Yes, dear readers, this blog’s anniversary rolls around again and with it, a chance to contemplate the past year in Toronto’s transit.

First, a thanks to my readers. We do not always agree, but the blog stats tell me that you keep showing up. The count of articles will clock over the 3,000 mark soon, but your comments (at least the ones I have approved) are pushing 61,000.

Readers have likely noticed that articles here are getting longer, with more detail about TTC operations, service quality and finances. I hope to inform politicians, the media, transit advocates and riders in more detail than TTC management typically provides. Policy decisions can be skewed by misinformed advice.

The TTC’s financial situation is tenuous, both for day-to-day operating funds and large-scale capital projects, notably the “state of good repair” work that prevents collapse of service from an overwhelming backlog of deferred maintenance. The City of Toronto provides more than its share of operating and capital support, and this is key in the context of ridership still below the pre-pandemic level, frozen fares and rising costs. Ambitious City plans to build ridership and to completely electrify the system will not be cheap, and we have not yet had an informed debate on what this will entail.

Provincial transit support comes mainly in large-scale rapid transit projects and expansion of regional service. Opening dates for Lines 5 Eglinton and 6 Finch remain a mystery, and other projects will not carry riders until 2030 or beyond. How much these will contribute to ridership growth and shift travellers from cars to transit remains to be seen. Just building tracks and tunnels does not build transit without better service on the network overall. That sits firmly with the City which claims to want more transit ridership.

Federal support is spotty and was historically linked to specific projects. There is now a 10-year transit fund set to dole out capital from 2026 onward, but with no guarantee of actual spending surviving a potential change in government. Much of Toronto’s allocation will go to new Line 2 subway trains if only a binding contract is actually signed. The scale of proposed capital spending greatly exceeds the announced funding, and uncertainty at the federal level compromises provincial contributions linked to federal participation.

Operating funding is a challenge not just at the simple level of who pays how much, but from basic, unanswered questions about an “appropriate” level of subsidy versus fares, and the effect of a large-scale change in the amount of transit service. After years of special covid subsidies, fare freezes and lower ridership, TTC’s farebox cost recovery sits at about 42%, down from about 60% pre-pandemic. (The typically cited number is 66% or two-thirds, but roughly 6% came from ancillary revenues such as parking lot fees, advertising and subway kiosk rentals.) If Toronto opts to run substantially more service than today, who should pay for that growth?

Funding at all levels could be threatened by economic upheavals thanks to misguided, vindictive protectionism from the USA. Will Toronto face even more limits on transit spending, and how should we as a City react to them?

From time to time I am asked whether I would stand for appointment to the TTC Board, and more recently if I would consider working for them. I now even have quasi-official recognition fromCUTA for my long transit advocacy complete with a lovely glass plaque. But such a move would mark the end of this site and my ability to openly discuss transit issues. I already wear two hats in some cases. One day I might sit as a stakeholder on consultations, or have an off-the-record conversation. On another I might be a very public journalist/advocate. Keeping those worlds separate is an important part of credibility and trust.

Last year, I wrote about the blog’s early history and key issues facing transit in Toronto. Little has changed, but there are, dare I say it, early signs of a more activist, engaged Board. I have guarded hopes for the TTC with a pro-transit Mayor and supportive Council, the removal of the former CEO, and a shift among Board members to better understand the policy options available for improving transit.

A crucial choice faces the City and TTC in picking a new CEO for a combination of expertise, experience and transparency. Another member of the old boys’ club we do not need. Far too many staff were lost in recent years thanks to a combative work environment where personal loyalty counted for more than competence.

As we begin the twentieth year here, I hope to continue the debate and support those who will fight for better transit.

This morning (November 20), I was honoured by the Canadian Urban Transit Association with one of their two 2024 Excellence awards. In my case, it was for decades of transit advocacy, and my co-winner, Blaire Sylvester, won for her work transforming Norfolk County’s transit system from a fixed route to an on-demand model. You can read about the award winners and their accomplishments onCUTA’s Award Winners page.

