TTC: Other Items (catch all)

[dowlingm]

All I asked was what escalators on the system are too narrow for two people to stand side by side. I never mentioned anything about signs...

Davisville northbound platform to mezzanine. Was on it last Monday.

 

[nfitz]

sorry my bad. I know I've been on one somewhere but can't remember where it was maybe King sation, I know a lot of the older sations have some very tight stairs and escalators in them. Queen also has a few fairly narrow ones too.

There's a handful of narrow ones. Walking past people on those was never an option, as they aren't wide enough for people to even think about it.

Don't forget when the subway first opened having stairs ment it was accessible, then the building code changed and they had to add escalators ...

I don't recall any change that lead to the addition of escalators. There were some escalators from day 1 (well, I'm not 100% sure about the original 12 Yonge line stations). On Bloor-Danforth, there were complaints after it opened about not being escalators in some places, so they did add some - but I don't think there was a legal requirement.

On Bloor-Danforth you can see where they retrofitted in some escalators from the mezzanine to the entrance, as they have 2 or 3 steps up to the escalator (presumably because they couldn't easily put the pit in beneath the escalator after the fact). Christie and Broadview come to mind, but I know there are others. I think they added some from the platform to the mezzanine as well, but I'm not sure where - obviously retrofitting a pit there was not as difficult, with the hollow area beneath the platform floor.

 

[dowlingm]

Coxwell from Queen to Upper Gerrard is a disaster. I was under the impression that the entire track would be replaced this summer after last year's sewer work. Does not seem to be the case. There are also quite a few small patches on Queen East which I would think if you arrested the decay now, you could save a major rebuild from having to be done.

Queen-Coxwell intersection rebuild this summer. Maybe the scope will include some tangent north of the intersection. As Leslie fills up that section of track is going to be critical to pushing enough cars into service since there is no connection between 506 and Queen East/Kingston Road tracks beyond Coxwell.

 

[nfitz]

Coxwell from Queen to Upper Gerrard is a disaster. I was under the impression that the entire track would be replaced this summer after last year's sewer work. Does not seem to be the case. There are also quite a few small patches on Queen East which I would think if you arrested the decay now, you could save a major rebuild from having to be done.

The ultimate solution is pulling out the tracks, and replacing the entire top coat of concrete, and relaying.

In the interim, there's not much you can quickly except shovel in some asphalt. What TTC seems to do is let it alone, until it gets bad enough that they have to do a slow order. And then they do one of those quick repairs, where they either stop service overnight, or on a weekend, and dig it out between the track and right lane, and relay the concrete. Or sometimes even do it while service continues - which they did on Broadview between Dundas and Gerrard a few months ago, after that slow order went into place (now lifted).

Coxwell from Queen to Upper Gerrard is a disaster. I was under the impression that the entire track would be replaced this summer after last year's sewer work. Does not seem to be the case.

Yes, I walk down there all the time, and I've watched it deteriorate over the years. They have tackled the worst of it occasionally, and there aren't any slow orders. The last schedule I saw, had it in for 2019. Presumably they think they can hang on for that long. It's certainly not as bad as some of the track was before the last rebuild - Dundas East comes to mind ... how many years were those slow orders in place? And visually it looked far worse than Coxwell before the rebuild.

There are also quite a few small patches on Queen East which I would think if you arrested the decay now, you could save a major rebuild from having to be done.

I assume they are doing this. Didn't they do some quick 1-day rail replacement projects on Queen East recently - they certainly did on King East. And they did do repair work on Coxwell last year - see the copies of the construction notices at http://transit.toronto.on.ca/archives/weblog/2016/01/22-coxwell_st.shtml - I bet if you searched that site, you'd find similar for Queen East. You'll notice in the Coxwell work they spent the week removing the old concrete during active service, and then replaced it over a weekend of bustitution.

Queen-Coxwell intersection rebuild this summer. Maybe the scope will include some tangent north of the intersection.

Though the 2016 five-year rebuild schedule had it as two separate projects (in 2017 and 2019). I doubt they'd go very far north, given all the work they did on Coxwell loop a year or two ago.

As Leslie fills up that section of track is going to be critical to pushing enough cars into service since there is no connection between 506 and Queen East/Kingston Road tracks beyond Coxwell.

