Category: Infrastructure

The train is returning to Timmins (sort of)

The last train left Timmins Station in 1990. Today, it serves as a bus terminal for local and Ontario Northland buses

Northeastern Ontario got an early Christmas gift from the provincial government on December 15, 2022. On that day, the province announced the purchase of three new trainsets for the restoration of passenger rail service to North Bay, Timmins, and points in between.

Prior to 1990, there were two daily trains between Toronto and Northeastern Ontario: the daytime Northlander, which ran between Toronto, North Bay, and Timmins daily except Saturdays, and the daily overnight Northland, which continued north to Cochrane and Kapuskasing, with a bus connection to Timmins.

The Northland, which was operated with VIA equipment, was cut as part of a devastating slash to VIA’s budget by the federal Progressive Conservative government. Other trains cut in 1990 included the daily train services from Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal to Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. The remaining train service between Cochrane and Northern Quebec soon followed.

The only train service left in Northern Ontario were remote services still provided by VIA Rail (the local Sudbury-White River RDC train and the transcontinental Canadian, reduced to three days a week and rerouted on the more remote CN mainline), Algoma Central between Sault Ste. Marie and Hearst, the Polar Bear Express/Little Bear service to Moosonee, and the 6 days/week Northlander service between Toronto and Cochrane, which was re-routed from Timmins (though a bus connection at Matheson was maintained).

A railway overpass, completed shortly before its abandonment, crosses Highway 101 (Algonquin Avenue) towards Downtown Timmins, with the station building in the distance. A Timmins Transit bus lays over at the terminal.

With the passenger service gone, the tracks through the urban areas of Timmins were quickly removed. The old railway right-of-way in Schumacher, a mining town just east of Downtown Timmins, became the new route of Highway 101, bypassing the old main street, hastening Schumacher’s decline. The station in Timmins was repurposed as a bus terminal for Ontario Northland and Timmins Transit.

The old route of Highway 101 through Schumacher

In 2012, the Northlander, which used refurbished former GO Transit single-deck railcars, was cut by the provincial Liberal government, citing declining ridership and high subsidies ($400 per passenger). The train also required an auxiliary power unit, as Ontario Northland used only freight locomotives.

The southbound Northlander arriving at Gravenhurst in 2012. The auxiliary power unit is immediately behind the locomotive.

The new trainsets will be the first time in generations that Ontario Northland won’t be using second-hand passenger cars. In the 1970s, Ontario Northland acquired used Trans-Europe Express (TEE) trainsets from Nederlandse Spoorwegen. Though the cars were modern by Canadian standards, the motive power proved unsatisfactory in winter weather and were replaced by older EMD FP7 engines. In 1992, the ageing TEE cars were replaced by the refurbished GO Transit cars.

Ontario Northland TEE trainset with original power unit at the far end, 1981. Photo by Barry Lewis, photo attained via Wikimedia Commons.

Like the old TEE trainsets, the new Siemens trainsets will operate in a semi-permanent configuration, with a Siemens Charger locomotive at one end and a combined passenger/control car at the other end, similar to how the new VIA Rail trains will operate. The Siemens Charger locomotives are used by several passenger services in North America, including Amtrak, Brightline, and VIA, while the Siemens Venture cars are very similar to those being delivered to VIA.

The proposed paint scheme, depicted in a government release below, evokes the old TEE paint scheme, with the modern colours used by Ontario Northland.

Rendering of the new Northlander trainsets (Ontario Government press release, 17 December 2022)

The revived Northlander service will operate between Toronto and Timmins, with a rail or bus connection to Cochrane, the southern terminal of the Polar Bear Express train to Moosonee. There will be new train stops north of Toronto at Langstaff GO Station (where there are connections to York Region Transit and frequent GO buses on the Highway 407 corridor) and Gormley, a station site with far less connectivity.

Map of the proposed Northlander service, from the Updated Business Case

The trouble, however, is the Timmins terminus. Though the new Siemens trainsets are double-ended and will not require a wye to change directions, most of the track in Timmins has been torn up. As explained earlier, the track into downtown has been partially built upon, and the current end of track is 13 kilometres to the east of central Timmins, on Highway 101 in the small community of Porcupine.

Schematic of the proposed Timmins Station and service shed from the Updated Business Case. Highway 101 is at bottom left.

This is where the new station is projected to be built.

Looking towards the end of track on Falcon Street, Porcupine

The Porcupine area has local transit service, a Timmins Transit bus that serves Schumacher, South Porcupine, and Porcupine every 30-60 minutes. The proposed station site is about the same driving distance from the city centre as Timmins Airport, which offers direct air service to Pearson and Toronto Island airports.

According to the business case, the estimated annual ridership for the restored rail service by 2041 is 39,220 to 60,110. Assuming a train in each direction, six days a week, this will mean only 63 to 96 passengers per train, the capacity of just two coach buses, at only a marginally faster speed than the existing Ontario Northland motor coach service. A significant benefit of rail over bus is the reliability in winter conditions, certainly important for Northern Ontario, bus without significant investment in the track infrastructure, it is hard to find much in the way of improvements to the intercity network as a whole. Restoration of the Northlander still does not support travel to Sudbury, the largest community in Northeastern Ontario with the most important medical centre in that part of the province.

At least the Northlander will get new, reliable equipment for once that will be easier to maintain and obtain parts for. As it is essentially the same equipment as VIA and Amtrak’s new fleets, should the Northlander fail to meet even the meagre ridership projections in the business case documents, the equipment will certainly find new use elsewhere.

I wish I could be more upbeat about the future of passenger rail in Northern Ontario, an area that deserves reliable, useful intercity transport. The purchase of new rolling equipment is a positive development, but without significant improvements to track speeds, a more convenient Timmins terminus, and a complete transport plan for the entire region that can help build train ridership and support communities elsewhere in Northern Ontario, the renewed Northlander will suffer the same fate as the last iteration.

Correction: the Cochrane-Senneterre train lasted a little bit longer past the 1990 VIA Rail cuts.

