Earlier this spring, our Executive Director spoke to a new podcast called The 6ix Fix about all things transit, and you can listen to the high-energy and entertaining episode below. Follow them on Instagram or Spotify.
Early in 2022, CodeRedTO was approached by a provincial political party for our advice on selected transit topics. As a non-partisan advocacy group, our advice is available to all, and our responses can be found below.
The growth and operation of our public transit systems across Ontario depends quite heavily on the provincial government’s choices and priorities. Those priorities frequently change as is shown below, leading to delayed improvements, increased congestion, and increased emissions.
As a review, here are the new transit promises and changes to existing plans in the winning party’s platform in each of the last four elections. Changes announced outside of election campaigns are excluded.
2007:
2011:
2014:
2018:
Below are the questions provided to CodeRedTO, and our responses. We hope this information is helpful for all candidates.
“The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is projected to be the fastest growing region, with its population increasing by 2.9 million, or 40.9 per cent, from 7.1 million in 2020 to almost 10.0 million by 2046.” – Ontario.ca
It is vital to recognize that there is no room for more cars. Simple geometry tells us that a 40% increase in the number of cars on the road is not tenable. Therefore the first priority must be a massive change in the transportation mode share, moving trips from personal vehicles into shared vehicles, mass transit, and active transportation. There is no room for any policy which even just maintains the existing structure of subsidies for car drivers.
This shift is not a gentle one. Significant changes to driver costs and incentives are required, and significant changes to the transportation network itself. This will include fewer car lanes and more protected bike lanes,, more restrictions on and higher costs for car travel, including reductions in space for parking, lower costs for transit, and eventually closing entire sections of urban centres to private vehicles so that emergency vehicles and active transportation have enough space to move smoothly.
A second key priority is improved and predictable operations funding to provide more frequent and reliable transit service Historically, provincial priorities have focused on network expansion, leaving cities to fund operations. But as residents move across city boundaries for school and work, this creates a mismatch between the tax base and the required transit network for future goals. This is visible as an example in the high quality construction of York Region’s Viva Bus Rapid Transit, which even during afternoon peak at Highway 7 & Highway 404 has a schedule of only five buses per direction per hour, or fewer than 800 riders per hour.
Public transit is not a directly profitable endeavour. Transit is a service which enables economic activity, investment, and education, and operates at a loss in many parts of the network, but removing transit from low-ridership areas would create negative impacts due to increased private vehicle congestion and household costs.
Annually, transit agencies and municipal councils must assemble sufficient funding to address the shortfall between desired transit service and cost recovery from fares and advertising. This annual scramble impacts transit service levels, which can decrease attractiveness of transit and therefore reduce ridership, again leading to congestion and higher household costs. These in turn impact economic growth such as the location of new retail and office employment.
Stable, predictable, and increased operations funding allows transit providers to provide attractive and high-performance routes to build ridership and reduce car usage across the region. It also allows long-term strategies to be implemented without fear of damaging budget cuts negating previous work.
One of the most confounding challenges we face in implementing these priorities is the damage of COVID-19. It goes without saying that foremost is the damage to individuals, families, and the health system. The economic damage both to the private sector and the government’s budgets, and the public transit damage due to shifting work patterns and shifting mode share cannot be ignored.
Early-pandemic fears of public transit as an especially-dangerous space have proven unfounded. In fact, due to the modern ventilation systems and strong filtration, and its frequent air- and rider-exchange, public transit vehicles are in some ways safer than other indoor spaces. Public health protections such as properly-worn masks and avoiding large crowds remain appropriate as in all indoor spaces, and the vital role of mass transit in enabling our mobility also remains.
However, many riders have adjusted travel patterns and spending choices to avoid public transit. The sunk cost of car ownership, estimated at well over $10,000 per year (compared to an annual TTC pass at $1,700), and the perceived immediate gratification of instant access and custom travel paths, can easily drive personal decision-making away from more efficient and lower-emission public transit. Not everyone can make this choice, but the choices create more congestion and damage mobility for everyone across the region.
As we (hopefully) move out of COVID-19’s largest impacts, the repair of this mode shift is urgent. If public transit remains infrequent, crowded, and unreliable, riders will stay away. This will reduce transit revenue, increase congestion, and reduce economic recovery in a damaging negative-feedback loop. The only path to a positive-feedback loop is public transit which is attractive due to accessibility, affordability, frequency, and comfort. In short, more transit options for more residents sooner.
