The TTC's Recent Infusion of Rationality

The TTC has made some decisions lately that, for lack of a better way of saying it, actually make sense. Many of you know that I was never really a fan of Transit City. It had some pretty serious flaws that in my mind were never really addressed. The lack of increased capacity heading into downtown, the transfer at Kennedy, the stupidity that is the Sheppard East LRT, etc. Been there, explained that, and I had accepted that, despite the seeming lack of rationality behind these lines, that they would in fact be built, so I better get used to them.

The TTC has made some announcements recently, however. Some that are pretty small, and one that’s really big. They do have one thing in common though: they make sense. Let me start with the small things.

Eglinton LRT: Keele to Jane

The TTC’s original design for this section of the LRT was, needless to say, dumb. It needlessly restricted the capacity of the Eglinton-Black Creek intersection by having an LRT run through the middle of it. It also created a very inconvenient future transfer location between the LRT and any future GO service running along the Georgetown corridor. Definitely not ideal.

So it was announced recently that the TTC was reconfiguring this portion of the line. It’s going elevated above the Eglinton-Black Creek intersection, and underground, with a new station location, around Weston Rd and the Georgetown Corridor. Traffic interference with the intersection is no longer an issue, and the potential for an easy transfer now exists.

Well, that was easy.

Eglinton LRT: West Extension

While at the meeting, one of my fellow transit enthusiasts asked the Planners a question about using the Richview corridor for the west extension. Normally, the answer to this was an outright “no”. Now however, they seem more inclined to examine it.

The Richview corridor, for those who don’t know, is the corridor immediately north of Eglinton Ave West. It was reserved in the 50s for a future expressway that was never built. I, and many others, believe it is perfectly suitable for LRT because a wide variety of configurations can exist within the corridor (elevated, at-grade, trenched), none of them requiring the complete dismantling of Eglinton West, which is what was proposed initially in Transit City.

Ottawa is having a similar debate right now over whether or not to use the Richmond-Byron corridor for its Western LRT extension (Richmond-Byron was a dedicated streetcar right-of-way until the 1960s). It’s there. Use it!

OneCity

This is a big one. Not going to lie, this one caught me completely by surprise. It’s not every day that a major city reveals it’s going to go with a completely new Transit Master Plan (well, not usually. It seemed during the transit debate in February that there was a new one popping up every couple of days).

OneCity, in my view, is Revolutionarily Evolutionary. Now, what the hell does that mean? Let me explain it. It’s evolutionary because it is very much the natural successor to Transit City. It addresses some of the major flaws that Transit City has, while at the same time taking the next step forward.

What is revolutionary about it, however, is it’s one of the few transit plans that Toronto has had that didn’t rip the old one to shreds in favour of the new one. When Transit City was introduced, the old Transit Master Plan was pretty much tossed on the trash heap. Sheppard Subway? Nah, we’ll do an LRT nearly out to the zoo that’ll take 40 minutes to ride instead, even though the corridor only really needs BRT east of Victoria Park.

Transit City, for better or for worse, is largely intact inside of this new plan. The one exception is the SRT refurbishment and extension, which is replaced with an extension of the Bloor-Danforth Subway to Sheppard, hitting STC along the way. This means that, while the debating, studying, and financing of this new plan is going on, work can continue on the Eglinton, Finch West, and Sheppard East LRTs. No reset button needed.

What this plan does though that all others before it (except Network 2011) failed to do is to address the capacity concerns heading into downtown. This plan does it, through a rebranded Downtown Relief Line, DRL, which in this plan is referred to as the Don Mills Subway (not keen on the name, but I can see why).

(Source: Toronto Star)

Overall, I do have some minor nitpicks with the plan:

-The DRL should go at least to University, not Yonge, in order to cut through the CBD, and take pressure off the Yonge line.

-The Scarborough and Etobicoke Express lines should be under the jurisdiction of GO, not the TTC.

-The Wilson BRT should run until at least Jane.

But, in the grand scheme of things, these are relatively minor things, that will hopefully be ironed out through more detailed studies and public consultations. The fact that the only faults that I can come up with for this plan (at least as far as the lines themselves go) are nitpicks, tells me that this is a very good plan.

The funding scheme for it is also very interesting. Basically, what they are going to do is ask the Province to change the rules to allow the City to capture 40% of the increase in the property values in yearly property tax assessments, amounting to $180 per year per household, generating $272 million/year.

It won’t cover the whole thing, but if the standard 1/3rd City/Province/Federal funding arrangements continue, it could very well cover most of the City’s portion. And if Metrolinx releases a good funding sources plan, that’ll leave only the Feds without a permanent funding arrangement.

Final Thoughts

Overall, OneCity is a good plan. It fixes a lot of the mistakes from Transit City, it takes the next step in terms of transit expansion, and more importantly it actually proposes a method to pay for some of it.

The political maneuvering over the next couple of months will definitely be interesting to watch. Either way, Rob Ford is going to look bad in this. He either votes for increased taxes, or he votes against subways. Unless he pulls of a very skilled political maneuver, it won’t be pretty for him.

