Transit Travelog (Detour): Toronto
Transit Travelog is a recurring feature on the Good Service blog where I share my experiences on how to get around in different places around the world through my travels, as somebody who takes the New York City Subway every day. If you missed it, check out the inaugural edition about Hong Kong here.
UPDATE (April 1, 2019): Over the weekend, the Toronto Star citing a series of freedom of information requests, reported that when Toronto City Council voted in 2017 to approve funding for the current one-stop Scarborough Subway/Scarborough-Malvern LRT plan, city officials have been skeptical about its cost estimate and some city staff were aware that the plan would cost CA$900 million (US$676 million) more but didn’t inform the council.
Technically, I don’t travel to Toronto. I’ve lived there before moving to New York. I grew up in Mississauga — a suburb of Toronto, and I still have friends and family there.
I was going to continue writing about public transit in places I’ve encountered during my transcontinental trip in January, but given the current transit political drama happening in both New York and Toronto, and how there are talks of transferring control of local transit to/from their respective cities, I thought it would be the right opportunity to take a step back to write about the state of public transit in Toronto, and how it compares to New York, instead.
UP Express
After much delay, UP Express commenced operation in 2015. It runs every 15 minutes and travels from Union Station in downtown Toronto to Terminal 1 of Pearson International Airport (UP stands for Union-Pearson) in just 25 minutes with two intermediate stops. After failed attempts in making it a public-private partnership by the federal government, it has since been taken over by the provincial arm’s length crown agency, Metrolinx. It has been a controversial project stemming from its initial high fares/low ridership. Then, after its fares were slashed: its still high subsidy. Also, the lack of electrification from neighboring communities (even though it runs on Tier 4 diesel cars, which are pretty clean), and the confusing fare structure with GO Transit, which it shares tracks with and is also run by Metrolinx—the provincial crown transit agency, but is technically different?
When it first opened, the one-way fare was CA$27.50 (around US$21), or CA$19 (US$14.50) when paid with a Presto smart fare card. Due to low ridership, the prices have since been slashed. The adult fare is now CA$12.35 (US$9.40), or CA$9.25 (US$7) with Presto. The operation was supposed to break even, but its ridership projection has been way off and it is now subsidized heavily by the provincial government (which by the way, is Ontario, for the not-so-geographically inclined). Every time I’ve ridden it, it has been less than a quarter full on these two-car trains. While fast and convenient, there are cheaper alternatives.
TTC
The public transit alternative to taking the UP Express from the airport would be to take the newly-rebranded 900 Airport Express bus from Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) to Kipling subway station, and transfer to Line 2 Bloor–Danforth subway. The rebranding is part of its effort to highlight its newly-marketed Express Network. This journey downtown takes approximately 45 minutes in total. Unlike the MTA and New York City Transit, the TTC is run by the city and it operates the city’s subways, buses, streetcars and Wheel-Trans, an on-demand accessible transit service, similar to MTA’s Access-A-Ride.
Subways
TTC’s subway system has four lines and 75 stations. The lines were only assigned numbers in 2014, as part of a customer service initiative by then-CEO and current New York City Transit president, Andy Byford. Only two of these lines are of significant length: Line 1 Yonge–University (a U-shaped north-south twinned corridor) and Line 2 Bloor–Danforth (an east-west line). 45 stations are wheelchair-accessble. A recent extension of Line 1, the first in fifteen years, has extended the subway to reach York University and pushed it outside of the city limits for the first time into middle-of-nowhere Vaughan in York Region—the riding of a former Ontario finance minister.
The subway runs very frequently, at headways as low as every 2 minutes 40 seconds during AM rush hour, to every 5 minutes during off-peak, even on weekends and holidays. That’s right, Torontonians never have to face dreadful rush hour 8 minute headways, or 12 minute headways over the weekends like in New York. While the subway stops running around 1:30am daily, their routes are replaced by frequent buses that form a part of the Blue Night Network that run overnight.
TTC is installing Automatic Train Control on Line 1 and weekend closures have been common to facilitate signal upgrades to Communication-Based Train Control (CBTC; what the L and 7 trains have in New York). The goal is to get the headway for Line 1 reduce headway down to 1 minute 50 seconds or 30–32 trains per hour. This is most needed as it is running overcapacity with 28,000–30,000 passengers riding per hour when the scheduled capacity is 28,000.