The best prioritization comes from transparent evaluation of costs and benefits by an independent organization not beholden to voters nor to a single jurisdiction. Elected MPPs have different incentives when considering transit projects as compared to transit planners and transportation engineers.
Historically, transit projects in Ontario have often been selected, modified, or canceled to serve political goals rather than regional mobility and development goals, or despite seemingly lower-priority ridership projections. Controversial decisions, each of which has positives and negatives, include:
There will always be public pressure and political concerns around selecting projects. Our history of advancing one project at a time by definition pits regional neighbours against one another, but transit must be considered as a network that requires advancement region-wide.
Projects which could have a large impact on ridership and network resiliency could include:
Metrolinx was formed to create a regional governing body for public transit. It was reformed years later to reducethe involvement of elected municipal officials in decisions. However, the decisions themselves simply moved to the provincial cabinet table. Recent announcements on transit initiatives owned by Metrolinx have been issued directly from the Ministry of Transportation or the Premier’s office, rather than the ostensibly-independent agency. This undermines trust in transit planning decisions, and reduces transit’s effectiveness by privileging popular projects over effective ones.
If a new water main is required, political parties don’t argue over it during an election. When engineers describe the type of pipe required for that new water main, the government doesn’t override the requirements and place a larger pipe in a different location instead. But transit planning and decision-making is not treated the same way.
Voter oversight over public funds is important. Elected representatives are best placed to determine overarching goals and funding structures on the advice of staff, while professional engineers and planners are best placed to recommend the area and technology, and to prioritize projects within limited funding envelopes.
Hand-in-hand with independent advice is transparency in decision-making. Any and all staff guidance, inputs, weighting, conflicts, ministerial mandates, and outputs must be public.
Hidden deals, thumbs-on-scales, and a lack of a full cost/benefit analysis of all possible options damage public trust. Decisions contrary to professional advice due to a preference for a certain style of train, or for a certain end-point within a different riding for political purposes, reduce public support for vital transit funding and growth if we are to grow as a region and meet emissions objectives.
Having stable, predictable, long-term operating & capital funding gives professional planners and municipalities the ability to make strategic changes to build transit network capacity and popularity. Improved operations funding must be prioritized, urgently, as this enables significant economic and educational mobility, housing accessibility, and decreased emissions.
Secondly, an enabler of transportation mode-share shifting is improved local “last mile” service in the GO service area. As the 905 municipalities continue to grow and expand their urban cores, regional congestion from private vehicles will also grow. It is vital that all residents have flexible and frequent transit within their local area, not only parking garages beside GO stations. When building highways we build on- and off-ramps; regional transit needs the same thing. A shiny new station with only a parking lot does nothing to build for the future of that community, especially in urbanizing areas.
Finally, the other widely-known tool for building regional transit strength is fare integration which simplifies and rationalizes transit choices for riders without inadvertently punishing any transit agency due to the reduced farebox revenue. Transit may be a reasonable choice for a larger group of riders through gentler fare escalation enabling more or faster travel options.
Example: travel from Ellesmere & Morningside to Queen’s Park
It must become and remain well-understood across the political spectrum and across jurisdictions that car-first transportation is not sustainable, and only mass transit and active transportation can unlock our shared economic, social, and climate goals. The status quo is not an option.
CodeRedTO is available to any political party, agency, or organization seeking non-partisan information and discussion of public transit topics. Email info@CodeRedTO.com any time.
CodeRedTO takes your questions and finds answers! Today’s question, from Richard on Facebook: The population of Toronto will double in the coming decades. Therefore, those currently less dense areas of Toronto will become more dense over time. Therefore,wouldn’t subways be preferable for the smarter long-term investment??
Hi Richard –
You’re right that population is growing fast, but city planners are seeing it grow at different rates in different areas, and they account for that in population and density projections. For example, the Sheppard subway was built based on very high projections that turned out to be way too high, so they’ve learned from that experience to make better projections. Also, the downtown core is growing far faster now than other areas, which is different from in the 1980’s when they first decided on the Sheppard subway.
Globe & Mail: Toronto’s density plan is working
If we had unlimited funding, then building subways would allow us to handle whatever growth arrived, but unfortunately we don’t – voters keep demanding tax cuts! Subways are a huge cash drain: for example, the Scarborough subway extension (just 3 stops in a low-density part of the city) is going to cost far more than $3 billion to construct, and will lose money each day (as most low-density transit systems do).