The two most important parts of this plan that aren’t already underway are the Bloor-Danforth Subway Extension and the Don Mills Subway. If these two can rise to the top of the heap, we’ll be in a very good position going forward.


EDIT: For those of you who want even more detail, the presentation was just released: http://onecitytoronto.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/onecity-final-presentation-print2.pdf

NHL Realignment: My Options

There has been a lot of talk lately about NHL realignment. Some options simple, some options more complex. Let me detail to you what I think realignment should look like, both in the short term and the long term.

Both timeframes are based on the same basic principle, which is why I think it's a good model. Make the big changes now, so that when teams are moved or added (or subtracted), it will make slipping them in, out, or around a lot easier.

Short Term

The first option uses only existing teams. It uses the 4 Conference model. It would be as follows:

Great Lakes Conference

Montreal Canadiens

Ottawa Senators

Toronto Maple Leafs

Buffalo Sabres

Philadelphia Flyers

Pittsburgh Penguins

Columbus Blue Jackets

Atlantic Conference

Boston Bruins

New York Rangers

New York Islanders

New Jersey Devils

Washington Capitals

Carolina Hurricanes

Florida Panthers

Tampa Bay Lightning

Midwest Conference

Detroit Red Wings

Chicago Blackhawks

Minnesota Wild

St. Louis Blues

Winnipeg Jets

Nashville Predators

Dallas Stars

Colorado Avalanche

Pacific Conference

Edmonton Oilers

Calgary Flames

Vancouver Canucks

San Jose Sharks

Los Angeles Kings

Anaheim Ducks

Phoenix Coyotes

Some of the alignment choices may seem a bit weird now, but they'll make sense in a minute. The other thing that is a bit weird with this type of alignment right now is that some conferences have 7 teams, while others have 8. That can be temporarily solved with the introduction of a cross-over (i.e. if the 5th place team in the Atlantic Conference has more points than the 4th place team in the Great Lakes Conference, then they get the spot instead). Not ideal, but it'll work. Ideally, the top 4 teams in each conference would make the playoffs, where they would play each other in the 1st two rounds.

Long Term

The reality is that at least one of the current teams (looking at you, Phoenix) is only a matter of time before they pick up and move. The most logical place at this time is Quebec City, mainly because they're the only ones with significant interest, and who also have an NHL-sized rink on the way. The model below assumes that Phoenix moves to Quebec City in the next couple of years.

Realistically speaking, the NHL has 5 potential markets it can expand to: Seattle/Portland, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Hamilton/Kitchener, Quebec City. The Atlantic Coast isn't getting any more teams, neither is the southeast (Jacksonville and New Orleans aren't exactly high on the list right now).

This leads to a readjusted model which slots 2 potential expansion teams into the mix, and has Quebec City added (formerly Phoenix).

Great Lakes Conference

Quebec City

Montreal Canadiens

Ottawa Senators

Toronto Maple Leafs

Buffalo Sabres

Philadelphia Flyers

Pittsburgh Penguins

Hamilton/Kitchener

Atlantic Conference

Boston Bruins

New York Rangers

New York Islanders

New Jersey Devils

Washington Capitals

Carolina Hurricanes

Florida Panthers

Tampa Bay Lightning

Midwest Conference

Detroit Red Wings

Columbus Blue Jackets

Chicago Blackhawks

Minnesota Wild

St. Louis Blues

Winnipeg Jets

Nashville Predators

Dallas Stars

Pacific Conference

Edmonton Oilers

Calgary Flames

Vancouver Canucks

Colorado Avalanche

San Jose Sharks

Los Angeles Kings

Anaheim Ducks

Seattle/Portland

Under this model, the only existing teams that get tossed around a bit are Columbus and Colorado. Unfortunately, because of the shift of Phoenix, it throws everything a bit off temporarily until two extra teams get added (one in Hamilton/Kitchener, and one in Seattle/Portland). However, if either Las Vegas or Kansas City would get the team instead, Colorado would just flip back to whatever conference that new team wasn't in.

There are two really big advantages to this model over the current 2 conference system:

1) Travel: For teams like Detroit and Columbus, who are in the Eastern timezone, playing in the West is pretty tough. By creating a Midwest Conference, this assures them that all conference games will be at the very latest starting at 8pm ET. In fact, this model assures teams that no conference straddles more than two timezones, meaning no more than a 1hr difference in time.

2) Rivalries: Because the 1st two rounds of the playoffs would be played within the conference, it would create some pretty good rivalries. Let's face it, nobody really cares about a Philadelphia vs Carolina 1st round match-up, they want Pittsburgh vs Philadelphia or Calgary vs Edmonton. And because each conference would have a regular season champion, it would give some secondary bragging rights, because let's face it, right now winning the Division title means pretty much nothing.

So there's my idea for realignment, let's see if the NHL will make a bold change, or settle for a minor one.