Buses
With the rapid transit system’s rather limited reach, the surface network is where TTC shines. Toronto’s major streets for the most part run in a grid. TTC’s surface routes tend to mirror the street grid and are designed to feed riders into subway stations. In fact, most subway stations outside of the downtown core have dedicated bus and/or streetcar bays inside the paid fare area so riders don’t need to show transfers to vehicle operators to facilitate quicker boarding. There’s only one station in New York that has a similar feature: Canarsie–Rockaway Parkway, with free transfers from the L to the B42 bus.
All of TTC’s buses have bus racks (only 4 MTA routes have them), are accessible and having been using only low-floor models since 2011. Automated audible and LED stop announcements have been made mandatory from a provincial ruling since 2007. TTC has experimented with hybrid buses but they turned out to be a very expensive experiment resulting in poor reliability. Since then, TTC’s fleet has reverted to an all diesel fleet. Last year, they have started experimenting with hybrid and electric bus technology again (MTA is doing the same), as part its Green Bus Technology Plan, hoping the technology has improved.
TTC now boasts an extensive 10-minute-or-better network for its main routes and its frequency at worst is still every 30 minutes. Like the subway, a vast majority of the routes run until 1:30 am. After that, the Blue Night Network takes over until around 5:30am, and is a great way to get home after a night out or for people who need to get to an overnight shift. The Blue Night Network promises that 99% of the city is within 2 km (or 15 minute walk) of an active bus stop at any time of the day with 30-minute frequency, with better service for the busy routes like 320 Yonge and 300 Bloor–Danforth, standing in for the two main subway lines, as well as the overnight streetcar routes in downtown.
A common complaint about TTC’s surface routes is that many of its vehicles would short-turn in the middle of the route. Since transit priority measures and bus lanes are rarely found in the city, buses and streetcars often run behind schedule because of traffic. A common practice in Toronto would be to short-turn in the middle of the route in order to catch up to schedule. The consequence of that is those who live on the ends of the routes get rather sporadic service.
Streetcars
TTC has the largest streetcar fleet and system in North America. Many of its busiest surface routes are streetcar routes and they mostly run in the downtown core. One may question why they have not been replaced by buses like basically every other city in North America. Well their survival did not happen without a fight in the 70’s, but it’s a good thing they’re still around, because streetcars have one huge benefit: capacity. A 40 foot bus has a crush-load capacity of 53 passengers, and a 60 foot articulated-bus has a capacity of 77 passengers. On the other hand, the soon-to-be-retired single CLRV car has a capacity of 74 passengers, the also soon-to-be-retired articulated ALRV has a capacity of 108 passengers, and the new low-floor five-car Bombardier Flexity Outlook has a capacity of 130. Aside from capacity, streetcars provide a much smoother ride to passengers as they don’t get jostled around like what bus riders experience.
A massive 204-car (with an option to add more later) order of Bombardier Flexity Outlook was placed in 2009 to replace all CRLVs and ALRVs, which were built in the 70s and 80s, and are due for retirement. Just as the MTA is currently having problems with Bombardier delivering the ongoing R179 subway car order on time, TTC’s streetcar order is suffering the same fate. In the original delivery schedule, 184 cars were supposed to be delivered by the end of last year. Instead, 117 were delivered. And similar to how MTA’s newly-delivered R179 have quality issues, TTC’s Flexity cars are also breaking down more often than expected and many are being sent back to Bombardier to be fixed for welding issues. All of this has been a major source of headache for the TTC. They have spent CA$26 million (US$19.5 million) on refurbishing CRLVs as the aging vehicles struggle to stay in service (with poor results), and temporarily substitute streetcars with buses as the declining streetcar fleet is not keeping up with the rising demand of travels within the revitalizing downtown core. For riders, this also means a delay in having a completely accessible surface network, since CLRVs and ALRVs are high-floor vehicles and they serve busy east-west routes downtown.
