TTC: Streetcar Network

[nfitz]

504 is 100% Flexity this morning. Not even any CLRVs on 504B let alone 504A

What is dreadful about the service out of Broadview? Do many people boarding streetcar east of Cherry really want to go further west than Dufferin?

Back when 514 was introduced, they reduced the frequency of 504s on Broadview. AM Peak is hard to quantify because of all the trippers, but every 2-3 minutes was frequent in rush hour, it dropped to every 3:45 and now drops to every 5:15. Even at 3:45 at around 8:30 I've just missed a Flexity, had another Flexity come about 4 minutes later, and we've been crush-loaded by Dundas, with delays because it was difficult to close the doors, and then leaving people behind at the Carol and River Street stops. Glancing at NextBus I can see that the cars are well spaced, and there's another Flexity about 4 minutes behind me.

In PM rush, cars used to come every 2 minutes 50 seconds on Broadview before the 514 was introduced. This dropped to 4:20 and is now being further cut to every 6 minutes. A Flexity every 6 minutes is less capacity than a CRLV every 2 minutes 50 seconds (and a some of those CLRVs used to be ALRVs). Presumably Roncesvalles and King west of Dufferin service has had similar cuts.

Ridership is up, and capacity is down. How is leaving behind passengers when service is well spaced not dreadful?

 

[DSC]

504 is 100% Flexity this morning. Not even any CLRVs on 504B let alone 504A

Back when 514 was introduced, they reduced the frequency of 504s on Broadview. AM Peak is hard to quantify because of all the trippers, but every 2-3 minutes was frequent in rush hour, it dropped to every 3:45 and now drops to every 5:15. Even at 3:45 at around 8:30 I've just missed a Flexity, had another Flexity come about 4 minutes later, and we've been crush-loaded by Dundas, with delays because it was difficult to close the doors, and then leaving people behind at the Carol and River Street stops. Glancing at NextBus I can see that the cars are well spaced, and there's another Flexity about 4 minutes behind me.

In PM rush, cars used to come every 2 minutes 50 seconds on Broadview before the 514 was introduced. This dropped to 4:20 and is now being further cut to every 6 minutes. A Flexity every 6 minutes is less capacity than a CRLV every 2 minutes 50 seconds (and a some of those CLRVs used to be ALRVs). Presumably Roncesvalles and King west of Dufferin service has had similar cuts.

Ridership is up, and capacity is down. How is leaving behind passengers when service is well spaced not dreadful?

OK, now I think I understand: your complaint is not with splitting the route into two, it is with the number of vehicles allocated to each 'branch'. Splitting the route was done to improve reliability and add more vehicles on central - busiest - part of the route(s) and it should mean cars come to and go from Broadview (and Dundas West) on a more regular schedule IF (and it's a big 'if') the TTC actually manages things properly. If capacity is too low then this could (or at least, should) be dealt with by allocating additional cars to the route(s).

 

[innsertnamehere]

Capacity is up significantly in the central part of the line, which from my understanding is where most of the growth has been.

The TTC is way underfunded in terms of streetcar fleet - they simply do not have the amount of vehicles required to supply the demand for the services. Thus the push for that additional order of an extra 60 cars.

 

[nfitz]

OK, now I think I understand: your complaint is not with splitting the route into two, it is with the number of vehicles allocated to each 'branch'. Splitting the route was done to improve reliability so it should mean cars come to and go from Broadview (and Dundas West) on a more regular schedule IF (and it's a big 'if') the TTC actually manages things properly. If capacity is too low then this could (or at least, should) be dealt with by allocating additional cars to the route(s).

Bingo

That's a big if.

When cars were coming every 2.5 minutes, a missing car meant a 5-minute gap. Now it means a 12 minute wait in PM rush hour.

I saw crush loading and people left behind the other day in AM peak last Tuesday around 8:45 AM at Gerrard when Flexity's were coming every 4 minutes (at least 3 Flexities in a row). I don't see how it get's better when they come every 5.25 minutes, even IF reliable.

To be honest, it was fine today at 8:20 AM with cars coming every 5 minutes. But I don't know what happened afterwards. Though I was surprised my preceding 506 ride was emptier than usual, even though there'd been 5 minutes since the previous 506 that I just missed.

The day-to-day variances in demand are a bit unpredictable. Turkey hang-over? More people off today? It was a bit rainy last Tuesday, though traffic seemed fine - but I've noticed before that ridership seems higher when it's wetter.

Edit - and here's the problem in a nutshell.

A 10-minute gap on Broadview right now, with no streetcars between Caroll Street and Broadview station.

 

[dowlingm]

That never stopped them running 514s to Cherry before - they simply put 514 signage in the window.

Besides they aren't planning on running any CLRVs on 504A now. They'll barely need any CLRVs on 504B given recent weekday deployments.

Of all the reasons they've managed to screw up the 504 signage, and now implementing this dreadful service cut on Broadview - the roll signs on CLRVs are not the reason!

Just clutching at straws to think of a reason for this.

As for service pressure on Broadview, the current reliance on buses between Broadview and Dundas (505) is probably not helping there - there is a lot of ridership between those points. While diverting King cars into Springhurst and Distillery is probably an "easy button" fix to layovers, it's hard to avoid the thought that TTC is gonna have to confront stepback crewing at Dundas West and Broadview eventually - especially when 505 goes F.

