Streetcars backed up eastbound at King and University, November 28, 2023
On Tuesday, November 28, the University of Toronto’s School of Cities released their report that looked at vehicle movement and traffic violations on the King Street Transit Priority Corridor. They found that there are, on average, 6,800 illegal turns and through movements at intersections on the corridor, and less than 0.3% of offenders are stopped by Toronto Police and ticketed. Traffic enforcement was heaviest between November 2017 (when the pilot began) and March 2020 (when the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions began). Enforcement has not caught up since then.
The U of T School of Cities has provided invaluable quantification of what many Torontonians have suspected for years: the King Street Transit Priority Corridor is broken, and that there is little being done to fix it.
The transit priority corridor, which runs between Bathurst Street in the west and Jarvis Street in the east, has restrictions on through vehicle movements, where motorists must turn right at most intersections. Until 10 PM daily, only TTC buses and streetcars, emergency vehicles, and bicyclists are exempt. After 10 PM, taxis may also continue through the corridor.
The pilot program launched on November 12, 2017. The initial pilot, in which signs were erected, Jersey barriers placed to restrict the curb lane, and TTC stops moved to the far side of most intersections, was intended to optimize permanent streetscaping improvements, streetcar stop placement and transit optimization, get motorists acquainted with the new rules (at first, only warnings were issued by police) and allow time for Toronto City Council to decide on whether the pilot should be made permanent. Council approved making the transit priority corridor permanent on April 16, 2019.
Though Toronto City Council voted to transform King Street permanently, no work has started on the streetscape or public realm to do so. Just like Union Station, temporary Jersey barriers remain in place. The relocated TTC streetcar stops are left at road level, without transit shelters or accessible curbs. Drivers routinely ignore restrictions, with only a 0.3% chance of getting a $85 or $110 ticket. Meanwhile streetcars get stuck and transit riders get nowhere. On Wednesday, November 8, a Toronto police officer decided to enforce congestion on King Street… by ticketing a streetcar operator stuck in the intersection at University Avenue.
A motorist, ignoring several signs, proceeds straight through on King Street eastbound at Spadina Avenue
The problem is not just limited to through movements on King Street, though. On Tuesday, November 28, I stood at the corner of King and Spadina between 4:00 PM and 4:20 PM. The backup of cars and trucks headed southbound towards the Gardiner Expressway extended into the south side crosswalk and into the eastbound lanes at times. Motorists are not permitted to enter an intersection on a green light if they cannot clear it before the light turns red; this causes gridlock. But on more than one occasion, streetcars and pedestrians were impeded by illegal intersection blocks.
At Spadina and King, a truck and three passenger vehicles block the south side crosswalk and prevent a streetcar from proceeding straight on a green light
After standing at King and Spadina, I walked over to King and University, where the Toronto Police charged a streetcar operator earlier this month. At 5 PM, eastbound streetcars were lining up between University and John Street, unable to proceed.
Traffic jammed at King Street eastbound at University Avenue
However, motorists were able to turn right and left from University Avenue to eastbound King, blocking the east side crosswalk to pedestrians and ensuring that no streetcar could continue across. I spoke to one operator, who told me that the day before, he was stuck there for a half hour before he could move across.
The University and King intersection, at 5:00 PM on Tuesday, November 28. Note the blocked crosswalk and the line of streetcars, all with their hazard lights blinking. Eventually, one streetcar operator decides they had enough, and occupies the intersection.
While there, I counted several motorists who passed to the right of the stopped streetcar, and instead of turning right as permitted, they went straight, only contributing to the blockage ahead.
Two eastbound cars pass a stopped streetcar on the right to join the congestion ahead
The problem downtown is exasperated by several road closures. Queen Street is closed between Bay and Victoria Streets for Ontario Line construction; this will last for at least five years. Adelaide Street, which is one-way eastbound is closed at York Street due to the delayed Adelaide Street diversion track installation that is supposed to allow Queen Streetcars to divert around the Ontario Line closure. York Street is also closed at Adelaide. There are several other lane closures on Bay, Yonge, and Richmond Streets and University Avenue for utility work.
