Transit for an interconnected region
Improved customer service and network integration are top priorities for planners
It’s just after 5 on a Friday afternoon and Lukas Lister-Stevens is ready to ride home.
He unlocks his bike from a rack outside the Bathurst TTC station, where he leaves it every weekday morning to hop the subway north to Northern Secondary School on Mount Pleasant Rd. just north of Eglinton Ave. “It’s too far to bike,” says the 16-year-old, who plays for the NSS football team. “And it’s all uphill.”
The TTC recently installed bike tune-up facilities at Bathurst, and nearly a dozen other stations, giving cyclists the tools to tighten a loose bolt or fix a flat on the go. It’s part of a broader effort by the transit provider to encourage cycling as a part of the daily commute. Lister- Stevens thinks the bike stations will come in handy. “I’ve had flats before,” he says.
Commuters in the modern Greater Golden Horseshoe depend on public transit to access the services and amenities they need to survive and thrive, whether that’s down the street, around the city or across the region.
Customer service may not have been the forte of transit providers in the past, but that’s changing thanks to an array of new initiatives. There are little things such as bike tune-up stations. There are big things such as Smart Commute, a Metrolinx program that helps businesses encourage workers to explore alternatives for getting to the office, such as walking, cycling and carpooling. And there are pretty big deals such as the launch of Presto, a regional singlefare system. Users are better able to take advantage of a transportation network that’s undergoing a big transformation.
“For the longest time, public transit was an Xs and Os kind of thing: how do you move the most number of people to and from where they need to go, and make sure the system is in good functioning order and funded appropriately,” explains transportation-planning expert Matti Siemiatycki, an associate professor in the department of geography at the University of Toronto. “But there’s been a recognition that public transit is a customer-service business as much as an engineering business, and I think that’s the future.” TTC deputy CEO Chris Upfold notes that bike tune-up stations are a low-cost, and easy-to-install solution that, in conjunction with other probike initiatives — such as racks on buses, increased bike parking and bike lockers at subway stations — demonstrate the TTC’s commitment to integrating other modes of transport and making it easier for commuters to complete the first and last legs of trips.
“We’re at capacity on a lot of our routes,” explains Upfold, who is also a cyclist. “So if we can create extra capacity by having people cycle, then that’s great.”
Earlier this year, the TTC eliminated fares for kids under 12 and redesigned system maps to show bus and streetcar routes more clearly, among other improvements. And the Line 1 “U” from St. George to Bloor-Yonge stations is now Wi-Fi enabled.
That’s good news for Jessica Graore, 22, who goes through Spadina station en route to Humber College, where she studies post-production. She travels by streetcar to Spadina, then by subway out to Kipling station and by bus to finally reach school. The trip takes more than an hour each way, but it allows Graore to live downtown while still accessing the specialized training she needs to pursue a career in film and TV production. “Humber’s programs are very hands-on and there are a lot of facilities and resources to use,” she says.
Metrolinx has been helping businesses and their employees across the region with Smart Commute, a program that supports the exploration of “smart travel” options. Local community offices work with businesses by encouraging them to provide programs that allow their employees to try flexible and alternative travel options.
The key to the modernization of the Greater Golden Horseshoe transit network is the integration of systems on a regional scale. In this regard, the introduction of the PRESTO electronic fare-payment system has been a game-changer, allowing for seamless travel across11transit agencies in the GTA and Ottawa, all with a single smart-card.
“If we’re going to function as a region and become more than just the sum of our parts,” says Siemiatycki, “we have to get the co-ordination part down.”
Co-ordination is the MO for Hilary Holden, the City of Toronto’s director of transit and sustainable transportation planning. Her office is working with TTC and Metrolinx to ensure the needs of neighbourhoods are top of mind as multi-billion-dollar transit megaprojects such as the Eglinton Crosstown LRT come to fruition.
“We want to ensure land use is supportive of active modes of transit, like cycling and walking, and that the streetscape is an attractive, friendly environment, so people will use it.”
Holden’s team is pursuing the creation of bike lanes along the new crosstown corridor, and also making sure density is distributed in a way that best serves the public realm.
“The idea is to spread it along the corridor so you get a vibrant and active urban street supporting great neighbourhoods,” says Holden. “So you’re using transit to help build community.”
The city is also working to make walking and cycling easier at Union Station, which sees a quarter-million daily users. It permitted construction of a missing northwest Path connection to 1 University Ave. and, when the station’s revitalization is finished next year, will have added secure and weather-protected storage for 340 bikes.
Other jurisdictions can offer innovative ideas for improving the transit experience here in the GTA. In Melbourne and Singapore, transit is free before 7 a.m., easing peak-hour congestion. In Vancouver, bus stops are equipped with next-bus technology, informing riders when their chariots will arrive. In Hong Kong, funds from development atop subway stations are applied to transit budgets.
And Siemiatycki notes that Melbourne creates temporary dedicated lanes for its streetcars by laying down plastic stripping to separate lanes. This could be used to pilot potential new transit and bike lanes in Toronto without fully committing to them, he suggests.
The advocacy group TTCriders has generated lots of buzz for its proposed transit system enhancement: They advocate adding more stops to the new Union-Pearson Express (UPX) train, integrating it with the TTC, and dropping the fare to $3.
“It’s a 23-kilometre line, about as long as Bloor-Danforth,” says spokesperson Jessica Bell, noting that UPX connects the busiest train station in Canada to a major regional employment hub via one of the country’s most heavily populated regions.
“There’s a huge opportunity for this train to be extremely useful to thousands and thousands of Torontonians.”
TTCriders has a solid transit-improving track record. Bell notes their Grumpy Rider Campaign — where sardine-like commuters sent photos to elected officials to push them to invest in transit — helped persuade Mayor John Tory to push for TTC service improvements.
“Now when someone gets to their bus stop in the morning, they’ll find the bus comes a little more frequently and that it’s a bit less crowded,” she says. “Little things can make a big difference.”
“If we’re going to function as a region and become more than just the sum of our parts, we have to get the co-ordination part down.” MATTI SIEMIATYCKI U OF T GEOGRAPHY PROFESSOR