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March 2011 TTC Service Cutbacks

According to the Star website they are backing off (or down?):

The TTC is expected to announce Monday it has slashed the list of 48 routes that were to have their weekend and evening hours cut due to low ridership.

Seven routes have been thrown a lifeline, including the 98 Willowdale bus that serves the Rotary Cheshire Home for people who are blind and deaf.

That bus will continue to run weekdays until 1 a.m. and weekends until 10 p.m., The Toronto Star has learned.

In all, 72 of 212 threatened boarding periods will be saved with only about half the original service cuts going ahead.

Last week the TTC held four evenings of public consultation and met with city councillors on the transit commission on Tuesday morning to work out a revised list of service amendments.

Also handed a partial reprieve are the 120 Calvington bus. It will now run Sundays and holidays until 10 p.m. The 101 Downsview Park bus that served members of a roller derby has also been reinstated. It will now run Saturday from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Cutting the 48 routes was supposed to save the TTC $7 million, with the service supposedly reallocated to overcrowded routes in the fall.

The less dramatic cuts will likely reduce the savings to about $4 million.
 
Supplementary Agenda and Reports are now on line. Nothing in the report as what TTC is planning on doing per the cuts as its a blank page.
 
Start of 1992 cuts all over again with more cuts to come.

They should had said from the start of the meeting it was a done deal, than waste 9 hours of people time.
 
The precedent this sets is alarming. If they continue to face challenges with capacity on major routes, are they just going to continue to 'reallocate' service from less-busy routes? How long can they do that before ridership starts to drop again? And how cynical is it to think that maybe a ridership drop is the outcome they're looking for here?
 
According to the Chair, the new TTC motto is apparently 'For the greater good, you no longer will have service`. I think that few people would disagree with looking at service levels as demand increases or decreases and reallocating resources as necessary but with a philosophy like this I can see less and less transit at off-peak hours - with no increase in peak service because there are simply no more drivers or vehicles. Of course, any reallocations of service depend on valid and up-to-date figures to support the decisions - the TTC`s figures are very suspect and, as we just saw, frequently just wrong!
 
DSC said:
According to the Chair, the new TTC motto is apparently 'For the greater good, you no longer will have service`. I think that few people would disagree with looking at service levels as demand increases or decreases and reallocating resources as necessary but with a philosophy like this I can see less and less transit at off-peak hours - with no increase in peak service because there are simply no more drivers or vehicles. Of course, any reallocations of service depend on valid and up-to-date figures to support the decisions - the TTC`s figures are very suspect and, as we just saw, frequently just wrong!
Click to expand...

For the greater good of Rob Ford's vision, not the public good, you no longer will have service.

To be implemented by May 8, 2011.
 
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Question: where is this "saved" money going? Are we hiring more drivers, purchasing more buses? I hope someone questioned this during the consultation meetings.
 
I have to say that I agree with creating a system where between 6am and 1am you show up at any bus stop and expect a bus in 1/2 hour or less, or show up to a blue stop for service in 1/2 hour or less 1am to 6am. It is easy to understand, easy to use, easy to explain. Having routes run at certain times and not others, some weekends only, some weekdays only, some rush hour only, etc... it is confusing. You need to trust that waiting at a stop a bus will come and you can't build ridership without that. If a route doesn't make sense then by all means get rid of it, but keep the ones that stay running on a reliable schedule.
 
I'm totally against the Ford-mandated cuts, but at least the TTC used yellow stickers when a stop was not served at specific times off-peak explaining when service was not offered. At least it's a max 30 minutes between buses when they do run. (It was worse before the RGS improvements, the 120 ran only hourly, rush hours only.) Some systems only offer "rush-hour only" or no indication of service levels at all (Brampton used to do this, it even had standard bus stop signs when served only by a one or two round trip school special (which Google Maps still shows as light rail stops for Brampton's Google Transit, even when I, and even BT reported the problem with the 200-series.) The new bus stop signs in Brampton not only have indication of rush hour/regular service, but they now have unique numbers to get a text back of next bus schedules, a SMS text version of MT's CityLink.
 
Ed Drass said:
One for one, or do the bus cuts also cover a 2011 TTC budget cut/freeze?
Click to expand...
I thought the 2011 budget was increased over 2010 ... significantly increased when you remember that there was $60 million for operations that TTC didn't spend in 2010.
 
Give your own ratings on the Commissioners on the TTC:

  • Karen Stintz, TTC Chair
  • Peter Milczyn, Vice-Chair
  • Maria Augimeri
  • Vincent Crisanti
  • Frank Di Giorgio
  • Norm Kelly
  • Denzil Minnan-Wong
  • Cesar Palacio
  • John Parker

Personally, at the moment, Karen Stintz gets a D, but Denzil Minnan-Wong gets a E. Peter Milczyn gets a B-, while the rest get only a D+.
 
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