Unfortunately, aside from three streetcar routes (509–Harbourfront, 510–Spadina, and 512–St Clair), streetcars don’t often travel in their right-of-way and are often stuck in traffic behind single-occupancy cars often trying to make left turns. Despite the current not-so-transit-friendly city administration (more on that in the Future section), a project called King Street Pilot was drafted by city staff, approved and implemented by city council in 2017 to assist the city’s busiest surface route—504–King, to move faster. As an aside, I thought it was kind of funny that the editorial link cited New York’s bus lanes as an example of how well these projects work, and now bus advocates from New York are looking at this project as the better way!
King Street previously had a transit lane during rush hour that was hardly enforced, but the pilot was a bold way in challenging the status quo. Under this plan, through car traffic is banned between Bathurst and Jarvis Streets in downtown, some road space was reallocated as public space, bike parking and sidewalk cafes. Local access is allowed, but drivers cannot make left turns and must make the next possible right turn while on King Street. Now, the plan was not without compromises: taxis were granted an exemption to traffic rules between the hours of 10pm and 5am, and apparently the Toronto International Film Festival is important enough to shut down King Street annually and displace over 60,000 transit riders, even during weekday rush hour. Just as if it were if this project was in New York, this project was not without controversy from local business owners. But the data is clear, ridership rose by 11 percent, bike traffic skyrocketed, foot traffic increased and streetcar travel time decreased by around 20 percent in the pilot area.
This type of opposition to reallocating road space away from cars is not new to Toronto. When St Clair Avenue was reconfigured in 2010 to introduce physically-separated dedicated lanes to streetcars, it attracted a lot of negative attention, including legal battles from local business owners that have resulted in delaying the project. There were definitely some fault on the city’s behalf as well; the project was poorly managed with lack of coordination between city departments—went over-budget and was significantly delayed. While former mayor Rob Ford may have famously coined it the “St Clair disaster”, the data now shows a much different narrative. Trip time has gone down, ridership has gone up, and the neighborhoods surrounding the avenue have become more attractive to live in with medium to high density condo buildings and new businesses popping up.
Fare Policies
Similar to MTA’s New York City Transit, TTC has a flat cash fare for anywhere within the city limits: CA$3.25 (US$2.40), or CA$3 (US$2.25) by Presto, tickets or tokens. Tickets and tokens are finally being phased out later this year, as Presto has only been widely adopted by the TTC since 2014 with a rather painful rollout. After much foot-dragging, previously citing budget restrictions as an excuse, TTC has also finally implemented 2-hour transfers, aligning with other local transit systems in the region, but only for passengers using Presto. For all other passengers, the old complicated transfer policy of continuous one-way travel only with no stopovers, applies. Monthly passes are CA$146.25 (US $109).
Like New York’s botched launch of Fair Fares, a program to subsidize transit fares for low-income residents, Toronto’s Fair Pass was recently launched last April and was met with lackluster results. Like Fair Fares, Fare Pass is being criticized for its slow rollout with a phased-in implementation where the full program won’t kick in until 2020, when any family earning less than a certain income threshold would be eligible. Another complaint about the program is that the discount isn’t enough: NYC’s Fair Fares provides half-priced 7-day and 30-day unlimited MetroCards; Toronto’s Fair Pass just gives CA$115.50 monthly passes (US$86; 21% discount) and CA$2 single rides (US$1.50; 33% discount).
With the arrival of the five-car Flexity Outlook streetcars where the operator’s booth is sealed from passengers, TTC is moving towards a proof-of-payment honor system with fare conductors making random searches which will also allow all-door boarding. This works in theory, but with Presto machines breaking down often and streetcars being overcrowded to the points where passengers can’t reach the fare machines, many riders have been unintentionally or intentionally evading fares. TTC also has its own police force, and along with its inspectors, they have been accused of disproportionally stopping Black residents, and have criticized for recording and storing people’s information even if they have not been charged. There have also been incidents where they have been accused of using excessive force too. Much of the same could also be said about NYPD’s arrests on the subway.
Metrolinx
Metrolinx is the provincial crown corporation that is responsible for regional transportation within the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). It runs GO Transit (as in Government of Ontario), UP Express, Presto fare card, and it also plays the role of planning transit across the region. While technically an arms-length agency, it still is subject to political meddling.