Yeah, I think we all know that one day, there is going to be nightmare service, when some incident on Leslie early in the day traps all the cars in the yard. There's a weak point there - the other two yards have two different ways they can feed cars into the network. Given how close they are, I'm surprised they didn't slip in a 500-metre long emergency-only use connecting track (single track) up Knox and along Eastern to Russell Yard, while they had all those $. Would have been a pittance compared to what else they spent. Ultimately, they'll be able to feed out on Commissioners to Broadview, but who knows how many decades away that is.

Did you notice that they are rebuilding streetcar track on long stretch of the 501 route, Wellington is getting new track, new overhead is being strung, the Dundas, Victoria and Church track is about to be replaced and many old streetcars are being refurbished.

Is the current plan to do the track on Victoria? The 2016 schedule was to the Dundas Square intersections this year and Victoria from Queen to Dundas next year. I don't see Church on the schedule, other than the Richmond intersection in 2019, and the Queen/Carlton intersections in 2021 or later.

Though the schedule constantly changes - partially to address more urgent repairs sooner. Partially to co-ordinate with other city and TTC projects.

 

[DSC]

On Victoria, as I said above, they are starting to do the Dundas and Victoria intersections (yes, both of them) starting very soon. They did the Victoria and Queen intersection last year and the track
South of Queen to Adelaide has been done in last few years. The final piece is tangent (straight) track between Queen and Dundas, it's planned for 2018.

 

[nfitz]

One year ago, I was cheered to learn that the TTC had been given $1 billion of federal infrastructure money to do backlogged repairs. What did it go on? Where is it? I was hoping to see some of the worst track replaced (see previous post) and instead from Steve Munro's Feb 2016 track plan, the Broadview-Dundas interection has been pushed back another year or to heaven knows when.

What did that $1 billion buy? Not a peep from any of Toronto's daily journals - only hand-wringing over the state of the situation. Where is the continuity and focus?

innsertnamehere provided the list. Routine repairs like this are not sexy, and seldom funded. But they are quick to get money flowing - the whole intent of the program was unsexy quick spends.

TTC seemed to be on the verge of announcing the list of what the funding bought a couple of times in late Spring, early Summer 2016 - but it never appeared. Presumably because of co-ordination issues with the province and feds, and not being allowed to steal their thunder (what little of it there was). I think the cancelled June 16, 2016 TTC budget committee meeting was related to this.

It was finally announced in the dog days of summer on August 23, 2016 after a Trudeau-Wynne press conference in Barrie. See http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2016/08/23...-ontario-announce-agreement-under-new-federal I expect the news that day was dominated by the Trump campaign, Fox news sex scandals, and $billions in spending on doctors salaries.

It was well reported by the media that day, though many may have missed it at that time of year, and there was little follow-up. See http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...-federal-infrastructure-fund/article31526108/ and and http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/federal-transit-infrastructure-funds-1.3732283 - the offical list was at http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2016/08/23...reement-public-transit-infrastructure-funding for all the cities.

The funding was retroactive to April 1, 2016, and my suspicion is that TTC knew all this well before August, and there was some kind of delay getting the two of them together for the announcement.

The TTC finally released their detailed report about this in the unsexy TTC Budget Committee meeting on September 6, 2016 - the Tuesday right after Labour Day. Not not surprisingly many were occupied that day, with the first day of school. I'm not sure if the list changed any from August, but the detailed report is in http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Com...l_Public_Transit_Infrastructure_Fund_PTIF.pdf with some more information in http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Com...sed_2017_-_2026_TTC_CAPITAL_BUDGET_REPORT.pdf

I'm not surprised that people missed the whole thing, given the time of year, and relatively low key nature of it; probably made the front page of the Barrie Examiner though.

The available amount from the feds is $840 million, with the city providing 50%, so the total available is $1.680 billion. The September 6 report details only the first $720 million.

Second entrance?

That's too sexy, and can take a while to get going and implement. They want quick spends.

Overhead?

$16,4 million. It's probably been paying for a lot of the work since April 2016.

Air conditioning?

Of what? Nothing much to be added. There's $34 million for the T1 subway car overhauls - that would include fixing the air conditioning in those cars.

Clean floors?

The funding was for capital expenditures, cleaning would be an operational expense - though the recent increase in gas funding could go to that. (though I don't know how TTC gets away with routine bus and train overhauls as being a capital expenditure - but they do).

McNicoll garage planning?

Again too sexy and long-term. But there is $16 million to replace bus hoists in most of the garages.

