St. Clair ROW: What Went Wrong

[Glen]

Glen, I think you're too hard on Spadina. The old system of diesel buses running on that street was just awful. And the diagonal parking that was there. It was a painful jarring whipsaw ride from Dundas to, say, Bloor. And it couldn't have done the equipment any favours.

Now, its like warp speed on a starship

I loved Spadina back then. I learned to drive in that chaos. Like Sinatra says; "if you can make it here you can make anywhere".

Seriously though, the old 77, while not romantic, was quick, frequent, and profitable.

 

[CDL.TO]

Seriously though, the old 77, while not romantic, was quick, frequent, and profitable.

That's more like the Glen I know!

There used to be a whole bunch of profitable routes. The 92 Woodbine by the TTC's calculations used to be their most profitable route.

They changed their accounting calculations sometime around 1998. Since then, there isn't a profitable surface route in the city.

I would have thought that being so interested in the city's finances that you wouldn't have been fooled by juggling of the numbers.
`

 

[taal]

Yea, I think by today's standards the 29 (Dufferin) bus is the most cost effective (which is not to say it's profitable )

 

[Voltz]

One thing to consider on St Clair is that most of the construction had to happen anyways, the tracks and the roadway still had to be rebuilt, and they likely would have still wanted to bury the hydro wires and do work on the sewers, (as far as I know).

So the ROW really just changed how the street was rebuilt, it did not cause all of the construction mess and mismanagement, and its extra cost was a small fraction of the projects total cost

 

[Whoaccio]

There used to be a whole bunch of profitable routes. The 92 Woodbine by the TTC's calculations used to be their most profitable route.
They changed their accounting calculations sometime around 1998. Since then, there isn't a profitable surface route in the city.

Can someone explain this to me? How can the TTC change it's methods for calculating 'profit'? As far as accounting standards go, profit is a pretty universal term (revenues - costs). What did the TTC change in their calculations?

In any case, I agree with Glen's point that aesthetic concerns should take a back seat to the standard transit metrics. The opposite end of this though are places like Queen's Quay "Station," which feel like a truck stop bathroom in the USSR.

 

[jks]

As opposed to metro stations in the USSR =P

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Can someone explain this to me? How can the TTC change it's methods for calculating 'profit'? As far as accounting standards go, profit is a pretty universal term (revenues - costs). What did the TTC change in their calculations?

IIRC since the TTC doesn't record (or differentiate) a new boarding vs a transfer boarding in it's ridership calculations. They have come up with a cockamemy formula for dividing up the fare revenue amongst multiple routes. Generally resulting in no routes being profitable.

 

[CDL.TO]

IIRC since the TTC doesn't record (or differentiate) a new boarding vs a transfer boarding in it's ridership calculations. They have come up with a cockamemy formula for dividing up the fare revenue amongst multiple routes. Generally resulting in no routes being profitable.

That's basically it. I don't know the exact details. It's hard to determine what exactly your revenues and your costs are for a bus route (it's easier for the organization as a whole). A passenger using a transfer or a Metropass doesn't bring any new revenue to a route, so you have to determine a formula to account for that. And the cost of running a bus varies by the type, age, and capacity of the bus and the salary of the driver, so you have to create a formula to determine that as well. And the TTC has to pay for streetcar tracks, but not the roads that their buses run on (but both are paid for by the same taxpayer), and hydro for streetcars and subways is all one system.

So it all ends up having to be determined by formulas. And with the TTC's current formulas, no surface routes are profitable. While Brampton Transit, who uses different formulas, claims that several of their routes are profitable.

 

[Earlscourt_Lad]

I am not saying that you can't but rather that you shouldn't. If it does little to improve transit then it is fair game to ask, would that money have been better spent in 'beautifying' St. Clair?

Spoken like a true technocrat

However, the aesthetics of a street level transit project simply have to be considered. Not the primary consideration, but certainly a very important secondary one. Given the major impact this project has on the neighbourhood you really should examine its appearance. At a very base level, an aesthetically pleasing (or at least a non-derided appearance) will go a long way to improving public perception of transit. A more positive perception in the mind of the general public towards transit may urge more people to take the streetcar. It's not to say that transit has to be beautiful in order to draw riders, but it does not hurt to consider that it may help. Further, any really drastic change to the streetscape has to be examined from all angles, lest we end up with a very dull and utilitarian public space. Which I think is the antithesis of forums like UT.

 

[W. K. Lis]

... And the TTC has to pay for streetcar tracks, but not the roads that their buses run on (but both are paid for by the same taxpayer), and hydro for streetcars and subways is all one system...

Are you sure about that? If the TTC pays for the streetcar tracks, why are cars and trucks using it? Shouldn't all streetcar tracks then be reserved only for streetcar use? I think, or rather I hope, that it is the city pays for the streetcar tracks where they are shared with non-TTC vehicles.

 

[CDL.TO]

Are you sure about that? If the TTC pays for the streetcar tracks, why are cars and trucks using it? Shouldn't all streetcar tracks then be reserved only for streetcar use? I think, or rather I hope, that it is the city pays for the streetcar tracks where they are shared with non-TTC vehicles.

Streetcar track replacement and construction is part of the TTC's capital budget. The TTC is a city agency. It all comes from the same taxpayers, including those taxpayers who drive cars and trucks.

So by your logic the TTC shouldn't be allowed to operate buses on any of the city's streets?

(That said, I can't say that I've ever seen a automobile use streetcar tracks. Maybe drive on top, but never actually use them.)

 

[jamesbow]

The whole profitability question is basically meaningless. I remember those days of "profitable" routes as well. 31 Greenwood, 77 Spadina, 92 Woodbine South and 511 Bathurst. All made back their costs and then some based on their ridership. However, you'll notice something in common about all four: they're short routes.

The TTC's accounting seemed to take in only the number of riders each route took, applied a value amount for the fare, and then divided it against the cost of operating each route. All short routes had an advantage over long routes.

Which is to be expected, in some ways, since people using such a short route are taking short trips, even to the subway, and any bus or streetcar that has to travel farther to serve the same number of people increases costs without decreasing revenue.

But it's sort of silly to think of these particular routes in that way, since most of those riders weren't using just these routes to get to and from where they wanted to go. These services were feeding into other services, and the TTC decided to change the accounting of various routes to reflect this better.

The fact is, public transit across Toronto as a whole is unprofitable -- just like every other service across North America since the Second World War. We still carry loads of people, however, but we are unable to overcome the fact that carrying people comes at a cost, and we're unable to build ourselves (yet) to be dense enough so that the average trip lengths drop and the revenues outpace that cost.

People say, "the subway is profitable, let's cut the unprofitable routes", but how many people would still be taking the subway if the thousands of people who travel on the unprofitable routes no longer had those routes available to access the subway? The same is true about the so called profitable surface routes: if you remove the other routes that these profitable routes connected to, there would be fewer reasons for passengers to take those routes.

It's pretty obvious that, under the old accounting system, 510 Spadina would be a profitable streetcar route, but it would still be a meaningless statistic.

...James

 

[Glen]

It should be noted that the the Spadina 77 ridership was higher than 510 is, IIRC.

 

[taal]

Really??!!

Spadina has something like 48,000 riders today.

 

[CDL.TO]

It should be noted that the the Spadina 77 ridership was higher than 510 is, IIRC.

Completely, 100% false.

Searching for a citiation, I find that you, Glen, made this same claim on the Spacing blog a year ago and were corrected on it. But yet you continue making this claim... odd.

Anyway, here's a quote: "transit ridership on [510 Spadina] has risen by about 30 per cent, swelling from 32,000 riders daily to 43,000." -Toronto Star