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TTC: Other Items (catch all)

Metrolinx will never be anything more than a political tool as long as it remains under the jurisdiction of the Province of Ontario. Metrolinx’s governance needs to be decentralized and made more independent if it’s to be a genuinely useful organization
Agreed, the only way Metrolinx will every have the teeth to implement anything useful is if they literally function at an independent level a la Bank of Canada style. Asides from that, it's just another "arm-length" agency which the government will tug at every instance it can.

As for Rick Leary, the guy is a joke. I'd put him at the same level as Howard Moscoe (yes he wasnt a TTC GM/CEO, but the level of incompetence he showed was simply amazing).
 
As medium term measures:

1) one or more bus garages need to be closer to the core. The desire has been for suburban sites that can be all one level and cheap(er). We need to understand the deadhead distance to scramble buses into the core of the City if there's a problem make this untenable. With electric buses, a 2-level or even 3-level bus garage can be realistically considered.

The suburban sites have been chosen because that's where the bulk of bus ridership - and therefore bus usage - is focused.

Electric buses will have no bearing on how the garage is constructed. There is nothing stopping the TTC from building a two or three level bus garage tomorrow, except for the biggest factor - cost. What will have a major bearing on how the garage is constructed is the piece of land - there is very little land that is zoned as industrial close to downtown. Should the TTC decide that they want to build another bus garage closer to downtown, it may be required to have some measure of vertical storage to it, much as the Lakeshore Wheel-trans garage.

But then again, why so much focus on downtown? Large sections of the subway operate outside of the downtown core. For instance, the nearest garage to this most recent shutdown is Mount Dennis, which is about 5km from the subway closure. You're not going to get drastically closer to the subway short of the Wilson garage, which is adjacent to the subway at Wilson Station.

But frankly, all of this is moot, anyways. There are not hundreds of drivers sitting around with their thumbs up their asses. There are not hundreds of buses sitting idle in garages waiting for the next emergency. Doing that costs money, and is it really wise to put huge amounts of resources into "what-if" and "maybe" scenarios? I don't know about you, but if those resources could be used to improve services on a daily basis, rather than not - well, I think that the answer is obvious.

2) Strongly consider installing more cross-overs on Line 2, the distance on Line 1 (Yonge side) is fairly close to every second station, Line 2 has large gaps, Woodbine to west of Chester; Chester to St. George, St. George to east of Keele. Adding one intermediate location to each of those gaps would do wonders, cutting down the number of buses required and walking distances.

There are way, way more locations to have trains change directions than what you've listed. I would suggest taking a look at a track map (www.transit.toronto.on.ca is a great resource for this kind of thing) to see just how many more turnback locations there are.

Dan
 
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The suburban sites have been chosen because that's where the bulk of bus ridership - and therefore bus usage - is focused. Perhaps you haven't seen the long, red-and-white vehicles operating around downtown? They're called streetcars.

Electric buses will have no bearing on how the garage is constructed. There is nothing stopping the TTC from building a two or three level bus garage tomorrow, except for the biggest factor - cost. What will have a major bearing on how the garage is constructed is the piece of land - there is very little land that is zoned as industrial close to downtown. Should the TTC decide that they want to build another bus garage closer to downtown, it may be required to have some measure of vertical storage to it, much as the Lakeshore Wheel-trans garage.

But then again, why so much focus on downtown? Large sections of the subway operate outside of the downtown core. For instance, the nearest garage to this most recent shutdown is Mount Dennis, which is about 5km from the subway closure. You're not going to get drastically closer to the subway short of the Wilson garage, which is adjacent to the subway at Wilson Station.

But frankly, all of this is moot, anyways. There are not hundreds of drivers sitting around with their thumbs up their asses. There are not hundreds of buses sitting idle in garages waiting for the next emergency. Doing that costs money, and is it really wise to put huge amounts of resources into "what-if" and "maybe" scenarios? I don't know about you, but if those resources could be used to improve services on a daily basis, rather than not - well, I think that the answer is obvious.



There are way, way more locations to have trains change directions than what you've listed. I would suggest taking a look at a track map (www.transit.toronto.on.ca is a great resource for this kind of thing) to see just how many more turnback locations there are.

Dan

As outlined in a private communication, your tone here is unacceptable.

My post stands.
 
TTC Staff really should have the power to shut down the street to vehicular traffic in times of subway shut down. Don't even depend on the Toronto Police to do it (they won't), just get the TTC staff to do it themselves. All the fare inspectors and special constables should converge on the site of the shutdown to assist.
 
TTC Staff really should have the power to shut down the street to vehicular traffic in times of subway shut down. Don't even depend on the Toronto Police to do it (they won't), just get the TTC staff to do it themselves. All the fare inspectors and special constables should converge on the site of the shutdown to assist.
That requires a legislation change from Queen's Park that gives TTC the power to do that. They are having a hard time getting Queen's Park to get civilians to direct traffic so to give TTC the power is not something happening this decade. TPS won't want unprofessional civilian fare inspectors closing the road so that's a big no no.

The power to shut down a road comes from the city, not TPS. TPS just enforces the city's wishes. The only reason TPS shuts down a road is due to safety concerns or investigations.
 