Adelaide Street is likely to remain closed at York until early 2024
Yet, one would hope that something was done to allow transit riders to get through the downtown core, especially as the city has been aware of the severe congestion for weeks at this point. The city needs to move ahead on permanent streetscape changes to further discourage through traffic on King Street by closing the curb lanes at the far side of each intersection.
It is also clear that the Toronto Police are not too interested in ticketing motorists on King Street. Even if they were, it wouldn’t be enough, as it takes 10-15 minutes to stop and ticket a driver; automatic ticketing, similar to red light cameras, would be more effective, though traffic officers can still be strategically deployed at congestion hotspots.
It’s beyond time for this city to take transit seriously again. King Street would be a great place to start.
Vienna low-floor tram in the Leopoldstadt district
Back in October, my spouse and I had the opportunity to visit several countries in Central Europe: Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, though we spent the majority of our time in and around Vienna, as that is where my spouse attended business meetings for several days; we also took time to explore the city and surrounding areas together.
While there, I experienced how serious cities operate trams seriously. In Bratislava, I saw how a streetcar priority corridor can work in a busy downtown core. In Prague, trams made it through watermain construction zones without detours or unreliable bus shuttles. In Budapest, I rode the world’s longest trams that move more people per hour than many metro lines. In Vienna, where I spent the most time, I experienced a city where transit passengers are treated with respect, and where the trams are reliable, despite no discernable signal priority and plenty of mixed-traffic operations.
Vienna is an amazing city to visit. It’s been described to me as “what people think Paris is.” That’s pretty much true. It’s a very walkable city with a fantastic café culture full of independent konditorei cafés (which offer sit-down service), with an assortment of rich, tasty cakes and great coffee. It has great art galleries and grand imperial palaces, but without the crushing crowds of Paris and Versailles. As the original Music City, it’s easy to find shows and performances to suit your tastes. (We attended the famous Wiener Staatsoper, where I took in my first live opera, ever, at a surprisingly reasonable price). It’s also a compact city, easy to walk, though the transport system is excellent. Vienna is also a great base for visiting other cities in Central Europe, where Salzburg, Bratislava, Budapest, and Prague are only a few hours away by (frequent and relatively speedy) train.
We noticed several pedestrian signs showing loving couples, rather than the standard, like this one in front of the Wiener Staatsoper (Opera House)
Vienna has one of the largest tram systems in Europe, with 30 lines over 176.9 kilometres, and a fleet of 525 cars, including modern articulated LRVs and older trams and trailers. In Vienna, trams alone carry approximately 300 million passengers a year. They run in many different environments: on-street in mixed traffic, reserved lanes, dedicated median and side-of-street rights-of-way; there is also a tram tunnel south of the city centre. Until the 1980s, Straßenbahnen (the German name for trams) were the backbone of Vienna’s transport network, with a small Stadtbahn system (now incorporated into the modern U-Bahn) and regional and suburban (S-Bahn) trains providing limited rapid transit services. Though there are now five U-Bahn lines (two of which evolved from the Stadtbahn), the tram system remains robust and very useful for getting around.
Like all four cities mentioned in this post, Vienna operates a mix of low-floor trams built in the last 25 years, as well as older high-floor trams, many of which are accompanied by an unstaffed trailer. Vienna’s entire network — trams, buses, U-Bahn, and S-Bahn — is a proof-of-payment system. Fare inspections appeared to be infrequent; neither my spouse nor I were checked during our eight days in Vienna. Tickets and passes can be purchased from a machine (found at every U-Bahn entrance and at many tram stops) or on the WienMobil app.
An older Type E2 high-floor tram and trailer at Gumpendorfer Straße. Behind is the old Stadtbahn viaduct, which is now part of Line U6. Note the large red “Strassenbahn Haltestelle” sign to the left, a classic Viennese icon that indicates a tram stop.