Two other winners, both of Lifetime Achievement Awards, deserve more than a passing “hat tip” from me.

Scott Haskill, retired Chief Strategy & Customer Officer at TTC, had a long career born of an interest not unlike mine riding the transit system with his father. Through decades of changing political contexts, Scott was always a professional, honest and open, to the degree he could be, when talking about transit.

Ted Wickson, who died in January 2024, received the awardin memoriam. He worked in various roles at the TTC including the Advertising Department which also housed some of the TTC’s archives. Even after leaving the TTC, he provided deep knowledge of the system’s history, and co-authored a book celebrating the centennial in 2021.

One day early in his career, there was an office downsizing and clear-out. Ted had to cull through thousands of glass-plate negatives to decide which the TTC would keep, and which would be discarded. Several fans descended to rescue items the TTC did not want and provide them a new home. The remaining TTC collection is now in the Toronto Archives, and Ted changed the way the TTC looked at the importance of historical material.

(Thesubway station design paintings by Sigmund Serafin were among the rescued items, and they stayed in my care for decades until going to the Archives.)

All three of us, and many others in transit management, are unrepentant “fans” of public transit. Less complementary terms we hear include things like “trolley jolly” and “foamer”, and not a few suggestions that we can be ignored because of our monomania. (A recent thread on Facebook had a particularly nasty example of this which I will not repeat.)

Yes, some of us can be obsessive about bus numbering, or fantasy maps, or other arcana, but I can think of many areas (sports, motor cars, plants, Broadway musicals) with equivalently detail-oriented folks who are not ridiculed for their knowledge. In each case, the issue is notwhat you know buthow you use that walking encyclopedia.

People with long, deep memories can be troublesome for so-called professionals. In some transit circles (you know who you are) a common “communications” technique is to co-opt people as cheerleaders. “You love transit so you must love our project.” When that does not work, turn to ridicule and gaslighting. “You’re the only person who isn’t on board.” I hate to break the news, but it is not my job, nor that of any community group, to provide cover for bad planning and management, and especially not for incompetence.

When I started this blog back in 2006, one goal was to provide an alternative, detailed view of transit issues in Toronto beyond the level local media would cover. (There still were local media then, although the decline had set in.) There was a growing interest in all things urban, how cities worked, and how Toronto could be a better place. I have watched a generation of urban activists grow up, and I hope to have contributed to their knowledge of transit’s role and possibilities.

In turn, I have learned a lot listening to all those voices, and my own voice is less lonely today. Toronto is a better place for all of them, for that critical mass of activists.

Sitting here with my nice glass plaque, I think back over a lot of Toronto history, good transit years, and some that were horrid. But they should not be forgotten. Some of the pitfalls of the 1990-95 recession resurfaced only recently in the pandemic’s aftermath and the revelation that TTC maintenance was not quite up to scratch. Political cycles when we try to just “get by” can be catastrophic, although the effects are not immediately obvious.

There is a continued need for transit advocacy, holding management and political feet to the fire. I look forward to seeing the work of new generations who may, in time, get their own awards.

Postscript:

Personal thanks to Chris Prentice for my nomination to this award, and to Andy Byford who provided a glowing letter of endorsement.

Over the past weekend, the count of approved comments on this site topped 60K! That’s all thanks to the many readers who add their two cents, and often a lot more, to the articles I write.

Sometimes we agree, sometimes not. The conversation and the additional info adds to the articles, and that’s a valuable part of this blog.

To all of you who chime in regularly or rarely, thanks for participating. It tells me that “out there” are readers who care about public transit.

January 31, 2006 saw the first post on this blog, a compendium of film festival reviews I wrote going back to the dark ages of 1986 on another platform, the long-departed “Artworks” BBS. Many readers will recall text-based systems and the whine of 2400-baud dial-up modems connecting us to the outside world.

Among other films in that 1986 batch were Spike Lee’sShe’s Gotta Have It, Itami’sTampopo which brought new meaning to the term “spaghetti western”, and David Lynch’sBlue Velvet. (Try to imagine seeing that film for the first time when nobody in the audience knew what to expect.) There was also a little film calledMalcolm about a reclusive lad who had an inordinate fascination with Melbourne’s trams.