TTC Staff really should have the power to shut down the street to vehicular traffic in times of subway shut down. Don't even depend on the Toronto Police to do it (they won't), just get the TTC staff to do it themselves. All the fare inspectors and special constables should converge on the site of the shutdown to assist.
Why should TTC staff have this right? I certainly agree that streets should, sometimes, be shut but that's why we have a group who are authorised to do this and whose budget is huge. The Toronto Police Service! THEY need to get their acts together and, DO IT (and, as you say, the TTC staff should assist them and work on speedy loading buses etc.)
 
TTC Staff really should have the power to shut down the street to vehicular traffic in times of subway shut down. Don't even depend on the Toronto Police to do it (they won't), just get the TTC staff to do it themselves. All the fare inspectors and special constables should converge on the site of the shutdown to assist.

I was caught in the mess at Jane this week, and I was actually surprised at how many police resources were committed and what a broad “exclusion zone” they created. They were even cheerful and polite to everyone, and seemed well coordinated.

Actually, there were a huge number of TTC employees there too. They were less coordinated but individually helpful, if only because they could shout instructions to the crowd. The subway PA was, as usual, pathetic..... PA announcements on train and at Royal York and Jane were incomprehensible.

The problem was that it is pretty much impossible to keep a solid single file line of buses moving at any speed under those conditions. All it took was one bus having to stop to discharge passengers, and the whole line stopped...in some cases right in front of police who were holding traffic for them. I saw a few cops roll their eyes. With the buses jam packed, it took forever for even one passenger to get off, so the result was a creeping mess. The throughput of the shuttle buses is very low.

I wondered whether when this happens TTC should designate some of the shuttle buses as “express”, meaning when they load at one end of the outage they go directly to the other end of the outage without making any local stops. These buses will be jam packed anyways, so not likely to board anyone en route. There were plenty of places where one bus could have passed stopped vehicles.

Of course, a better place to put evergy is into not having these outages, but if they are inevitable, I guess it makes sense to try to do them better.

- Paul
 
I was caught in the mess at Jane this week, and I was actually surprised at how many police resources were committed and what a broad “exclusion zone” they created. They were even cheerful and polite to everyone, and seemed well coordinated.

Actually, there were a huge number of TTC employees there too. They were less coordinated but individually helpful, if only because they could shout instructions to the crowd. The subway PA was, as usual, pathetic..... PA announcements on train and at Royal York and Jane were incomprehensible.

The problem was that it is pretty much impossible to keep a solid single file line of buses moving at any speed under those conditions. All it took was one bus having to stop to discharge passengers, and the whole line stopped...in some cases right in front of police who were holding traffic for them. I saw a few cops roll their eyes. With the buses jam packed, it took forever for even one passenger to get off, so the result was a creeping mess. The throughput of the shuttle buses is very low.

I wondered whether when this happens TTC should designate some of the shuttle buses as “express”, meaning when they load at one end of the outage they go directly to the other end of the outage without making any local stops. These buses will be jam packed anyways, so not likely to board anyone en route. There were plenty of places where one bus could have passed stopped vehicles.

Of course, a better place to put evergy is into not having these outages, but if they are inevitable, I guess it makes sense to try to do them better.

- Paul

What they (police, transportation and TTC - under the purview of the city) need to do is shut that portion of Bloor down by default whenever there is a situation requiring shuttle buses for an extended period of time. That protocol should be in place and well-oiled by training - not pretend it won't ever happen, wait for the chips to fall and shrug. The lack of an integrated protocol on the part of the city after all these years and so many instances of failure is utterly unacceptable and indefensible.

As to the notion of adding express shuttle bus in these circumstances - my concern is that it will add even more chaos to an already complicated situation (imagine the crowds trying to figure out which bus to go onto, get it wrong, etc). Either make all subway stops - or go all express (the latter is probably preferable if the few stations in the outage zone has low usage).

AoD
 
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That requires a legislation change from Queen's Park that gives TTC the power to do that. They are having a hard time getting Queen's Park to get civilians to direct traffic so to give TTC the power is not something happening this decade. TPS won't want unprofessional civilian fare inspectors closing the road so that's a big no no.

The power to shut down a road comes from the city, not TPS. TPS just enforces the city's wishes. The only reason TPS shuts down a road is due to safety concerns or investigations.

The authority actually comes from the province (Sec. 134 HTA). Technically, it is the authority to control and direct traffic. The authority to 'close' a road (permanently, construction, etc.) is the level of government having jurisdiction under the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act.
 
[TTC Alerts
Attention Customers: Due to technical difficulties the Next Bus arrival screens are not functioning.

Last updated 4:58 AM
That doesn't say very much, the stop announcements aren't working and the device keeps rebooting (fun fact, the devices run on x86).
 
That doesn't say very much, the stop announcements aren't working and the device keeps rebooting (fun fact, the devices run on x86).
Since all the streetcar trackers are working, I suspect this has something to do with a new VISION system update. The few buses are still trackable might have not received the update yet. It's not the first time VISION had a problem, there were ghost buses and all sorts of thing the last time it went haywire.
 

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