There is also a separate interurban tram service called Badner Bahn, which extends to the historic spa town of Baden bei Wien, an hour south of Vienna’s city centre.
Badner Bahn tram, laying over at Josefsplatz in Baden bei Wien
The modernized interurban originates in the heart of Vienna — across the street from the Wiener Staatsoper (Opera House) — then along local tram tracks and through the tunnel before entering its own right-of-way through the southern suburbs, and onwards through small towns, farms, and vineyards before arriving in Baden. There are several spurs leading to local industries; the regular passenger service shares the tracks with local freight trains.
View of the vineyards from Badner Bahn
A sample of the journey aboard Badner Bahn. Arriving southbound at Guntramsdorf, heading towards Baden bei Wien.
Bratislava, just over one hour away from Vienna by train (or by catamaran), is served by a network of metre-gauge trams, trolley buses, and diesel buses, though trams predominate in the city centre. On Obchodná, several tram lines, pedestrians, cyclists, and the occasional delivery or emergency services vehicle share a narrow, but busy shopping street. It just works.
Obchodná, Bratislava
Outside the congested urban core, trams are afforded reserved lanes, sometimes separated from general traffic with curbs (and even grass medians), sometimes just painted lines. Bratislava’s tram system is smaller than Toronto’s, with 211 cars and 42 kilometres of revenue track, carrying around 70 million riders a year in 2019 (Toronto’s streetcars carried 108 million that year). It is also a much smaller city, with a population of around 660,000. I only visited Bratislava for a day, but I got to ride much of the tram network; I found it an easy and convenient way to get around.
Reserved, painted tram lanes just outside Bratislava’s city centre
Budapest, Hungary has the largest street railway system in the world by ridership, with Route 4/6 on Budapest’s Grand Boulevard (Hungarian: Nagykörút), often cited as the world’s busiest tram line. Route 4/6 also operates 53.99 metre long Combino Plus trams, which, when introduced in 2006, were the world’s longest. The Combinos are almost twice the length of Toronto’s new Bombardier Flexity cars, which are 28 metres long. Even with the huge capacity these trams have (they require two pantographs to draw enough power to operate), they operate on Line 4/6 every few minutes, all day long, every day.
A Combino Plus tram on Line 4 traverses Budapest’s Nagykörút (Grand Boulevard)
Through the 1970s and 1980s, Budapest’s tram network was slowly cut back in favour of buses, trolley buses, and metro construction. By the 1990s, however, there was a street railway renaissance in Hungary’s capital because of the capacity and economy trams offered. With high frequencies, a private median, and high-capacity low-floor vehicles, Line 4/6 easily matches the capacity of a metro, at comparable speeds. Elsewhere, dedicated lanes and private rights-of-way make it clear that transit riders come first.
Older trams running along the Danube dip under road bridges on a private right-of-way
Though Budapest has a large metro network, most of it was not constructed until the l970s and 1980s. However, Line M1 was opened in 1896 as a shallow subway under Andrássy Avenue, the first electric underground metro in the world, and only the second subway, after London’s initial Underground line. Uniquely among urban transit routes, it it is listed as part of an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Budapest Line M1 stations, restored to their original appearance, look like miniature New York stations, only cleaner
Finally, in Prague, we took several trams to take shelter from the rains that greeted us after arriving from Budapest, but also to see the city outside the crowded tourist spots. We took Line 1 from the city centre to the suburban district of Hrdlořezy, and returned via Line 9, taking a slightly different route back. Like Budapest, a metro system was planned and built in the 1970s and 1980s, but trams remained important, often providing local services parallel to deep underground metro lines.
Old two-car tram train on Line 9, passing a newer low-floor tram on Line 1, Sokolovská, Prague. Most trams run on reserved rights-of-way.
What interested me was seeing major watermain work along the line. Through trams slowed where work was adjacent, there were no diversions or shuttle buses. The trams ran through.
