MEETING DATE: October 22, 2003

SUBJECT: Sheppard Subway and Connecting Bus Routes – Update

It is recommended that the Commission receive this update report for information, noting that:

• TTC ridership along the Sheppard Avenue corridor, between Don Mills Road and Yonge Street, has increased since the Sheppard Subway opened in November 2002;

• Ridership on the Sheppard Subway itself is lower than had been projected, but is growing;

• An initial assessment of the conversion of the 85G Sheppard East local bus service to the 190 Scarborough Centre Rocket limited stop bus service shows that the service change has resulted in more passenger benefits than the inconvenience created for some passengers, and therefore should be retained in its current form; and,

• An evaluation of all of the bus routes connecting with the Sheppard Subway is underway, with the collection of detailed ridership information this fall. A complete post-implementation review will be presented to the Commission early in 2004.

This report has no effect on the TTC's budget.

The Sheppard Subway opened on November 24, 2002. Changes to bus routes connecting to the subway were approved by the Commission at its meeting of
February 20, 2002, as part of the report on Service Improvements for 2002. These services are shown in the customer information prepared for the new subway service changes, which is attached as attached Exhibit 1, and are described in the attached Exhibit 2, an excerpt from the report on Service Improvements for 2002.

At its meeting of September 22, 2003, the Commission directed that a report be "brought forward by staff that provides a post implementation review of all routes affected by the opening of the Sheppard Subway, and further that staff expedite the preparation of this report for consideration at the next meeting." This report responds to that request, and also provides an update on ridership and service on the new subway.

The TTC undertakes a formal "post-implementation review" of all route changes once the new services have been in operation for at least six months. The purpose of the review is to determine if the changes have met their objectives of improved customer service and financial performance. The review is based on passenger counts taken on the new routes compared to similar counts from before the change. With the Sheppard Subway opening at the end of November 2002, waiting until six months after opening meant that the new passenger counts could be undertaken, at the earliest, in June 2003. Ridership patterns are quite different in the summer than the non-summer months because schools are closed, post-secondary institutions are operating at a reduced level, and many people are on vacation. For this reason, the post-implementation review counts for the Sheppard Subway service changes were scheduled after the summer, in September and October. We are currently undertaking comprehensive passenger counts on the 12 routes that were changed as a result of the Sheppard Subway, and the results of these counts will be available in late 2003 and early 2004.

For this reason, this report focuses on the pattern of ridership on the subway line itself and summarises the data we do have available for the bus routes in the area. A definitive report with recommendations for service changes on the affected bus routes is planned for early in 2004.

Service on the Sheppard Subway operates from approximately 6:00 a.m. (9:00 a.m. Sundays) until 2:00 a.m. Four four-car subway trains are operated at all times, providing service every 5 min 30 s. Counts of passengers, taken in the spring of 2003, show that approximately 34,700 customer-trips are made on the Sheppard Subway on an average weekday. This compares with ridership on the TTC’s other three subways as shown in Table 1, below.

The Sheppard Subway counts were taken approximately five months after the subway opened, during the time when the SARS issue likely resulted in reduced ridership. However, at this level of ridership, the Sheppard Subway will carry approximately 11-million riders in its first year of operation. With only limited data available at this time, it is difficult to estimate the number of new riders attracted to the TTC as a direct result of the opening of the subway. The current estimate is that seven percent or 800,000 of the 11-million annual riders on the subway are new to the TTC.

TTC staff had projected that, after the first year of operation, Sheppard Subway ridership would be 48,000 customer-trips per weekday (approximately 15-million per year). Current ridership levels are at about 75 percent of the projected levels, but ridership on the Sheppard Subway is expected to continue to increase, as more customers discover the convenience of the new subway, and as development increases along the corridor. Ridership will likely remain below the projected level of 48,000 daily customer-trips in the near term.