I stopped doing reviews years ago because major political events kept getting in the way, and more recently I prefer to see films on a more leisurely basis without the lineups. Toronto’s cultural scene has been through many ups and downs over the years, but the reps survive somehow, and even the gorilla on King Street, TIFF, hopes to weather the combined effects of the pandemic, film industry strikes, and the fall in tourism. There’s enough to keep me out and about (now that we can be out and about again) on many evenings and quite a few matinees.

The second post went up on Groundhog Day 2006,A Bold Initiative for Don Valley Transport with a plan for Swan Boats, the product of much 2am hilarity with a dear friend. Newcomers to the scene ask about my Twitter/X handle. If only they knew. Fantasy transit maps have nothing on our imagination!

At the risk ofreally dating myself, 2023 was the 60th anniversary of my first non-trivial computer programming. It was on anLGP-30 that was on loan to the Toronto Board of Education for enrichment classes. My program was a random sentence generator that would spit out grammatically correct, albeit totally nonsense text. This was not on a par with teaching HAL to sing, but it gave me a healthy suspicion of the claims for AI when that field started years later.

2023 brought departures of friends and transit colleagues, not uncommon for someone of my generation, and they are much missed. But there is much new blood with a strong interest in making a better city. A particular strength is that transit activism is now city-wide and cannot be dismissed as the preserve of downtowners and railfans.

Some users have encountered a login challenge when attempting to comment on articles here. This does not affect everyone as comments are still being received, and it appears to be a Word Press bug.

More info when it is fixed.

Here we are again at this blog’s anniversary. Looking back over the past year, let alone ahead to the next one, I regret that I amnot in an up-beat, optimistic mood.

A year ago, I wrote:

In Ontario, there is hope that opposition will coalesce to drive the Premier and his band of incompetent fools from office. Whether we will get a new band of fools remains to be seen, but a Toronto, an Ontario in which nobody named “Ford” has any power is long overdue. Simplistic, populist slogans and dogma are no replacement for competent, dare I say, inspiring government.

This year I really do want to look forward, even with some misgivings on the social and political landscape.

The NDP and Liberal opposition did not manage to seize power, and won’t even have a shot at this until 2026. Meanwhile, we are stuck with Doug Ford and his gang of rogues who will sell off the province to their pals. Between rhetoric for the cameras, and legislation working against any interest that does not contribute to his party, Ford’s reign brings fresh disasters at every turn.

If there were a credible alternate view at the municipal level, I might hope at least for some balance, an alternate voice, but Mayor Tory continues to focus on doing whatever he can to cheapen Toronto. Some effects are not immediately visible, but they are cumulative. The City’s ability to be great, to inspire citizens to hope for more, drifts further and further out of reach.

Both “leaders” share a common problem: their egos and their dislike of criticism or opposition. They are right and everyone else is wrong, part of a rabble opposition who can be dismissed, if need be by legislative fiat.

On the transit front, their respective agencies echo this stance. Metrolinx and the TTC are run by CEOs who want things their way, and who answer, if that is the word, to boards utterly unwilling to challenge their rule (or under marching orders to shut up and vote the right way).

Without question, three years of the pandemic have stretched every agency thin. The lights stay on, flickering, only by infusion of special subsidies that already wane and could disappear within one fiscal year. That environment gave management a chance to take more power from their boards who, especially at the TTC, had many other problems as Councillors. That power will not likely be clawed back and delegated authority will be the “new normal”.

Over five decades, I’ve had a hand in many of the issues described here, but I didn’t want this piece to give the impression of a one-man band. Many people contributed along the way including other activists, media, politicians, and professional staff within various agencies and consultants. My thanks to them all for being part of this journey.

Updated October 17 at 12:25 pm: Corrected opening date of Spadina streetcar (oops!)

