March 2011 TTC Service Cutbacks

[nfitz]

Why can't they release a preliminary list of routes that will see service increases in September now? Would help to rationalize the route cuts.

Presumably because the September increases are because of projected growth ... and we don't know where (or if) that growth will be yet?

 

[GraphicMatt]

Surely there's enough ridership information to put a draft list together, subject to change - people already know where the most congested bus routes are.

 

[nfitz]

Surely there's enough ridership information to put a draft list together, subject to change - people already know where the most congested bus routes are.

Wouldn't that list be the list of service improvements that went into effect last week?

 

[Ed Drass]

Will be interesting to see if even the TCB plan doesn't go through, if we begin to see some express bus routing under Ford. Coming from the suburbs he knows (unlike Giambonehead) that stopping at every side street doesn't help with long distance travel.

Uhh, we're hoping Ford has more understanding of the needs of bus riders than Giambrone? Maybe he saw the light after the response to his Globe comments...

The risk of ad hominem comments is they can reveal more about the person uttering them than the intended victim.

"The TCBP, which was supposed to be implemented completely by 2014, also calls for hiring more on-street supervisors, equipping 1,150 intersections in the city with transit signal priority, building 10 new queue jump lanes for buses at congested intersections in Scarborough and North York and constructing 19 new bus bays along the 39 Finch East route. It also envisioned expanding or adding express bus service along 15 bus routes in 2014."

Where's Ford's alternative? Yes, I'm gonna say it. (Sorry.) "Subway is the only way to go!"
ed d.

 

[doady]

I have a copy of the ridership for these routes at night that are not nice to look at and you can see why these routes are on the chopping block. I will try to post the 3 pages of data later.

It was some meeting today with the flip flop going on.

The captial budget was past hands down with the recommendation that TTC keeps all excess renvenue like last year, received a cost of increase in funding and few other thing. There was talk about going p3 for wheel tram 100%.

Is see Steve has already beat me for posting the list. http://stevemunro.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/2011-03-cuts-list-formatted-v1.pdf

This is pretty dumb way to judge the success of routes, no offense. Brand new service takes time build up ridership, so if you decide what should be cut based entirely ridership info for one year and completely ignore the trends in the ridership, so shortly after the service was introduced, that is just flawed thinking. I'm surprised you buy into this way of thinking.

Also, the people who use the service at night or on the weekends when ridership is low probably also use it during busier times. After all, if people travel in one direction at a certain time, generally they also travel in the oppotsite direction at a another time. So if the service is cut at certain times, the people affected might opt not to use it at all.

 

[Ed Drass]

Steve Munro re-crunches the numbers and has just posted maps of route sections to be cut and routes set for improvements: http://stevemunro.ca/?p=4814

Doesn't his research merit an official, detailed TTC response?

ed

 

[GraphicMatt]

Hey, some actual indication of where service improvements will be. Impressed!

 

[W. K. Lis]

One of the reasons behind the suggested cutbacks was to reallocate resources. They would have sent the buses and drivers over to the more heavier used routes. While it does make some sense, I do have some questions.

Wouldn't the use of articulated buses on the more heavier used routes be more beneficial? Many times I have seen or been at bus stops where buses were so full that they had to bypass stops.

The TTC did have many problems with articulated buses, which is why there aren't any at the moment. Has the TTC looked at the current crop of articulated buses? Is there a report available?

 

[Jonny5]

Steve Munro re-crunches the numbers and has just posted maps of route sections to be cut and routes set for improvements: http://stevemunro.ca/?p=4814

Doesn't his research merit an official, detailed TTC response?

ed

Also media coverage.

 

[APTA-2048]

The TTC did have many problems with articulated buses, which is why there aren't any at the moment. Has the TTC looked at the current crop of articulated buses? Is there a report available?

One report I recall reading said TTC was watching the STM's and MTA's experience with their Nova LFS Artics. I'll try to dig it up from the Website and post it here, unless someone else beats me to it.

EDIT: October 29, 2009 report.

Bus Purchases for future years will be subject to a new competitive proposal process. At
this time, it is anticipated that industry will have had sufficient time to evaluate the newly
designed articulated bus manufactured by Novabus to demonstrate its reliability. Novabus
has received orders from various transit properties in the Province of Quebec and from New
York City Transit for delivery in the next two years. Staff will monitor the experiences of
these properties with the new model bus as well as that of other bus manufacturers to
determine their viability for use in Toronto, and will explore opportunities for the inclusion of
articulated buses in its fleet in 2013.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

One of the things I find surprising about the cuts is that they seem to fall mostly on Ford Country, if anything. One of my fears about the first Ford budget would be that it would seek to, basically, provide gold-plated services for the outer 416 by gutting everything downtown. That doesn't appear to have happened.

There's nothing surprising about it. Ford Country is the bulk of the city and is served mostly by bus routes. Non-Ford Country is the quarter of the city filled mostly with subway and streetcar lines. The routes targeted are mostly either the non-arterial routes that snake around and in between major arterial routes or routes that parallel the subway lines. It's the usual suspects, "low performing routes" or whatnot.

