Thoughts on the TTC fare hike

Recently came the news that the TTC would be forced to increase their fares to offset higher operating costs, due to an expansion of service. This hike would result in an increase of the adult fare from $2.75/ride to $3.00/ride. Today, the commission will meet to determine ways in which to cover their operating costs.

Now, all transit systems that I know of in North America recieve some sort of government subsidy– it is the nature of the business. According to the City of Toronto, American systems recieve, on average, a 60% operating subsidy, while the TTC recieves a 20% subsidy, solely by the City. Obviously this is not nearly enough. In fact, apart from the TTC’s cousin GO Transit, very few transit systems have a cost-recovery ratio from the fare box as high as the TTC does.

What this means is that the TTC is relying on riders to cover much of their costs, and indeed, their increased costs. This can result in a tricky catch-22 type of situation– in order to carry more riders, costs must increase and therefore fares must increase, but fare increases dissuade ridership.

Let me be clear, I am not advocating against a fare increase. In fact, a quick study of fares for other services around the province shows that $3.00 for an adult fare is not that far out of line. However, what is out of line is the cost of a Metropass, the monthly pass– where 40% of the TTC’s fare revenue comes from. The proposed increase, as of Nov. 4th, was from a monthly cost of $109 to a monthly cost of $126. That means that a rider would have to be making 42 rides per month to break even. This is not how a monthly pass is supposed to work. Recently, Adam Giambrone, the TTC Commissioner, stated that he would like to see the raised Metropass fare to be only $121. I hope that he isn’t looking to be a hero by reducing a 15% fare increase by a measly $5.

For comparison’s sake, let’s just look at Montreal’s fare structure: cash fare, $2.75; 10 fares, $20.00; monthly pass, $68.50. Obviously, Montreal’s monthly pass is intended to reward riders for their frequent use of the service. The same can’t be said for the TTC; rather, it appears their monthly pass is a tool used to gouge their most loyal customers.

In summary, the adult fare should be increased to $3.00 a ride. The Metropass should not be increased to $126, and a case can be made that it shouldn’t be raised at all. The TTC’s operating subsidy needs to be increased; somehow, someway, it’s got to get done. Lastly, the TTC should look at 90-minute fares– that is, someone who just wanted to pop in to the grocery store for a few things and then go home should be able to use the same fare. This, in my opinion, will increase ridership and revenue, as people with choices (such as taking the car) will choose the TTC instead.

Old church begins anew in the heart of the city

Today, I decided to take advantage of the uncharacteristically gorgeous November weather (on a weekend no less!) and took to my bike. Naturally, I rode from my rental on the outskirts of Waterloo to Uptown.

Uptown is an exciting place for a city planning nerd like myself. Currently, there are at least four significant active construction sites in the Uptown core– the Perimeter Institute, the Bauer Lofts (mostly finished), and Jim Balsillie’s new school. The other significant one I was not aware of previous to today was the site of Knox Presbyterian Church (Erb and Caroline Sts.).  I learned that they are building an entirely new building on their current parking lot.

According to an article in The Record, the church made the decision to construct a new building due to the complex nature of the existing collection of buildings:

The current church is a complex consisting of a sanctuary, gym and office spaces located in a hodge-podge of buildings constructed in 1927, 1957 and 1973. It’s built on seven different levels, so it would have needed two elevators to make it entirely accessible for physically handicapped parishioners.

The new building, designed by Baird Sampson Neuert Architects, will have a 400-seat sanctuary and new, larger offices and classrooms. Overall the church’s floorspace will increase from 16 000 sq. ft. to 24 000 sq. ft. Unfortunatley, the old building will be completely demolished, which I think is a shame. However, they will be saving distinctive elements of the old building, such as the original stained glass windows, and integrating them into the new building. I guess we have to settle for these gestures at built heritage sometimes.

I am happy that this congregation is able to push forward with the construction of a new building that will better serve the needs of the community, as well as being completely accessible. However, the last part of the Record article truly warmed my heart.

Ashfield said the congregation considered moving to a 10-acre lot on the outskirts of town, but decided its place was in the city.

The church is across the road from Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

“We felt a spiritual component belongs in that mix,” he said. “This just fits.”

So many churches have made what I feel is an easy decision– to move to the outskirts of town where new big-box stores and subdivisions with young families dominate. Knox Waterloo, faced with such a decision, made the right one. As such, they will continue to be a landmark in Uptown Waterloo into the next century. I could not be more excited for the new building and for the congregation.