When I was very young, I liked streetcars. A lot. Trains were OK, but streetcars were the genuine article. My Dad and I would go for rides around Toronto on most weekends exploring where all the lines went. Through him I got to know the world beyond Mount Pleasant and Eglinton and the loop where my local streetcar line ended.

I’m willing to bet that a lot of “transit advocates” and their equivalents in subways, buses and the mainline railways got their start that way. As such, I’m proud to be called a “railfan”, but not the pejorative term “trolley jolley” concocted by the anti-streetcar elements of the transit industry.

Roll forward to 1971. Toronto was a hotbed of citizen activism with the big focus of the Spadina Expressway, a road that would tear through downtown and provide the justification for even more destruction including the Crosstown, Scarborough and 400 South Expressways, not to mention conversion of local streets like Dundas and Front to serve as arterials through the core. This was an era when fighting City Hall was very much part of the body politic, and this was the context for my entry into transit activism.

The TTC planned to dismantle the streetcar system line-by-line up to 1980 when, yes, the Queen Subway would take over the heavy lifting of getting people into the business district and the streetcars would disappear.

TTC held on to its streetcars longer than most cities by buying up used vehicles as others disposed of them, often under the influence of a cabal of bus-gasoline-tire companies more than happy to finance the conversion. Streetcars came to Toronto from Cincinnati, Cleveland, Louisville (almost brand new, those), Birmingham and Kansas City. But the policy of streetcar abandonment had been in place for years, and the early 70s were to see the first lines go – St. Clair, Earlscourt and Rogers Road.

What would replace them? Trolleybuses. With the opening of the Yonge Subway north to York Mills Station, the TTC no longer needed a very frequent trolleybus service between Glen Echo Loop and Eglinton Station, itself a remnant of the Yonge streetcars that disappeared with the original subway in 1954.

Although this might have been the beginning of the end, the TTC made a crucial mistake: the level of service they planned for St. Clair was sized to the available trolleybus fleet, not to the existing capacity of the streetcar lines. In that era the peak service between Yonge and Oakwood ran every 60 seconds, and this was not a trivial route for service cuts.

The summer of 1972 saw the birth of the Streetcars for Toronto Committee under the leadership of Professor Andy Biemiller with political support from Aldermen (as they were then called) Paul Pickett and William Kilbourn. Later, Mayor David Crombie’s office lent support.

By October, the Committee was issuing press releases, making deputations and gaining political support from City Council. On November 7, 1972, the TTC board voted to reverse management’s position and to retain most of the streetcar system. The only exception would be the Rogers Road car that operated outside of the old City in York (a remnant of York Township Railways), and later the service on Mount Pleasant (a victim of bridge reconstruction at the Belt Line Railway).

This was not just a fight to save one car line, but for streetcars as the backbone of the old City of Toronto’s transit network, and as a basis for expansion into the suburbs, something the TTC had planned in the late 1960s.

Here are some of the Streetcars for Toronto Committee members at the TTC Board meeting.

From the left along the wall: the late Mike Filey and John Bromley, Chris Prentice, Steve Munro, Professor Andrew Biemiller and Alderman William Kilbourn. In the foreground at the table are Commissioner Gordon Hurlburt and Pat Paterson, General Manager of Engineering.

Not shown: Howard Levine, Robert Wightman, Ros Bobak.

In those days, the estimated cost of a new streetcar was quite low, and the TTC had already been working with Hawker-Siddeley (then proprietors of the Thunder Bay plant now owned by Alstom) on a design for an updated streetcar. These would be used both on exiting streetcar routes, pending the Queen subway, and on suburban lines to what is now Scarborough Town Centre, across the Finch hydro corridor, southwest through Etobicoke and even with a branch to the airport.

But Queen’s Park had other ideas, and in the same month, November 1972, Premier Bill Davis announced his scheme for a network of maglev trains that would criss-cross the city and make subways obsolete. The premise was that subways were too expensive, and buses were limited in speed and capacity. The “missing link” would be “GO Urban”.