Even though local transit systems run under municipal or regional (similar to county) jurisdiction, they often don’t have the financial capability to embark on major expansions as cities are not allowed to run deficits and have limited taxation powers. Toronto tried tolling their two city-owned highways in 2017, but the province wouldn’t allow them at the 11th hour. Transit systems often request funding from higher levels of government. Because of that, not only is Metrolinx is responsible for planning many of these capital projects, they fund much of them under the provincial budget and end up owning much of the resulting assets. The Eglinton–Crosstown line project, for instance, is a new light rail transit (LRT) line under construction in Toronto. It is a Metrolinx project. When it is completed, it will be maintained and owned by Metrolinx, but operated by the TTC.
Back in 2008, Metrolinx released a regional transportation plan named the Big Move that identifies mobility hubs across the region and prioritizes expansion projects. Some projects are ongoing and some have quietly fallen off the radar. A revised plan has recently been adopted that has pushed some of the planned completion dates of these projects further into the future.
In addition to planning, Metrolinx assist smaller transit agencies across the province for bus procurement.
GO Transit
GO Transit runs a commuter rail system using freight lines with 7 lines and 66 stations radiating from downtown Toronto’s Union Station out into the suburbs and into Hamilton, Niagara Falls and Kitchener, different metropolitan areas in their own right. The commuter rail rolling stock consists exclusively of the iconic Bombardier BiLevel cars, and trains can have as many as 12 cars. Like many commuter rail systems in North America, only rush hour peak-direction service are offered to most of these destinations. However, off-peak service has gradually been added to Lakeshore East, Lakeshore West, Kitchener, Stouffville and Barrie lines, though not to the entirety of these lines. Lakeshore East, Lakeshore West and Barrie lines now also have weekend services. Their fare uses a proof-of-payment system, conductors don’t check fares onboard, but occasionally fare inspectors will check your fare.
In addition to commuter rail, GO Transit also runs regional buses. What started out as an extension to commuter rail’s reach and as a stand-in service for when trains are not operating, GO Bus is now a regional bus network in its own right. It also provides suburb to suburb connectivity utilizing major highways like Highway 407, Highway 401 and Highway 403. Its fleet consists of coach buses and double-decker buses. Buses share the same fare structure as the trains and are technically by zones, but the zones are so complicated and arbitrary that there isn’t a map of them.
GO Transit has been criticized for encouraging people to drive by overbuilding parking structures at their suburban train stations at CA$40,000 (US$30,000) a spot, a move that is unsustainable as GO is moving from having peak-directional rush hour only service to two-way all-day service to all their lines. GO also provides a fare subsidy of around CA$2.50 (US$1.90) for passengers who choose to ride local transit in the suburbs to/from GO stations.
Presto
Like the MetroCard in New York was supposed to replace tokens and unify fare payment for local transit in the MTA region, Presto was introduced by the Ontario government to replace paper tickets and tokens and to provide one compatible fare card for both local and regional transit across various systems in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, and in Ottawa. The project has been a source of criticism from Ontario’s Auditor General, including its sole-sourced contract, its escalating cost, its reliability and the fact that the system really could have been bought off-the-shelf instead of being developed by a contractor by the time the project had started.
The rollout of Presto has been slow. It was first implemented as a pilot in 2009 to selected GO Transit stations. Local transit in suburbs outside of Toronto (colloquially the 905 area, for its telephone area code) gradually enabled the syetem by 2011. Ottawa’s OC Transpo had a painful launch in 2012. Originally, the TTC was going to implement open-payment, a system that would be similar to MTA’s upcoming OMNY fare system supporting NFC-enabled credit and debit cards that have been in circulation in Canada for over 10 years. After a change in city administration and facing a threat from the provincial government of pulling back subsidies and funding to capital projects, the TTC finally signed on to Presto in 2012. TTC is planning to phase out legacy fare payments by the end of the year, but they are still dealing with loss of fares from reliability problems and fare evasion from adults using child Presto cards (children under 12 ride free on the TTC since 2015), and TTC fare inspectors who catch improper uses of Presto cards don’t have the authority to seize them.