December 23, 2022
The jarring streetscape of Jarvis Street

Curb lanes closed for condominium construction have defeated the purpose of Jarvis Street’s fifth reversible lane

Over a century ago, Jarvis Street was Toronto’s most fashionable address, and home to prominent families including the Masseys, who made their wealth from the farm equipment industry, and whose names live on through Massey Hall, Hart House, the Fred Victor Mission, and Massey College. The wide boulevards allowed for lush street trees to flourish, and without streetcars, there was no need for a wide roadway, despite the generous right-of-way.

Jarvis Street looking south towards Carlton Street in the 1880s. City of Toronto Archives: Fonds 1478, Item 12.

By the 1920s, though, Jarvis was no longer fashionable, with Forest Hill, North Rosedale, and Moore Park taking its place. Many of the old mansions fell into disrepair or were converted into apartments or businesses. The street became lined with low-rise apartment buildings, budget hotels, and missions to the poor and unhoused. After the Second World War, the city government decided to extend Mount Pleasant Road south of St. Clair Avenue to Bloor and Jarvis Streets and widen Jarvis Street to accommodate the increased traffic. Along with building the Dundas Street East extension, widening Dufferin Street, and pushing through Eastern Avenue, the City of Toronto was bending to the whims of the automobile, several years before the creation of Metropolitan Toronto in 1954.

Jarvis Street looking north from Carlton Street, January 1947, just before the street trees were removed and the street widened. City of Toronto Archives, Series 372, Item 1725.

By the 1960s, Jarvis Street became the preferred address of federal institutions such as the Moss Park Armoury, the regional Unemployment Insurance offices at Dundas Street, and the brutalist Ontario headquarters for the RCMP. The provincial government expanded the old Juvenile Court with a new modernist building, and Simpsons-Sears, the predecessor of Sears Canada, built a new imposing office building at 222 Jarvis, adjacent to the Simpsons warehouse on Mutual Street.

Victorian rowhouses stand next to the brutalist RCMP building on Jarvis Street, north of Shuter Street in 1979. The RCMP building later became the home of the Grand Hotel, which installed a glass veneer over the imposing west façade. The Unemployment Insurance office, at the corner of Dundas Street appears in the far left. Both the RCMP/Grand Hotel and the UIC (later Hilton Garden Inn) building were recently demolished, but the rowhouses still stand.
Photo by Harvey R. Naylor. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1526, File 61, Item 27.

Jarvis Street was also the home of several of the CBC’s scattered radio and television studio spaces until they were consolidated at the CBC Broadcasting Centre on Front Street, and it was also the location of the first Four Seasons Hotel, when it started out as a chic motor hotel.

Jarvis Street looking south from north of Carlton Street; the Four Seasons Motor Hotel at 415 Jarvis Street and St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church are visible in the background. Note the centre lane indicator above. Creator: Skinner, Dorothea Skinner. City of Toronto Archives Fonds 492, Item 170.

By the early 1960s, Jarvis Street was reconfigured further to include a new reversible centre lane between Queen Street and Mount Pleasant Road at Charles Street. Then, as now, the centre lane was designated for southbound traffic, except during weekday afternoon rush hour, when the flow is reversed. Parking is prohibited at all times on the east side of the street, while on the west side, street parking is permitted except during the morning and afternoon peak periods. This, at least in theory, allows for two lanes of unobstructed traffic in both directions at all times, and in the rush hours, three lanes of peak-direction traffic. This, of course, depended on strict enforcement of parking and stopping prohibitions, and the lack of construction or other obstructions.

As Jarvis Street rebounded and new residential development and commercial development began to line the street between the mid-1980s and the present day, the five-lane traffic arterial layout became less suitable. In 2009, City of Toronto staff recommended, with extensive public input, that it was desirable to remove the reversible centre lane, narrow the roadway, and widen the sidewalk on the east side of the street to improve the public realm and address the needs of the thousands of new residents who were moving into the east end of Downtown Toronto. The additional space would have allowed for tree planters and wayfinding signage that would highlight the street’s history. Studies conducted by city staff found that there was no need for the fifth lane to provide adequate traffic movement along the street.

Cyclists, however, were unhappy that the road redesign did not include cycling lanes and they were able to convince council to alter its plans. As a result, in 2010, the road was not reconstructed, but the reversible lane was removed, with new painted cycle lanes on both sides of the street.

When Toronto elected Rob Ford as mayor that October, he promised an end to “the war on the car,” even inviting now-disgraced hockey commentator Don Cherry to give the inaugural speech, which turned out to be a controversial rant against “pinko cyclists” and “left wing kooks.” In 2011, with the support of suburban councillors, Rob Ford reversed the decision to install bike lanes on Jarvis Street (along with Pharmacy Avenue and Birchmount Road in Scarborough), and the reversible lane was re-installed.

Ironically, the demand by cyclists for bike lanes made it easy to restore the auto-oriented configuration, while widened sidewalks would have been much more difficult to remove.

Between Dundas and Gerrard Street, the lanes shift to accommodate a lane closure for a new condominium tower on the east side of Jarvis Street.

With much needed watermain and road reconstruction in the last few years, the traffic advantage provided by the reversible lane was negated because of the construction barriers. Several condominium towers being constructed along the street, at Carlton, Gerrard, and Shuter Streets, have further affected the ability of that fifth lane to move motorists quickly, effectively, or safely. Between Dundas and Gerrard Streets, the lanes temporarily shift for a long-term lane closure on the east side, just south of Gerrard. This lane shift adds additional confusion to an already confusing road layout.

Looking north to Shuter Street, with the curb lane temporarily marked for right turns only.

At Shuter Street, the construction of the Hyatt Place hotel and condominium apartment development has seen the northbound curb lane closed for several years. Approaching Shuter, the curb lane is marked as a right-turn lane, but it is used as an illegal bypass of traffic waiting at the light or turning left onto Shuter towards St. Michael’s Hospital and the Eaton Centre. This, combined with the hidden sightlines caused by the construction hoarding on the northeast corner, makes it especially dangerous for southbound motorists as well as pedestrians and cyclists crossing at this point. Beyond the construction hoarding, the right lane is used for construction crew parking, as well as staging for vehicles such as cement trucks.