Here we are on January 30, 2022, the sixteenth birthday of this blog. We’re getting all grown up and respectable these days, at least in some quarters. I was recently referred to as “an elder” in the best sense of someone whose age and knowledge inform those who come after. This is, I think, a promotion from “guru”, or even worse, an “expert”, a common description/epithet that comes my way.

This site is not just me and my opinions, but the contributions of many to the discussions over the years. As I write this, there are over 2,500 articles and almost 56,000 comments. You have all been busy!

Back in 2005, I received the Jane Jacobs Prize as an “unsung hero” of transit advocacy, and not long afterward this blog, swans and all, was born. Many of you have been with me on that journey, and I have no plans to put down my quill.

These are not easy times. Looking back onlast year’s article, I cannot help quoting its optimistic conclusion:

With luck, we will all be back here a year from now still recovering from a wild New Year’s Bacchanal. There will be real optimism, the sense of a better future after a dark past.

Things didn’t quite work out that way, although there is hope that the imminent re-opening in Ontario will not drive us back into another dark age huddled around our electronic hearths.

I must continue that closing message from last year, one that still applies ever so strongly in an age of political opportunists for whom a world-wide disaster is nothing more than a chance to score cheap political points at the cost of thousands of lives.

We will get there through the efforts of many people in the front lines who keep the wheels turning in so many aspects of our city, people we often take for granted. We will get there thanks to a combination of technological near-miracles, belief in facts and science, and the dedication of thousands whose lives we depend on.

I remember when modern genetics began with the discovery of DNA, and later RNA, as well as more recent advances in understanding of the immune system. The thought that many of us remain in good health thanks to technology based on that knowledge is breathtaking. Anyone who downplays or naysays the accomplishment is at best a fool, at worst a menace.

In the political arena, I will be quite blunt. I have reached the point where the so-called conservatives, the neo-Trumpists, the anti-vaxxers are collectively a group for whom I have utter contempt. No quarter should be given, none, to those who in the name of “personal liberty” would imperil their neighbours. Those who yearn for political power by exploiting their support have never represented a majority in Canada and gain office only thanks to a divided opposition.

In Ontario, there is hope that opposition will coalesce to drive the Premier and his band of incompetent fools from office. Whether we will get a new band of fools remains to be seen, but a Toronto, an Ontario in which nobody named “Ford” has any power is long overdue. Simplistic, populist slogans and dogma are no replacement for competent, dare I say, inspiring government.

This year I really do want to look forward, even with some misgivings on the social and political landscape.

At a most basic level of creature comforts, it will be good to return to eating food someone else cooks in restaurants filled with equally happy visitors. Sitting in a theatre with real musicians and actors is a treat we have lost, with only a too brief respite. I long to be part of a live audience laughing, crying, applauding, even cheering (through a mask) for people I have seen only online for far too long.

Delectable though an online recipe might be, you cannot eat a picture of brunch. Like the theatre, take out is not the same, and the experience is shared only briefly with staff, not with fellow diners.

Online performances have been a blessing through these two years. They have been a way to support some of my favourite artists, but there is a siren song calling, a voice from darkened theatres where only the ghost light shines.

Everyone will have their own yearned-for experience, and I wish you all joy in getting back to favoured haunts.

The transit portfolio is only one of many that face a long, hard climb out of the economic and social chasm the pandemic created. To many it is not even a top tier issue because transit is something other people use, that only “city” or “downtown” folk care about. Even without that cultural problem, there are desperate issues in Health and Long Term Care, not to mention Education, that have a society-wide call on resources.

Within the transit realm, there is the short term problem of paying to keep service attractive while ridership recovers. The longer term challenge is to both rebuild that ridership and grow well beyond pre-pandemic demand levels. The typical “solution” involves spending lots of capital on new facilities and vehicles while ignoring the need to actually operate them to provide service.

What happens if the flow of capital dollars is reduced or redirected to other areas? Are we politically capable of talking about transit in terms that do not involve billions in new builds? Will we ever try to make what we have today work better on a large scale, not just a priority signal here and a red lane there?

