.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Wonder if the Transit City Bus Plan, from August 2009, would be delayed and/or canceled like the LRT plans? See the PDF at link for the plan.

 

[ShonTron]

Buses? For a city of this size and importance? Just wonderful. I think if we were to start promoting bus transit it would send the wrong signal to senior levels of government. They would think "Toronto seems to think buses are good enough for them so there's no need to give them capital funding for anything that's actually substantial."

I don't think that's likely. What politican will, in the right mind, go cut ribbons at bus shelters?

It could as easily be spun to say that the senior levels of government screwed Toronto so many times, we're stuck with making the most of the buses. For added effect, stop retiring the GM buses and keep running them to show what an "embarrassment" running these are (the day the last GM bus goes off the road will not be a happy day for me, I love those things).

LA has the Rapid Series. They do help, even in LA's legendary congestion. Trust me, even the E buses save significant time, even in the height of the afternoon rush hour. The new 41E in rush hours does save a lot of time even in some of Toronto's worst congestion (around York U). And places like LA are busy building light rail, even now, with the Expo Line and Gold Line extension, so having a series of express routes don't matter.

York Region has Viva, but they still got money for a subway to Vaughan.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Obviously the city/TTC wouldn't push for just an E branch plan...more and better express/Rocket service can be rolled out one route at a time and for a few million at a time. That was the point of the RGS, only the spirit and intention of much in that plan has been ditched in favour of Transit City, which requires minimum investments of a billion dollars per route. Even one billion dollars and the will to make some changes could dramatically transform regular bus service on just about *every* major route, not just the lucky route that gets the whole billion dollars.

Adding a few rush hour point-to-point express routes is just a way to improve service for small niche groups of riders. If there's a few hundred Humber students that would take an express bus from Downsview, it could be done quite cheaply, but it's not like it'd have 5 minute frequency all day long or be useful to anyone else or to the NW part of the city in general. Rocket service along Finch West would, speeding up travel for everyone at the cost of not being quite so speedy for the niche group. These A-B routes would have to be supplements and if other service gets cut to make room for them, we're no better off. I'd rather see 10 minutes saved for everyone instead of 20 minutes for a few and 0 minutes for everyone else, which is why I'd prefer to see 190-style Rocket service become standard instead of non-stop or GO-style express routes like the 192 (the airport is really a unique case that needs direct service).

Everything depends on local conditions, though...a Neilson branch that ran along the 401 and then up Neilson would slash like 10+ minutes off the trip to STC. Or, a Steeles Express branch could run non-stop from Finch station to, say, Warden, and then make local stops east of there. If we have enough bus bays or good enough signage/branding to make additional branches easier to use, why not add more?

 

[Cranky Old Fart]

Transit City should never have been contemplated with LRT !

An Express Bus Service modelled on York Regions VIVA is what should have been proposed with routes along Steeles, Finch, Wilson/York Mills/Ellesmere, Lawrence, Eglinton, Don Mills, Victoria Park, Warden, Kennedy, McCowan, etc. etc..

LRT should have only been applied to Queens Quay, King, Queen, Dundas, College, Wellseley/Harbord, St.Clair.

 

[Fresh Start]

My sentiments exactly. The time we're wasting holding out for LRTs that may never be, the City/TTC could be reserving two driving lanes along each and every major artery that's 36 metres across in width. When you've got pocket lanes for regular service routes to stop and serve every stop along the right-of-way, the limited stop express routes can just overtake any buses ahead of it in the queue and away we go. That's how transit should work. Why inconvenience crosstown long-haulers with too many stops and local communities with too few?

I've riden many express routes all over the GTA - MT's 101, 102, 109, 110, route 11 Westwood; VIVA Orange, VIVA Purple, VIVA Green, VIVA Blue; TTC's 190, 191, and 192 Rockets, 116E and 39E - and I've found them all to be superior over the local network. The buses aren't packed like a sardine tin and you can actually get over a long distance in minimal time. If you need local service the express bus always feed into a major transit hub whereby connections to elsewhere is a snap. Drivers would be convinced that it is worth it to invest in transit, because they can tangibly see the results whenever they're stuck in gridlock but the bus service is able to just fly by.

 

[doady]

I've riden many express routes all over the GTA - MT's 101, 102, 109, 110, route 11 Westwood; VIVA Orange, VIVA Purple, VIVA Green, VIVA Blue; TTC's 190, 191, and 192 Rockets, 116E and 39E - and I've found them all to be superior over the local network. The buses aren't packed like a sardine tin

Lack of ridership is not what I would call a sign of a "superior" service. And I don't know about the others, but the 110 and 191 have severe overcrowding problems.