Fantasy Map for Toronto Transit

By the Numbers: The Case for the Downtown Ottawa Transit Tunnel

It always amazes me how people can form such intense opinions about something they know so little about. After reading numerous discussions on forums like the Ottawa Citizen’s editorials, it never ceases to amaze me how people always think they know better than the people who have dedicated their lives to understanding their field, and knowing what they’re talking about.

Truthiness is all to prevalent in our society. The idea of “my opinion is just as valid as anybody else’s”, even when in reality your opinion is based on little to know actual evidence or research. Because I feel like it’s the right answer, experts be damned. I know better.

What is even scarier is that when given the information that directly proves why their “great idea” won’t work, they simply dismiss it and go on believing what they’ve always believed. It is one thing to be ignorant of the facts, but it is another to be presented with the facts, and not only choose to continue to be ignorant of them, but to refute them entirely.

The fact is that the City of Ottawa requires a downtown transit tunnel in order to maintain effective service, not only at present service levels, but also at predicted service levels in 2031. I know, a lot of people can say “those are just predictions, they may not happen” or “you can manipulate the numbers to say whatever you want to say”. This is true. However, even when the ridership forecasts were being done for the 1^st incarnation of the LRT plan, possibly one of the most deeply flawed transit plans ever conceived, the numbers clearly leaned that a tunnel would “eventually be needed”. This “eventual” they spoke of was 2031. Even for plan that didn’t call for a tunnel, the numbers still said it should have, it was the politics that said otherwise. As a result, the tunnel was excluded.

What that plan neglected to mention was that even at current service levels, the proposed at-grade LRT through downtown would have been treading water, at best. The increase in capacity would have been not nearly enough to justify the $881 million price tag, especially considering that the ridership numbers warranted a substantial portion of the system being replaced less than 20 years after opening.

Without getting too technical, let me break the numbers down for you. The “comfortable” capacity of the a single LRV (Light Rail Vehicle) that the City will be purchasing is 150 people (practical load). The “crush load” (the point where you physically cannot cram another person onto it) is 200 people. The current ridership is 10,500 passengers per hour per direction in peak hour (pphpd). The accepted forecast for 2031 is 20,000 pphpd. The generally accepted minimum headway in a tunnel is about 90 seconds using ATC (Automatic Train Control), however this number can be brought down slightly if signalling is done properly. To run smooth at-grade service, minimum headway is about 2 minutes, with anything less leading to the possibility of bunching along the line, particularly at red lights.

The numbers break down like this; at-grade can safely run no more than a tripled vehicle, due to stopping times, etc. This effectively limits the capacity of a single train at 450 people, or 600 crush load. None of the proposed Transit City routes (Toronto’s LRT Plan) propose running 4-car LRT trains, except for along the central portion of Eglinton, which will be an LRT tunnel. All the rest of the Transit City lines propose using paired vehicles. The only comparative example of a city that uses 3-car LRT through its core is Calgary, and the system operates through a transit mall, not in a dedicated lane like was proposed in Ottawa. As a result, I have used 2-car LRT estimates for the analysis, as that is what was initially proposed for Ottawa (and what is used on most other in-median LRT systems around the world). This limits the capacity of a single trainset to 300 people for practial load, and 400 people for crush load.

In order to meet current demand, the required headway would be 1 min 43 sec for practical load, and 2 min 10 sec for crush load. Even with the current ridership, it would be a challenge to deliver smooth LRT service, given that the trains would need to be run at headways around 2 minutes.

When the numbers are crunched for the predicted demand of 20,000 pphpd, at-grade becomes even less attractive, if even possible. Assuming a practical load of 300 people, in order to meet demand the headway would need to be 54 sec, or 1 min 12 sec for crush load. This headway is nearly impossible to maintain with the at-grade scenario that was proposed in the 1^st LRT plan. The headway for practical is half of what can be reasonably accommodated without running the risk of bunching.

However, if the line were to be grade-separated, the length of each trainset is not limited to what is safe by on-street standards. The stations on the system are being built to accommodate 6-car trainsets, although 4-car trainsets are being proposed on launch.

Keeping in mind that minimum effective headway in a tunnel is around 90 seconds, the current ridership combined with a capacity of 600 passengers per trainset (150 x 4 LRVs) is 3 min 34 sec at practical, and 4 min 32 sec at crush. This is roughly the same headway that the Sheppard Subway in Toronto (the only subway line in Toronto to use 4-car trainsets) operates at during peak periods.

When the projected ridership is examined, it would result in headways of 1 min 48 sec for practical load, and 2 min 24 sec for crush load. At this point, 6-car trainsets may be warranted, increasing headways to 2 min 42 sec for practical, and 3 min 42 sec for crush.

So, as one can clearly see, the numbers simply don’t work for an at-grade system through downtown, at least not in the configuration that was proposed. The math to get to these numbers was not difficult, a 5^th grader can do it (ridership per hour / per trainset capacity = number of trainsets required per hour).

So when you see somebody make the claim “the tunnel isn’t needed”, ask them how they arrived at that conclusion, and if they have run the numbers for themselves. Chances are their conclusion is based on either truthiness or a decided bias against transit, as opposed to simple arithmetic.