It's Long. But You need To Read This.

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SUDA

ustainable Urban Development Association

2637 Council Ring Road, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1S6

Tel: 416-400-0553; www.suda.ca; e-mail: mail@suda.ca

Information Release

Number 23

March 2012

Subways or Light Rail for Toronto – or Buses?

Although decisions in Toronto regarding direction and spending on major transit infrastructure may be close at hand, the long term nature of implementation should leave the door open for flexibility as situations evolve. The transit expansion debate has been narrowed to light rail transit (tunnelled and at-grade) and subway options, both very expensive propositions at a time when economic and public sector financial pressures are high.

SUDA’s concern is that LRT and subway plans will take 10 to 15 years to fully implement, while the need for much more and better transit services is urgent now. The rising price of gasoline is increasingly burdensome on the economy and on households, and traffic congestion and environmental damage from too many cars – problems borne of poor land use planning and poor transit services - are costly and getting worse.

Although a tunnelled rapid transit line below a portion of Eglinton Avenue has been accepted as necessary, other new or extended underground subway lines in Toronto’s suburbs will be expensive to build and, in the absence of strong land use policy supports, prospects for ridership are often not favourable.

The option of an advanced bus-based rapid transit network has been bypassed in the current debate, even though it has the capacity to serve projected ridership demand through 2031 on major transit routes in suburban parts of Toronto.

It is useful to recognize the service impacts of light rail compared to enhanced bus services using dedicated rights-of-way. Light rail transit has several serious disadvantages that affect service to people:

• To increase overall speed, light rail requires eliminating many local stops that are convenient or necessary for elderly, frail and burdened people (infants, packages, etc.); access to transit for those affected becomes more difficult.
• Generally speaking, service frequency is reduced as vehicle capacities increase. For many people in our harsh Canadian climate, longer waiting times offsets advantages of increased vehicle speeds.
• On Toronto’s streets, only a single level of service is possible – semi-local. The overall speed of LRTs on roads – including suburban roads – is limited by the number of local stops between arterial road intersections.

• Light rail vehicles cannot pass each other, and therefore express services – so critical for attracting people away from their cars – are not possible.
• If one LRT vehicle is disabled, others cannot pass it. Everyone is delayed.

• Left turns by cars and trucks become more limited as access between major intersections is cut off.
• Placing LRT tracks in the middle of roadways requires all passengers to traverse what may be very busy and dangerous roadways.

In contrast, an advanced system of comfortable, state-of-the-art articulated buses, using smoothly-paved bus-only curb lanes and bus bays for all transit stops, has none of these disadvantages, and several key service advantages.

• Nearby/Local stops for elderly, frail and burdened people are not lost.
• Because buses have lower passenger capacities than light rail vehicles, more are needed to serve a given level of demand – reducing waiting times at transit stops.
• Both local and express services can operate using the same right-of-way, providing an important travel option not possible with light rail transit.
• Express buses can achieve greater speeds than possible with LRT vehicles (for example, some buses can be non-stop past many arterial intersections).
• Buses can easily divert onto and off of bus lanes as needed; disabled vehicles cause much less disruption than a disabled LRT vehicle.
• With a curb-lane service, fewer road crossings are required of passengers to access transit vehicles. (Also, better shelters may be possible off-road rather than in the middle of the road, particularly in suburban settings).
• Left turns by cars and trucks are not made more difficult. Adding right turn lanes for cars and trucks (common in suburban settings) avoids or minimizes impedance to buses; buses can also pass using adjacent mixed traffic lanes.
• Light rail systems would take many years to roll out to maturity, whereas a superior bus-lane transit network can be quickly implemented – limited largely by delivery time of new rolling stock.
• The use of bus lanes can be modified to allow their use by taxis; charter, ad hoc and special bus services can use the bus lanes as needed.

With regard to the ability of bus services to handle high volumes of demand, it has been argued that a bus rapid transit (BRT) service can only handle 2,700 riders an hour per direction. However, by adding more buses and increasing the proportion of articulated buses, ridership volumes from now to beyond current ridership projections to 2031 for routes proposed to be served by LRTs can be accommodated. Bus rapid transit services in Curitiba, Brazil have reportedly achieved ridership of 10,000 per hour per lane. In contrast, transit ridership per one hour peak direction in 2031, estimated by SUDA, are roughly 5,000 for Sheppard Avenue (Don Mills to Meadowvale), and 4,700 for Finch Avenue (Keele to Humber College); other major Toronto transit bus routes indicate similar volumes. Note that the bus-lane transit option discussed here is for both express and local services to operate in the same right-of-way.

Capital costs of a Bus Lane Transit (BLT) system would be significantly less than for implementing an LRT service. For surface infrastructure and rolling stock together, light rail is roughly more than four times as expensive. Therefore, many more kilometres of BLT services can be implemented across Toronto for the same dollars as would be spent on light rail. Overall operating costs for bus services will be higher than for an LRT system because of the greater number of buses, but service benefits to people and high ridership revenues may offset the added cost. In a number of scenarios, SUDA has estimated that over a 2015 to 2031 period, the combined capital and operating costs for a BLT route is significantly lower than if it were an LRT route.

Arguments that bus services do not foster land use intensification as well as rail-based systems are not universally valid - every urban land use situation is different, as is the quality of bus services. Location, land use policies, and financial carrots and sticks all affect the potential for city-building.

A high-frequency Bus Lane Transit service has not been adequately tried in the Toronto context. In light of the billions of dollars involved, it is worthwhile to test a BLT service on several Toronto transit routes, for at least a two-year period, before long term commitments to LRTs and/or subways become ironclad.

For more information, contact SUDA at 416-400-0553, or by email at mail@suda.ca