Rob Ford's Toronto

[TonyV]

I was at a BBQ at a friends place last weekend and we got talking about city issues, Ford and such. She lives just east around the south end of Parkside Drive by High Park but lived downtown most of her life until she decided she wanted more space for herself and young daughter so she bought a townhouse. I was surprised when she told me she drives to work (Queen & Yonge) everyday. I said why don't you take the Queen streetcar and save yourself the hassle & cost and she said it takes well over an hour each way, although it can vary, so she drives in about 20 minutes. She's a very eco-friendly, pro-transit kind of person but she won't take transit to/from work because it just takes too long - and she lives in the city fairly close to downtown. She's an avid cyclist too but can't cycle right now because her daughter is in onsite daycare where she works so that's not a safe option until her daughter is in school. This is another example of someone who wants to use transit but it takes up too much of her time.

My brother lives in Parkdale, I live in Cabbagetown. When I went to visit him last week, the ride home took 2.25 hours by TTC. Insane. I'll drive next time. What can I say?

 

[Irishmonk]

The Ford fools have reached a new low.

There's lots more bottom left where they're going. This is just beginning!

 

[GraphicMatt]

My brother lives in Parkdale, I live in Cabbagetown. When I went to visit him last week, the ride home took 2.25 hours by TTC. Insane. I'll drive next time. What can I say?

To be fair, the last couple of weeks have seen horrendous streetcar service due to construction at Bathurst. I take your point, though, that these kinds of East-West trips are not served well at current levels.

 

[tkip]

My brother lives in Parkdale, I live in Cabbagetown. When I went to visit him last week, the ride home took 2.25 hours by TTC. Insane. I'll drive next time. What can I say?

Exactly. Transit in this city is a joke. It takes forever to get anywhere and forget going across the city. This is just the end result of horrible urban planning and chronic underfunding.

 

[jje1000]

And so what? It isn't going to get better under Ford, considering his desire to remove Gary Webster and risk seriously messing up the management structure of the TTC.

 

[tkip]

Where's she going? I'm always in love with these anecdotes -- they're so generic that they could be about anything, anywhere. Here's mine, with a little added value like the truth: "About this whole transit issue in Toronto. A friend of mine (me... but I'm a big fan of me, so I'll 'friend' myself), who's not particularly pro transit but finds it convenient and cheap, hasn't changed his attitude lately.

"He commutes by taking the 72 Pape bus to Carlaw/Queen and then hopping a streetcar or the 503 bus. Both are reasonably empty each morning, but he leaves early. He comes back on the 504, which is usually very busy during the evening rush, but calms down after the Sherbourne exodus. He has no intention of ever getting a second car (his wife has the car for her home-based business) as the TTC is such a great value.

"In his opinion, the only thing that has declined in the quality of the transit system is the percentage of passengers who feel the need to litter the floor of the streetcars, despite a recycling bin at pretty much every stop. If the passengers would carry their own garbage off the car, that would help everyone out."

Given today's Metro(?) article on transit riders going up across the nation (TTC +1% or so), I expect transit is a preferred option by many people. IMHO, people who complain about the TTC then complain about the roads, the bike lanes, or the airport lounges. It's what they like to do.

Sorry to burst your bubble but travel by transit in this city, especially if you have to travel across the city and make transfers is a joke.

My friend's branch is at Dufferin Mall. It routinely takes her about 45 mins to an hour to get home to her house at St Clair and Christie. It shouldn't take this long. She said her friends live in Pickering/Ajax and are home before she is on many occasions. That's why she's ditching the TTC and buying her first car.

If you live close to the subway, then you're basically okay. But once you live further away and further out and you have to make transfers then wait for buses and streetcars, forget it. It becomes a nightmare. I've experience this on too many occasions myself. I use to live in Scarborough and the commute and multiple transfers was insane. It took forever to get to work and home.

There's nothing generic about these examples. This is what untold thousands go through every day in this city trying to travel by transit. It's a frustrating experience and it's getting worse.

 

[jje1000]

My friend's branch is at Dufferin Mall. It routinely takes her nearly an hour to get home to her house at St Clair and Christie. It shouldn't take this long. She said her friends live in Pickering/Ajax and are home before she is. That's why she's ditching the TTC and buying her first car.

Buying a car isn't helping the situation. A few years ago, the main arterial road off my neighborhood was moderately busy at 6:00pm. Now, it's clogged up all the way over two intersections. The buses are always full, but they don't come often enough to convince people to get out of their cars.

 

[tkip]

All the streetcars will be gone. This is very sad, we will become another Phoenix, Atlanta and Dallas.

This came from sources like the Star which hates Ford and is basically using fear mongering tactics to scare the shit out of people.

 

[jje1000]

The Star speculates, as does the Sun and National Post.

The Globe and Mail is slightly better at presenting unbiased news.

