[urbanfan89]

Last month's transit plan for BC included 1,500 new buses to be deployed across all of BC's transit systems. Local transit was ignored by MoveOntario and no plans were announced to improve local bus services, which is a lot less sexy than trains but a lot more effective. Simply by installing transit priority measures at intersections would increase reliability by a lot, and guaranteeing 10 minute Frequent Service along all concession roads in the inner 905 would raise transit modal share to those of the outer 416.

BC has a population of 4.4 million, 1/3 of which are in small towns and rural areas where no one can take transit. It will get 1,500 new buses by 2020. Since GTAH's population is currently 6.0 million and most of that is urban, we could have got almost 3,000 new buses by then.

There's quite a bit of hype on the fact that TTC will deploy 100 new buses in one week. Where are our priorities?

 

[salvius]

salvius:



It all depends on what one consider as "reasonable" living arrangements. If you go the standard that each kid should have their own bedroom, then yeah, the choices are limited. But then's the result of a personal choice - this, incidentally, is also not just a downtown vs. suburban issue - you will find that increasingly at the growth centres as well - where the most transit accessible locales turns out to the ones housing everything but large number of families.

Theoretically, yes, that's a personal choice. For someone like myself, coming from Eastern Europe and being used to a 1 br apartment for 4 people, I see no trouble in a 2 br condo (which too is becoming increasingly out of reach) housing 4 people. But very, very, very few Canadians are going to be fine with that, and planners are not going to be able to change the 3 br for 4 people preference. It is technically a choice, but when the vast majority of people will not settle for different arrangements, there is no viable alternative. And that's why the inner city is becoming more and more the residence of 1-2 person households, which is a trend I do not find at all positive.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I wish we didn't always have what seems like a choice between a 1000 sq.ft condo (aka "1br + den") and a 2000+ sq.ft house (aka "4br + spiral staircase"). More larger condos and more smaller houses would be ideal...it just takes a little bit more room in condos to attract families and by making houses just a little bit smaller we can squeeze that many more into zones of good transit.

 

[Dilla]

From the Star: (with a Hitler-esque photo of David Miller)
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/303914

Premier backs TTC takeover

McGuinty's vision: A regional authority operating 'seamless' transit across GTA
Feb 15, 2008 04:30 AM
Robert Benzie
Tess Kalinowski
Staff Reporters

The TTC should be taken over eventually by the province's new transportation authority to provide "seamless" public transit in the Greater Toronto Area, says Premier Dalton McGuinty.

McGuinty, whose government has a 12-year, $17.5 billion transit expansion plan for the GTA, said yesterday the province would like to eventually integrate the TTC into the fledgling Metrolinx regional authority, and could do so without additional funding.

"It's just a matter of ... us making the linkages on our own once we have the transit systems in place," the premier told reporters.

The dream of Metrolinx, formerly known as the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority, is a system of efficient transit across the region that would let commuters travel effortlessly across municipal boundaries without the hassle of separate fare and route systems.

But the idea of handing over control doesn't sit well with TTC chair Adam Giambrone, who wants to ensure the City of Toronto continues to run The Better Way.

"It is critical that we maintain control (of the TTC) for the benefit of the residents of Toronto," Giambrone said.

There are fears that integrating the huge TTC system with those of the service-starved suburban regions would ultimately result in diluted services in the city.

Metrolinx chair Rob MacIsaac has recommended the city allow Queen's Park to take over the cost of the subway and other TTC routes with "regional implications."

He gave that advice to an independent panel reviewing the city's finances recently, but emphasized the province should fund operating and capital costs, not actually run the system.

That's a position more in favour at city hall.

"We have always talked about transit being run locally," Stuart Green, spokesperson for Mayor David Miller, said yesterday.

"There's a role for the province and that's to fund operating costs," he said, noting the province has done a better job on the capital side.

Green added that there certainly can be better co-ordination of regional transit, but it doesn't require an upload of the TTC.

