TTC: Other Items (catch all)

[drum118]

Must be for the Subway

Mayor John Tory and TTC Chair Josh Colle to make important announcement

May 23, 2015

On Sunday, May 24, Mayor John Tory and TTC Chair Josh Colle will make an important announcement.

When: Sunday, May 24, 3 p.m.
Where: Kennedy Road and Glamorgan Avenue, south side stop bus shelter.

 

[nfitz]

Must be for the Subway

It's an odd place to announce the Scarborough subway. Not far from Ellesmere station that would lose regular service. I can't think of any subway or LRT that this would relate to.

Though we do know that the TTC 10-minute service is coming to route 43 Kennedy on June 21. Currently weekday late evening service at that particular bus stop is once every 12 minutes; Saturday late evening service there is once every 20 minutes and Sunday evening service is once every 15 minutes.

Presumably this rare Sunday announcement is to tout TTC 10-minute network.

 

[Electrify]

It's an odd place to announce the Scarborough subway. Not far from Ellesmere station that would lose regular service. I can't think of any subway or LRT that this would relate to.

Though we do know that the TTC 10-minute service is coming to route 43 Kennedy on June 21. Currently weekday late evening service at that particular bus stop is once every 12 minutes; Saturday late evening service there is once every 20 minutes and Sunday evening service is once every 15 minutes.

Presumably this rare Sunday announcement is to tout TTC 10-minute network.

It could be SmartTrack, right?

I'm hoping it is to announce 2 hour transfers system wide, but I have a feeling you are probably right.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The announcement is for improvements to 61 bus routes, including improving overnight routes. Tory says this goes hand in hand with Toronto's poverty reduction strategy. Roll out of new services begin in September.

 

[am29]

What are the exact bus routes seeing improvement?

 

[nfitz]

What are the exact bus routes seeing improvement?

Good question. I don't see the report, or the presentation boards from the press conference, up on the TTC site yet.

This is the best I've seen. If you squint ... perhaps you can see a route running on the Martian canals. Anyone got a clearer image?


From Rahul Gupta on Twitter

 

[ehlow]

It could be SmartTrack, right?

I'm hoping it is to announce 2 hour transfers system wide, but I have a feeling you are probably right.

Yeah I'd like to see the 2 hour fare thing happen. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like all or most Ontario local systems use 2 hour fares with Presto, so you just tap on, it deducts, and every time you transfer within 2 hours Presto knows and doesn't deduct. Simple to understand: once you pay you can use the TTC for two hours.

 

[Amare]

Here is a list of the new changes that will be made to Blue Night Routes as of September. Overall the changes are greats, and they are long overdue ever since RoFo and Stintz came along and slashed 10% of the TTC's budget. New Routes are in Bold.

300 Bloor-Danforth: Extend route eastward from Warden Avenue to Kennedy Station
325 Don Mills: Change route to serve Pape/Carlaw instead of Broadview; service on Broadview replaced by new 304 King route
329 Dufferin: Extend route northward from Wilson Avenue to Steeles Avenue
334 Eglinton East: Change route to operate from Eglinton Station to Finch via Neilson; instead of Eglinton Station to Rough Hill GO Station
315 Evans-Brown’s line: New route from Royal York station to Long Branch via Royal York Evans, Sherway, and Browns Line
335 Jane: Extend route in the north to York University and in the south from St. Clair Avenue to Jane Station. Service south of St. Clair Avenue to be replaced by 312 St. Clair route
341 Keele: New route from Keele Station to York University and Steeles
304 King: New route from Dundas West Stations to Broadview Station. Service on Roncesvalles replaces 335 Jane route; service on Broadview replaces 325 Don Mills route
302 Kingston Road-McCowan: Change route to operate from Kingston Road to Steeles via Kingston Road; instead of via Danforth Road
354 Lawrence East: Change route to operate from Eglinton Station to Starspray; instead of Eglington Station to U of T Scarborough
352 Lawrence West: Extend route in the west from Royal York Road to Pearson Airport and in the east from Yonge Street to Sunnybrook Hospital
365 Parliament: New route from Castle Frank Station to Esplanade
312 St. Clair-Junction: Change route to operate to Dundas West Station via Dundas, replacing 335 Jane route
384 Sheppard West: New route from Sheppard-Yonge Station to Weston Road
317 Spadina: New route from Spadina Station to Union Station
353 Steeles: Extend route in the west from Yonge Street to York university and in the east from Markham Road to Staines Road/Finch Avenue
395 York Mills: Change route to operate from York Mills Station to Meadowvale; instead of York Mills Station to Finch

 

[CDL.TO]

I was really, really hoping that they would extend the 335 Jane and 325 Don Mills to downtown via King rather than creating a new 304 King route. Doing so would offer people on Jane and Don Mills a one-seat ride to and from downtown, as well as potentially offering some relief to the pretty busy 320 Yonge night bus.

