Transit City Plan

[jeffreym]

if people wont ride it (at least not in the numbers we want) then we haven't really gained anything.

Except for the people who already ride it....

 

[sixrings]

I dont think we can compare what the TTC can do to make the bus more appealing to things like VIVA or GO busses. The reason is very simple.. Comparitively speaking these busses are not used as often. The more people who use the bus the more dirty it becomes. The less enjoyable the ride. The worse the perception begins again..

You cant compare Ottawa Civil Servants Bus riders to TTC riders. I am sorry that just doesnt work. Ottawa is the highest educated city in north america. A significant portion of the city is either in University, College or like you said work for the governement. These people are going to treat public property in alot better ways then TTC users. Although in Toronto There exists some people who choose to ride transit but can afford a BMW or BENZ the majority of the riders are actually not riders by choice but by financal barriers. There are more low income, less educated, angry people on the TTC then there would be in Ottawa. Similarly I am sure there are more Fair desputes on The TTC then on the GO VIVA or OTC. When I use Sauga tranist their employees seem much happier. I am sure that has nothing to do with the clientel and the problems that come with it. IT just isnt comparable..

FTR Rich people can be rude as well and have some of the worst mannors because they may feel above the law or entitled...... (Just saying)

 

[Justin10000]

No, but if the projected ridership can be handled by the less expensive mode, why not? Is that not the whole rationale for doing LRT over subway? It's kind of ironic that the pro-LRT crowd makes the same arguments against BRT that the pro-subway crowd makes against LRT.

I have never heard the "Pro-LRT Crowd" make an argument against BRT, we are spending too much time defending the merits of LRT, and debunking lies! In fact, many LRT advocates understand there are corridors where LRT cannot be justified due to cost, and demand, and improved bus service will suffice.

I honestly do not get the bias against surface rail, why stick with only buses, and subways?

 

[Rainforest]

You cant compare Ottawa Civil Servants Bus riders to TTC riders.

^ Frankly, littering and bad manners can affect any form of transit.

 

[Rainforest]

During peak periods, the 95 (articulated bus) runs every 3 minutes. In addition, that section of Woodroffe carries the 174, and 172 regular buses (average rush hour frequency of about 15 mins), the 157, 186, 188, and 195 peak period buses (average rush hour frequency of about 30 mins), and the 70, 71, 73, 76, and 77 express buses (average rush hour frequency of about 15 mins).

So one transitway bus every 3 minutes, one regular route bus every 7.5 mins, one peak period bus every 7.5 minutes, and one express bus every 3 minutes. I'd say that about gives you the right frequency for a bus every 1 to 1.5 minutes. And like I said before, I've seen this section of roadway in operation, and the buses don't really slow eachother down. The biggest slowdown is waiting to turn left into Baseline station, which is restricted because of the advanced left arrow.

OK, so it is feasible.

However, from your description, not all buses running in that corridor are artics. Assuming that it has 20 artics per hour (x 100 passengers) and 20 regular buses per hour (x 70 passengers), the ridership should be about 3,400 pphpd.

For Finch West: projections vary somewhat between reports, but the latest Pembina Institute's report pinned it at 4,500 pphpd. If that kind of ridership materializes with BRT, then even 40 artic buses per hour will be filled to the brim.

Sheppard East seems to be more suitable for BRT: 3,100 pphpd projected. Especially if the subway is extended further east, to Vic Park or Warden; the peak ridership further east should then be less than 3,000.

 

[sixrings]

Sure littering can affect any form of transit.. But it seems that people who have enough money to live close to subways or street cars DONT use busses. Also the people who do have money but arent walking distance from the subway often get a Passenger pick up instead of taking the BUS.. Essentially people avoid the bus AND for good reason its dirty, over crowded and not comfy..

another advantage of LRT vs Bus is that if tracks go down its harder to cut survice.. however bus routes can get cut easier...

There is nothing wrong with busses on some routes... ANYTHING not Blue Line.... Anything Blue Line though is routes that are heavily used. These lines should be getting the LRT treatment....

 

[gweed123]

OK, so it is feasible.

However, from your description, not all buses running in that corridor are artics. Assuming that it has 20 artics per hour (x 100 passengers) and 20 regular buses per hour (x 70 passengers), the ridership should be about 3,400 pphpd.

That's why I said it was somewhere between 3,000 pphpd and 4,000 pphpd, haha. I didn't have exact numbers, I just had rough ballparks of route frequencies. 3,400 pphpd is pretty much right in the middle of that estimate, +/- 1 busload.

For Finch West: projections vary somewhat between reports, but the latest Pembina Institute's report pinned it at 4,500 pphpd. If that kind of ridership materializes with BRT, then even 40 artic buses per hour will be filled to the brim.

