TTC’s Spadina launch inspires streetcar envy on other lines

Spadina riders are already enjoying new air-conditioned streetcars. But Carlton and Kingston commuters have a five-year wait ahead.

thestar.com
Sept. 8, 2014
By Tess Kalinowski

Pity the poor Carlton streetcar rider who could only gaze in envy Sunday as the TTC launched its new super-sized streetcars on Spadina Ave.

It will be another four or five years before Carlton commuters also enjoy a new air-conditioned, low-floor ride.

If there was a single sour note amid last weekend’s streetcar celebration, it was the lengthy five-year roll-out for the new Bombardier fleet.

It’s already been five years since city council approved the $1.25-billion streetcar purchase. But the wait is doubly long for those on the tail-end of the TTC deployment plan.

The manufacturing of 204 new streetcars is the main reason for the protracted roll-out. There are only two new streetcars available for service on Spadina. There are two prototype vehicles in the city, but they have to go back to the plant before they can be pressed into public service.

Normally, the Bombardier plant produces one light rail vehicle (LRV) every three weeks, said spokesperson Marc Laforge. That’s not happening while a strike at the company’s Thunder Bay plant is in its eighth week.

Once production resumes, however, Bombardier can accelerate its schedule to three LRVs a month. The two sides are back in bargaining, and Bombardier will discuss a revised delivery schedule with the TTC, he said.

It’s not clear when a third LRV will arrive in Toronto, said the TTC’s Brad Ross. But when it does, like all the new streetcars, it will have to log 600 kilometres of running time without failure before it is incorporated on a route.

The cars themselves are only one end of the deal. The streets and platforms also have to be prepared with curb cuts, fare vending machines and overhead wires modified to accept the more reliable pantograph system that will eventually be mounted on the new cars. They are currently using the old trolley pulls to transfer electricity.

“When you deploy the streetcar you’ve got to make sure the neighbouring routes - the routes you would divert along if you had to - can accept the car,” said Ross

The choice of Spadina for the new vehicles instead of the busier King route, for example, was deliberate.

“With only a few cars you’ll get a bigger bang for your buck on a short route like Spadina that only sees about 12 streetcars at peak. The impact on service on King would be almost negligible. You wouldn’t actually see it as a customer, with only having one or two new cars on a long route like King,” he said.

With its own right-of-way, Spadina is a “more controlled environment.”

“It makes a much better proving ground for us operationally,” he said.

The TTC is considering extending the life of some of its old streetcars to help boost service to the more than 250,000 riders on those 11 routes. It’s possible transit officials will revisit the new-vehicle deployment plan in the New Year, said Ross.

Meantime, he said: “Everybody would like to have the new streetcar. We need to remember the real point of it is to make sure people have efficient and reliable transit service in general. While we want to put the accessible car everywhere as soon as we can, one route is going to have to be the last.”

New streetcar roll-out schedule:

510 Spadina: 2014
511 Bathurst: 2015
509 Harbourfront: 2015
505 Dundas: 2015/2016
508 Lake Shore: 2016/2017
501 Queen: 2016/2017
504 King: 2017
512 St Clair: 2017/2018
502 Downtowner: 2018
503 Kingston: 2018
506 Carlton: 2018/2019