Presto and the magical monthly passes

Presto, the region's long-awaited smart fare card has begun it's GTA-wide rollout. Unlike last year's Launch One phase, this week marks the field test of the final product that we will see across the region in the next few years. Right now you can use at Bronte GO Station, Oakville GO Station, Union Station (both TTC and GO Transit) and Oakville Transit routes 22, 32 and 110.

In the spring you'll be able to use it at all Lakeshore West, Georgetown and Milton line stations, on Oakville Transit, Burlington Transit, and at 6 TTC Subway Stations. It's unclear which 6 subway stations they are talking about, but the rumour is that it will be the six surrounding Union Station so return trips to Union at the end of the day will be covered.

In the fall you'll be able to use it on the Lakeshore East, Barrie and Richmond Hill lines, Mississauga Transit, Brampton Transit, the Hamilton Street Railway and at Kipling and Islington Subway Stations.

In winter 2011 you'll be able to use Presto on Durham Region Transit, York Region Transit, the Stouffville line and at Don Mills, Downsview and Finch subway stations. It is my sincere hope that the TTC's rollout at the rest of the subway stations will be completed by this time with the bus and streetcar fleet not far behind. We know from the provincial transit framework that the Sheppard LRT Line has to be Presto-friendly, and this is scheduled to come online in 2012. I'm not advocating for the province to force their hand, but...

Winter 2011 will also see Presto come online for OC Transpo riders in Ottawa. Being in Ontario, there's no reason why our nation's capital should not participate in a made-in-ontario program. But, it's unclear if it will be compatible with the Toronto system and it's unclear if it will be compatible with the "Passe-Partout PLUS" smart card STO is using across the river. If I were in charge, though, I would sacrifice Toronto compatibility for STO compatibility.

The interesting thing about this switchover is how the fare rules for GO Transit are going to change. It might seem complicated at first, but these new rules solve a bunch of problems with the system that have annoyed riders and enthusiasts for years.

First of all, GO is said to be moving towards a more per-kilometre-oriented fare system and away from a zone fare system. This will eliminate quirks like a trip from Brampton to York U costing 20 cents less than a trip to Union but taking half the time.

Second, and most importantly, the monthly pass dance is over. Every month we make a calculation in our heads on how many trips we'll make and if it makes sense to buy a monthly pass or to buy a series of 10-ride tickets. If you overestimate then you've purchased a monthly pass that you haven't used to its fullest. If you underestimate then you have to purchase additional 10-ride tickets (at a higher per-trip rate). GO is now phasing out monthly passes and introducing progressive discounts. If you ride more than 10 times in a month then you get a 5% discount on further trips. If you ride more than 20 times you get a 20% discount. 30 times gets you 30%, 35 times gets you 65% and 40 times gets you a whopping 95% off the rest of the rides you make in a month. Based on the numbers provided by GO for the Bronte - Union trip, your fares should not go up. A round trip every work day actually saves you money over the current scheme. If you ride more then every work day you will pay slightly more, but each trip will be pocket change (somewhere in the neighbourhood of 30-cents). If you ride less than every work day (either accidentally or deliberately), you'll save money by not having a pass that only gets half-used.

As a bonus, the trips can be made anywhere on the system. You won't have to wait in line to buy a new ticket if you decide to take a daytrip to Niagara Falls, and this trip will count towards your daily discounts.

I've been a big fan of these "virtual monthly passes" for quite some time, partially because it eliminates the monthly pass dance, and because it opens up cheaper transit to many lower income families. Buying a period pass reduces the per-trip cost significantly over the cash rate, but not everyone has a large sum of money to drop on a transit pass at the beginning of the month. By extending the cheaper rate these individuals we can make transit more affordable to people living paycheque-to-paycheque. We haven't reduced the cost, per say, but we have made it more affordable by the strict definition of the term.