Victoria Park is half way through the route. Many routes will have only one or two people on them for the latter half of the route. The 510 is often empty or near to it crossing Lakeshore at night. The further from the subway station the less desirable the mode of transportation. I have a hard time believing the 42 bus is driver only at 7pm.

If you cut back the service times of a route a couple of hours you are going to see reductions in the number of riders in the hours prior to the new closing period. Obviously the routes that run on the primary arterial routes in the city are going to have greater demand because there is greater employment and nearby density on those routes. However, if the 42 bus truly is empty at 7pm with its 7000+ daily riders and a similar cost recovery ratio to many non-arterial routes in the city the removal of that route would mean the removal of one heck of a lot of routes.

For many of the groups arguing for transit stops out their front door the additional walk is tough to manage... and I am pretty sure, except for at Finch Station, Cummer stops are much further from Finch or Steeles than 200m, and many riders who have a Cummer bus stop as their closest probably walk 200m to get there.

If it were a luxury people would park their car which sits unused most of the day for the luxury of the bus.

There is also the people displace by bus cancellations to think about. They took the bus, despite its inconveniences, and now the route they take is getting cancelled. For some which are unable to walk that distance and don't have the money for an alternative this takes away their mobility, for some who chose to save money because the stop was conveniently located they might end up paying more to drive, and for some they will walk further and have a longer trip time to go onto another bus route which is already crammed and possibly not find space. Only for those who both cannot afford the alternative nor walk the distance is transit truly essential. The power outage a couple of years back proved large numbers of TTC users are quite capable of walking from the CBD to Eglinton.

I don't have a hard time believing you've never been on the 42A. Who said the whole 42 is being removed? Look at the Ride Guide and see what the 42A refers to. 10% would be a decent estimate of the proportion of riders using the 42 east of Victoria Park...sometimes there's more than a handful of riders, sometimes there's none. Some routes are fairly busy way out to near their terminus and won't be looked at during the seasonal cull, while others are nearly empty halfway through and are always threatened in an environment where money doesn't grow on trees.

Almost everyone that rides the 42 - or the 42A - is going directly to Finch station. All of these people can take Finch instead, or Steeles, and transfer to one of the many N/S routes in the area. Everyone along McNicoll is already a maximum of 400m from a N/S route. For most people, walking there instead of to a stop on McNicoll means either a shorter distance, no added distance, or a trivial added distance. Finch is frequent enough and the connections easy enough that they can actually make all that time back...people do not mind transferring to and from Finch.

You can make up all the sob stories you want, but the reality is that if the 42A is cut off-peak, essentially zero rides are lost and zero people are stranded. There's equally good options for people to take right at their doorstep, which is why hardly anyone takes the 42A. The same is true on some other routes. There might be some bus routes/branches that if removed would cut off not insignificant chunks of neighbourhoods, but the debate over robbing Peter to pay Paul by using those resources on far busier routes is a legitimate one. The problem is there's no guarantee these resources will be deployed effectively or as promised on busy routes, and no guarantee that further cuts won't be made. So, holding the line here and saying "Might as well not cut anything, even the real fringes of the system" is a much better option than hoping for the best that the proposed resource shuffling works.

 

[Electrify]

A map of areas no longer within a very comfortable walking distance to transit during off peak hours:

http://299bloorcallcontrol.com/post/2942128755/ttcplannedcutspart2

Really, the bark is far worse than the bite. The only route which I can see 100% not cutting is Leslie. Avenue maybe, but seeing as it has low ridership I'm guessing most people drive, walk the extra stretch to the subway, or take the Bathurst or Yonge buses.

 

[doady]

A map of areas no longer within a very comfortable walking distance to transit during off peak hours:

http://299bloorcallcontrol.com/post/2942128755/ttcplannedcutspart2

Really, the bark is far worse than the bite. The only route which I can see 100% not cutting is Leslie. Avenue maybe, but seeing as it has low ridership I'm guessing most people drive, walk the extra stretch to the subway, or take the Bathurst or Yonge buses.

The problem with these cuts isn't jsut a matter of walking distances.

 

[EnviroTO]

What % of the city is worth covering? How do you built transit ridership on lower demand routes without providing something worth riding starting with low ridership initially but hopefully building to something better? How far can a senior, a blind person, or a handicapped person walk? For all the talk of TTC customer service there should be an agreement on what the goals of the TTC are and what its service standards are. There are 2 or 3 lightly used subway stations which will be even more lightly used now... should we close them after hours too? They shouldn't be rushing to cancel service... they should rush to define what that service is and how it is measured. Only then could we ascertain if any of this makes sense.

 

[GenerationW]

Really, the bark is far worse than the bite. The only route which I can see 100% not cutting is Leslie. Avenue maybe, but seeing as it has low ridership I'm guessing most people drive, walk the extra stretch to the subway, or take the Bathurst or Yonge buses.

For a route like Leslie, which always runs three buses off-peak (one every 30 minutes), during evenings why not cut it to two, or every 45 minutes (or possibly 40)? That could and should be done all day on Sundays.

If possible, I'd rather eliminate the TTC's minimum 30 minute service standard on weeknights and weekends than eliminate service at certain times altogether.