What is the TTC’s plan for growth? Modest. Small scale. No plan for substantial service improvements beyond just getting back to pre-pandemic levels. This is echoed in the City’s transit budget where the goal of more service in the environmental plan is not reflected in provisions to fund the changes.

I cannot avoid talking about a key part of TTC operations: the quality of service. There have always been excuses for ragged service, and the pandemic has brought its own additions to the TTC’s repertoire including buses that nobody can see or track, and claims of reliability that are completely at odds with actual data.

Of course there are interruptions from traffic accidents, sick passengers and breakdowns, but these do not explain nor excuse rampant problems with uneven service. The TTC has standards that are not achieved, or which give an overly rosy picture at odds with daily rider experiences. Metrics descend from a scheme that basically entrenched “how we’ve always done things”, and even then the TTC does not routinely hit the mark.

We have a transit board that is loathe to meddle in operational matters, and does little to ensure that management is making the best use of system resources to provide reliable service. For that most basic function of a board, budget review and planning, there is no budget committee. The board seems happy to have new budgets drop out of the air with no policy input until the last minute when nothing can be changed until, maybe, “next year”.

This is an abdication of responsibility. If we are to take “ridership recovery” seriously, it will have to start with some real goals, clear policies about budget direction and hands-on measurements that the governance level of the TTC can trust and enforce.

Meanwhile, on the provincial level, we have Metrolinx, an agency whose arrogance has only grown under a government that wants results, now, and without debate. We are building major projects of dubious worth that will pre-empt work and funding on many other deserving undertakings for years to come. The Metrolinx board meets rarely in public, and when it does, the sessions do little more than cheer on the great works of management. Any substantive debate occurs in private.

All of our transit planning will be coloured by the work-from-home shift and the degree to which transit travel changes permanently both in place and in time. I do not subscribe to the idea that “downtown is dead”, and we really have not yet had a chance to see what its work-day population will be once people are no longer afraid to travel and to work together.

There may be a less floor space per worker with a move to hotelling, but if anything that is more of a threat to the demand for net new office space as vacancies beget move-ins. The effect will vary from place to place, but whatever the result, there will still be a demand for transit to get workers to and from jobs.

Less than half of TTC’s pre-pandemic ridership came from work trips with the rest split broadly between education, shopping, entertainment and other personal travel. As each aspect of our community reopens, those trips will re-appear even if the conventional home to King-and-Bay office trips take longer to return. Anyone who rides the TTC today can see the effect of school re-openings. Locations with concentrations of jobs that cannot be worked from home already produce regular reports of overcrowded buses.

The problem is that too much of that travel is not concentrated on a few subway lines, but is hidden away on routes where riders have little choice but to await the next convoy of buses. Politicians and especially management who downplay this problem do not deserve to be in charge of a transit system.

Many people and communities have worked as advocates for better transit among a wide variety of portfolios where the long, hard slog becomes tiring. There are little victories separated by periods of despair that real change will come.

Something critical to citizen participation has been lost over the two pandemic years: in person contact between communities and those who govern them. Tightly managed Zoom calls with pre-scripted presentations and filtered questions are no replacement for in person meetings where there is a communal sense and strength in numbers. It is easy to dismiss critics one at a time, not so easy when they come by the room full.

I end this year’s greetings in a feisty mood. Yes, we should celebrate the return of some vaguely “normal” day-to-day life to the extent it is possible, but the time for muddling through, for making do with half measures is over.

Without advocacy, nothing happens, and the fight must go on.

A happy 2022 to all my readers whether you comment profusely (sometimes at greater length than I will publish) or just lurk in the shadows watching the debate.

The last week has been quiet on this blog as I took a break from writing and spent the holiday period both enjoying the season, to the degree that was possible, and watching a lot of online concerts.

But fear not! I bring tidings of, well, not necessarily great joy, but of articles in the pipeline, something for you all to read while sitting around the internet yule log.

Yes, there will be more service analyses including:

• A few more reviews of short routes and their less than stellar service.
• A review of major bus routes in Scarborough including the short-lived express services on Kennedy and Warden.
• An update on the review of travel times on existing and proposed “red lane” corridors.