Looking down towards the Hyatt Place development, showing the obstructed northbound curb lane, as well as a grey SUV crossing into the centre lane, which was reserved for opposing traffic when this photo was taken.

The long-term closure of lanes on Jarvis Street should make it clear to city officials that the outdated and unsafe middle lane is of no practical use, and it finally has got to go.

At Jarvis and Shuter Streets, the northbound right turn lane is used by impatient motorists, including a City of Toronto garbage truck, a taxi cab, and the driver of a speeding Lincoln Navigator.

Collisions are common on Jarvis Street because of the reversible centre lane — which exists nowhere else in Toronto, and in only a few places elsewhere in Canada — because of driver confusion, impatience, negligence and incompetence. As Jarvis Street becomes home to thousands of more residents in the next few years, is beyond time that the street becomes safer and more attractive to live, work, and enjoy life on.

December 5, 2022
Why the future of transit might be found in Dayton, Ohio

Dayton, Ohio is probably best known as the hometown of Wilbur and Orville Wright, the two bicycle mechanics who made the first successful controlled heavier-than-air flight. The city has remained a centre of the aviation industry. The US Air Force (and its predecessors) have operated a major base in Dayton for over a century, which includes an impressive museum of military aviation history.

But among transit buffs, Dayton is notable for another reason. It is one of only a handful of cities in North America that continues to operate and maintain an electric trolley bus system. The Greater Dayton RTA is also the smallest transit system to have operated trolleys since the mid 1970s.

Though there were early adopters of “trackless trolleys” in the late 1910s and early 1920s, the technology was particularly popular between the late 1930s and early 1950s. For street railway operators burdened with ageing streetcars and worn out infrastructure, electric trolleys offered several advantages. They could make continued use of electric substations, poles, and overhead wires, without the need for maintaining tracks and rights-of-way. Trolley buses were quiet and smooth-running, unlike gasoline and early diesel buses, and had larger capacities. They were cheap to operate and easy to maintain, and were especially adept at climbing steep grades.

TTC trolley bus on Ossington Avenue in the 1950s. The Ossington trolley was established as part of a major post-war route restructuring.

Most of the big cities in Canada and the US continued operating streetcars into at least the 1950s, as newer PCC streetcars helped keep those fleets going. But trolley buses were ideal for smaller and midsized cities that still had robust transit demand that buses could not yet meet. Even cities that retained streetcars into the 1950s — like Toronto — used trolley buses to replace marginal streetcar lines and allow for major route restructurings.

In Canada, fourteen cities established trolley bus fleets between 1936 and 1951. In Halifax, the Nova Scotia Light and Power Company replaced its decrepit streetcar system and its feeder bus network with an all-electric fleet in 1949; at the system’s peak, there was even a trolley route across the Macdonald Bridge to Dartmouth. Cities as small as Cornwall and Port Arthur/Fort William (now Thunder Bay) even replaced their streetcars with trolley buses.

By the 1970s, the coach bodies purchased 30 years earlier were showing their age, and many agencies had decided to simplify their fleets and go with modern diesel buses, which had improved in size, power, and capacity since the 1940s. In Canada, only Toronto, Hamilton, Edmonton, and Vancouver decided to renew their fleets, while only five cities in the United States (Boston, Dayton, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle) kept their electric trolley systems. Since then, Hamilton, Toronto, Edmonton — and most recently, Boston — gave up when the latest generation of trolleys were due for replacement.

But of all places, the small, deindustrialized city of Dayton took a very different direction. In 2020, the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority (GDRTA) received the last of its 45 new Kiepe/Gillig Next Generation trolley buses, equipped with large, powerful battery packs and computer systems that allow for long-distance, full speed off-wire capability. (The previous generation of trolleys, like what Translink in Vancouver currently operates, allow only for limited, low-speed off-wire operation).

The new NexGen trolley on Third Street on Dayton’s West Side

A trolley on Route 4 running with its poles down. I captured this photo just after getting off the bus on September 16, 2022.

The extended off-wire capability has allowed the GDRTA to extend two of its trolley bus routes further into the suburbs without extending wire. Route 7 was extended 5 kilometres northwest, while Route 1 was extended 6 kilometres east to Wright State University. Though the corridors were already served by longer-distance diesel bus routes, it provided additional service to some of Dayton’s major suburban trip generators.

North Main Street at Elm Hill Drive, where the Route 7 trolley wire ends (note the “poles down” sign), but trolley buses can continue another 5 kilometres onward.

Unfortunately, despite the new fleet and plenty of wire to run it, the GDRTA has only been operating its trolley buses on a single route in the last few months, despite four routes being fully capable of electric service. When I visited Dayton on September 15, not a single trolley was out. Though I did go visit the US Air Force Museum and the Wright Brothers National Historic Site (where one of the brothers’ bicycle shops were preserved on site; the family home and another of their shops were moved to Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village), I was really disappointed. But having a car, and a hotel reservation less than an hour away, I went back the next morning to see these new vehicles in action and take a ride.

A line up of diesel buses, including the trolley-capable Route 7, in Downtown Dayton, just south of the main bus terminal on September 15, 2022. Note the trolley wire, completely unused.

Happily, Route 4 was operating with trolleys, though on a Saturday schedule, imposed by GDRTA because of an ongoing driver shortage that has plagued transit systems across North America. During the daytime, three buses offer 30 minute service on the route. Between Downtown Dayton and the West Side, my first ride that morning was interesting as the bus was operating with its poles down for some reason. But riding the bus, I couldn’t tell: it was a smooth, quiet, and quick jaunt. I took two more trips on Route 4 to the east end, to get the most out of my visit.

A NextGen trolley outbound on Wayne Avenue at East 5th Street, September 16

Despite my disappointment with the GDRTA’s utilization of its fleet, I came away still confident about the technology’s future. Though many transit systems are re-electrifying their bus fleets, they have been purchasing battery-electric fleets that do not have any in-motion charging, unlike Dayton’s advanced trolleys. Some agencies, like the TTC, have battery buses that are charged only at the garages. Other cities, like Brampton, Winnipeg, and Montreal have en-route charging stations at terminal points as well as garage charging points. But bus batteries are extremely heavy, and they have not yet gone through a complete life cycle yet in the harsh Canadian climate.