Human Transit Blog: Transit and profitability
Transit is an investment in helping our city be more efficient and productive, but typically we want investments that make money, not lose money. Since we know that they lose money in operations cost, and that they cost huge amounts ($350 million per kilometre (often more) just to build), and that we won’t need that capacity in Etobicoke or Scarborough for several decades, building subways exclusively is not what CodeRedTO considers a smart investment. You need high density population and employment to make the system worth it now, and we only see that in certain parts of the GTHA.
Even the Sheppard subway, opened over 12 years ago, still loses money every day. The new Spadina subway extension to York University is also projected to cost over $14 million per year in extra subsidies for operations costs. That doesn’t make them bad, but we have to “invest” with our eyes open.
Human Transit: Density is not Destiny
Luckily we have other options. Over 80 cities worldwide use modern light rail lines like are planned for Toronto, with more being built all the time. And since light rail can be elevated, underground, and at the surface, depending on what you need, it’s more flexible than subways and far more affordable, even though it can handle pretty high capacity of ridership – not the same as an all-tunnel subway of course, but we don’t need that capacity in every single neighbourhood.
Remember that all major world-class cities use light rail in addition to subways – Hong Kong, Paris, London, NYC (in New Jersey, not in Manhattan), Tokyo – they all benefit from having options, and Toronto is one of the only places that hasn’t figured that out. We are being left behind after being ahead on transit in the 20th century.
CodeRedTO wants subways AND light rail AND buses AND streetcars, in the right places, and proper funding to make them run properly too.
Early on May 26, a new advocacy group named the Sheppard Subway Action Coalition, represented by the founder of a group called “Real Torontonians Build Subways”, Patricia Sinclair, handed out false and misleading information to commuters to influence election results in their area. The only information provided as to their group’s membership and funding is as follows:
“The SSAC is comprised of several groups of concerned ratepayers and businesses who are concerned about the negative impact of an LRT and who support the completion of the Sheppard subway.”
CodeRedTO does not condone misleading voters and we have evaluated their claims below. Of the SSAC’s over two dozen claims, at least six were false, and at least twelve were either too vague or subjective to evaluate, or were presented in a misleading way. Three alleged benefits of subways over light rail in fact apply equally to both modes.
Please contact us with any updates, corrections, or questions at any time.
In a website section titled “Why Subway?”, the SSAC lists ten bullet points (shown below in red), with zero supporting context, links, or evidence. Our comments follow each claim.
In a second section titled “Why No LRT?”, the SSAC lists eleven bullet points (shown below in red), again with zero supporting context, links, or evidence.
The SSAC has produced a printable flyer that includes additional claims (shown below in red):
It should also be noted that the SSAC does not use any of the following words or phrases on their website or in their printed materials:
The only mention of this key aspect of transit development comes in the phrase “subways necessitate large upfront costs” – note the costs are usually double that of light rail – but there is no comparison of ridership (which would not double), travel time (which would not halve), or construction time (which would be longer by at least 1-2 years at minimum due to the EA and design process).
Since Sheppard East provides wide suburban roadways with room for both car lanes and LRT lanes, the same investment can create improved transit speed and options for a far greater portion of Scarborough – roughly double the distance can be built along Sheppard using LRT, at the same cost. A subway extension would help some riders to be sure, but it would also perhaps irreversibly damage transit improvement for all of Scarborough east of McCowan Road.
Subways and light rail are both great solutions for different situations. In the past, Toronto has only built subways, slowly and with great expense, meaning huge sections of our city are left without modern transit. Since light rail is being built and used in over 80 cities worldwide (and more every year), we have an opportunity to improve options for more of our city without incurring greater cost and more delays.
In the case of Sheppard East, CodeRedTO endorses the smart transit option: LRT.
On January 12, CodeRedTO’s Executive Director Cameron MacLeod was a guest on Edward Keenan’s radio show on NewsTalk1010, discussing the hypothetical idea of replacing streetcars on King and Queen streets with new articulated buses.
The theory behind this oft-floated but never-costed idea is to help traffic move, but the positioning is invariably that of a driver ‘stuck behind a streetcar’. Little attention is paid to the many residents on that streetcar who also wish to travel somewhere and have just as much right to do so. It’s key that improvements help people travel more efficiently, not that cars necessarily travel more efficiently, as the average car in Toronto carries just 1.1 people, according to a previous Chair of the TTC. This means that old rusty streetcar could be carrying nearly 120 cars worth of traffic!