The 341 Keele should go to Dundas West station as well to connect to the 304 and 306.

And Parliament? That's downright unexpected. It's not even that frequent of a route during the daytime. Between the 301, 304, 306, and 300, you're never that far away from another night bus stop which actually goes somewhere useful anyway. As someone who previously lived in Cabbagetown, after 10pm the 65 was usually empty south of Gerrard anyway. I predict the average ridership on that route to be zero.

 

[drum118]

TTC to rollout 61 new and improved bus routes across the city to all-day-every-day and overnight bus service

May 24, 2015

Toronto Mayor John Tory and TTC Chair Josh Colle today announced service improvements to 61 bus and streetcar routes that will make it convenient and viable for all Torontonians to count on transit at any time of the day or night for their travel. These improvements, which will be recommended to the TTC Board at its May 27 meeting, are funded under the $90-million investment in transit that was approved in the 2015 City Budget.

The TTC Board will be presented with recommendations for new and restored off-peak bus services and new and expanded overnight bus and streetcar routes starting in September 2015. These improvements to service make the TTC a more available, predictable and consistent travel option for a great number of Torontonians, in particular shift workers and people working non-traditional hours. The expanded coverage of the overnight network will result in 99 per cent of Toronto residents living within a 15-minute walk of overnight bus and streetcar service.

"These service improvements are the type of sensible and caring investments expected by Toronto residents. We need a reliable transit system so people can get to work on time and get home faster to spend more time with their families," said Mayor John Tory. "The ability to move in this city is fundamental to economic opportunity, to an active family and personal life and to uniting a city."

The recommended changes to off-peak services, where 57 per cent of TTC trips are made, are expected to attract 1.3 million additional riders a year. The enhancements to the Blue Night Network would increase annual overnight ridership to approximately 5.2 million from 4.7 million riders.

"With the funding commitment made by City Council, the TTC is busy making historic levels of investments to public transit in the city," said TTC Chair Josh Colle. "Those are real and tangible investments that are right around the corner."

Highlights: More Off-Peak Service - Expansion of All-Day, Every-Day Network

- Additional off-peak periods of operation would be introduced during 122 operating periods on 43 bus routes. Most of the service improvements are the restoration of periods of service that were cut in May 2011. Twenty of the 122 service improvements, on five routes, are new periods of operation that have never been operated before. With these changes, 133 of the TTC's 144 regular will operate all day, every day.
- If approved by the TTC Board, the service changes would start on September 6, 2015. The cost to run the service from September to December is $1.7 million. The annual cost is $5.5 million.
- The TTC estimates that approximately 1.3-million customer-trips would be made each year on the recommended new services. Many of these trips would be made by new riders attracted by the new service.
- All-day-every-day means that service is provided from approximately 6 a.m. to 1 a.m., from Monday to Saturday, and from approximately 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Sundays.

Highlights: Improvements to Overnight Service (Blue Night Network)

- Seven new overnight services would be introduced, along with route changes or extensions to 11 existing overnight services. The newly expanded overnight network will consist of 31 routes (currently 24 routes), running every 30 minutes or better. The proposed changes to the overnight network will expand and improve overnight transit throughout Toronto.
- The TTC estimates approximately 5.2 million customer-trips would be made each year on the expanded overnight network, up from 4.7 million trips.
- The Blue Night Network is the TTC's overnight bus and streetcar service that operates between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., after the regular daytime and evening services have ended. This service is an important part of the TTC's commitment to maximizing the mobility of people in the city of Toronto and meeting all of their diverse travel needs.
- Ridership on the overnight network has increased steadily. Over the last decade, annual ridership on the overnight network has increased by 68 per cent, from 2.8 million in 2005 to 4.7 million in 2015. Routine service improvements have been made to the overnight network over the years, but the coverage of this network has remained largely the same over the last decade.
- If approved by the TTC Board, the service changes would start on September 6, 2015.
- The cost to run the service from September to December is $800,000. The annual cost is $2.4 million.
- These service proposals will expand the coverage of the overnight network so that 99 per cent of Toronto residents will be within a 15-minute walk of overnight service.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I wonder what's caused the dramatic increase in the usage of the night network over the decade. Going from 2.8 million to 4.7 million is a huge jump.