This wasn't the final list though. Offhand, I haven't seen that, but I may have missed it. I'll leave it as an exercise for someone else to find, I'm sure I've bored everyone silly already, with all this nonsexy stuff.

Edit - oh, here's a November 2016 update from the TTC board, which brings the total spend to about $1.4 billion; it was probably buried with all the news about the TTC budget that came out at the same time - https://www.google.com/url?q=http:/...ds-cse&usg=AFQjCNGogry4tKkLgd_1fi2KiUmXf2m-gw

The next budget committee meeting is in June (they haven't met since September). Perhaps there will be an update.

 

[DSC]

I was just out walking on Queens Quay and apart from seeing many cars driving on the tracks at Spadina I saw what looked like work at the portal to the tunnel to create major rumble strips. They were removing sections of concrete and appeared ready to pour more or maybe use asphalt. That, plus the better signage ge they put up recently MAY stop most people from driving into the tunnel.

 

[Amare]

The ultimate solution is pulling out the tracks, and replacing the entire top coat of concrete, and relaying.
In the interim, there's not much you can quickly except shovel in some asphalt. What TTC seems to do is let it alone, until it gets bad enough that they have to do a slow order. And then they do one of those quick repairs, where they either stop service overnight, or on a weekend, and dig it out between the track and right lane, and relay the concrete. Or sometimes even do it while service continues - which they did on Broadview between Dundas and Gerrard a few months ago, after that slow order went into place (now lifted).

This is exactly what they do. Something similar like this happened on Lakeshore near Kipling last year where the track got so bad to the point it nearly cracked. There was a slow order put in place for weeks without doing anything, and they finally got around to implementing a fix where they maintained service and had to remove the entire top coat of concrete and replace it. Service had to be replaced by buses for a day or two.

The funny things is, the concrete right next to where the repairs where done is essentially in the same condition which ultimately led to the dreadful conditions which led to the track nearly cracking.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

New TTC subway maps rolling out soon, via this tweet. Glad to see TYSSE included on the map to build awareness about the extension opening in December.

Edit: new maps available on TTC shop "soon"

 

[nfitz]

Ah, that's an improvement. The last version I saw from TTC 18 months ago, had the Eglinton West to Sheppard West bit lined up with half-way between Christie and Bathurst but Finch West aligning with Keele leaving a strange long line between Sheppard West and Finch West stations.. Now St. Clair West aligns with Bathurst, and Sheppeard West aligns with Dufferin. And the longer piece is between St. Clair West and Eglinton West - which matches reality.

Here's a snippet of the old (November 2015) version.

 

[Steve X]

Ah, that's an improvement. The last version I saw from TTC 18 months ago, had the Eglinton West to Sheppard West bit lined up with half-way between Christie and Bathurst but Finch West aligning with Keele leaving a strange long line between Sheppard West and Finch West stations.. Now St. Clair West aligns with Bathurst, and Sheppeard West aligns with Dufferin. And the longer piece is between St. Clair West and Eglinton West - which matches reality.

Here's a snippet of the old (November 2015) version.

View attachment 106374

The Eglinton line is very misaligned in the eastern end. They squeeze everything to show all stations. Now they'll have to fix VP to Kennedy on Line 2. Warden to Kennedy is the longest distance between two stations and it looks slightly longer than Bay to Yonge.

 

[nfitz]

The Eglinton line is very misaligned in the eastern end. They squeeze everything to show all stations. Now they'll have to fix VP to Kennedy on Line 2. Warden to Kennedy is the longest distance between two stations and it looks slightly longer than Bay to Yonge.

They should do this, if the primary criteria was to show reasonable stop spacing. Similar issues at Kipling. And of course the vertical issues - which have always been there (look at the spacing around Lawrence ... the distance to Eglinton and York Mills is about the same as Bloor to Queen).

However, I think the primary criteria is to fit the sign in the existing spots on the train. So I don't think that will happen.

 

[Leo_Chan]

This was just confirmed:
Line 6 Finch West
Line 7 Sheppard East
Line 3 Downtown

 

[SaugeenJunction]

This was just confirmed:
Line 6 Finch West
Line 7 Sheppard East
Line 3 Downtown

Finch would be a switch from 7 to six? Also, source?

 

[Steve X]

Finch would be a switch from 7 to six? Also, source?

Isn't an official TTC twitter account a good enough source? (if you didn't see the hyperlink, click on the word "confirmed")