Brampton Transit electric bus charging at Mount Pleasant Village

The TTC in particular is suited to restoring its trolley network using modern on-wire charging buses like those used in Dayton, as it has much of the infrastructure already in place, including substations (that feed the subway and streetcar network) and existing overhead wire systems. With long-distance off-wire capability, there is no need for complex wire junctions and short-turn loops, unlike older trolleybus networks. Busy, straight routes such as Dufferin and Bathurst would be ideal.

Though Dayton isn’t using its new fleet of electric buses to its potential, it does show the way to renewing sustainable electric transit services for cities like Toronto.

November 3, 2022
Visiting America’s other urban railway park

An abandoned railway signal towers over Philadelphia’s Rail Park

On a road trip early this summer, my spouse and I paid a visit to New York and Philadelphia. In New York, we walked the famous High Line, which revitalized an abandoned elevated freight railway corridor, transforming it into a popular grade-separated walking path on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

New York’s High Line

While in Philadelphia, I made a point of visiting another abandoned rail viaduct — Rail Park. It’s as ambitious as New York’s famed public space, but — for now — it is much less known.

The viaducts, cuts, and tunnels that will make up Philadelphia Rail Park trace their origin to the golden age of railroading. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, which connected Philadelphia with its northern and western suburbs, industrial towns to the northwest, and the lucrative anthracite coal fields of northeast Pennsylvania. For many years, the Reading Railroad, as it was known, was one of the United States’ most profitable companies. In 1893, the railway opened its Philadelphia Terminal, which became famous for the public market that was established below the station platforms. To this day, the Reading Terminal Market remains a vital city landmark. In the 1930s, most of the commuter services were electrified.

The 1893 Reading Terminal headhouse, now the entrance to the Pennsylvania Convention Center

By the 1970s, both the Reading and PRR were bankrupt. PRR merged with its New York-Chicago rival New York Central in 1968, before it too went into insolvency. Conrail took over many failing railways in the US Northeast and Midwest, consolidating operations, abandoning or transferring redundant track, and transferring most remaining commuter train operations (which were not assumed by Amtrak) to regional and state transit authorities.

In the mid-1980s, the Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA), which assumed control of the regional rail services formerly operated by the PRR and the Reading undertook an ambitious project to unite the separate regional rail systems. A new four-track tunnel was constructed east from PRR’s Suburban Station, and a new station — Market East — built to replace the old Reading Terminal. For the first time, trains could run through central Philadelphia, providing improved regional rail services.

Though the historic Reading Terminal headhouse and the famous market were preserved, the station platforms were removed to make way for a new convention centre. For years, the abandoned viaducts and tunnels leading into Reading Terminal sat unused. At least they did, until June 2018.

Entrance to the first phase of Rail Park, at Noble and 13th Streets

In 2018, a short, initial phase of Rail Park opened to the public. Spanning just two blocks, from Noble and 13th Streets to Callowhill and 11th Streets, it is still a remarkable public space. Like New York’s High Line, the short section of viaduct provides new viewpoints over gritty city streets, with temporary and permanent public art installations along the route.

A map of the proposed extensions of Rail Park, with the opened first phase marked. Interactive map here.

Looking north up 13th Street, towards the gentrifying Spring Garden neighbourhood

“Workshop of the World” – an interpretive plaque provides information on the industries that lined the Reading Company’s route through Philadelphia

An art map of local industries that existed immediately north of Reading Terminal, made from punched Corten steel

Looking east to the intersection of Callowhill and 11th Streets. For now, the only fully accessible entrance to Rail Park is at Noble and 13th Streets. The viaduct from the north is visible at left; this will be part of a future phase of Rail Park.

A stairway leading up from Callowhill Street. The metal frames at the right hold swings for the public to enjoy.

Future park extensions will continue westward from 13th Street to a below-grade cut starting at Broad Street. It will continue west to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (where the Rocky statue can be found outside), where it will enter a tunnel before emerging at Girard Avenue near Fairmount Park, the greatest of Philadelphia’s urban green spaces. Another section will connect the existing Phase I to the abandoned north-south viaduct between Vine Street and Fairmount Avenue, where the old route to Reading Terminal meets the 1980s rail diversion to Market East Station. Eventually, it will reach 3 miles (5 kilometres) in length.

The formerly abandoned viaduct offers a view of more recently abandoned transit infrastructure: the remnant tracks of the 23-Germantown trolley route, once the longest streetcar line in North America. In the early 1990s, SEPTA was forced to abandon three of its legacy street railway lines due to budget pressures and deteriorating PCC equipment. (Newer Kawasaki-built streetcars were only deployed on the surface-subway routes in West Philadelphia and on the former Red Arrow suburban lines from 69th Street Station.) The 15-Girard Line was later rebuilt with refurbished streetcars, but the 23 and 56-Erie lines were left to rot in a state of “temporary suspension.”

SEPTA has a wealth of transit infrastructure, which I wrote about after my first visit to Philadelphia in 2009, but it hasn’t put enough of it to good use. It has a massive, fully electric regional rail network, yet trains operate only every hour on most routes outside of peak periods. There’s a four-track subway tunnel under Broad Street that’s grossly underused, and unlike Toronto, there are even a few active trolley bus routes. And sadly, it’s allowed much of its infrastructure, like its trolley network, to remain in disuse.

A view down from Rail Park to long-disused trolley tracks on 12th Street

September 28, 2022
GO Transit is broken – and other transit updates

GO Transit buses stuck in Downtown Toronto gridlock in July, 2022

While travelling through the Northeastern United States this spring and summer, I found myself feeling lucky to be living in Toronto. Though the New York City Subway and the PATH trains between New Jersey and Manhattan were operating pretty much as I remember them, in other big cities, the mass transit systems were in rough shape. In Washington, underfunding and incompetence led to the long-term withdrawal of over half of its Metro cars. During our visit in April, we were treated to long waits and crowded trains, though at least the system was clean. When we visited Philadelphia in late June, it was clear that the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) had given up: poor communications, lengthy waits, unsafe subway stations, and general apathy among staff and passengers made my spouse and I resort to driving on our last day there.