What do you, the readers, think? Virtual monthly passes do have many advantages, but they don't have that psychological comfort of knowing that you have an all-you-can-eat pass. Is that really important, or does it really matter what it looks like as long as the price is the same at the end of the day?

Toronto congestion costs Canada $3.3 billion: OCED

According to new study by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, congestion in the GTA costs just over $3 billion every year in lost productivity. While the Toronto Board of Trade came to the same conclusion a few years ago, what is getting airplay in the media is that the report advocates for road tolls and congestion charges to serve as a transportation demand management tool. By increasing the cost to drive on our most congested roadways we may be able to shift commuter onto alternate routes, alternate times and alternate modes that aren't as clogged. Those who absolutely must drive into congestion would then pay the true cost of commuting (the environmental, health, social and industrial, and not just the cost of building and repairing roads through property taxes).

Road tolls are unpopular, and I'm not going to deny it - Human behaviour is to try to minimize things that cause us harm and annoyance. Any discussion on road tolls is usually met with a statement somewhere along the lines of "not until public transit is improved." Yes, we should increase the coverage, frequency and speed of public transit in the region, but I often wonder what level of service will be necessary before we have "enough" public transit. Is it the 25-year plan? The 50-year plan? The 100-year plan? Is "not until public transit is improved" just a stall tactic to defer the debate indefinitely?

TTC steps up fight against fake passes and tokens

According to the Toronto Star, the TTC is installing new fraud detection devices in all its vehicle fare boxes and station turnstiles later next year to weed out fake passes and tokens. The new system will cost $1.5 million and will require metropass users to swipe their card when they board, but will apparently pay for themselves in less than a year due to the decrease in fare evasion.

This is all fine and good, but my fear is that they will declare "problem solved" and not commit to any other fare improvements. I have always been a big supporter of the Presto smart card currently being deployed on all of the 905 transit systems and GO Transit, and my experiences with SmarTrip in D.C. only solidified that. I believe in cutting down fare evasion, but incremental steps should not be an excuse against the move towards an integrated fare card which will have many of these anti-fraud systems already built in.

Mr. Griffith goes to Washington

Washington DC is a city that only exists for a single purpose - to be the capital city of the United States of America. From a transit perspective this is both a good thing and a bad thing. The master plan for the city, created by Pierre Charles L'Enfant (whom the locals that I spoke to never failed to point out was French) resulted in a very orderly street grid with wide avenues. There was plenty of road capacity from what I could tell, so there was less of an enticement to leave the car at home and take transit. But, because the main employers in the city are essentially recession-proof, I don't think the city has seen the ridership drop that other cities have had (since you don't take transit to work if you don't have a job). I spent five days in Washington last week, and was able to experience most of what the district's transit system had to offer. Here are some random thoughts:

Metrorail:
The subway in Toronto was built under the philosophy that busy surface routes should be upgraded to higher order transit. As a result, the TTC subway follows the street grid. Washington followed a different philosophy, so the network has arms shooting out in all directions from a series of downtown interchanges. Stations are spaced fairly far apart, which makes for a quicker ride but does makes stations hard to locate, especially because they don't follow the street grid. Sign directing tourists to nearby monuments also show Metro stations, but there are few monuments (and these signs) outside of the central city. The lines are mostly in bored tunnels downtown, making the stations deep and escalators being the only way to get down to the concourse in many stations. Some escalators are exposed to the elements as the station entrances are minimalist, and it made me wonder how they were able to keep them operational with all the dirt, snow, sand and debris from the outdoors. Architecturally, there are two styles for stations - all underground stations look identical and all outdoor stations look identical. I found the stations to be dark and signage to be small and hard to read at a distance, but they did have platform floor lights that would flash when a train was approaching and were cleaner than my bedroom. Multiple lines share tracks at many stations, and next-train displays helped make sure I got on the right train, but I often found it difficult to figure out which platform to wait at and to know when I had arrived at the destination. Sometimes the in-train displays showed the next stop and which doors would open, sometimes they didn't, but the trains themselves were fairly nice with forward facing cushion benches and carpet floors. Cell phone companies are also in the process of installing transmitters in the tunnels, with the Verizon network up and the others in progress. Fortunately, riders tended to respect the unwritten code of keeping quiet in the tunnels.