Watermain replacement in Prague, with trams still running(taken on a rainy morning)
Like Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest, Prague operates a mixed fleet of older high-floor trams and modern low-floor light rail vehicles, similar to Toronto’s new fleet. But in Prague, heritage trams could often be spotted in service, especially on the west bank of the Vltava near Prague Castle.
Heritage tram #2272 in Prague
Lessons for Toronto
After travelling, it can be easy to spot one’s hometown flaws and faults. But I spent a lot of time riding Vienna’s metros, trams, and buses, and mindfully experiencing the transport networks in Bratislava, Budapest, Prague, and Salzburg (which does not run trams, but has a large trolleybus network), I was left with some key takeaways on how to do transit here.
First and foremost, transit riders were respected. Not necessarily in terms of personable customer service, but the feeling that the next tram or bus was going to arrive on time, and a reliable interval. If there was a delay, it was very well communicated.
For instance, while waiting for a tram in Vienna, we experienced an unusually long wait. The next tram display kept showing the next two arrivals at 3 and 4 minutes. Not long after, a voice came on a loudspeaker posted above the tram stop sign announcing (in German, translated in English to us by one of my spouse’s colleagues) a delay because of a collision along the route. The blockage cleared after a few minutes, and we boarded a crowded tram. I appreciated the audio announcement, especially as it was a basic tram stop.
The classic Vienna tram stop. Note the loudspeakers atop the blue bus stop sign (at night, buses take over, hence the Strassenbahn and Autobus stop signs).
Next vehicle displays were common in every city we visited. They would list — in real time — the next several buses or trams, as well as if the vehicle was low-floor accessible or not with a wheelchair symbol. All buses are now fully accessible, but the information is useful for the tram lines, where there are still many older high-floor vehicles.
Next vehicle display at a bus stop in Bratislava
I also noted that in Vienna, and for the most part elsewhere, vinyl advertisement wraps did not cover passenger windows on trams and buses. Bratislava’s wrapped trams had some ads that used window areas, but these were kept to a minimum.
In Vienna, advertisement wraps kept windows completely free of obstructionsAdvertisement wraps in Bratislava had minimal window coverage
It was also clear that trams had dedicated signals on their routes, if not necessarily signal priority. But with smaller intersections and relatively short signal timings, the waits at each signalized intersection were generally minimal.
Note the white tram signals next to the overhead traffic signal. The “A” indicates that a proceed signal will soon appear, and the operator can cancel the door release, so that no more passengers can enter or exit.
Tram signaling in Vienna and other Central European cites also includes remotely operated electric switches. Overhead signals indicate which direction the switch is set to; operators can pass through junctions at speed. While this is how trams operate in most places around the world, in Toronto, streetcar operators are required to stop before each switch and then crawl.
Trams pass through a track junction, along with an ambulance and a transit maintenance van. The overhead horizontal signal indicates the switch direction.
Though many tram stops are in private rights-of-way, in-street tram stops are designed for passenger safety and accessibility. These stops, depicted by the photograph below, have the curb lane raised to the level of the low-floor trams. This increases the visibility of passengers boarding and egressing, and also simplifies ramp deployment. Operators need not exit the cab and manually deploy the accessibility ramp, a timesaver versus the TTC’s ramp deployment on major streets. In the winter, this also helps keep the slush away from the tram stops.
The raised on-street curb lane at an on-street tram stop in Vienna.
Though Toronto is a very different city than Vienna, Budapest, or Prague, there are some clear takeaways. Keep the tram windows free of advertisements. Improve communications. Fix the track switches and signalize them. Raise the curb lanes at streetcar stops for safety, convenience, and accessibility. Fix the King Street Transit Priority corridor with a permanent streetscape and tighter vehicle restrictions. If it can be done on a narrow commercial street in Bratislava’s historic centre, there’s no reason why it can’t be done in a world financial capital.