Sheppard East seems to be more suitable for BRT: 3,100 pphpd projected. Especially if the subway is extended further east, to Vic Park or Warden; the peak ridership further east should then be less than 3,000.

For what it's worth, many of the artics don't get really full until they reach Baseline station. After that though, they do get pretty packed. However, that's only with artics running every 3 minutes, and regular route buses running every 3-5 minutes. Switch some of those route buses for artics (the 118 Baseline route recently did this during peak periods to increase capacity without decreasing headways), and you can surely get to the 4,500 pphpd needed, although you would be running at headways of about 1 min 20 secs (which realistically, is about what the Woodroffe corridor does now, only they aren't all artics).

But yes, Sheppard is right in the wheelhouse for curbside BRT. Artics running at about 4 minute headways, with some N-S routes also using the corridor to reach the subway terminus. I see two independent BRT routes running along Sheppard. The first runs the length of the Sheppard BRT, the other runs from STC to Don Mills (or Vic Park, wherever the subway terminus is) via McCowan and Sheppard).

 

[Rainforest]

Sure littering can affect any form of transit.. But it seems that people who have enough money to live close to subways or street cars DONT use busses. Also the people who do have money but arent walking distance from the subway often get a Passenger pick up instead of taking the BUS.. Essentially people avoid the bus AND for good reason its dirty, over crowded and not comfy..

Perhaps it depends on the part of the city ... I often take buses in North York: Dufferin, Bathurst, Steeles West. I don't think they are dirtier than the subway.

 

[gweed123]

Sure littering can affect any form of transit.. But it seems that people who have enough money to live close to subways or street cars DONT use busses.

People who live close to streetcars and subways don't use buses... Wow, what an insightful comment. People who don't live close to water don't use boats either, what's your point?

Also the people who do have money but arent walking distance from the subway often get a Passenger pick up instead of taking the BUS..

Do you have any stats to back this up? From my experiences at Finch Station, the majority of people show up via a combination of TTC and VIVA buses. And a lot of them are wearing suits, so I don't exactly think they're poor.

Essentially people avoid the bus AND for good reason its dirty, over crowded and not comfy..

Yes because the Yonge subway south of Bloor at rush hour is peachy clean, and barely anyone uses it...

another advantage of LRT vs Bus is that if tracks go down its harder to cut survice.. however bus routes can get cut easier...

Church St, Parliament St, Adelaide St, and Richmond St would disagree with you... And if the routes are BRT routes, I highly doubt they'd be cut.

There is nothing wrong with busses on some routes... ANYTHING not Blue Line.... Anything Blue Line though is routes that are heavily used. These lines should be getting the LRT treatment....

Would you like some turkey with that gravy? Get BRT on more corridors now, and then once the demand and the money is really there, then select corridors to upgrade to LRT.

 

[sixrings]

Again VIVA and GO busses are a different animal...

Gweed, Do you live in Toronto? If so where? And whats your bus experience like?

Ill be very open that I have worked in Jane and Finch area So I took the 108 and 84 on a regular bases. I use to live in scarborough so i took the finch and 57 Midland bus on a regular bases. Currently I live close to Bathurst and Eglinton So I sometimes take the 34 Eglinton but mostly I walk to the Subway. I have lived just outside of Rockcliffe in Ottawa and took Ottawa Busses and my parents lived across from Chateau Laurier. My wifes family is from 5 minutes away from Square one so I use to go train go bus or Sauga transit it.

Im not saying that your BRT plan is STUPID... Im saying that because people in TORONTO hate, loathe, detest, buses it LIKELY wont work.

You may be right that it is a good choice... Although I think what you really are suggesting is more EXPRESS buses which BTW I actually LOVE. Finch express so efficient instead of the reg finch bus which stops every 2 feet. However I am not the typical torontonian.. The majority of torontonians buy a car ASAP. I sold my car to buy a house and just recently bought one after years without. My wife and I are not the typical Torontonians. We walk, we Bike, we take transit dispite making over 100k. you cant build or expand transit based on us. We would almost take anything. Toronto did research that concluded that people typically did not like busses but looked favourably at Streetcars or LRT. It doesnt matter why people hate buses they just do.

At the end of green eggs and ham the guy actually tried it and realized he liked GReen Eggs and Ham..... You are like the character in the book trying to get the other to try the green eggs and ham... In this case BRT... will you like it here or there???? I will not like it anywhere!!!!! The problem is what if at the end of your story NO ONE ACTUALLY WANTS TO RIDE IT.

 

[gweed123]

Again VIVA and GO busses are a different animal...

