Request for 507 Streetcar Reinstatement

[Ed Drass]

Just recieved this. Please advise if there is a precedent thread.

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Summary

The Lakeshore Planning Council (LPC) requests the TTC Commissioners implement the following actions to improve the erratic & unreliable 501 Queen streetcar service west of Humber Loop:

1. The TTC and the City reinstate the 507 streetcar route on a revised routing from Long Branch loop to Dundas West subway station, to reduce dependence on the problematic and unreliable 501 Queen route.

2. An improvement to Lakeshore streetcar service to Transit City Bus Plan standards of minimum 10 minute service at all times.

3. Immediate cancellation of the premium fare 145 Humber Bay Express bus route. Abysmal ridership on this route, while the 501 streetcar is often standing room only by Humber Loop, demonstrates that riders want improvements to streetcar service that serves the entire route, not express buses.

4. Significant, demonstrable improvement in streetcar line service management to prevent streetcar bunching, without short turns.

5. A copy of the interim report on the timed transfer being piloted on St. Clair.

6. A similar Timed Transfer pilot for the streetcar route along Lakeshore Boulevard.

 

[Inkarnate]

Sounds good. I just wonder how the 501 will get affected east of Roncesvalles. Will it also loop at Dundas West (can't imagine that being the case, though), or more likely simply start at Queen and Roncesvalles?

Also, won't the upcoming Waterfront West LRT plan interject with this? One or the other will have to be modified...

 

[EnviroTO]

Waterfront West LRT has been postponed until beyond 2020.

 

[Justin10000]

I would support the idea! Merging the 507/501 was a bad idea. Bring the 507 back!

 

[Dan416]

Waterfront West LRT has been postponed until beyond 2020.

Another line to link Toronto with the west bites the dust.

 

[Platform 27]

Another line to link Toronto with the west bites the dust.

Waterfront West was never going to amount to much of a "link" in light of its slow speeds. In a universe of <15 minute GO headways, it would have been a pathetically time-consuming alternative for direct South Etobicoke to Union trips. It would also have failed as an effective local service by following the Gardiner corridor and having jack squat by way of local trip generators, unless you think the Boulevard Club is a transit hub waiting to happen. Metrolinx was right to send it to the bottom of the priority pile, so that money that would have gone to it could instead be queued up for real GO improvements or the DRL, either of which could would change the transit landscape in that neck of the woods far more positively.

Just recieved this.

*snip*

4. Significant, demonstrable improvement in streetcar line service management to prevent streetcar bunching, without short turns.

5. A copy of the interim report on the timed transfer being piloted on St. Clair.

6. A similar Timed Transfer pilot for the streetcar route along Lakeshore Boulevard.

Those last three points seem frustratingly tacked-on. There's no doubt that a large portion of us transit activisty sorts want to see timed transfers and better headway management, but it seems politically silly to throw them in kitchen-sink-style to the 507 initiative and give the TTC staff another reason to roll their eyes and go "here we go again..." A certain someone whose fingerprints are on this should know better.

Sounds good. I just wonder how the 501 will get affected east of Roncesvalles. Will it also loop at Dundas West (can't imagine that being the case, though), or more likely simply start at Queen and Roncesvalles?

I believe the Lakeshore Planning sorts want all 501s to start/terminate at Humber Loop, with the Sunnyside Loop (beside Roncy yard) used for short-turns as neccessary. Accordingly, the stretch of ROW on Queensway from Humber Loop to Roncesvalles winds up serving as the service overlap. For late-night and potentially also for weekend service, the plan is for the 501 to revert to its cross-country run all the way to Long Branch.

I personally think it's a good plan, especially if there's a sprinkling of added 508s mixed in to keep some direct-to-west-end-downtown route options. Potentially most beneficially, it prunes the 501 even shorter in km terms than either half-route from the split-run experiment, which means, in at least statistical terms, less variability in circuit times and thus shorter layover allowances. If you've boned up on your chaos theory, it should also make for less bunching. (Not joking.)

Ideally, this should be implemented as soon as Roncesvalles is finished. Knowing the TTC, they best we could probably hope for is another "trial period".

There's a facebook group about this at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=159645254673

BTW, somebody who these folks really should get in touch with are the Roncesvalles BIA types. There've been a few newspaper articles I've read recently in which the Roncy business owners have been talking about how rough it is with the construction but how hopeful they are for the return of the streetcars to ultimately give their street a shot in the arm. Having a fresh community of people from South Etobicoke flowing past their stores on a new route would be just the sort of thing people on a commercial strip should crave.

 

[Jonny5]

3. Immediate cancellation of the premium fare 145 Humber Bay Express bus route. Abysmal ridership on this route, while the 501 streetcar is often standing room only by Humber Loop, demonstrates that riders want improvements to streetcar service that serves the entire route, not express buses.

What is the actual ridership? "Abysmal ridership" is obvious rhetoric.
You can find 100 people who will make the same claim about 80% of the bus routes in the city.

I have an express sticker which I use for a different route, but I used it once going from downtown to Fleet and Bathurst.
The ridership was not "abysmal". About 15 people were on board. I have also seen the 145 offload many people at Bay street in the mornings. What is possibly happening is that most of the riders are coming from Fleet Street and not Lakeshore, but I'd like some actual numbers.

 

[Ed Drass]

Spacing coverage of "507"

I haven't much opinion on this proposal yet. Curious about operations on redesigned Roncesvalles Avenue and at Dundas West station.

http://spacing.ca/wire/2010/01/27/residents-propose-a-fix-to-queen-streetcar-route/

 

[Rapidtransitman]

@ Platform 27 wrote:

"4. Significant, demonstrable improvement in streetcar line service management to prevent streetcar bunching, without short turns.

