[Monarch Butterfly]

It should be noted the major cost in any public transit route is the employee. The streetcar carries more people than a bus, and the planned low-floor light rail vehicles will carry even more people than our current streetcars.

 

[Glen]

Completely, 100% false.

Searching for a citiation, I find that you, Glen, made this same claim on the Spacing blog a year ago and were corrected on it. But yet you continue making this claim... odd.

Anyway, here's a quote: "transit ridership on [510 Spadina] has risen by about 30 per cent, swelling from 32,000 riders daily to 43,000." -Toronto Star

Your googling sucks, or your scroll wheel is broken!Here is the comment;

Sean,

Now I remember why I am questioning the figures. It was the result of a Globe and Mail report that found……..

We found that:

• Instead of living up to pre-construction reports that streetcars on dedicated lanes would cut travel time from Bloor Street to Queen’s Quay by 5½ minutes — the environmental assessment boasted of up to 10 minutes in savings — the 510 appears to take longer than the buses that plied the route from 1948 to 1997. A TTC document obtained last month says the trip takes one minute longer in the afternoon rush hour than in 1990. Data on historical and current transfers indicate a 17-minute bus trip in 1993 now takes 19 minutes by streetcar.

• The 510 may be the slowest of all routes between the Bloor-Danforth and Queen Street. Travel times on TTC transfers put Bloor-to-Queen trips at 12 minutes on Spadina, 8 minutes on Bathurst and 10 minutes on other routes.

• The TTC says ridership on Spadina is up 30 per cent since 1997, the year the line opened. But when compared with 1992, the last year before construction tore up the street and cut into ridership, Spadina appears to be down 1.5 per cent, while overall TTC ridership is up about 3.4 per cent.

• TTC cost-to-revenue ratio lists show the Spadina and Harbourfront lines (now considered one for accounting purposes) have plunged to 35th-best among the TTC’s 132 surface routes. In 1997, they were No. 1 and No. 9, respectively, with the Spadina bus one of only seven routes turning a profit.

reproduced here…..
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=210484

Care to point out where it was rebuffed?

 

[lordmandeep]

TTC cost-to-revenue ratio lists show the Spadina and Harbourfront lines (now considered one for accounting purposes) have plunged to 35th-best among the TTC’s 132 surface routes. In 1997, they were No. 1 and No. 9, respectively, with the Spadina bus one of only seven routes turning a profit.

Wow ^^

However it may be due to the fact a lot of bus routes have become much much more busier especially outside the core.

 

[taal]

Yes I very much think that's the case.

And from what we can tell ridership has increased on Spadina?

So what's the big deal here? LRT technology more costly then buses?

 

[jamesbow]

Your googling sucks, or your scroll wheel is broken!Here is the comment;

Care to point out where it was rebuffed?

A few places, actually. There's here:

http://transit.toronto.on.ca/archives/weblog/2005/05/07-spadina_no.shtml

"Stephen Wickens cites anecdotal evidence to suggest that the Spadina streetcar line is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

"Some of the issues he raises are tenuous. He relies on the reported travel times of transfers to suggest that the Bathurst streetcar runs to Queen faster than Spadina. The Bathurst transfer hasn’t been changed since at least 1966, so it’s doubtful that this information is accurate. But he has a point that Spadina may be a victim of its own success. A Kensington Market resident explains that he takes Bathurst instead of Spadina to avoid the crowds at Spadina station. Ridership on the Bathurst streetcar has fallen slightly since the Spadina streetcar replaced the buses operating on the street."

Just looking at the report, you can see that it's flawed in terms of its evidence, citing as it does TTC transfers. It's sort of silly to compare the new transfer of 510 Spadina with the transfer of 511 Bathurst when the latter hasn't been altered since 1966. He could have looked at actual scheduling which shows that travel times on Bathurst is longer than what the transfers say it is, but he chose not to.

In short, the reporter clearly had an axe to grind, and his report loses a lot of credibility because of it.

That isn't to say that the Spadina line couldn't be improved. The fact that transit priority signals remain turned off on this line is an outrage, but it's the fault of the Toronto Roads Department stonewalling the desire of elected officials, and not the TTC.

...James

 

[Glen]

James,

Firstly CDL.TO stated that I ignored being rebuffed in that very thread. Secondly your posting also ignores what I reiterated from the Globe. Mainly that Spadina readership was higher in 1992 than now (or at least the time of the article). You regurgitated the cherry picked TTC stats.

If you have the data would you like to provide ridership figures and links for Spadina 77 1990-1992 and 2004-2007 Spadina 510?

BTW Spadina 77 could have been made to run faster by removing stops, as suggested for the LRT.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Glen:

Interestingly, you also mentioned that everytime you checked out the 510, both the vehicle and the stations are empty. How did your attempt to reconfirm that observation go?

AoD

 

[EnviroTO]

What? The 510 is full almost all the time. Getting on from Union things aren't as bad since most people clear out of the vehicle at the first few stops, but from Spadina I usually wait for a second streetcar before boarding because otherwise you end up standing until Dundas. I have a hard time believing anyone who thinks the days of 77 Spadina fishbowls bouncing up and down over chaotic street conditions (lack of lines, poor street surface conditions, and navigating cars involved in street parking nighmares) is better than what exists now by any measure that matters to riders. Spadina still stinks as far as being "rapid" transit but it is far better than what was there before.

 

[Glen]

Glen:

Interestingly, you also mentioned that everytime you checked out the 510, both the vehicle and the stations are empty. How did your attempt to reconfirm that observation go?