 

[Streety McCarface]

Capacity is up significantly in the central part of the line, which from my understanding is where most of the growth has been.

The TTC is way underfunded in terms of streetcar fleet - they simply do not have the amount of vehicles required to supply the demand for the services. Thus the push for that additional order of an extra 60 cars.

60? At this rate, we'll need an additional 100-150. By the time they're all delivered, it'll be time for a fleet replacement.

 

[Johnny Au]

The TTC is way underfunded in terms of streetcar fleet - they simply do not have the amount of vehicles required to supply the demand for the services. Thus the push for that additional order of an extra 60 cars.

Underfunded? Bombardier isn't producing Flexities fast enough. The legal settlement only meant that the TTC gets a few free Flexities. Byford once said that the lawsuit isn't about the money.

 

[robmausser]

Underfunded? Bombardier isn't producing Flexities fast enough. The legal settlement only meant that the TTC gets a few free Flexities. Byford once said that the lawsuit isn't about the money.

The TTC has a provisional option for an additional 60 Flexities if it so chooses in the contract, which was stated in the contract from the beginning in 2007. It has nothing to do with the delayed Flexities, it was a thought from day one.

 

[Admiral Beez]

That car isn't from Toronto. It was painted in honour of the TTC fleet.
https://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/1074-1074-toronto-canada/

Steve, I don't see in that link where the car isn't from Toronto. The link says it was painted to homour the TTC fleet, but that doesn't preclude the origins of the car itself. San Fran did buy up other system's older cars.

 

[DSC]

Steve, I don't see in that link where the car isn't from Toronto. The link says it was painted to homour the TTC fleet, but that doesn't preclude the origins of the car itself. San Fran did buy up other system's older cars.

See box at side of the piece - it says:

 

[DSC]

Having been involved with editing several websites, I realise how hard it is to keep things current but the TTC continues to have real problems in this area. The page on the accessibility of streetcar routes is a good (or bad!) example: http://ttc.ca/Service_Advisories/Accessible_service/index.jsp

 

[nfitz]

Having been involved with editing several websites, I realise how hard it is to keep things current but the TTC continues to have real problems in this area. The page on the accessibility of streetcar routes is a good (or bad!) example: http://ttc.ca/Service_Advisories/Accessible_service/index.jsp

Yeah ... that's a continuing problem.

I just dropped a tweet to TTCHelps about this - that normally gets things like this fixed quick ...

 

[amnesiajune]

In PM rush, cars used to come every 2 minutes 50 seconds on Broadview before the 514 was introduced. This dropped to 4:20 and is now being further cut to every 6 minutes. A Flexity every 6 minutes is less capacity than a CRLV every 2 minutes 50 seconds (and a some of those CLRVs used to be ALRVs). Presumably Roncesvalles and King west of Dufferin service has had similar cuts.

This is completely wrong. The cars were scheduled for every 4 minutes on Broadview (here's the TTC's service summary before the 514). After the 514 was introduced that dropped to 4'30 in the afternoon and stayed at 4 minutes in the morning. Before these changes it was up to 4'20 and 3'50 because of the higher speed on King.

Anyhow, ridership on Broadview isn't that high. A new streetcar every 6 minutes is much more than enough capacity for that part of the route (not to mention the 505 buses that also run on Broadview).

 

[nfitz]

This is completely wrong. The cars were scheduled for every 4 minutes on Broadview (here's the TTC's service summary before the 514).

I'm not sure why you are picking that particular period, that had 37 peak vehicles and 16 trippers, as it wasn't typical of pre-514 service. Also many of the trippers provided service as far as Broadview/Dundas, and there's a lot of riders that board at Dundas, Queen, Carroll, River, etc. They started trying to cut back service as early as 2015 (perhaps as the streetcar shortage worsened), with lots of bus replacements too.

Instead go back to 2014 where it's 47 streetcars rather than 37, and every 2 minutes 50 second in PM peak (+ 3 trippers that don't go to Broadview station).

Anyhow, ridership on Broadview isn't that high. A new streetcar every 6 minutes is much more than enough capacity for that part of the route.

I'll admit that PM isn't the worst issue. The more intense AM peak is the worse issue, however it's harder to quantify, as they've often had a 4-minute schedule, but used to have a lot of additional ALRV trippers in AM peak. For example, in that 2014 period, they had 30 CLRVs every 4 minutes, plus 19 more trippers serving Broadview station (and 3 that didn't) often yielding service every 2 minutes (admittedly with the occasional crush-loaded gap and too many unplanned short-turns at Dundas).

However AM Broadview service IS that high. As recently as last week (it was lightly raining I admit, which increased demand) I just missed a southbound 504 Flexity at Gerrard, and like clockwork the next one came 4
minutes later. By Dundas it was over peak capacity, and was being delayed at every stop, because people were in the way of the doors. By Caroll, we were leaving people behind. A glance at Nextbus showed the following car was also Flexity 4 minutes behind us.

How is that going to improve now that AM peak service frequency on Broadview has been cut from the 3 minutes 50 seconds last week, to 5 minutes 15 second this week?

 

[yrt+viva=1system]

TTC launches internal review after string of streetcar collisions
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...iew-after-string-of-streetcar-collisions.html

I foresee even more slowdowns on the streetcar network in the near future. Self sabotage at its finest.