5. A copy of the interim report on the timed transfer being piloted on St. Clair.

6. A similar Timed Transfer pilot for the streetcar route along Lakeshore Boulevard.

Those last three points seem frustratingly tacked-on. There's no doubt that a large portion of us transit activisty sorts want to see timed transfers and better headway management, but it seems politically silly to throw them in kitchen-sink-style to the 507 initiative and give the TTC staff another reason to roll their eyes and go "here we go again..."."

Part of the Lakeshore Planning Council’s request to the TTC was to improve other aspects of the streetcar service to improve mobility, as a comprehensive strategy:

- a request for much better streetcar line management;

- a timed transfer along Lakeshore Blvd, like the TTC instituted on St Clair, to encourage streetcar ridership;

- an improvement to Lakeshore streetcar service to Transit City Bus Plan standards of minimum 10 minute service at all times.

The request recognizes that the 507 route alone will not resolve streetcar service problems, but is only one component.

 

[W. K. Lis]

@ Platform 27 wrote:

"4. Significant, demonstrable improvement in streetcar line service management to prevent streetcar bunching, without short turns.

5. A copy of the interim report on the timed transfer being piloted on St. Clair.

6. A similar Timed Transfer pilot for the streetcar route along Lakeshore Boulevard.

Those last three points seem frustratingly tacked-on. There's no doubt that a large portion of us transit activisty sorts want to see timed transfers and better headway management, but it seems politically silly to throw them in kitchen-sink-style to the 507 initiative and give the TTC staff another reason to roll their eyes and go "here we go again..."."

Part of the Lakeshore Planning Council’s request to the TTC was to improve other aspects of the streetcar service to improve mobility, as a comprehensive strategy:

- a request for much better streetcar line management;

- a timed transfer along Lakeshore Blvd, like the TTC instituted on St Clair, to encourage streetcar ridership;

- an improvement to Lakeshore streetcar service to Transit City Bus Plan standards of minimum 10 minute service at all times.

The request recognizes that the 507 route alone will not resolve streetcar service problems, but is only one component.

The mininum 10 minute service should be at all times for ALL streetcar services, including the late evening services.

The 502 Downtowner has 20 minute daytime service, but 10 minute early evening 22 Coxwell service on Kingston Road and 12 minute late evening 22 Coxwell service. The assumption being that streetcars do carry more people than buses. However, customers still want frequent service.

 

[Dan416]

If all streetcars had 10 min service, that'd be pretty awesome.

 

[nfitz]

If all streetcars had 10 min service, that'd be pretty awesome.

Outside of Kingston Road (and quite frankly, any of us near Kingston Road tend to use the 501 or 506 instead) and Lakeshore East, ... and the rush-hour service on Wellington ... it's hard to think of a route that isn't every 10-minutes ... or much better. Kingston Road could be fixed by simply making the Coxwell bus - which is supposed to be on the new 10-minute network - run to Victoria Park 24/7; instead of just evenings, nights, and weekends.

 

[Dan416]

Well I can remember many, many waits of > 10 minutes on College Street to head to my bf at the time's place. I'm talking about outside of rush hour though. I dunno if you are.

 

[W. K. Lis]

If the Transit City lines are to have the same headways as the HRT subway, about 5 or so minutes in the non-rush hour, the current streetcar lines should aim for that as well. If not, then frequent service of no more thatn 10 minutes. There are cities where the standard headway is 10 minutes on their subway or Metro.
While some LRT's in the states boost of service of 20 minutes, I don't think Toronto should have 20 minute service on their streetcars or LRT. Better to get 5 minute, and no more than 10 on some branches.

 

[Rapidtransitman]

All Day & Evening Minimum 10 Minute Streetcar Service Everywhere

A few years ago the TTC improved subway service to a minimum 5 minute headway on all lines. The idea was, as the backbone of the system, passengers should not wait more than 5 min for subway service. This lead to an increase of subway, as well as overall, TTC ridership.

The Transit City Bus Plan is a spinoff of this, to tell riders that none of the designated Transit City Bus routes will require a wait longer than 10 minutes. Easy to remember, very convenient to use.

Yet the TTC will not do the same for the streetcar network. First of all, they can't make the streetcars run that reliably. Secondly, they have streetcar maintenance issues that prevent them fielding all the streetcars they have scheduled. Thirdly, the new streetcars they've ordered are much larger, hence less frequent service, as the TTC counts passengers per hour moved, not service quality. This passenger counting method is why the TTC thinks 501 Queen is doing great, running ALRVs (articulated streetcars), whilst the ALRV equiped routes (501 Queen & 511 Bathurst) have both noticable suffered ridership losses since ALRVs were introduced. The other streetcar lines, still running smaller more frequent CLRVs, have seen modest ridership gains over the same time period. See stevemunro.ca posting on this for the stats.

The upshot of all this is that the streetcar network is getting screwed royally. Larger streetcars mean less frequent service, so instead of the streetcar network improving frequency to 10 minute minimum at all times, it'll be 15-20 minute mimumum service. This goes against the experience & benefits realized of the aforementioned other modes (bus & subway).

THe TTC will be a major issue in the November 2010 Toronto election. Hopefully we as transit advocates can make the point that we once again need to save the streetcar system, in the style & spirit of Streetcars for Toronto in 1972.