AoD

I did not mention the stations, but yes, I did the trains. Informal eyeballing, showed good peak utilization but poor off peak. On the few occasions in which I observed off peak, the average number of passengers looked to be ~10-12. These were taken mid morning and early afternoon. More for shits and giggles than anything worthy of drawing any conclusions from.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I did not mention the stations, but yes, I did the trains.

Posted on Spacing Wire, Feb. 11th 2008

Sean,

Are you sure this comment……..?

Spadina is now much more reliable and carries a many more people than the old 77 Spadina bus, but it isn’t a true LRT line either, closer to the local streetcar service that Torontonians are familiar with.

The old 77 route was always packed and there were buses nearly every minute. By comparison the Spadina LRT looks empty whenever I see it. Not just the trains but the stops also. IIRC correctly the old 77 route was one of only two surface routes that generated positive cash flow. I have a suspicion that perhaps the TTC has cherry picked some numbers to justify it existence.

And for the Spadina LRT lovers…….
http://southofsteeles.blogspot.com/2008/02/steve-munros-heaven-or-hell.html

Comment by Glen
February 11, 2008 @ 11:25 am

Retrieved from http://spacing.ca/wire/2008/02/10/streetcars-and-light-rail-transit-torontos-next-steps/

Perhaps there IS something wrong with your scroll wheel. On the bright side, my googling skills didn't suck.

Informal eyeballing, showed good peak utilization but poor off peak. On the few occasions in which I observed off peak, the average number of passengers looked to be ~10-12. These were taken mid morning and early afternoon. More for shits and giggles than anything worthy of drawing any conclusions from.

Which is no different from any other transit line, and certainly not different from back when it was 77 Spadina (unless somehow miraculously people decided to ride on buses and not streetcars during off peak). "Always" packed, you say?

Well, I thought I might check out what you think, since you clearly thought your observation was important enough to put forth as an argument for the right conclusion. Good to find out that things weren't as empty and underutilized as I first thought.

AoD

 

[Glen]

Posted on Spacing Wire, Feb. 11th 2008



Retrieved from http://spacing.ca/wire/2008/02/10/streetcars-and-light-rail-transit-torontos-next-steps/

Perhaps there IS something wrong with your scroll wheel. On the bright side, my googling skills didn't suck.

Good googling but poor understanding AoD. Stops are not stations.

Which is no different from any other transit line, and certainly not different from back when it was 77 Spadina (unless somehow miraculously people decided to ride on buses and not streetcars during off peak). "Always" packed, you say?

Of course peak periods are busier, hence the name. The observation and my own personal experience. The 77 was nearly always busy throughout the day.

I am confused by your "unless somehow miraculously people decided to ride on buses and not streetcars during off peak" comment. There was no concurrent bus and streetcar service.

What similar peak usage and reduced off peak usage might indicate is less discretionary demand.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Glen:

And I thought you'd be smart enough to avoid getting stuck on a change the use of phrase to get all hung up on semantics. So, let me rephrase just so that you can get the question - are the stops empty every time you looked then? Or the streetcars? Not 10, 12...but empty.

Interestingly, the first time you insisted that all the streetcars and stops are empty, then they are just not busy during off peak hours. Change your statements much?

AoD

PS: Streetcars are NOT "trains". My poor understanding, indeed.

 

[Glen]

Glen:

And I thought you'd be smart enough to avoid getting stuck on a change the use of phrase to get all hung up on semantics. So, let me rephrase just so that you can get the question - are the stops empty every time you looked then? Or the streetcars? Not 10, 12...but empty.

You obviously missed the qualifier "By comparison" .

I will dumb it down for you;

More people used the Spadina 77 bus than do use the current LRT. The difference in ridership is more apparent during off peak periods. When Buses were on Spadina, they very seldom had fewer than 20 people on board, Even though the number of buses on Spadina was greater than the number of streetcars today.

Interestingly, the first time you insisted that all the streetcars and stops are empty, then they are just busy during off peak hours. Change your statements much?

My contentions have not changed.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

More people used the Spadina 77 bus than do use the current LRT. The difference in ridership is more apparent during off peak periods. When Buses were on Spadina, they very seldom had fewer than 20 people on board, Even though the number of buses on Spadina was greater than the number of streetcars today.

And your observation (which you have modified time and again - and contradicted by others on here and elsewhere) is suppose to constitute definitive evidence of "more people used the 77 than 510"?

AoD

 

[nfitz]

There was only about 5,000 or so less users on the Spadina streetcar in 1999 (Harbourfront was static at 6,000-7,000 from 1991 through 1996, but had grown to about 38,000 by 1999) than the Spadina bus back in 1992 (36,000). Since 1999 and the combined Spadina/Harbourfront passenger has since grown to 48,000 (the second largest on the system after King).

As it was pretty clear that in the late 1990s that the vast majority of users of the combined route were on Spadina, and we can peg the Spadina portion usage at about 31,000 in 1999, then only 5,000 of the additional 10,000 riders since that time would have to be on Spadina, for the streetcar to be now carrying more passengers than the bus, at it's 1992 peak. Based on the split of riders in the late 1990s, and obviously to anyone who uses the route, more than half the new riders are on Spadina, and therefore the streetcar is now carrying more than the bus used.

Given how much traffic downtown has increased in the last decade, I'd be surprised if the Spadina bus would even carry that many today, were it still there. Look at Ossington - it's dropped from about 31,000 in 1992 to 16,900 in 2008.