These can even be done incrementally, but they need to be done if transit riders are deserving of respect and reliable surface transit.
The small Ohio community was originally named Sloan’s Station, but when it was incorporated as a city, they chose “Toronto” because local businessman W.F. Dunspaugh, a Toronto (Ontario) native, thought his hometown was “a place worth emulating.” Toronto, Ohio is the only other city named Toronto, but other Torontos exist, including the town of Toronto, South Dakota (population 212) and the town of Toronto, New South Wales, Australia (population 5,161).
In 2012, Downtown Toronto had only a handful of stores, including a Dollar General, a bar, pizzeria, a Hallmark gift shop, and a hair salon. Apart from the bar (which I went into ten years ago), those businesses are still there today, but there was also a new barbecue restaurant, and a coffee shop. Up the street, a disused auto shop was transformed into a pretty good taco joint. Though downtown wasn’t especially busy, the parking spots along 4th Street were mostly full.
Downtown Toronto. A community garden sits on a vacant lot on the corner. 4th Street, Toronto’s main street The old hotel, now shops and apartments
Sadly the abandoned, yet still handsome National Bank of Toronto building was torn down a few years ago. Otherwise, Toronto continues to hold its own, with a well-kept little downtown and more places to sit and eat than before.
Former National Bank of Toronto, October 2012Site of the former National Bank of Toronto, October 2022
Just a few miles to the south is the town of Mingo Junction, Ohio, one of many industrial communities along the Ohio River in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky. Mingo Junction is best known as a filming location for movies including the acclaimed 1977 film “The Deer Hunter.” The town now celebrates its cinematic history with large vinyl signs displayed on the north end of Mingo Junction’s main street.
Large sign celebrating the filming of “The Deer Hunter” in Mingo Junction, Ohio
While Toronto’s economy is based on a still-busy titanium mill, Mingo Junction is a old steel town, hit hard by the deindustrialization of northeast Ohio in the 1970s and 1980s. The condition of its Main Street
Mingo Junction’s Main Street, bypassed by a newer expressway. Another mural celebrates “Reckless,” a 1984 film also filmed in town.
Who knew, just two weeks ago, that Torontonians would be returning to the polls to elect a new mayor of Toronto?
Looking back on John Tory’s last eight-and-a-half years in office, the biggest disappointment might have been that he spent so little of the political capital that he had accumulated after decades as a backroom power broker, corporate executive, provincial party leader, talk radio host, and supporter of NGOs such as CivicAction and the United Way. Despite his promise as a business-friendly, progressive conservative leader who knew how to build partnerships and work with other levels of government, there’s little to show for it. SmartTrack? That was always a fantasy which has now been mostly forgotten. An improved public realm, including a new Rail Deck Park? That never happened either. Heck, we can’t even get a decent WiFi connection in the subway, never mind a cell signal, despite the mayor’s close ties with the telecommunications industry.
To be fair, there are a few things one can point to that got done during Tory’s tenure: new bike routes on Bloor-Danforth, Yonge, and University Avenue, some improvements to the TTC surface network, the King Street transit priority pilot, and surprisingly good pandemic responses, including excellent city-run vaccine clinics, weekend street closures for active transportation, and new street-level patio space to help restaurateurs recover from pandemic shutdowns.
But in 2022, the ActiveTO street closures faded away, partially due to influence from the Toronto Blue Jays management (note: the baseball team and its stadium are owned by Rogers), the King Street transit priority corridor deteriorated from neglect. As the homelessness crisis worsened, Tory and his allies backed repressive and violent clearances of public parks, without supplying enough alternatives for housing or supporting the most vulnerable in this city. A series of municipal budgets in which property taxes were kept low while other expenses piled up has caused this city to become reliant on the support of the province and federal governments to bail us out.
With Tory gone — brought down by his own error in judgment — we will have thirteen lost years in which Toronto will have to catch up. That’s a tall order.