Of course it’s budget season, and I have an update on the TTC’s Capital Budget based on the presentation and discussion at their recent Board meeting. That’s waiting on feedback on some questions I posed.

City Council will have its own budget launch on January 13, and we will see just how deep a hole we are in for the coming year.

At its December meeting, Council endorsed the Net Zero 2040 plan aimed at getting the City’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions down to zero in two decades. This includes not just the municipal government and its agencies, but homeowners, businesses, drivers of all manner of vehicles and transit.

Transit makes a small direct contribution mainly through diesel exhaust, and this will decline as the bus fleet is electrified. The larger benefits lie in diversion of trips that might otherwise be taken by car. The City’s plan includes proposals for considerably more transit service, but this does not appear to have been endorsed by Council (along with other aggressive portions of the plan). There is certainly no provision in TTC capital or operating budgets for the scope of expansion required for the NZ2040 plan.

As I write this, I await replies to a series of questions posed to the City to clarify portions of their transit proposal.

With luck, this will be a year of modest recovery if the pandemic can be brought under control, but it will certainly not be a year of bold expansion, except for a few political egos tied to certain rapid transit construction projects.

At the end of January, this blog will celebrate its 16th birthday, and I will reflect on where we go from here in the anniversary article.

A happy 2022 to everyone!

Here we are at the end of January 2021. The days are getting longer. There is a vague sense of hope in the air for the spring to come not just with flowers and warmer weather, but a more civilized political climate and the beginning of the end of the Covid pandemic. That, at least, is an optimistic view.

January 30^th is this blog’s birthday. A year ago none of us had any idea of the year to come and how much the landscape would change.

Each of us has been affected in different ways. The social and economic effects will be with us for many years, not just from the disease, but from the acceleration of changes that were already well underway. The context for many debates has shifted, become more urgent, and the future of our city does not lie in “business as usual” approaches.

In Toronto, transit continues to operate at a reasonable capacity level, although not without problems, because various governments regard this as a critical service. Riders in many cities are not so lucky. Less certain is the future when special subsidies evaporate and Toronto must make hard choices about what transit we need and how much we can afford.

The shift in travel patterns puts this question in a very different context than in years past. The TTC contemplated a multi-year service plan with quite modest demand growth coupled with the opening of a few new rapid transit lines. The plan was not “aspirational”. It did not ask “how much better could transit be and how can we achieve this”.

Such an outlook is rare in Toronto’s transit planning because the starting point is always “we can’t afford it”. This in a city and province happy to commit billions to road and subway construction of dubious merit. Better bus service? Not so much.

“Better” has a new meaning in 2021, and this includes:

• The ability to board buses without fear of overcrowding.
• Reliability of service to ensure travel is not delayed.
• Coverage of service to areas beyond the classic core-area office towers.
• Provision of service for work hours beyond the classic 9-to-5 pattern.

These have always been present, but they take on extra meaning for public health. Ridership beyond the core has always existed, but transit’s big job was that peak commuting demand. With that stripped away, the shortcomings in what remains are more evident.

Demand on the TTC’s bus network fell back from about 50 per cent of “normal” to just under 40 in the last quarter of 2020, with comparable drops on other modes. Compared to pre-covid times, streetcars and subways have consistently run below the bus network because work-from-home shifts affect their service areas much more. GO Transit, whose market is almost exclusively the core area commuter, sits at 5 per cent.

In this context, the plans for massive network expansion have a surreal quality, and yet they are still discussed as if the economic crisis we now face does not exist.

From one point of view, forging ahead with plans for growth is essential if only to make up for lost time and to provide badly-needed headroom when riding returns to “normal” levels. Whether it will, and how quickly this will occur in various markets, remains to be seen.

For many years, “normal” on the TTC meant overcrowded service where cost containment took precedence over real provision for growth. That is not a condition to which we should aspire. We should aim higher.