Ridership during the busiest hour, at the busiest point on the subway, is approximately 3,400 customers per hour, or an average of approximately 300 customers per train. The four-car subway trains used on the Sheppard Subway provide an approximate peak-period capacity of 670 passengers per train. Peak-point peak-direction ridership is approximately 90 per cent higher than the comparable peak-hour ridership on the previous bus services on Sheppard Avenue East, before the subway was opened. Ridership over the whole day at the busiest point of the subway has increased by approximately 125 percent. The majority of this ridership had been previously occurring on other routes at the TTC but is now making use of the Sheppard Subway for at the last part of their trips. Table 2, below, provides a comparison of peak-point ridership, in the peak hour during the peak direction, and over the whole day in both directions, before and after the Sheppard Subway.

Tables 3A and 3B, below, show the average peak-point maximum-hour per-train ridership on all four TTC subways, and compare the observed ridership to the maximum crowding guidelines for peak and off-peak service.

During all operating periods, the Sheppard Subway is carrying passenger loads well below its capacity and could be operated with fewer trains.

Off-peak ridership on the new subway ranges from an average of approximately 80 customers per train during the busiest hour on Saturdays, to 30 passengers per train in the busiest hour in the late evenings. After midnight, there are fewer than 15 people, on average, per train (the approximate off-peak capacity of the four-car trains on the Sheppard Subway is 330 passengers per train).

In terms of average weekday station usage, two of the Sheppard Subway stations (Sheppard-Yonge and Don Mills) rank among the busiest 35 stations on the TTC system. The other three Sheppard Subway stations (Bayview, Leslie, and Bessarion) are among the five least-used TTC subway stations. Table 4, below, lists the total number of passengers entering and leaving each Sheppard Subway station, and the rank of these stations among all TTC stations.

Service has been extremely reliable on the new subway. Service operates very close to schedule almost all the time. On average, there are fewer than 15 minutes of delays to service each week and, on most days, there are no measurable delays at all. The new infrastructure and new trains, all of a proven design, contribute to this trouble-free operation.

Several comments have been received from customers about the difficulty in entering Don Mills Station and Leslie Station when using discount senior citizen, student, or child ticket or cash fares.

At Don Mills Station, the closest and most-visible station entrance to Fairview Mall is an automatic entrance for Metropass and token users. There is no clearly-defined walking path across the mall parking lot private property to the main station entrance, which is staffed with a collector, but is located some distance away, on the north side of Sheppard Avenue. Staff are evaluating, as part of the 2004-2009 Capital Budget, the cost and feasibility of installing a collectors’ booth at the Fairview Mall entrance, which would allow the use of discount ticket and cash fares at this busy entrance.

Similar complaints have been received about Leslie Station, where the entrances nearest to North York General Hospital, and to the parking lot/bus terminal/passenger pick-up and drop-off, are both automatic entrances. Given the current low usage of this station, staffing additional entrances with a collector is not cost-effective. Staff will examine additional signage and walkway changes which may improve access to the main station entrance.

At Sheppard-Yonge Station, changes were made to the station entrance arrangements in 2002, as part of the Sheppard Subway introduction. The station entrance on Harlandale Avenue serves customers on the west side of Yonge Street and used to be an unpaid entrance which led to the main collectors’ area. This entrance had to be changed to an automatic entrance as part of the station reconfiguration for the new subway, which also included changing the bus terminal so that it was always part of the fare-paid section of the station. At the request of local residents, the new west concourse entrance to the station, accessible from the north and south sides of Sheppard Avenue, west of Yonge Street, was staffed full-time by a collector for a trial period when the Sheppard Subway opened. Counts of customers entering at the four station entrances are shown in Table 5, below. Usage of the staffed west entrance is the lowest of all four station entrances, and is lower than the two automatic entrances, at Harlandale Avenue and Poyntz Avenue.