 

[tkip]

Buying a car isn't helping the situation. A few years ago, the main arterial road off my neighborhood was moderately busy at 6:00pm. Now, it's clogged up all the way over two intersections. The buses are always full, but they don't come often enough to convince people to get out of their cars.

And what do you suggest she do?

Does she keep taking an inferior mode of transportation that's continuing to decline, adding to her commute times and making her life hell? Look, she was a loyal transit user and finally gave up because the service is weak at best and the travel times just became too much. She's getting older and doesn't want to waste her life on overcrowded buses/streetcars going nowhere fast.

The ebike is for short trips. The car is for longer trips. Case closed.

 

[tkip]

The Star speculates, as does the Sun and National Post.

The Globe and Mail is slightly better at presenting unbiased news.

Both the Star and Sun are very biased in their reports and thus why I tend to take their views and opinions with a little grain of salt on more than a few occasions.

 

[junctionist]

To be fair, the last couple of weeks have seen horrendous streetcar service due to construction at Bathurst. I take your point, though, that these kinds of East-West trips are not served well at current levels.

One could cycle between Parkdale and Cabbagetown in about half an hour. If built as more than a minimalist line for suburban commuters, the DRL could do a good job of serving these neighbourhood to neighbourhood trips in the old city of Toronto, in addition to providing better capacity for suburbanites travelling into the core.

 

[tkip]

The DRL is unlikely to be built anytime soon. Certainly I don't expect to see it constructed before I retire in about 20 yrs. We backed ourselves into a corner with transit in this city through the combination of bad polices, lack of vision and underfunding over several governments and decades. Now it's going to cost untold billions to get us out of this hole.

 

[freshcutgrass]

You want better transit infrastructure in Toronto, open it up to private investment.

ha ha ha

That's the one guaranteed way to screw up the transit system in Toronto. There's a reason it's been a disaster wherever it has been implemented (mostly because it was done to rid government of its responsibility...not to improve service). And there's a reason the TTC is one of (if not the) most cost efficient transit systems on the planet. The TTC is still a quasi-independent body run by knowledgable and dedicated people, who's sole interest is transit....not politics, greed or profit. One of the key elements of it's success is the extreme interconnectivity of the entire system. The other key element is that the TTC has a monopoly. Without that, the whole house of cards comes crumbling down.

Where did I say this? Don't put words in my mouth.

You questioned it. You also said you thought it was about 50/50. So you think half the cars on the streets are delivery/service vehicles or people who have no access to public transit? I find it hard to believe someone would imagine such a thing. But then again....

it's fairy tale thinking considering the complete and utter lack of transit infrastructure in place.

If you are speaking about the City of Toronto, then your statement is just pure hyperbole. It's amazing how 477 million trips were taken on a transit system last year that apparently doesn't exist. The truth is, people take their cars instead of public transit because they prefer it (for various reasons), not because there is no transit available.

LRTs are great for localized transport, but if you really want people to choose to get out of their cars, you don't make their 30 minute drive into a 90 minute transit trip in overcrowded buses and streetcars. Express trains and subways are the higher level transit needed, not more streetcars moving 20 km/h.

Well, now you are talking about two different services...localized and longer haul/cross-town services.There's no argument that we need more long-haul/cross-town rapid transit routes, with a DRL the #1 priority. What we have is at/over capacity and too many people are too far away from them, requiring long, uncomfortable trips on crowded buses to reach them. I don't blame people who are in that situation...I wouldn't do that either.

But that's another important point. I don't have to worry about it, because I did not choose to live in an area that has the kind of transit service. Sure...you can blame the city for not providing door-to-door subway service for you, but then again, you have to shoulder some of the blame for choosing to live/work in areas that have crappier service.

Now...as far as localized/short-haul service goes, you seem to sluff that off as unimportant. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that you seem to just see everything from your personal perspective. And seeing that you live in the 905, not very surprising.

What is the busiest surface route in Toronto...the King streetcar. The King car is purely a localized, short-haul service. Unless you are joy-riding (and streetcars actually attract these people), not a single person would ever take it from one end of its route to the other (Dundas West to Broadview stations). It would have even higher ridership if it had more peak period capacity, but right now it doesn't. The only reason people put up with the crush loads, is because they aren't going very far. At the rate they are adding condos along its route, those new streetcars can't come soon enough.

You can debate it all you want, but it takes 20 or 30 or 40 years for the new capacity to reach equilibrium - it's called population growth - unless you're going to argue that transit usage actually goes down?

Good...cause I am going to debate it. ha ha

So exactly where are these 40-year gaps where's there's no traffic congestion? I can't recall any, and I've been around more than 40 years.

While population growth is a factor, you don't actually need population growth to fluctuate the amount of traffic.

And yes, I will argue that transit use can go down.

TTC ridership peaked at 465 million in 1989, and began a steady drop to 370 million by 1997. Yet the population increased the entire time.