In Toronto, at least, the subway was still running frequently (with only minor service cuts due to the pandemic), the buses and streetcars as (un)reliable as ever, and despite more anti-social behaviour on some of its surface routes, I almost never felt afraid for my well-being when riding the Rocket, compared to my experience in Philly. GO Transit responded to the pandemic very well. Though it was forced to suspend many of its train and bus trips due to a sudden plunge in ridership, it maintained a basic service level on nearly all of its routes, slowly restoring certain services in 2021 as ridership slowly rebounded. Some corridors, like the Kitchener Line, had more service in the early Fall of 2021 than it did prior to the pandemic. As Metrolinx continued planning and construction of major transit projects like GO Expansion, the Ontario Line, and several LRT corridors, the future looked bright. In Spring 2022, GO Transit introduced a special weekend day pass for $10 per day or $15 per weekend, to help grow ridership.

Unfortunately by late June 2022, GO began to fall apart.
(more…)

September 5, 2022
A front row seat to Toronto’s Carmaggedon

On Saturday, my spouse and I decided to take advantage of the GO Transit weekend day pass and take the train to Hamilton for a short excursion. We did some shopping on James Street North in Downtown Hamilton and on Ottawa Street in the city’s east end, where there’s a great cluster of fabric, decor, and antique shops, as well as cafes and restaurants.

The new weekend passes, which cost $10 for one day and $15 for two days, have been a major contributor to GO Transit’s ridership recovery. Though weekend ridership has recovered to 90 percent of pre-pandemic levels (despite lower service levels on many routes), weekday ridership is only half of what it was in 2019.

On our return trip to Toronto, we decided to take the Route 16 express bus, departing from Hamilton GO Centre at 3:30. As the train between Union and Hamilton’s West Harbour Stations runs only every hour, it seemed that the express bus to Union Station would be the fastest and most convenient option. How wrong we were.

A line of GO buses attempting to turn left from Lake Shore Boulevard to Yonge Street

As we were among the first to board the double-decker bus, we had front row seats to Toronto’s Carmageddon.

Despite it being a beautiful afternoon on the long weekend, the ride on Highway 403, the Queen Elizabeth Way, and the Gardiner Expressway was uneventful, with only a few spots where traffic moved slowly. Until the bus got off the York-Bay-Yonge ramp, we were making decent time. That is when we were confronted with a long line of cars and trucks, all trying to turn north on York, Bay, and Yonge Streets.

The new Union Station Bus Terminal, located on the north side of the westbound Lake Shore Boulevard lanes, requires buses coming from the west to turn left on to Yonge Street from eastbound Lake Shore, and then turn left again onto westbound Lakeshore before turning right into the terminal itself.

After finally turning north from eastbound Lake Shore Boulevard, private vehicles, a Rider Express bus, and GO Transit buses attempt to turn left onto a gridlocked westbound Lake Shore Boulevard

But with construction obstructing two westbound lanes of Lake Shore at Bay Street, drivers leaving the first of two Blue Jays games that afternoon (a rare doubleheader hosting the Tampa Bay Rays), and other drivers arriving for the evening Jays game, an Eric Church concert at Scotiabank Arena, along with the usual weekend traffic, traffic could not move, creating literal gridlock. Police or traffic wardens that could monitor and manage the gridlock were nowhere to be seen.

Motorists jam the intersection of Lake Shore Boulevard West and Yonge Street

One driver expresses his frustration with the traffic

At 5:50, 2 hours and 20 minutes after the bus departed Hamilton GO Centre, we were let out on the curb outside the terminal entrance. In response to the backlog of buses attempting to enter and exit the Union Station terminal, GO cut back the Route 16, meeting the half-hourly Lakeshore West train service at Aldershot Station (one stop short of West Harbour). Several Route 16, 21, and 31 trips were cancelled due to the traffic in the downtown core, requiring some customers in places like Milton and Georgetown to wait an entire hour for the next bus.

After similar gridlock conditions on Sunday, July 3, Route 21 (Milton Corridor) and Route 31 (Kitchener Corridor) buses were rerouted to Port Credit GO, requiring a transfer to trains there.

Route 21 and 31 GO buses will begin and end at Port Credit GO due to heavy traffic into Toronto. Regular LSW train service will run between Port Credit and Union. Click https://t.co/QEMf9GRLsf for more into.
— GO Transit Bus (@GOtransitBus) July 3, 2022

The new terminal’s location is excellent for consolidating all intercity bus and rail services and is much safer than the old Union Station Terminal or the dilapidated Metro Toronto Coach Terminal at Bay and Dundas Streets. Direct, indoor connections can be made with the subway, several hotels, Scotiabank Arena, and to the vast PATH system of underground walkways. Its major failure, however, is the lack of dedicated bus lanes to speed highway coaches in and out of the facility.

On Lake Shore Boulevard. The bus entrance to the Union Station terminal is at right

There is an exceptionally wide sidewalk on the north side of Lake Shore approaching the bus entrance to the terminal, and an extremely short bus lane in front of the terminal’s entrance and exit. It is no wonder why some private coach operators, such as FlixBus and Onex, opt for on-street stops, rather than the terminal used by GO, Megabus, Rider Express, TOK, and Ontario Northland.

Toronto’s shortest and least-effective bus lane, in front of the Union Station Bus Terminal. Note the sign reading “be patient – drive with care” above.

A dedicated bus lane for the entire distance between Yonge and Bay Streets would undoubtedly improve operations. A dedicated left turn lane from Yonge to westbound Lakeshore would also allow easier access to the terminal from the west, where the majority of GO and intercity coach buses arrive from. Similar dedicated left turn lanes at Queen Street and Central Park Drive in Brampton allow Brampton Transit buses to quickly enter and exit the Bramalea Terminal. Better traffic management, including police enforcement, would help ensure a clear path for transit and coach buses.