I would not mind modelling rapid transit on VIVA if VIVA was successful, but outside of Blue, it has not been. Let's stick to what works. The 110 works, the GO 407 routes work, the York U busway works, so let's and extend the York U Transitway westward to connect to the Mississauga Transitway, which in turn would connect the Mississauga Transitway to the future 407 Transitway. Get rid of the laws prohibiting competition with the TTC, and then you would already have true BRT service across northern Toronto courtesy of GO.

 

[Cranky Old Fart]

Lack of ridership is not what I would call a sign of a "superior" service. And I don't know about the others, but the 110 and 191 have severe overcrowding problems.

I would not mind modelling rapid transit on VIVA if VIVA was successful, but outside of Blue, it has not been.

Not successful ? Based on what ?

 

[andrewpmk]

The reason that VIVA has not been successful is because the regular YRT bus service that connects to it is poor. Even major, major routes like 1,4,20,77,85,88,90,91,98,99 and others run at 20-30 minute frequencies outside rush hour, which is poor compared to TTC or even MT.

 

[Second_in_pie]

The reason that VIVA has not been successful is because the regular YRT bus service that connects to it is poor. Even major, major routes like 1,4,20,77,85,88,90,91,98,99 and others run at 20-30 minute frequencies outside rush hour, which is poor compared to TTC or even MT.

I would say the biggest thing that's wrong with VIVA is that it's not very well connected to any RT. Go connects well with the network, but Go coverage and service in general's quite poor. I imagine that VIVA would be much more popular just with a well advertised improved Go service. In the future, it might be able to become a backbone core network, but right now it's not built to be like that. Now, it's quite obviously a feeder service to Go and the subway.
Additionally, the Yonge extension that was assumed to be passed relatively easily fell through and is now in limbo and with opposition from several powerful politicians in the city.

 

[leopetr]

Transit City should never have been contemplated with LRT !

Why?

An Express Bus Service modelled on York Regions VIVA

The whole point of Viva is to build real BRT with median rapidways down the middle of Highway 7, etc, not the fake pre-BRT that's running now.

is what should have been proposed with routes along Steeles, Finch, Wilson/York Mills/Ellesmere, Lawrence, Eglinton, Don Mills, Victoria Park, Warden, Kennedy, McCowan, etc. etc..

Eglinton is too narrow for BRT in the core. Unlike LRT, BRT cannot be tunnelled, at least without spending untold amounts on ventilation. I've spent enough time in York Mills Station and Don Mills Station to know I really don't like diesel buses underground.

LRT should have only been applied to Queens Quay, King, Queen, Dundas, College, Wellseley/Harbord, St.Clair.

King: Too Narrow
Queen: Too Narrow
Dundas: Too Narrow
College: Too Narrow
Wellesley: Too Narrow

LRT isn't a mixed traffic streetcar, just like BRT isn't a mixed traffic bus. They require similar amounts of space.

If you run them in mixed traffic, then you might get a pretty vehicle and comfy vehicle but you will not get a rapid vehicle.

 

[Fresh Start]

Lack of ridership is not what I would call a sign of a "superior" service. And I don't know about the others, but the 110 and 191 have severe overcrowding problems.

Well, of course you'll have overcrowding issues if you run trips primarily with single-unit buses as opposed to artics. When the 110 uses artics (which it rarely does outside of rush hour) the one vehicle can carry 150 passengers. I've ridden it on occasion and the overcrowding argument is only applicable to single-units. On artics there's standing room with often enough space let over for people to down the aisle freely. The TTC doesn't use artics (even ALRV is reserved mainly to 501 Queen).

I would not mind modelling rapid transit on VIVA if VIVA was successful, but outside of Blue, it has not been. Let's stick to what works. The 110 works, the GO 407 routes work, the York U busway works, so let's and extend the York U Transitway westward to connect to the Mississauga Transitway, which in turn would connect the Mississauga Transitway to the future 407 Transitway. Get rid of the laws prohibiting competition with the TTC, and then you would already have true BRT service across northern Toronto courtesy of GO.

Alot of that has to do with the frequency the transit operators route buses. If they made headways shorter and more predictable the public would be encouraged to switch from whatever mode they currently use to BRT. In every major city that switched to BRT primacy, ridership levels exceeded opening day expectations. VIVA would be expectational with given its own right-ofway. It doesn't have to be fanciful, only practical. People aren't convinced to use it based on appearence, headways are the botton line. Fare barriers really do need to go away even if it causes yet another TTC fare spike.