“The Commons”

Just a heads up, recently I’ve come to appreciate the Macleans website. More specifically, I love to read Aaron Wherry’s blog/columns called “The Commons”. Essentially, they are a summary of what goes on in the House of Commons Question Period every day it’s in session. I find his writing style excellent, as it makes the most mundane (Question Period– sometimes) seem highly entertaining.

Coincidentally, today was an extra-special day in the House, as numerous protestors disturbed the proceeding from the viewing gallery. Today was also the day the new CBC News Network (formerly Newsworld) launched, and so far I like what I see. The visual format is less stuffy, more aesthetically pleasing, and there are some new shows that I’m looking forward to watching. I’d like to see how Mark Kelley runs his own show, as I’ve always appreciated his in-depth reports. They also launched a new politics portal which looks to be an improvement on what (if anything) was there before (still going to miss Don Newman in his nightly show, but at least he’s kicking around).  Finally, the National is getting refreshed, with Peter Mansbridge stepping out from behind the desk, and of course all the new visuals from CBC NN. Should be exciting.

Black and white roofs?

I’ve always thought this idea would be ideal for Canada’s climate, a roof that is: black in the winter, to attract and absorb the heat from the sun; and white in the summer, to reflect the sun’s heat and keep the house cool.

Well, it appears that the bright folks at MIT have come up with what might be a solution. A new material they call Thermeleon makes it all possible. This article explains it way better than I ever could:

“MIT’s Thermeleon material is a composite of layers that makes it thermochromic–on exposure to heat it changes color from black to white. It works by sandwiching a common polymer between flexible plastic layers, with a black one at the back–when cold the polymer solution stays dissolved and the black rear face shows through, and when it heats up the solution condenses to form light-scattering droplets.”

While it’s a long way off from being viable (financially) for application to your home, it does appear to be moving in that direction, as the scientists are working on it so that it is paintable or spray-on. When that day comes, it will be another survival tool for Canadian winters.

First PM’s home facing demolition

It appears that the movement to preserve parts of Canada’s short history is taking a beating again, with reports that Sir John A. Macdonald’s first home is soon to be razed. Matthew Hart of The Star reports from Glasgow, Scotland:

In a grimy lane in central Glasgow stand an abandoned brothel and a boarded-up saloon. Partners in hopelessness, they face the dismal thoroughfare. The building that houses them, like all its neighbours, is slated for demolition, and standing there you think: the sooner the better.

“And you’d never know this place had anything to do with him,” said Douglas Pritchard, a Winnipeg-born architect, as he stood in the Glasgow lane and looked at the hoardings and the flaking paint and the green weeds growing in the cracks.

“If this was connected to George Washington, the Americans would have covered it in gold. There’d be arrows pointing the way from miles around,” Pritchard said.

“Not even a plaque.”

However, all is not lost, as the property is owned by Selfridges, a high-end department store, which is actually owned by Canadian billionaire Galen Weston. When the company heard about the importance of the property, they promised some sort of action:

This week, learning that their Glasgow site was connected to Macdonald, Selfridges agreed to include a memorial in its development plans.Veteran Glasgow city councillor Colin Deans, born in Scotland but raised in Nova Scotia, is a proponent of a Macdonald memorial, as is councillor Catherine McMaster.

“I can assure you,” McMaster said in an email, “that I will be active and robust in my promotion of the memorial to Sir John A. Macdonald.”

Details on Sir John A.’s early life are sketchy at best, and there is a healthy debate as to where exactly he was born. However, this address is the only one that is definitely associated with the Macdonald family. While it appears the forces of development will take what is otherwise an unimportant building, I hope that the responsible Canadian agency ensures that the Macdonald monument will be appropriate for a man so important to the creation and success of our fine country.

Planners consult colour chart

In their quest to calm traffic along busy Market St, San Francisco transportation planners found themselves consulting a colour chart and the state traffic code.

What were they doing consulting a colour chart you may ask? Well, see, they were going to put red brick at intersections to help warn drivers of cyclists, pedestrians, buses and trolleys, but somehow they found out red-brick was better suited to demarcate transit-only lanes (where they found this information is not made clear). So, off they went and found the colour chart, and somehow decided upon beige, BEIGE of all colours/shades, to “grab the attention of drivers”. I guess this is what happens when planners consult a colour chart?

To top it all off, a top transportation planner was quoted as saying the colour is actually “organic fair-trade frappuccino”. Disregarding the fact that unorganic unfair-trade frappuccinos are likely the same colour, this was still just dumb. It will be interesting to see how beige the beige is though.