"The TTC needs to be run by people in Toronto, not by a regional body."

McGuinty said it only makes sense to mirror how other large metropolitan areas around the world run transit.

"We're looking to Metrolinx for the best advice in that regard, as to what we need to do together to ensure that we have a user-friendly, affordable, good state-of-repair public transit system," he said.

"I think one thing that I can say is, if you look around at most large urban centres there tends to be a larger regional body that takes responsibility for these kinds of things, so that from the perspective of a user it is perfectly seamless."

McGuinty has no timetable in mind but wants the province and city to work together on the initiative.

"That's an important ... conversation that we'd have to have with Toronto and their representatives, the council," he said.

The premier also emphasized that any amalgamation would not affect his much-hyped regional transit expansion scheme.

"The Move Ontario 2020 Plan has nothing to do with the future of the TTC. It's 52 separate municipal public transit projects. We take on that construction, that responsibility, in its entirety and we relieve them ... of any financial obligation," he said at a Mississauga school where he announced $40 million in funding for 160 librarians over the next four years.

Giambrone said he's confident Metrolinx, currently a provincial planning agency, is interested only in ensuring there are sufficient operating funds for "transit services that have regional benefit."

He is one of four Toronto representatives on the 11-member Metrolinx board, which also includes Miller.

"The board isn't interested in operations," he said.

"It's more interested in making sure we can deal with (transit) expansion."

Giambrone noted that York Region Chair Bill Fisch and Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion, who also sit on the Metrolinx board, have never expressed interest in running the TTC.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ottawa clears way for $1B TTC deal

A long-delayed $1 billion accord on federal funding for the TTC has been finalized with Toronto, after a dispute over the city's contributions to GO Transit, says Infrastructure Minister Lawrence Cannon.

"We have been committed all along to providing the TTC with $350 million for strategic capital projects in four areas – subway infrastructure, streetcar infrastructure, bus infrastructure and a fare-card system," Cannon said in a statement yesterday.

The matter now goes to the Treasury Board for final approval next month, with the money expected to flow shortly after that.

The $1 billion deal, shared equally by Ottawa, the province and the city, was announced in March 2004 and reaffirmed a year ago by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Cannon said the government is pushing to get the deal signed quickly so it can reimburse Toronto for its share of the cost of current and future construction.

An aide to Ontario Transportation Minister Jim Bradley said similar outstanding issues between Toronto and the province had also been resolved.

 

[RedRocket191]

i'll say it before and I'll say it again. I'm all for this as long as:

• The Ridership Growth Strategy is respected and followed for service levels inside the city
• Service levels in the suburbs are brought up to city quality (even if there is no ridership - If we wait for people to come, we will be waiting forever).
• There are transfer policies and fare systems which balance the need encourage long-distance riders to take transit with the need to ensure short-distance riders pay a fair price.
• Local planners are able to quickly respond to local issues (if a school changes its dismissal time, we shouldn't have to go to the province to get the schedule changed).

 

[Hipster Duck]

I don't think VIVA is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I will concede that they do have a number of things that the TTC could learn from for its more patroned suburban bus routes. I think that installing something like a VIVA station on every major suburban intersection in the 416 would go a long way toward making suburban bus travel more pleasant. This would include:

- a much larger, lit bus shelter with a ticketing machine that sells tokens and metropasses
- queue jump lanes
- very basic but improved landscaping and amenities, such as the installation of two or three ring and post bicycle locks, or patterened concrete paving. A picnic bench would be a nice gesture during the summertime.
- an LED indicator of when the next bus will arrive
- a safety intercom, similar to those found around university campuses or in the DWA section of a subway station.

The cost of simple measures like this would be peanuts compared to anything else on the board like Transfer City and would make suburban bus travel much more inviting. The availability of ticketing machines that sell metropasses would also encourage purchasing one outside of a subway station.