I can’t claim to have all the answers, but I have a few ideas to share to help make Toronto a safer, more fun, more comfortable, and more humane place to live. If I were a mayor with strong powers, here’s what I would do:
A progressive property tax system. An unfortunate reality for Ontario municipalities is that they have very limited tools for raising revenue: property taxes, user fees (like TTC fares and recreation fees), and in Toronto’s case, vehicle registration fees. Municipalities are also given grants from the province and federal government for specific purposes, such as providing mandated services. Unlike sales, income, and business taxes, property taxes do not grow with the economy, so municipalities must raise the property tax mill rate every year to keep up with inflation and/or fund new or expanded services. However, no matter the assessed worth of the property, the tax percentage remains the same.
A progressive property tax system can be used then to raise more money from higher-valued properties. For example, for residential properties, a basic tax rate could apply for the assessed value up to $1 million. Beyond that first $1 million, a higher bracket comes into effect. Such a policy could minimize tax increases for those in smaller or starter homes. To encourage the construction of secondary suites, high-value properties could then get tax breaks for every additional self-contained unit on site, provided they are inspected and meet fire code. A progressive property tax system could help raise revenue, encourage the construction of more housing units, and provide a more equitable revenue source.
A real Vision Zero plan. Putting up “Senior Safety Zone” signs and lowering speed limits on four and six lane streets does little when the roadway remains designed for high speeds, and motorists race through intersections with limited enforcement. To protect pedestrians and cyclists (as well as other drivers and their passengers), the roads themselves must be re-engineered for lower speeds. This means “daylighting” pedestrian crossings by ensuring crosswalks are always well-lit, crosswalks raised where possible to improve visibility and curbs extended to both reduce the amount of roadway that pedestrians must cross, and signal to drivers to slow down. Furthermore, a blanket right-turn-on-red prohibition, like those in New York, Montreal, and Mexico City, would eliminate a common cause of pedestrian-motorist collisions and make those new leading pedestrian intervals at Toronto’s street corners fully effective.
Prioritize transit and clean up the TTC. When I say “clean up the TTC” I don’t mean throwing more cops at the problem of safety on our subways, streetcars and buses. Under CEO Rick Leary’s leadership, it feels as if the TTC has given up on many of the gains brought forward by Andy Byford. Customer service has fallen by the wayside, wait times have increased, the streetcar network is faltering with trams running slower than ever before, communications have become unreliable, and customer confidence in the system has fallen. When customers no longer feel valued, they themselves give up.
After cancelling upcoming service cuts contained in Tory’s last budget, one of the easiest things to do to show that transit riders matter is making King Street great. This means installing permanent streetcar platforms in the curb lanes along the streetcar priority zones and making it even more clear that drivers are prohibited from using King as a throughway. Eliminate the night time taxi exception to simplify signage, and automate enforcement with video cameras mounted at intersections and on streetcars themselves, as is done on some Select Bus Service routes in New York.
Haffiz A., via Twitter, shows how King Street could look:
The TTC also needs to modernize its street railway infrastructure so that streetcars no longer have to stop and crawl across every track intersection. Electric dual-blade junctions and wayside signals — used just about everywhere else — allow streetcar operators to know which way the track is pointed ahead of the intersection and can allow streetcars to glide through junctions at regular traffic speed.
Finally, get TTC staff and all councillors riding the TTC on a regular basis. Meet passengers. Let them know they matter, and inform them of improvements, and be visible.
Build affordable housing. Lots of it. Use increased revenues from the progressive tax system proposed above to build more affordable housing directly (instead of just relying on market solutions like inclusionary zoning), including the co-operative home model. While doing so, shame the provincial and federal governments for pulling out of funding new construction in the 1990s. The city owns lots of land in good areas, such as Green P parking lots, TTC stations, works yards, suburban office spaces, and even on parts of municipal golf courses, which, of course, should be converted to general year-round public spaces.