More on high-speed rail

The Montreal Gazette is reporting today that Michael Ignatieff and the federal Liberals will make a promise in their election platform to build a high-speed train. This seems to be breaking news, and we know what politician’s promises are worth these days, so at this point it’s very vague. But the timing is interesting.

Siemens' modified locomotive, the Sapsan (Canwest News)

This month, Siemens has been testing a modified version of their Velaro train between Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia. The Velaro, which has been running successfully in Spain, has been modified for the Russian route because of special concerns due to the cold climate. According to Mario Péloquin, director of Siemens Mobility in Canada, the Russian trains (known as Sapsan or “peregrine falcon” in Russia) have extra insulation, a more powerful heating system, and air intakes on the roof instead of the sides (to prevent the sucking in of snow). It is the only high-speed train (currently built) that can handle up to -50 degrees Celcius temperatures.

Those of you familiar with the high-speed rail debate in Canada will know that one of the main knocks again the implementation of high-speed rail in Canada is that no train exists that could run reliably during our cold winters (and maybe even southern Ontario summers). Sure, companies were willing to explore the idea of making modifications to their trains, but not without a significant up-front commitment. Also, companies like Bombardier clung to old ideas like their JetTrain, which used diesel turbine engines instead of solely electric power. Bombardier’s idea was that since the willingness to replace infrastructure didn’t seem to be there, they would build a train that could operate on the already-built rails (with a few modifications for curves). However, the attitude was, if we’re going to build a high-speed rail system, we should probably build a real high-speed rail system (aka nobody likes diesel).

Now that Siemens has actually modified a locomotive so that it is suitable for our climate, the argument described above is no longer acceptable. While he certainly is biased, Péloquin said “that Russian model is a perfect fit for Canada”.

So what of the other main criticism of high-speed rail, the cost? Well, let’s take a look at what it’s costing the Russian railway authority. According to the New York Times: “the Russian state railway spent $485 million upgrading the track and $926 million for eight Sapsan trains and a 30-year service agreement…”
The trip is about 645 km, which is approximately the trip from London to Ottawa. All told, it’s $1.4B for the Russian project, or $2.1M per kilometre. Without doing the whole economic analysis (sorry, I just don’t have the time, and the governments of Ontario and Quebec aren’t paying me $3M), it seems like a pretty reasonable investment to me.

With the Russians and even the Americans now getting involved in high-speed rail development, you might wonder if the Canadian government is beginning to feel left out. You may be right. Sometime in September members of the House have gone down to the states for train rides and meetings about the US’s investments in rail. Somehow, I’m pessimistic about the result of the trip. Sure, they will come home singing praises of HSR, but will it lead to action?

With Canadian leaders rapidly running out of excuses, the time for high speed rail in Canada may finally be upon us.

Short-term suburban thinking

Since I became aware of urban issues and characteristics, I never really liked the suburb next to where I grew up. That suburb is Durham Region, an area east of Toronto. Recently, it has been plagued with politicians who tend to argue against transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly, sustainable planning (with one notable exception). I have argued before that Durham Region Transit is the worst transit system in the GTA (they rely heavily on GO Transit buses to form the back bone of their system).

This can be defined generally as short-term thinking. A stunning example of this is the recent report (PDF) by activist group Environmental Defence which s criticizes Durham Region for “completely disregarding the Places To Grow Act.” According to the group, Durham planners have inflated employment numbers for planned development to 25 000 more than what was previously agreed upon by provincial and regional planners. How much of this is political interference? The staunch ideology of some of the politicians makes one wonder.

In a more historical example of short-term thinking in the Region, news came recently that Durham taxpayers may be on the hook for $100M in repairs to plastic water pipes installed three decades ago. Predictably, the pipes have become brittle and are prone to popping leaks, some which have been repaired already. However, the engineering department has come to the realization that total replacement is in order. With other suburban jurisdictions suffering a similar disposition, one cannot help but think that perhaps short-term thinking is par for the course in the suburbs.

Canadian university logos, UW’s redesign

Prompted by the release/leak (I’m not quite sure) of the University of Waterloo’s new logo, and the resulting dissent from the student population, I decided to do a little research and look at the logos of Canada’s top universities. The research yielded some interesting results, so interesting that I may in fact do my work report on this very topic. (Not really– but I could, I’m in Planning after all).