Local Transit in the 905
Like many North American suburbs, land-use policies have been a impediment to better public transit. Much of transit outside of the city limits involve shuttling riders into the closest TTC subway or GO train station and it’s not uncommon to see routes with 45 minute to hourly headways on less popular lines during off-peak hours. With that being said, there have been visible improvements in local transit systems. Viva launched in neighboring York Region, was the first bus rapid transit (BRT) lite system in the Toronto area, with amenities like off-board fare collection, limited stops, frequent service and fancy buses. In recent years, they have introduced ‘rapidways’ on the Yonge Street, Highway 7 and David Drive corridors, a fancy name for physically-separated median bus lanes on its major streets, thus making them real BRT. Ironically, there are no rapidways between the most congested section of Yonge Street between Finch station and Richmond Hill Centre Terminal, as York Region has been lobbying for the TTC to extend Line 1 into Richmond Hill. While new infrastructure like rapidways is great news, it is still unknown whether or not York Region is serious about making it useful when it has been cutting back on service.
To the west of Toronto, the city of Mississauga has recently opened a true BRT system, the Mississauga Transitway in 2017 using a combination of highway shoulder lanes and building a bus-only road in a hydro corridor (Canadianism for electric power transmission) right-of-way. While its location made it cheaper and easier to build, the transitway has been difficult in attracting passengers as the transit stations are not near where people live or work. Instead, it must rely on local bus routes to shuttle riders into these stations. And just like the rest of the outer GTA, transit service can be abysmal where headways over 30 minutes outside of peak hours are common.
Future
Transit Saga in Toronto
Where do I begin here? Let’s start with how things got to the way they are right now.
David Miller was the last transit-friendly mayor of Toronto, he had plans to add bike lanes and implemented Ridership Growth Strategy—an initiative to increase TTC ridership that includes increasing service by setting the maximum headway of any bus route to 20 minutes at all hours, full predictable service on all routes during the hours of subway operation and a loading standard where all passengers should have a seat during off-peak hours. As a way to appease suburban voters of Toronto, he and then-TTC Chair Adam Giambrone (yes, that Adam Giambrone who Bill de Blasio hired to be the BQX Streetcar Czar for a hot second) announced the ambitious Transit City plan in 2007, which consists of 7 above-ground LRT lines on suburban thoroughfares without taking any lanes away from cars. The Eglinton–Crosstown LRT would be tunnelled in the central section as the street is too narrow to be expanded. The Scarborough RT (now Line 3) which is the lone medium-capacity line in the system with its own rolling stock that often breaks down when there’s any snow, and is approaching its end of useful life, would be refurbished and replaced with the same light rail vehicles and be extended to join the LRT network.
The plan received mixed reception as Torontonians were worried of having a repeat of the “St Clair disaster” and the public was generally unaware that the plan does not involve taking away any car lanes. The provincial government then led by Dalton McGuinty agreed to fully fund the first three lines: Eglinton–Crosstown, Finch and the Scarborough RT-to-LRT conversion. Later, Sheppard East was added. Soon after, citing financial difficulties, the province announced it would be delaying the completion dates of these projects and cutting scope by deferring parts to later phases (pdf).
Despite his intentions to invest transit in the suburbs, Miller’s popularity plummeted city-wide as a result of a 39-day municipal worker strike in 2009 (which resulted in garbage not being picked up during that period of time) and did not seek a third term for the 2010 municipal election. Giambrone announced his candidacy and were to be the next progressive choice in the election, but had to bow out just a week later into the campaign when it was exposed that he had sexual relationships with women who were not his live-in partner in his City Hall office. Rob Ford, then a suburban councillor from Etobicoke, ended up winning that election and on his first day in office, he famously announced “The war on the car is over… Transit City is over.”
Facing a coming election in 2011, Rob Ford’s new mandate and declining approval ratings after a couple scandals from his government has surfaced, McGuinty agreed to change the approved Transit City plan that had been underway. Under the new plan, all of the funding for the first four LRT lines would be diverted into burying the entire Eglinton–Crosstown line and interline it with the refurbished Scarborough line so that the one line would be completely grade-separated and not interfere with car traffic. This new plan didn’t last long, less than a year later in 2012, Toronto city council voted to overturn the plan and reverted back to the above-ground LRT scheme. Soon after, then TTC General Manager Gary Webster was fired by Rob Ford for speaking up about the benefits of LRTs over subways. He was replaced by Andy Byford, now NYCT president.