Stand up to the bullies at Queen’s Park. One of Mayor Tory’s biggest failures was to ignore the province’s meddling in Toronto’s affairs and impose the province’s unpopular plans upon the city. This city should have the right to decide the composition of its own council; there was not nearly enough protest from city leadership when Doug Ford forced a cut in council from 47 to 25 (which will likely go down to just 24 in 2026) after an unprecedented level of public consultation in shaping the approved boundaries. Instead of waiting forever for a ministerial zoning order that was never going to come for a modular housing project in North York, real leadership would have gotten it built, the province be damned. Call their bluff.
Meanwhile, Premier Doug Ford — the man Tory beat to become mayor in 2014 — is imposing his own ideas on Ontario Place, provincially owned public lands on Lake Ontario. If one could not get Rail Deck Park built, Ontario Place could have been the site for a renewed public realm, much like some of New York City’s new waterfront parks. Some vision, some willingness to spend political capital, and a good advocacy campaign could have stopped the plans for an overbearing private megaspa that effectively closes off major portions of our public waterfront.
New York City’s “Little Island” could have been an inspiration for a renewed Ontario Place
There will be some people who will be happy that I am not serious about running for mayor. For one, I don’t have the people skills, the connections, nor the energy to make a serious bid. But if I see some of the ideas suggested above make it into a mayoral platform, I would not be above making a personal endorsement.
A Red Arrow coach lays over at a Harvey’s restaurant in Kingston on the way to Ottawa
On December 7, I took a trip out to Kingston to ride the newest coach operator to arrive in Ontario: Red Arrow. A division of Pacific Western, Red Arrow is the latest carrier to stake a claim to the busy Toronto-Kingston-Ottawa route, which is now served by five private companies.
Between Toronto and Ottawa, five intercity coach carriers–Megabus, Rider Express, Flixbus, Book-A-Ride, and Red Arrow–compete for the same passengers, along with VIA Rail and three airlines (Air Canada, WestJet, and Porter).
There is also fierce competition for the Toronto-London route. Passengers have the choice of taking Megabus, Rider Express, Onex, Flixbus, Book-A-Ride, VIA Rail, or a very slow weekday-only GO train. Along with VIA, Flixbus also continues west, to Windsor (where the Tunnel Bus connection to Detroit has finally been restored). The Toronto-St. Catharines-Niagara route is also served by multiple bus and rail services.
Red Arrow coach seating
Despite new intercity coach players like Red Arrow (which provides a high-end coach service, with comfortable seating in a 2+1 arrangement, along with complimentary soft drinks and light snacks) and Book-A-Ride (which operates like a charter airline, with schedules that change frequently based on demand), many other routes still have limited or no service. Flixbus quietly dropped its Kitchener-Hamilton-Niagara route earlier this year, eliminating service on a corridor that once had frequent Canada Coach Lines buses; that route had been sold in 1990 to Trentway-Wagar/Coach Canada. Flixbus also ended service to Guelph, instead concentrating on its other corridors. Early next year, Megabus will end its route between Toronto, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Washington DC.
The deregulation of motor coach services within the Province of Ontario may have made some sense. The old bargain of providing exclusive franchises for busy, profitable routes made sense when operators would use those cash cows to help subsidize less-trafficked rural services. But as Greyhound, Stagecoach, and other large companies bought up smaller carriers (such as Gray Coach, Canada Coach Lines, and PMCL) in the 1980s and 1990s, they were allowed to slowly abandon the smaller routes. Greyhound itself divested most of its network before disappearing altogether. As the franchising scheme didn’t work, there was no point keeping it.
But now, there’s the absurd situation where there are up to 25 daily buses and trains between Toronto and Ottawa (see table below). In contrast, there is not a single daily bus service connecting Hamilton and Kitchener-Waterloo–two urban centres of over 500,000 people each, just an hour apart, with three large universities (Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier, and McMaster) and two major colleges (Conestoga and Mohawk) between them.
Available trips from Toronto to Ottawa, December 2022, with times for Kingston and Peterborough. Bus and rail tips to Montreal via Kingston are not included. A PDF version can be found here.