So without further rambling, here are logos of some of the more prominent universities in Canada (apologies in advance for the collage style!):

And here’s UW’s old and new logo for those of you who were too lazy to follow the link (hat tip to the Facebook group leaders):

So, by my count of the universities as listed above, sixteen (16) of twenty-seven (27) incorporate a coat-of-arms-style logo. From other research, I believe 3 to be recently redesigned, and the remainder are just older logos. While a coat of arms certainly can bring to mind the staid, restricting environment of academia, it also projects an image of respectability, heritage, and trustworthiness. The new logo says high tech, modern, and bold.

What do the numbers above tell us? It either says that:
a) the marketing department at UW is completely out to lunch; or
b) the marketing department at UW is ahead of the curve.

Because the logo hasn’t been officially released (to my knowledge), very limited information is available regarding its proposed usage. I have heard that the old logo will remain in use on degrees and other officious things, while the new logo will be used to represent the school to prospective students and in most of the marketing materials.

On a side note, while conducting the search for university logos, I came across a news article (2006) that may help explain the logo redesign. The article was about Memorial University of Newfoundland’s redesigned logo, which was fairly controversial, as it dropped the “of Newfoundland” in order to attract a worldwide student body. Said Victoria Collins, director of marketing and communications for the university:

“We need to grow slightly, particularly in our graduate programs, and so to make an impression with these students, in a very competitive marketplace, we will want to have a very co-ordinated image — a strong and memorable image, and one that speaks to those students.”

According to the article, the new logo will be used on the university’s website, publications, and promotional materials, while the old logo (coat of arms) will be used at convocation and on formal university documents, including degrees. Collins expected some backlash at the time, but said that a fresh look was needed.

There are some parallels to draw between the Memorial University situation and the current UW situation. Take a look at the university’s Sixth Decade plan, approved by Senate and the Board of Governors in 2006. The plan sets out 19 broad goals, some of which likely influenced marketing’s decision to redesign the logo. Some of the more pertinent goals:

4. Graduate Students

UW will significantly enhance its graduate programs in both quality and in quantity and will achieve the following targets:

• graduate student enrolment will be at least 25% of the total student population
• international students will comprise 30% of the total graduate student population
• graduates of other Canadian universities will comprise at least 30% of the graduate
  student population
• etc.

14. National and International Presence

To facilitate the establishment of the University’s global leadership, UW will expand its presence nationally and internationally and have:

• at least two international campuses with focused activities abroad
• physical presence in select key locations in Canada and abroad
• established partnerships, collaborative academic programs, and joint research centres
  with other prominent national and international institutions
• etc.

15. Internationalization

UW will become Canada’s most internationalized and internationally best-known university, by achieving the following goals:

• increase the international student population to 20% of the undergraduate student total
  and to 30% of the graduate student total
• enable at least 25% of UW undergraduate students to spend an academic, service or
  co-op work term abroad
• etc.

I may be drawing large conclusions here, but it seems the logo redesign has a lot to do with the “globalization” of our university, and very little to do with current students. You can be almost certain that your alumni letters will be sent out with the old letterhead.

I conclude by saying, love or hate the new logo, just be glad that we do not have something like UPEI’s logo (no disrespect to the school itself):

Evergreen Line saga continues

Vancouver’s suburbs are exploding. Congestion and traffic headaches are becoming ever more common in places like Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, and Coquitlam as more and more people move to these suburbs in search of cheaper homes and a more peaceful life. However, life in these suburbs, politically at least, is anything but peaceful.

News came yesterday that TransLink, known to be short on cash ($450M annual deficit), was looking to delay funding for the Evergreen Line SkyTrain, a project that was to link the three towns described above. TransLink’s share of the project was to be about $400M of the total $1.4B it is projected to cost. However, with the pressure on the agency to financially shape up, the Evergreen Line is an obvious cut. A final decision is to come in October, whatever that means. The province and the federal government have pledged $400M and $350M in funding for their part, which is nothing to pout about.

TransLink's 11-km headache

Later, in what is shaping up to be a battle of creator vs. creature, the province’s transportation minister said, “we’re not even contemplating not moving forward with Evergreen Line”. Shirley Bond, the minister, did not elaborate on how TransLink was to pay for its share. Basically, she said they need to shape up. The dreaded t-word (tax) has been talked about, but once again business owners chime in saying that any new tax, especially on parking, would “hurt business”.

What is most interesting is that the 11-km Evergreen Line is a major part of the province’s plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Without it getting built, they will not be able to meet their targets set for 2020. The stated goal is at least 15% transit modal share in these communities, which is evidently impossible without a $1.4B SkyTrain line.

According to the CBC, this line was announced more than 20 years ago. It’s easy to see why residents in these areas are getting a little antsy.