That plan also didn’t last long. In 2013, Toronto city council voted to amend the plan again, this time ditching the Scarborough RT conversion to LRT, and instead extend the Bloor-Danforth line (now Line 2) by three stops to Scarborough Town Centre. This was an appealing option to some because politically, it would mean bringing a high-capacity subway line into the center of the former borough of Scarborough for the first time. For riders, the current configuration at Kennedy station is a source of annoyance, requiring them to go up 3 floors to transfer from Line 2 to Line 3. Extending Line 2 would eliminate the transfer, although the original plan for the LRT conversion would have reconfigured the transfer to be simpler as well. At the time of the vote, the cost was said to be an additional CA$1.1 billion (US$1.07 billion in 2013 dollars) from the LRT conversion to a total of CA$2.9 billion (US$2.83 in 2013 dollars).
The 2014 mayoral election saw Rob Ford withdrawing from running for re-election after it was discovered he had a tumor, he had his brother Doug Ford take his place, but ultimately he was defeated by now mayor John Tory (who previously ran for premier of Ontario and lost as leader of the Progressive Conservatives in 2011). In 2016, the Scarborough subway extension was changed yet again after it was revealed that the cost estimate of the subway has gone up: this time, it was proposed that two stations would be dropped (since Scarborough Centre is by far the most used station on the current Line 3 anyway), and as a compromise, using that money to build a 17-stop LRT line through southern Scarborough which is identical to would have been the Scarborough–Malvern LRT in Phase 2 of Transit City. However, the cost estimate of the project continued to escalate. It has most recently estimated to cost CA$3.35 billion (US$2.5 billion) for the one-stop subway extension, which leaves virtually no money for LRT line previously proposed.
Despite Fords’ brand of populist conservatism and notoriety in the media being defeated by Tory in 2014 and that Tory was more popular in the urban wards of the city, policies have not changed all that much in City Hall as Tory appointed many of the familiar faces to his administration. His refusal to raise property taxes, especially after the penny-pinching Ford years in which he tried to but failed to find “efficiencies” to eliminate, has had detrimental effects to city services and leaves critics to wonder about the city’s financial sustainability. While starving the city of its much needed income, Tory has chosen to endorse the more expensive Scarborough Subway Extension plan and chose the most expensive plan (almost CA$1 billion/US$750 million difference) to replace the least used part of the Gardiner Expressway that carries 5,000 vehicles at its peak hour instead of removing it. And then there’s SmartTrack, a somewhat dubious election promise that was supposed to be boost service on GO Transit tracks within the city to subway-like service and create a new transit corridor on Eglinton using a right-of-way that doesn’t exist anymore, and was supposed to be supported by tax-increment financing (it can’t), have more questions than answers, still. The city has also been slow to implement bike lanes despite splashy announcements and plans. The TTC’s capital plan is still largely unfunded, much of it is “un-sexy” state of good repairs. It was also just discovered this week that TTC has quietly delayed buying new trains that would support automatic train control to Line 2 by at least a decade.
A worthy project that has constantly been put on the back burner is the Relief Line (formerly known the Downtown Relief Line, which sounded less appealing to suburbanites). Line 1, especially on the Yonge side is constantly exceeding capacity. It is not uncommon to have to wait for a few trains to pass by before being able to board a southbound trains below Sheppard–Yonge in the morning. The TTC has been applying bandage solutions to add incremental capacity, like introducing open-gangway trains and installing new signal system that would allow trains travel closer. Given ridership is continuing to rise, it is inevitable that the Relief Line needs to be built. The Relief Line project consists of a multi-phase larger U-shaped line that would capture riders coming into downtown from the east and west on Line 2 to relieve Line 1. The question is how far north it needs to be built in order to capture sufficient riders to relieve the Yonge line. Ultimately, this line would benefit both downtown dwellers and suburbanites traveling into downtown, but politicians don’t see it this way as it yet another subway line built in the city core and so it is still unfunded.