Elsewhere, where GO Transit and government-subsidized regional connections have filled gaps, the services are often slower and less direct than the old coach bus service. PMCL used to operate daily bus service between Owen Sound and Toronto via Collingwood and Barrie. Today, the same trip is possible via Grey Transit Route, Colltrans, Simcoe County Linx, and GO Transit, but the trip will take the better part of a day. Meanwhile, other gaps remain. Elgin County (Aylmer and St. Thomas) and Haldimand County (Caledonia, Dunnville, Hagersville, and Jarvis) are left without any outside connections.
Such is the state of the intercity transportation network (if you can call it that) in Ontario.
Though I enjoyed the trip on Red Arrow to Kingston (especially as I took advantage of a special $25 fare), I wondered how well the service will do here in Ontario. Its base price is over $100 one-way to Ottawa, more expensive than other coach operators and priced more like VIA Rail, which itself is slightly faster (as long as CN freight trains do not get in the way). Red Arrow uses the same locations in Ottawa (the VIA Rail Station itself) and Toronto (Union Station Bus Terminal) as the train. Red Arrow does well in Alberta, where there is no useful passenger rail service (Pacific Western also offers a no-frills coach bus service on the same Calgary-Edmonton route).
The latest version of my interactive intercity transit map is below:
How Toronto voted for mayor. Areas shaded in blue represent electoral subdivisions (polls) where John Tory placed first. Areas shaded in purple represent polls where Gil Penalosa placed first. Click here for the interactive version.
As has become my tradition after Toronto’s municipal elections, I mapped out the poll-by-poll results of the mayoral race and some of the more interesting council races. After creating maps for the 2014 election and sharing those on social media, it was suggested that I have a website to host these maps. That is how this website came to be.
This time, I created an interactive map showing the results of the mayoral race, along with six council races: Ward 3 Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ward 4 Parkdale High-Park, Ward 5 York South-Weston, Ward 11 University-Rosedale, Ward 18 Willowdale, and Ward 20 Scarborough Southwest.
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 SideA 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.
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.
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 StreetOne 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.
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.
Despite new highrise development in its city centre, Mississauga lost 3,368 residents between 2016 and 2011
On February 9, data geeks across Canada rejoiced when Statistics Canada released the first round of data from the 2021 Census of the Population.
The data was released at all levels of geography made available by Statscan. At the federal level, Canada grew by 5.2% since the 2016 Census, with a total population of 36,991,981. Immigration, rather than natural growth (births vs. deaths) drove Canada’s population increase.
Of course, this growth did not occur evenly across the country. Newfoundland and Labrador lost residents, while Prince Edward Island and British Columbia saw the biggest population increases.
Within the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, Mississauga experienced population decline (-0.5%) for the first time since it became a city in 1974. Outer suburbs, such as Milton, East Gwillimbury, and areas just beyond the GTHA, such as New Tecumseth and Bradford saw population growth over 20%, driven by new greenfield development.
In older Toronto suburbs, including much of Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, and even Mississauga, population losses at the local census tract level can be explained by ageing households, where Millennial and older Gen Z children moved out on their own, particularly into fast-growing downtown areas. These areas, dominated by single-family housing, could accommodate much of the GTHA’s growth with gentle density, including secondary suites (such as basement apartments), garden suites, and zoning policies that would make it easier and more economical to build “missing middle” housing such as walkup apartments and multiplex homes.
Toronto grew by 62,785 residents in the last five years, with only a few areas accommodating all that growth: the downtown core between Dufferin Street and Broadview Avenue, South Etobicoke, Yonge-Eglinton, and former industrial, instructional, and commercial lands stretching along the Highway 401 corridor through North York and West Scarborough. This corridor includes the Downsview Park development, a new condominium cluster at Wilson Subway Station, the former Canadian Tire lands near Sheppard Avenue and Leslie Street, and the intensification of the Fairview Mall area.