Metrobus:
The bus network in Washington is fairly extensive, both in coverage and frequency. Aside from the DC operated Metrobus service, there are about a dozen other suburban systems that either connect to the Metro at the outskirts or run express into the downtown core. Effectively, one doesn't really need to use the Metro as the bus service is one of the largest and most extensive in the USA. But, one thing that I found very confusing was the number of brands operated even under the Metrobus umbrella. There are Metro Local routes (buses painted red and grey), Metro Express routes (buses painted blue and grey, premium fare), Metro Extra routes (buses painted grey and blue, regular fare express), and DC Circulator routes (buses painted red, not quite express but not quite local either for a reduced fare). While this makes it very easy to identify what bus is coming, a rainbow of buses looks less like a fleet and more like distinct systems to those who are unfamiliar with the setup - especially in a city that has multiple tour bus companies. The only route I rode was the DC Circulator, which is a network of five routes operating on the more touristy corridors. The red route connected the ritzy Georgetown shopping district with Union Station and passed by the hotel, and frequencies were every 10 minutes. The circulators used Belgian Van Hool buses like VIVA in the 30-foot and 40-foot varieties, but the 40-footer had the three door option. While the regular bus fleet had a ton of older American buses, the vast majority of the post 1995 fleet was Canadian built. There appeared to have been a significant investment in stylish BRT buses, even for ordinary local routes.

Fare systems:
The name of the game in DC for transit fares is SmarTrip, a reloadable debit-style smart card that's good for travel on both district and suburban services. The bus service runs on a flat fare system, but paper transfers are no longer issued - the SmarTrip card knows when you first boarded the bus and gives you free transfers for three hours. There is also a discount over the cash fare when using the card. The Metrorail fare system is a bit more complex and uses a fare-by-distance system. You tap your SmarTrip card to unlock the fare barrier when you enter the system and then tap again to leave. The fare is deducted based on those two points, and discounts are available for off-peak travel. A paper ticket is available and works by inserting the ticket into the fare barrier to unlock it. While SmarTrip cards will let you leave with a negative balance, travellers with paper tickets might have to top up before they can leave. SmarTrip is the only way to pay for parking at the Metrorail parking lots, and it reduces the cost of boarding the bus after a subway trip to 75-cents. SmarTrip works exactly how I hope Presto will work when it's fully implemented, but there are some downsides. Firstly, it doesn't have a travel cap so you need a paper ticket if you want to buy a day pass (but they are working on it). Secondly, it is only sold at Metro stations with parking lots - generally on the outskirts. Within the downtown core they are sold at participating CVS Pharmacy locations, but it was next to impossible to figure out which ones were participating and which ones weren't. I ended up going to Falls Church, Virginia to purchase one. Fortunately, you put the leftover balance on the paper ticket on the SmarTrip card.

Cycling:
I managed to get 35 km of cycling on a rented cruiser while I was in town, thanks to Big Wheel Bikes in Georgetown. Initially I headed west along the towpath of the historic Chesapeake & Ohio canal, and spotted a crane along the shoreline. For most of the length the towpath ran parallel to the Capital Crescent Trail, a paved rail-trail on the old Baltimore & Ohio ROW that I followed when it turned northeast. The trail features a very interesting railway tunnel, some massive bridges, and tunnel under downtown Bethesda, Maryland. I decided to stay on the surface, and was very happy that I did. The downtown reminded me of downtown Burlington - a mix of well-placed high-rises and historic low-rises that I have always really liked. Continuing northeast, the trail ended just on the edge of Silver Spring, Maryland, and I connected to the Rock Creek trail to head back into DC. The trails were off-road to the District Line, but became on-road when I crossed into DC and entered Rock Creek National Park. Traffic was light, but I can foresee it being a little dicey during the peak tourist season. The off-road trails eventually returned around the historic Peirce Mill, and I had a smooth, traffic-free ride into Georgetown. The whole circuit took about three hours, but the trail facilities were few and far between. A few things that I did notice about the cycling culture in DC really surprised me. First of all, it didn't seem like bike theft was a major concern. I saw a road bike with expensive 4-spoke carbon wheels locked up on the street overnight. You wouldn't dream of doing that in Toronto. Secondly, while Toronto has a fair number of utility cyclists and trendy riders - the woman in boots and a skirt on a dutch bike with flowers in the basket, for example - DC riders were almost all business. The vast majority of riders on the streets were weekend warriors and weekend warriors with panniers to carry their suits. It was interesting, to say the least.