GO Transit’s challenge is more difficult because of its narrower market. The very people that have kept the TTC busy – workers in industry and essential services – are not GO Transit’s base. Even if commuter demand returns, growth on that network is hamstrung by the entrenched park-and-ride model used as the primary “last mile” access for GO customers. Local transit might assist, but this will be compromised by auto dominance and spending priorities in regions outside of Toronto, coupled with a Provincial attitude that local transit service is not their problem.

Last year, I wrote:

There is finally a recognition at Toronto Council that transit simply cannot get by on the crumbs that so-called inflationary spending increases produce. There is a huge backlog of spending required that, for many years, the City and TTC kept hidden from view lest the borrowing it would trigger frightened passing financial analysts.

But that is only half of the problem. Surface routes both inside Toronto itself and in the GTHA beyond have long been neglected as a vital part of the transit network. We cannot move everyone everywhere on a handful of commuter rail and subway lines.

[…]

[A] bigger challenge than getting a new rapid transit line, regardless of the technology, is to get money for better service everywhere, not just on whatever new bauble we manage to open once a decade.

From:Fourteen, January 30, 2020

Every government is entering a period where there will be calls to spend for recovery, but there will be limits, some political, some financial, to how much money is really available. Toronto is lucky to have a “City Building Fund” already baked into its taxation plans for the next five years, but that would be a harder sell today now than when Council approved the scheme to fund some of the transit and housing capital shortfalls.

There is no plan for new revenue to support day-to-day operation and service. For now, the City and TTC are propped up by very large provincial and federal subsidies. These will not last forever, and they might not last through 2021. Toronto has a “plan B” to get through the year, if need be, with reserve draws and trimmed capital spending, but that is no permanent solution.

I will not attempt to foresee what awaits us later in 2021 and beyond. However, without a substantial return to transit riding as we once knew it, the momentum for continued improvement will be hard to sustain. This has a compounding effect. If people stop believing in transit as a viable way, indeed the only reasonable way we can handle travel demands on a metropolitan scale, political support for better transit could evaporate.

Changing hats from transit, and looking at my own life, 2020 was a difficult year, but not critical for me as a retiree. Many have lost incomes, or must continue to work in dangerous circumstances, while managing family needs and an uncertain future.

The Internet, for all its wealth of resources, is not the same as being at real events be they a night at the movies, a play in a theatre, or a concert in a large hall surrounded by a living, breathing audience and artists. I long to be there again when it is safe, and fervently hope that as many organizations and venues survive as possible.

The performing arts community is in a deep recession. For all the joy that they bring, they are not “essential” in most political calculus. This is only one example of how the economic landscape had changed, and is unlikely to return to “business as usual” soon. There are many more, and they are all part of the city’s economic activity and drivers of transit demand.

Where do we go from here?

Much depends on the speed with which we collectively wrestle the pandemic to a manageable level if not to extinction. Only with a renewed economy and lifting the burden of extra health and social service costs can a city like Toronto start to think beyond just getting by.

Absent a major shift in government policy, I do not expect to see much change in spending plans. Big construction projects are bound up with a lot of political ego, and are hard to alter in the best of times. Today, they are sold as essential for economic recovery. Whether they build what is the most needed is quite another matter. Digging the hole takes precedence over where and why.

For 2021, I plan to continue my dogged pursuit of service quality. The TTC has a lot to answer for in the mismanagement of service reliability and in the under-utilization of its fleet. The gap between ongoing rider complaints and sunny management tales is too persistent and too wide to be ignored.

I also do not expect much change in support for the boring-but-necessary day-to-day transit service. We will get by somehow, but any capacity increase will be consumed by latent demand.

Few will run on the slogan: “Toronto deserves better bus service”.

Toronto deserves better politicians.

With luck, we will all be back here a year from now still recovering from a wild New Year’s Bacchanal. There will be real optimism, the sense of a better future after a dark past.

We will get there through the efforts of many people in the front lines who keep the wheels turning in so many aspects of our city, people we often take for granted. We will get there thanks to a combination of technological near-miracles, belief in facts and science, and the dedication of thousands whose lives we depend on.