The gridlock continued west of Bay Street, as motorists lined up to get to the Gardiner Expressway or go west on Lake Shore Boulevard

GO Transit’s reaction, to reroute buses to the already-crowded Lakeshore West Train, is not a sustainable solution, though it is the only effective tool it has at the moment. Though Route 16 passengers are not taken far out of their way with a transfer at Aldershot GO, the detour is more onerous for some Route 21 and all Route 31 passengers forced to backtrack to Port Credit GO for a forced transfer there.

Stouffville and Barrie Corridor passengers were spared the hassles with the return of weekend train service earlier this year. Unfortunately, Canadian Pacific’s control of almost the entirety of the Milton Corridor precludes midday, evening, and weekend train service, but there’s an opportunity to finally bring limited weekend train service to the Kitchener Corridor. GO Transit already offers an hourly midday and evening weekday train service to Mount Pleasant Station in Brampton, despite CN’s control of the corridor west of Bramalea Station.

Track improvements completed nearly 20 years ago (an additional track between Bramalea and Mount Pleasant and a second platform at Brampton GO Station) provides the capacity for hourly GO trains and CN’s freight operations. Weekend Route 30 bus service between Kitchener and Bramalea can provide a reasonable and reliable bus link until corridor improvements, such as new passing tracks, are completed between Georgetown and Kitchener.

As I was sitting in traffic for an hour, I found myself aggravated once again by Blue Jays CEO Mark Shapiro lobbying the city to end the Sunday closure of Lake Shore Boulevard West to allow for the city’s (much-diminished) Active TO program. In a letter addressed to Mayor John Tory, General Manager of Transportation Services Barbara Gray, and the city clerk, Shapiro argued that “removing one of the only ways into and out of the downtown core would be extremely challenging to our fans” claiming that “on the days when Active TO has been in effect on Lake Shore, our local fans have experienced significant transit delays because traffic is grinded to a halt on all downtown routes.” (It is worth noting that the Toronto Blue Jays baseball club is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rogers Communications. The mayor of Toronto, a former Rogers executive, remains involved with the Rogers family trust.)

The Lake Shore closure allowed cyclists and runners to bypass the overcrowded Martin Goodman Trail along Toronto’s Western Beaches, on a section of roadway paralleled by GO Transit’s Lakeshore Corridor. The traffic congestion last weekend was completely unrelated to ActiveTO (which is now suspended on Lake Shore Boulevard, partly due to Shaprio’s lobbying) and transit riders, who make up a large percentage of the Blue Jays’ fanbase, were left in the mess that motorists made.

July 4, 2022
The tragedy of East Buffalo

Kensington Expressway, Buffalo

Just two blocks away from the Jefferson Avenue Tops supermarket is Buffalo’s Kensington Expressway.

The high-speed roadway, built with New York State funding, was built in the late 1950s to connect Downtown Buffalo with the New York State Thruway and the airport. The highway went through Buffalo’s East Side, historically Polish-American neighbourhoods that were becoming home to working-class and middle-class African-American families.

Ironically, a parkway system planned by famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted beginning in the 1860s helped highway planners 90 years later route their new highway. Olmsted had planned large park spaces throughout the city, with wide, treed parkways connecting the spaces together. Delaware Park, to the north, was the largest of these green spaces. In 1901, it was the site for the Pan-American Exposition (which became infamous as the location of the assassination of President William McKinley), while Humboldt Park, on the city’s east side, became a popular neighbourhood gathering place. Humboldt Parkway connected these two parks with a wide, gentle curve.

Part of the Olmsted Parks and Parkways plan, Buffalo. Humboldt Parkway curves southeast from Delaware Park near the top of the map.

Of course, city planners of the day, who were guided by the “City Beautiful” movement, never conceived of a time when automobiles would present a new challenge to urban places. From the opening of the Erie Canal in the 1830s to the exploitation of cheap, renewable hydro-electric power at nearby Niagara Falls in the 1890s and early 1900s, Buffalo was going to be a jewel of the Great Lakes, and it needed skyscrapers and public spaces to match its optimism and ambition.

Humboldt Parkway in 1953, with a wide, treed median on the right (The Buffalo History Museum)

By the 1950s, Buffalo’s growth had plateaued, and the city started losing population to the suburbs, as white middle class families took advantage of generous federal mortgage incentives, and the automobile made suburban living easy. Redlining — a practice in which banks and federal mortgage underwriters graded neighbourhoods based on their physical and socioeconomic statuses — made mortgages in “declining” or “hazardous” areas difficult or impossible to get. These resulting grades discouraged investment in the housing stock and made it especially difficult for Black families to purchase homes. Racism and xenophobia was embedded in the system: areas that Eastern European immigrants were seen to be “infiltrating” were typically marked as “definitely declining” and areas settled by Black households were marked as “hazardous.”

In Buffalo, a 1937 redlining map reflected the segregation that would define the city to this day: most of the city east of Main Street was classified as “definitely declining” or “hazardous.” Houses facing Humboldt Parkway were marked as “still desirable” as it is “a small area which maintains its desirability because of location on both sides of an attractive parkway.” That parkway would disappear 20 years later.

Though the Niagara branch of the New York State Thruway connected Downtown Buffalo to Niagara Falls, the main Thruway, and Canadian border crossings, mostly following rail corridors, city leaders felt that without additional urban highways, Buffalo would lose investment and that more residents and employers would leave the city for the suburbs.

In 1954, City Planning Director Russell Tryon declared that the new ring highway “would be a major step forward in alleviating the traffic blight that has diseased our neighborhood communities” while believing that highway construction might help keep people in the city, rather than literally drive them to suburbia. “If we make Buffalo a better place in which to live, the people will stay and not move out.”