Georgetown South Service Expansion Approved

As you may have heard, the Georgetown South Service Expansion project has received environmental assessment approval, subject to conditions that are strict but reasonable. I've made my position on this controversial project quite clear in the past so I won't repeat it, but I do believe that moving forward on this project will improve transit for much of the west end of the GTA. Love it or hate it, it will give us multiple local trains every hour, express trains serving the highest ridership stations, a doubling of VIA rail service to London via Kitchener, a much-needed rail link to the airport, and it will get some of those services moving sooner rather than later. The bottom line is that, in the opinion of this transit user and resident of the corridor, getting people out of their cars and onto trains is a good thing.

How I spent my summer vacation

Full disclosure time:

I spent the summer working at Metrolinx. It was an amazing learning experience and, while I wasn't in a planning position (my field), it gave me an opportunity to learn aspects of the transportation planning industry that I haven't yet been able to learn about in my course work. Having said that, I think I would be naive to say that the work experience didn't affect how I think about transit issues in the GTA.

I've always had a pro-Metrolinx bias, I've never tried to hide it, and it probably won't go away. I sincerely believe that, while no agency is perfect, the regional focus that Metrolinx has as its mandate is the only way we can achieve the transportation goals of moving people sustainably across the entire GTHA. We expect the population of this region to increase by about 2-3 million people. Intensification is a must, but there is no way we'll be able to accommodate that kind of growth within the 416 alone. We have to improve links within the 416, within the 905 and between the two. I'll be critical when I need to be, but the forward looking, positive and collaborative forum that I've tried to build this blog into will continue. Call me a trained seal (again) if you want, but these are the things I believe.

Now, to get back into the spirit of posting, here's one thing I observed over the summer:

In mid-July I cycled the Waterfront Trail from Burlington to Niagara Falls over two days and took the weekend GO excursion train back to Toronto, and was fairly impressed by the way the service was operated. Knowing that there would be plenty of cyclists taking advantage of this service (since Niagara has a very well-kept trail system), GO ran 10 car trains with 8 coaches available for passengers, the ninth coach (with tarp on the seats) became a bike car, and the cab car closed to passengers. This increased the amount of bikes that could be carried, but was only available to people who were travelling the entire way from Union to Niagara Falls - people getting on or off at intermediate stops had to mix it up with the passengers. By all measures the service was a great success, and was done fairly cheaply with platform expansions the only real hard infrastructure needed to make it happen (the concept of "quick wins vs full service on opening day" is something that I will address in a future post).

Looking to the southeast, the Long Island Railroad runs a similar excursion service. During the summer, the Cannonball has left NYC in the early afternoon and run express to the Hamptons - a 100 year tradition. The LIRR also runs local service to these same destinations, but by their own admission, the Cannonball remains their most popular service. As GO expands further into the Niagara Region, I suspect that an express will remain popular. Therein lies the question: should the GO express service to Niagara Falls have a name?

In the golden age of railroading the premier trains had names, with some remaining to this day. Is it time to bring some of these names out of retirement to give a bit more prestige to an already special service?

Darcy Allan Sheppard

May he be remembered as a man, not a martyr. For who he was, not how he died.