 

[salsa]

TTC to rollout 61 new and improved bus routes across the city to all-day-every-day and overnight bus service.

Are there still plans to add more express routes?

 

[crs1026]

I wonder what's caused the dramatic increase in the usage of the night network over the decade. Going from 2.8 million to 4.7 million is a huge jump.

My inexpert speculation would be, there is a growing number of people in Toronto who choose not to own a car. Whether this is lifestyle or economics I can't say, but there is likely some truth to Tory's claim that more people are working unsociable hours and may not have the means to own a car.

It's not just transit, either. The number of cabs on the road at 3 AM in the downtown is amazing. Thankfully, fewer people party and then drive any more.

- Paul

 

[nfitz]

I wonder what's caused the dramatic increase in the usage of the night network over the decade. Going from 2.8 million to 4.7 million is a huge jump.

A very good question. It's hard to swallow actually.

If you look at the most recent (2014) TTC route ridership numbers the night buses are 7,400 a weekday. Assuming they get that 7-days a week (365 days a year - one typically uses 300 for a regular route as a rule of thumb), then the ridership is 2.7 million a year.

This raises 3 possibilities I can think of:

• The 4.7 million number is wrong
• The extra 2 million are using the Yonge shuttle from Eglinton to Finch after midnight.
• There's a huge ridership on Friday and Saturday nights

I'm not aware of any published route-by-route ridership of the night buses before 2014. Perhaps that would help explain, if someone has it.

 

[salsa]

Just when there were new service improvements to look forward to, I find out about this:

No sooner does the TTC publish a report with the detailed list of changes, it also published a preview of the 2016 budget process in which we learn:

Submissions for the 2016 Budgets are due to the City in June. This is a very tight timeline and staff are currently preparing these budgets in accordance with the City submission requirements and in consideration of the following:
- A City requirement for a 2% efficiency reduction in the net Operating budget (approximately $10-$11 million for TTC and $2 million for Wheel-Trans).
- [Many other items which can be read in the report]

There are two small problems here:

Council has never passed any direction that agencies reduce their budgets (which in the TTC’s case means its subsidy requirement). The TTC will require at least $100-million more to operate the system in 2016. This must come from subsidy, fares or some combination of the two. Mayor Tory seems happy to use the TTC as a backdrop for self-promotion even though budget and service decisions actually rest with the TTC Board and with Council, but is careful not to mention that the TTC could actually face a funding cut in 2016.

A related problem faced by both the Mayor and the TTC is the city’s cap on borrowing which is linked to tax revenues. Debt service must not exceed 15% of the taxes (which account for only about 1/3 of the total city budget), and all of the borrowing room is spoken for out into the early 2020s. Part of Tory’s reversal earlier this year included the recognition that the TTC needs more buses. Who is paying for them? The riders through the farebox, not a capital subsidy from the City or Queen’s Park.

Part of the cost for new buses will show up in 2016 and will be funded, under current plans, from fares again. However, there is a limit to the amount of capital spending that can be sustained from the farebox considering that the TTC’s annual capital budget (excluding special projects such as subway extensions) run to $1-billion or so, roughly the same as all of the fare revenue.

The costs shown for many items above are partial year costs. For example, the service improvements that will come into play in September will only operate for 4 months in 2015, but for 12 months in 2016 and beyond. Money to pay for full year service has to come from somewhere.

The sad and outrageous truth is that Mayor Tory is happy to bask in the warmth of publicity for better transit service, but his budgetary goals work in utterly the opposite direction.

In August 2014, CEO Andy Byford produced a report listing all of the possibilities for improving the TTC together with their cost. For his troubles, he was the subject of vitriol from, among others, the Tory camp who felt the TTC was endorsing Olivia Chow’s transit platform. Almost all of the recommendations subsequently became TTC and Tory policy.

The TTC Board should insist that Byford produce budget options that don’t acquiesce meekly and implement the Tory cut, but actively show what could be achieved if only the TTC had better funding. That’s what the TTC Board and its Chair are supposed to do, not simply to provide a photo op every time John Tory wants publicity.

http://stevemunro.ca/2015/05/26/the-lord-mayor-giveth-and-the-lord-mayor-taketh-away/