Capacity is the big issue with this idea: King and Queen combined carry over 100,000 riders per day – more than double the Sheppard subway, and more than the entire GO Transit bus network combined. Any change needs to take into account how those thousands of riders will get where they’re going.
We calculated that to replace the King and Queen streetcars would require a purchase of up to 185 articulated buses just to maintain the capacity the TTC has scheduled, not provide any increase. That would mean a capital cost of $174M to purchase the articulated buses, and additional driver salaries of up to $8.2M per year – a significant outlay for a transit system that for several years has ‘robbed Peter to pay Paul’ in its operating budget, and and is facing a multi-billion-dollar shortage of capital funding in just the next 10 years.
Other costs would be required as well: fuel for these vehicles versus electricity costs for the streetcars, a new garage to store these vehicles, new maintenance and cleaning staff to keep the buses running, and more. Never mind the cost to cancel or redirect the current $1.2B contract for 204 new accessible low-floor streetcars, which the TTC is hoping to expand by 60 more to help upgrade capacity across the network.
Even should the costs concerns be waved away, buses would encounter many of the same challenges as streetcars in the crowded and busy King and Queen corridors: blocked lanes due to left turns, parking, taxis, and delivery trucks; bunching due to route management issues or disruptions; blocking other traffic by leaving their “tail” sticking into the left lane as they weave around parked cars, etc. These issues can and should be addressed regardless of the type of vehicle being used on a specific street.
There’s a legitimate conversation to have about transit modes, technologies, and where each one fits best. But simply swapping out one type for another lower-capacity option is very expensive, and does not address the underlying issues.
Data and Sources:
CodeRedTO recently gathered data to compare the capacity of each type of vehicle in the TTC fleet, including the new low-floow streetcars entering service this summer. Click below, or click here for the Excel spreadsheet if you’d like a copy.
On January 12th’s radio show, one caller disagreed with our capacity and cost numbers, so source links are included in the above spreadsheet for all capacity numbers. For costs:
#CodeRedTO takes your questions and finds answers! This month: To widen the road and maintain two lanes of traffic in both directions, is land required for the Sheppard East LRT from any Cemeteries?
We spoke to both the TTC and Metrolinx, and here’s their response:
At this time, land is not required from any cemeteries for the widening of Sheppard Ave East. For example, at the cemetery at Knox United, the line has been designed to veer slightly to the south so that it minimizes any impact to the church property. There will still be enough room on the north side of Sheppard, east of Midland Ave to have a sidewalk and maintain the church property. This is a very historic part of Scarborough and it will be treated with great sensitivity. Here is a slide that depicts the alignment at Midland Ave and Sheppard Ave East (from Sept 2010)
Got a question you can’t find the answer to? Email info@CodeRedTO.com or find us on Twitter at @CodeRedTO!
#CodeRedTO takes your questions and finds answers! This month: Will EMS vehicles have the ability to travel at full speed down the transit right-of-way after the Sheppard East LRT is constructed? (is the curb height confirmed and location of curb cuts for EMS and Fire to access the ROW?)
We spoke to both the TTC and Metrolinx, and here’s their response:
EMS vehicles will have access to utilize the Sheppard East LRT ROW when needed. Speed limitations, curb heights and the location of curb cuts will be determined during the detailed design phase.
Got a question you can’t find the answer to? Email info@CodeRedTO.com or find us on Twitter at @CodeRedTO!
#CodeRedTO takes your questions and finds answers! This month: Will there be a designated pick up and drop off area provided at Midland Station and/or McCowan Station when the SRT is rebuilt?
We spoke to both the TTC and Metrolinx, and here’s their response:
The current plan for the SRT conversion does not include adding a passenger pick up/drop off area at Midland or McCowan Stations. However, as part of the conversion plan, all of the SRT stations will be built to have an accessible entrance. Other passenger pick up/drop off areas will be improved or added as part of the plan. The existing Kennedy Station passenger pick-up and drop off area will be modified and/or relocated as part of the station improvements. Also, the new Sheppard East station, near Progress, proposes to have a bus terminal and passenger pick up/drop off facilities.
Got a question you can’t find the answer to? Email info@CodeRedTO.com or find us on Twitter at @CodeRedTO!