 

[Disparishun]

• Service levels in the suburbs are brought up to city quality (even if there is no ridership - If we wait for people to come, we will be waiting forever).

I agree with this. But I wonder if there is not an intermediate ground.

Is there a way to tie service improvements to zoning? In other words, wherever service is contemplated to be upgraded, that upgrade should be made conditional on the zoning permitting the density necessary to justify the upgraded service?

As a practical matter, for instance, that would certainly make a lot of sense to me as part of subway build-outs. The York Region extension by all means, but Vaughan has got to play ball and zone the corridor for high density, with gradual step-off (as floors, not ceilings) as you get further away from the corridor, etc.

In other words, no service upgrades to areas not zoned "for" the upgrades, as a matter of transit policy. That's not waiting for the people to come. But it is waiting for the area to have the ability to bring the people.

 

[ShonTron]

I don't think VIVA is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I will concede that they do have a number of things that the TTC could learn from for its more patroned suburban bus routes. I think that installing something like a VIVA station on every major suburban intersection in the 416 would go a long way toward making suburban bus travel more pleasant.

And day passes should be included as well. They're hard to find outside the subway system.

I agree with that concept, HD. Viva, however, does not have those queue-jumps either. But the problem of the queue-jump lanes in Brampton (where they are now installed in anticipation of Acceleride) is that they feed into a bus shoulder on the farside, and set back from the intersection.

 

[tempperm]

great for the people in the 905...not so good for the people in the 416....

 

[Jarrek]

I think personally this is a good step forward in the right direction.

 

[RedRocket191]

I think the issue is really about who should fund transit, how much control the funding agent should have, and how the agencies should interact with each other.

What's needed is well funded service with high frequencies, the same fares and better transfer privileges across the GTAH, and new rapid transit lines that cross borders.

If this can be accomplished without provincial control, then perfect. But, if the agencies cannot work together (and we all know how they've behaved in the past), then someone needs to step in and take control.

 

[Hypnotoad]

I believe this has to happen. Turf protecting transit operators are the way of the distant past. There is too high of a value/importance/need for interregional higher-order transit coordination. I don't think this should be viewed as a 'take-over' rather a change in ownership. TTC staff will still run the show they know best but the mandate and focus for inter-jurisdictional travel will be coordinated, lead and championed by one source. GO, YRT, MT, TTC, DRT, Acceleride, etc will all benefit from coordination, cooperation and seamless service delivery.

 

[Hipster Duck]

And day passes should be included as well. They're hard to find outside the subway system.

I agree with that concept, HD. Viva, however, does not have those queue-jumps either. But the problem of the queue-jump lanes in Brampton (where they are now installed in anticipation of Acceleride) is that they feed into a bus shoulder on the farside, and set back from the intersection.

Sean, do you mean that there is effectively a bus bay on the other side of the intersection, where the buses then have to merge back into the rightmost lane? Seems like that's poorly designed. I imagine that the objective was to get right turning cars from the other road to not get stalled behind a bus, but they can always move over one lane to the left (the centre lane on a three lane road). One of the problems with surface rapid transit planning in the GTA is that the perceived benefits are often weakened by ameliorating car drivers. Not turning on signal priority on Spadina or St. Clair, for example, may save a very small hassle for car drivers, but effectively ruins the rationale of building a $100 million LRT line.

As for the Day Passes? Absolutely. And going even further, GTA Passes. It's irritating that that card is only sold at a handful of subway stations as it is.

 

[ShonTron]

The queue jumps in Brampton come at the end of a right-turn lane (with a turning slip ramp), so it does help the bus a bit move ahead of a long line of cars waiting for a green light, and smooths out the merge out, but yeah, it also benefits cars more, and I dislike the big concrete shoulders in suburbia set well back from the light (Mississauga is even worse for this).

 

[urbanfan89]

Can anyone imagine what would have happened if the TTC were controlled by Mike Harris 12 years ago?