Surviving from Miller’s Transit City plan are the Eglinton–Crosstown LRT and Finch West LRT lines. Construction of the Eglinton line is underway and is expected to be completed in 2021. Like Toronto’s streetcar order and MTA’s R179 order, the test light rail vehicles to be delivered by Bombardier to this line have also been late. As a backup plan, Metrolinx has placed a separate order of light rail vehicles from Alstom, which depending on Bombardier’s ability to deliver on time, the Alstom vehicles can be used on the Eglinton LRT, Finch West LRT or the Hurontario LRT in Mississauga. Metrolinx blames Bombardier for the delay as it pushes the completion date of Finch West LRT to 2023. Technically Sheppard East LRT is still on the map, but nothing much has happened as local suburban councillors are still holding on to hope that Line 4 Sheppard subway would be extended in its place. For a line with underwhelming ridership and have been cited to cost TTC CA$10 (US$7.45) per ride subsidy, it’s probably not a good idea.
The Port Lands is a former industrial area east of downtown that is currently being redeveloped. It is planned to be a new transit-oriented neighborhood with the proposed East Bayfront LRT line running through it. But the line is still currently unfunded and has prompted Alphabet-backed Sidewalk Labs to consider pulling out of its Quayside project if it is not built.
GO Transit has been buying up freight tracks that it uses and have been upgrading them to provide better service. It is also embarking on building the Regional Express Rail (RER) network that would provide all-day two-way 15-minute service on five of its commuter rail lines and additional stops inside the city limits to provide better intra-city connections.
The 2018 Ontario Provincial Election brought an end to 15 years of Liberal governments with Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives and his disdain to Toronto City Council taking control. His first act as premier was to unilaterally cut the size of Toronto City Council in half while it is undergoing a municipal election. And as promised during his election campaign, there are talks of uploading the TTC subway system to the province. There are many speculations on why the province would want to do that, like maybe the province wants to sell development rights at transit stations. But what is becoming apparently in recent reports is that he is probably not above meddling in existing plans, and causing even more delays and cost escalations.
Projects Outside of Toronto
A light rail project is underway in Mississauga for the Hurontario LRT. Originally it extended into the downtown area of neighboring suburb Brampton and would connect to Brampton GO station on the Kitchener line, but their city council decided to vote down the proposal that was fully funded by the province, because well, disruption to car traffic and something about ruining Brampton downtown’s supposed “historical character”. The project also suffered through a minor cut in scope in recent days, but the only significant impact of the cut is that the line would no longer go through Mississauga’s proposed new downtown area, which the city’s mayor was hoping the LRT would drive potential development there to intensify population density. MiWay (formerly Mississauga Transit) is also moving its map of meandering bus routes to a grid, as part of its 5 year plan.
Elsewhere, the Hamilton B-Line LRT is set to start construction this year. Nearby in tech hub Waterloo Region, the Ion LRT has finished construction and is undergoing testing stage 1 of its system, to be launched in spring. Stage 2 is in the planning phase and would extend the line from Kitchener and Waterloo into Cambridge, covering the tri-cities area. And just like in Toronto, Bombardier’s late vehicle deliveries have also delayed the line’s opening. Waterloo Region’s Grand River Transit is also re-aligning their bus network to connect with their light rail counterpart better.
Few places have changed transit plans as often as Toronto has, and we’re only talking about the recent changes. When Toronto contemplates on how perhaps a provincally-owned local transit system can work better, one can look at MTA for counter-examples: fare integration (there is none), operational integration (Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road not able to share tracks at Grand Central Terminal is the reason why the US$11 billion/CA$14.7 billion project East Side Access exists), faster expansion (the 3 station 3.2 km/2 mile Second Avenue Subway completed in 2017 was the first expansion since 20 years).
Similarly, if we look from New York’s perspective on how maybe local control of transit can lead to greater accountability and efficiency, we can look at Toronto for challenges there: less capability to finance major capital projects, dependent on senior level governments for capital funding, decisions can still be overridden by senior level governments, and after all, you’d still need a city administration that cares about transit first.
The Good Service blog complements the website goodservice.io. goodservice.io is an open-source project to provide New York City subway riders a more detailed and up-to-date status page using public APIs. Contributions are welcome on GitHub.