The Scajaquada Expressway through Delaware Park

To build the new highway, planners looked for the paths of least resistance: Olmsted’s parkway system and redlined neighbourhoods where properties could be bought up cheap. None of the parkways on Buffalo’s West Side (which was, and remains, mostly white and middle class) would be sacrificed, but the Humboldt Parkway, on the East Side, would be. The Scajaquada Expressway, across the city’s north side, ran right through the signature Delaware Park. The Kensington Expressway — New York State Route 33 — required the demolition of hundreds of homes. Many displaced residents moved into public housing towers on Fillmore Avenue — which were later abandoned and demolished.

The abandoned Kensington Heights public housing buildings on Fillmore Avenue in 2010

The highway only helped to destroy Buffalo’s urban fabric and contributed to the economic and population decline in the East End.

Buffalo was not alone. In Detroit, Interstates 75 and 375 were routed right along Hastings Street, the commercial and cultural hub for the Motor City’s Black community. In Baltimore, Interstate 70 was to go right downtown through the city’s West Side. The section through a Black neighborhood was built, but the western extension through Baltimore’s western suburbs was never completed, leaving behind a scar known as the “Highway to Nowhere.”

Baltimore’s Highway to Nowhere

In Buffalo, the East Side community struggled for decades to get a full-service supermarket after A&P left in the 1960s after the new highway was built. It finally landed Tops Friendly Markets on the A&P site in 2003. This grocery store — the only one serving over 100,000 residents in Buffalo’s East End — became the site of Buffalo’s worst mass shooting, in which a white teenager targeted Black shoppers. The closure of that store only compounds the tragedy as fresh and affordable food has become, once again, even harder to access.

Now, New York State is planning for the removal of several urban highways built through Black neighbourhoods, including Interstate 81 through Syracuse, the remainder of Rochester’s Inner Belt, and Buffalo’s Kensington Expressway. Reconnecting Buffalo’s East Side and investing in great public spaces could be a positive first step to living up to being “The City of Good Neighbors.”

May 21, 2022
New carriers, old gaps: the state of Ontario’s intercity transportation network in 2022

Flixbus is one of many intercity coach operators in Ontario right now

With university and college campuses reopening for in-class instruction, white-collar workers slowly returning to the office, and pandemic restrictions receding, there are more intercity transport options in Ontario than at any time prior to March 2020.

New operators, including Germany’s Flixbus, have arrived in Ontario (with routes between Toronto, Guelph/Kitchener, Niagara, and Ottawa), while Greyhound, which pulled out of Canada two years ago, restarted cross-border runs from Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. In Southern Ontario, intercommunity bus and van operations continued through the pandemic, with notable service improvements in Simcoe and Grey Counties, new routes in Eastern Ontario, as well as the expansion of “on-demand” services in rural communities and smaller urban centres, including parts of Niagara Region, as the regional government there slowly assumes responsibility for all municipal transit services.

New edition of the Ontario Intercity Transport Map

Despite these advances, there are still many gaps in Ontario that need to be filled. The deregulation of Ontario’s motor coach industry has opened the highways up to more operators, but they are all chasing the same customers, rather than attracting new riders.

For getting between Toronto and Ottawa, passengers have a plethora of choices. They may fly — the fastest, but most expensive option — on Air Canada, WestJet or Porter. They may choose VIA Rail, which is comfortable, but slower. Or they may choose to book a ticket on a Megabus, Rider Express, or Flixbus coach, the slowest, cheapest, and least frequent option. (As of May 2022, only Megabus will begin operating daily buses between Toronto and Ottawa.)

Between London and Toronto, passengers can choose between a four-hour GO Transit train ride that departs at 5:33 AM, one of several daily VIA trains (approximately 2 hours), one of three daily Onex buses (2 hours, 35 minutes) or one of three daily non-stop Megabus trips (2 hours, 10 minutes).

Not all bus operators serve the same locations, either, creating new disconnections. In Toronto, GO Transit, Megabus, Rider Express TOK Coach, and Greyhound USA use the new Union Station Bus Terminal, which is directly connected to VIA and GO trains at Union Station and the TTC subway and streetcar system.

Flixbus stops at a curbside layby on York Street south of the Gardiner Expressway

To save on terminal fees, Onex stops beside the Royal York Hotel on York Street, across the street from Union Station, sharing the layby with the Toronto Island Airport shuttle. Flixbus uses a different coach bus layby on York Street south of the Gardiner Expressway, in the Harbourfront area. Neither curbside stop is marked for either company. Though Ontario Northland still sends some buses downtown to Union Station, some of its buses to and from Sudbury and North Bay now terminate at the Yorkdale Bus Terminal in North York.

The layby next to Royal York Hotel serves the Toronto Island Airport shuttle (which has a sign) and Onex bus (which has no bus stop sign)

In Ottawa, Ontario Northland and Orleans Express use the VIA Rail station (which is on the O-Train LRT system), while Megabus terminates at the St. Laurent O-Train station. Autobus Maheux and Flixbus use curbside stops in Downtown Ottawa. The London-Toronto Megabus route bypasses Downtown London on its route from Western University, while Onex Bus and VIA Rail stop right downtown, along with Strathroy-Caradoc’s intercommunity route.

Another issue is that apart from the Toronto-Kitchener-London, Toronto-Niagara, Toronto-Kingston-Ottawa, Toronto-Kingston-Montreal and Ottawa-Montreal corridors, there is still little choice in price, operator, or schedule.

Rider Express suspended service to Windsor last year, so that the three or four VIA rail trains to London and Toronto (or a flight from Windsor airport) are the only option available for anyone travelling without a car. (Transit Windsor’s Tunnel Bus to Detroit remains suspended, despite the continued loosening of border crossing restrictions.) Peterborough, once a major destination for Greyhound Canada on its Toronto-Ottawa corridor, now only has a nearly two-hour-long GO bus connection to Oshawa GO Station.

Gaps that I wrote about several years ago still remain on the map, which are only more evident as new intercommunity services start up and new carriers emerge. The City of St. Thomas and Elgin County remain the most visible of these gaps; St. Thomas is the only urban transit system in Ontario completely disconnected to any other community, despite its short distance to London. Haldimand County, despite its proximity to Brantford and Hamilton has also chosen to remain off the map. While neighbouring Perth, Lambton, Middlesex, and Grey Counties have developed useful transit connections, Huron and Bruce Counties have very limited links to the rest of the province.