$13 billion in fuel taxes - plus who knows how much more in other revenues - is not irrelevant at all. Of course the car is not infrastructure, neither is my bike or your banana - the point is that the revenues generated by the activity itself are substantial enough that the cost of private transportation comes a lot closer to paying for itself than transit does

Of course it's irrelevant. And your claims are beyond absurd. Toronto received about $140 million per year from the gas tax between 2005 - 2010. This does not cover what you claim. In fact, the fuel tax does not even begin to cover the cost of congestion, let alone pay for any infrastructure.....the TBOT put out a study that said the cost to Toronto's economy from congestion is around $5 billion. That makes you short by over $4.8 billion (make the cheque out to cash please).

It's all a moot point anyway, as Toronto pays out way more in taxes than it receives back. Also...the majority of Toronto's infrastructure is maintained by municipal taxes, and as a 905'er, you pay exactly zero Toronto municipal tax. So I was actually wrong when I said you paid the "same as everybody else". You pay LESS (as far as the city of Toronto goes).

So you can just keep blaming streetcars for congestion all you want, but the rest of the thinking world knows it is urban sprawl that is the culprit. And as an advocate of urban sprawl (because you do choose to live there), this would make you the deadbeat.

Which is why every private vehicle entering the City of Toronto that is licensed in the 905 should be tolled. Either the streets of the city will be a lot less congested, or the city will have a nice pile of cash to build transit infrastructure.

99% huh? lol. Fine, let's go with that

.

It's probably a little more than 99%, but I rounded it down for the sake of simplicity.

You realize that each streetcar uses 260,000 - 272,000 Watts to move its 81,000 lb (empty) weight around, right? Electricity is NOT a zero emissions technology, and it's getting more and more expensive.

Do you have any clue how much power this is on a daily, monthly or yearly basis? One streetcar uses as much power in one hour as the average family home does in 28 years. I don't know how many cars on each of the 11 lines at any given time, but let's say 4 as a minimum. It's probably triple during peak hours, but let's go with 44 cars. 44 streetcars operating 18 hours a day works out to over 75,000,000 kW/h - or 75,000 mW/h -or 75 gW/h... for a whopping 1.7 gW/h per day, which is equal to carbon footprint of about 650,000 lbs - PER CAR, PER DAY.

I may be off, of course - as the actual transmission costs, etc are not readily available. I'm going by the 4*65kW or 2*135kW ratings on the streetcars we use, and multiplying from there. if someone in the know can confirm or correct these numbers - I think we all really would benefit from knowing the actual numbers. The fact remains that while a streetcar is of course better than 100 cars - duh - it's anything BUT zero emissions.

Go ahead and preach your dogma, though, freshcutgrass

.

Since you have no clue what all that gobledeegook you just posted means (and neither should anybody else), let me put it in simple terms.....a streetcar consumes about $100 worth of electricity per day. Now, if the 504 King car carries 57,000 passengers on an average weekday, that works out to a little more than 1/10th of once cent worth of electricity per passenger.

As for your continued assertion that a streetcar has emissions, rather than repeat the obvious, I instead propose an experiment. I will sit in a fully enclosed, unventilated room with a running streetcar. And you will do the same with a running car (one with the usual 15% efficient ICE engine of course). No need for 100 cars...a 1 to one ratio will do just fine here. We will both stay there for a few hours. At the end of this period, we will see who emerges.

Of course a streetcar is zero emissions. The fuel the streetcar uses (electricity) to power its engine is being produced elsewhere. Depending on the nature of how that electricity is being produced, it may or may not represent emissions. The majority of electricity used in Toronto is either water or nuclear generated. The portion of it that is produced burning fossil fuels will represent emissions. But even then, the efficiency of this power is far better than your ICE engine, and it is not being produced in the concentrated, congested urban environment where it would be more harmful. So it would be difficult to calculate how much emissions this represents per passenger on a streetcar, but it would be incredibly low.

Now let's estimate the emissions of your car per person it carries. Don't forget to factor in not only the emissions your car itself spews, but also the huge amount of emissions produced by the oil refinery that made your fuel in the first place. (And don't worry...we'll save the political/human cost factor of the oil industry for another day).

The biggest challenge here, is trying to fathom just how big your margin of error has been.

 

[lafard]

Sorry to burst your bubble but travel by transit in this city, especially if you have to travel across the city and make transfers is a joke.

My friend's branch is at Dufferin Mall. It routinely takes her about 45 mins to an hour to get home to her house at St Clair and Christie. It shouldn't take this long. She said her friends live in Pickering/Ajax and are home before she is on many occasions. That's why she's ditching the TTC and buying her first car.

If you live close to the subway, then you're basically okay.

What route is your friend taking? St Clair and Christie is about 10 minutes walk from the subway, Dufferin mall is about 5 minutes from the subway, and St Clair West and Dufferin Stations are no more than 15-20 mins apart. Should be fairly consistently about half an hour. This is clearly Ford math. The two are barely a 45 minute WALK apart.

Get a bike. There are lanes on Christie and it's downhill all the way so they won't get to work all sweaty and gross.