Gweed, Do you live in Toronto? If so where? And whats your bus experience like?

Live in Ottawa now, but used to live at Ryerson. Also used to live in St. Jamestown. I have close friends who live at Lansdowne and Dupont. Others in Etobicoke. Used to have to travel to Leslie and Sheppard once every couple of weeks, and then later that location moved to Duncan Mill Rd (off of Leslie and York Mills). I've had experiences with more bus routes than I can count. For me, the biggest pain with the buses is waiting for them. Once I'm on them, I really don't mind them at all.

Im not saying that your BRT plan is STUPID... Im saying that because people in TORONTO hate, loathe, detest, buses it LIKELY wont work.

People in York Region used to hate buses too. YRT had some pretty shitty ridership statistics. Now look at VIVA, it's attracting quite a large number of choice riders. I really don't see why York Region transit users are so different from Toronto transit users, other than York Region transit users actually have a choice to take transit. And yes, they CHOOSE to take VIVA.

You may be right that it is a good choice... Although I think what you really are suggesting is more EXPRESS buses which BTW I actually LOVE. Finch express so efficient instead of the reg finch bus which stops every 2 feet. However I am not the typical torontonian.. The majority of torontonians buy a car ASAP. I sold my car to buy a house and just recently bought one after years without. My wife and I are not the typical Torontonians. We walk, we Bike, we take transit dispite making over 100k. you cant build or expand transit based on us. We would almost take anything. Toronto did research that concluded that people typically did not like busses but looked favourably at Streetcars or LRT. It doesnt matter why people hate buses they just do.

Why not do both? Ottawa has many express routes that overlap Transitway routes.

At the end of green eggs and ham the guy actually tried it and realized he liked GReen Eggs and Ham..... You are like the character in the book trying to get the other to try the green eggs and ham... In this case BRT... will you like it here or there???? I will not like it anywhere!!!!! The problem is what if at the end of your story NO ONE ACTUALLY WANTS TO RIDE IT.

If that were the case, people in Toronto wouldn't put up with buses in mixed traffic. But they do. At the very least, what's wrong with making these passengers trips faster and smoother? Isn't the whole purpose of Transit City to be a social engineering project, to bring improved transit to underserved and empoverished areas? If you can deliver improved transit to twice as many communities who need it, why not do it?

And I really don't buy the difference between Ottawa transit and Toronto transit. People in Ottawa bitch and moan about OC Transpo just as much as Torontonians do about the TTC. It's the exact same stories. The fact of the matter is if the service is frequent, is reliable, and is faster than being stuck in traffic, people will use it. Yes, you may get an extra 10% ridership boost because it's LRT instead of BRT. But is that extra 10% really worth the 50%+ cost associated with building that LRT? Is it really worth spending double the amount of money just to appease the 10% of people who feel they are too good to take a damn bus?

 

[nfitz]

From what I understand, the Mississauga Transitway is being built to be grade-separated, much like the Ottawa Transitway. If that is the case, yes it would be rapid transit.

Neither are (or will be) completely grade-separated. Some BRTs have little or no grade-separation.

 

[nfitz]

Also the people who do have money but arent walking distance from the subway often get a Passenger pick up instead of taking the BUS.

That's makes no sense. I live close to a streetcar line. I frequently use the bus. The bus stops seem quite busy all along the streetcar line, with lots of people changing from bus to streetcar.

 

[sixrings]

I should clarify that I dont believe BRT is going to attract NEW riders. It may make existing riders happy. However people on the fringe or avoiding TTC are doing it for various reasons. But it is undeniable that the BUS is one of them... If all you want to do is move the ppl already on ttc faster and maybe add a few ppl BRT and Express bus service will work. If your goal is to try to get a greater percentage of Torontonians on the TTC then whatever gets them to the subway better NOT be a BUS.

 

[Dan416]

I'd be fine with a Sheppard East BRT in the interim. It's the Sheppard East LRT I have a problem with.

The Mississauga Transitway is mostly grade separated. The Hurontario LRT is mostly in its own ROW. I believe both are Rapid Transit. Although I think the Mississauga BRT is pretty dumb and not useful. But I could be proven wrong. It is finally under construction, so I guess we'll see. What pisses me off about the MBRT is that they cut out the Creditview station. So I can't take a bus to it. And if I'm gonna drive, I may as well drive the whole way or take a GO bus.

Anyway, I think we should probably give BRT a chance. Although I think a corridor like Hurontario absolutely needs an LRT not a BRT. Other corridors also need at least LRT (e.g. Eglinton). But if you were to go to the trouble of grade-separating Eglinton in its entirety, it'd be cheaper to buy subway rolling stock than LRVs.