Finally, the gaps between Hamilton and Brantford to the south and Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo to the north remain to be filled despite the growing population and multiple post-secondary institutions in each urban area. Though the Hamilton-Guelph-Kitchener triangle should be a natural expansion for GO Transit, it has yet to announce its intentions. Meanwhile, no private coach operator has filled this obvious need.

The labour-backed Link the Watershed proposal would connect Guelph, Kitchener, Cambridge, and Brantford, but that plan requires the support of local government, but it still leaves the Hamilton corridor wide open.

As more students return to school full time, and more workers return to the office, the need for reliable and attractive transportation options across Ontario will only continue to grow. As housing prices to continue to increase higher than the already-high inflation rate, intercity transport will be one way to ensure students can stay at home while going to school, and workers don’t have to move or endure long and expensive highway commuting.

Hopefully by autumn, these gaps will finally close for good.

April 27, 2022
Off the rails

The tracks have been ripped out from the once-proud Orangeville-Brampton Railway

Despite calls for the preservation of the Orangeville-Brampton Railway since its discontinuation in December 2021, the removal of rails on the 150-year old line that once connected Toronto with Owen Sound, Teeswater, and points between began this week.

The Town of Orangeville aims to replace the tracks with a multi-use path through the municipality. The Region of Peel is likely to purchase most of the remaining section, with the right-of-way likely to become another recreational trail through Caledon and north Brampton. I will continue to document the railway’s demise and the route’s future.

In the meantime, the rusty rails await their removal.

Looking west at Centre Street, Orangeville, March 30, 2022

The hi-rail excavator sitting in the Orangeville yard, March 30, 2022. A pile of removed rails sits in front.

At Brampton, signals continue to protect the CN mainline despite the abandonment of the old CP route

A Sarnia-bound VIA Train crosses the Brampton diamond, March 25, 2022. Who knows how long it will be before the diamond is removed for good?

End of the line – video of track removal at Orangeville by Jeremy Williams

March 30, 2022
It’ll always be the Hurontario Line to me

Metrolinx map of the Hurontario LRT route

On Monday, February 14, Premier Doug Ford, Transportation Minister Carolyn Mulroney, and Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie attended a photo-op at Cooksville GO Station to announce a new name for a transit project. With former mayor Hazel McCallion in attendance (who was celebrating her 101th birthday), it was no secret what the new name was going to be.

It was disappointing that the Hurontario LRT, a provincially-funded transit project operating within Brampton and Mississauga and intended to be part of a regional transportation network, would be named for a divisive former mayor of only one of the two cities the Hurontario LRT is supposed to directly benefit.

In North America, and around the world, transit lines and stations are named (with a few misguided exceptions) to reflect the geography of the route it represents and to provide optimal wayfinding, especially to visitors and people new to transit. In Greater Toronto, bus, streetcar, commuter rail and subway routes are named based on the major street they run on (the 501 Queen Streetcar or Line 4 Sheppard), the neighbourhood they serve (the 56 Leaside bus) or the destination it runs to (the GO Milton Line or 900 Airport Express).

Even new projects follow these conventions. The Crosstown LRT, which operates under and along Eglinton Avenue, is a crosstown route across the middle of the city. Even the Ontario Line partially gets its name from its two end points (Exhibition Place/Ontario Place and Ontario Science Centre). The Hurontario LRT reflected the name of the main street it operates along, even if it changes its name briefly though central Brampton.

The “Hazel McCallion Line” does not accomplish any of these goals.

Given Peel Region’s diverse population of over 1.4 million residents, it is also disappointing that a major project intended to unite the region is named for an affluent white public figure that already has two libraries, a public school and a college campus already bearing her name.

Furthermore, McCallion’s legacy as a longtime mayor of Mississauga is tarnished by racist statements after visiting a local hospital in 2001, two conflict of interest scandals, her recent involvement with a troubled for-profit long term care provider, and by land use policies that kept taxes low for decades, but did little to ensure a financially or environmentally sustainable future for the city.

I suspect Premier Ford wanted to celebrate a political ally a few months before the next provincial election, but naming the Hurontario LRT after Hazel McCallion sends the wrong message.

Post script: The Hurontario Line may not be the only Metrolinx transit facility that will see its name change. In a MERX posting dated February 15, 2022, Metrolinx is looking for Expressions of Interest for station naming rights opportunities for at least four existing GO Transit rail stations. The summary is quoted below:

Expression of Interest
Expression of Interest No. RFI-2021-CCMX-097
Metrolinx is accepting Expressions of Interest for Station Naming Rights Opportunity.
Metrolinx is an agency of the Government of Ontario, overseeing GO Transit, PRESTO, and UP Express. We are embarking on a massive transformation of the GO Rail network – the backbone of regional rapid transit in the region – to give customers a faster, more convenient way to connect with the things that matter.
Metrolinx is seeking proposals from interested parties in any category for the Station Naming Rights Opportunity at the following stations:
Whitby GO Station
Exhibition GO Station
Clarkson GO Station
Oakville GO Station
Metrolinx will consider proposals for other stations not listed here at the request of interested parties.
For more information about the GO Transit network and stations, please visit www.gotransit.com. We are committed to working together to create a partnership that will meet shared objectives, such as increase revenue, increase market share for our partners and provide a positive customer experience on public transit.

All four stations listed are on the Lakeshore Line, the backbone of the GO Transit rail network. Exhibition GO could be especially attractive for renaming, as it will become a major hub with the future connection to the Ontario Line and local TTC services. It is also worth noting that Metrolinx will entertain proposals for additional stations in the bid process.

It is hard to blame Metrolinx for these specific transit naming decisions; it is very likely that the Ford government demanded the McCallion Line and is pushing for the sell-off of naming rights. But it is ironic that after hiring consultants and going though a complex naming process for the Crosstown LRT, that previously held principles are quickly abandoned at the whim of Metrolinx’s superiors.

February 16, 2022