As a result of this low usage, the trial full-time staffing of the west concourse will end, and the entrance will operate as an automatic entrance, starting in January 2004. Of the 1,200 customer-trips each day entering through the west concourse, approximately 1,000 are estimated to be adult customers, or senior citizens or students with Metropasses, who will continue to be able to use the automatic entrance. Customers who normally use discount senior citizen, student, or child ticket or cash fares can use the automatic entrance upon payment of a full fare, or can walk to the main station entrance, on the east side of Yonge Street, to use discount tickets or cash fares.

Two TTC commuter parking lots were built on the Sheppard Subway. The 102-car lot at Leslie Station is available only to customers with a Metropass, and on most weekdays this lot is full during the busiest part of the day. The need to expand parking capacity at Leslie Station has been raised separately with the Commission, most recently at the meeting on August 27, 2003 (in the report "Expansion Of TTC Commuter Parking Lots – Status Report"), and work is ongoing on this issue.

The 366-car lot at Don Mills Station is a cash-payment lot, before 9:30 a.m. on weekdays. On average, by 9:30 a.m. each weekday, this lot is between 70 and 80 percent full. The parking fee was initially $4 per day, but was lowered to $3 per day in July 2003. To further encourage increased use of this lot, TTC staff have pursued a locally-focussed marketing campaign. Staff will continue to monitor use of this lot, and will recommend any additional measures that will attract more customers to the Don Mills Station lot.

Changes were made to 12 bus routes to connect with the Sheppard Subway. These changes were developed as part of the annual service improvements process, and were approved by the Commission in February 2002, as part of the report on Service Improvements for 2002. An excerpt on the Sheppard Subway changes from this report is attached, as is the customer information which was distributed in November 2002.

As with all changes recommended as part of the service improvements process, the changes are made for a trial period of at least six months of non-summer service, so that customers can adjust their travel patterns and become familiar with the new services. More dramatic changes, such as the opening of a new subway, often take longer for people to get used to.

Detailed ridership counts on the Sheppard Subway connecting bus routes are being taken between September 2003 and January 2004, so that a minimum of six months of non-summer operation will have been available for customers to try different alternative routings and settle into a preferred travel pattern. Detailed counts on four routes were taken in December 2002, January 2003, and April 2003 because of prior scheduling commitments, or specific early requests from councillors. These counts will be repeated, and the later counts will be used for the formal post-implementation reviews.

Less-detailed peak-point counts have been conducted on every bus route serving the Sheppard Subway. These counts are necessary in order to allow staff to respond to short-term operational problems and overcrowding complaints. A number of service level changes and schedule changes have already been made as a result of these counts, and these are described below.

Table 6, below, includes a summary of the count status for all Sheppard Subway routes, and an estimated time for the completion of the post-implementation review for each route.

Eastbound buses leaving Don Mills Station exit via a short bus-only roadway which gives access to Sheppard Avenue via a transit-only signal at the Sheppard Avenue/Parkway Forest Drive intersection. The transit phase at this intersection is available only once per traffic signal cycle, approximately every two minutes. At busy times, this signal operation causes average delays to transit customers of over one minute, with some customers experiencing delays over three minutes. TTC staff are working with City of Toronto staff and with Cadillac Fairview Corporation, owners of Fairview Mall, to increase the priority for buses at this intersection.

Partly as a result of the signal delays exiting Don Mills Station, schedules were modified in February, March, and May 2003 on the 85 Sheppard East, 169 Huntingwood, 167 Pharmacy North, 190 Scarborough Centre Rocket, 24A Victoria Park, and 268 Warden North routes to add more running time to the schedules in order to operate a more-reliable service. Service level changes were made to the 139 Finch East route in September 2003, to more closely match service levels to the observed ridership levels.

Councillor Kelly has written to the TTC and spoken to TTC staff about the concerns of senior citizens who live along Sheppard Avenue and who no longer have direct service from local bus stops along Sheppard Avenue to Scarborough Centre Station in the midday. The 190 Scarborough Centre Rocket bus route, which operates between Don Mills Station and Scarborough Centre Station, and which stops only at Victoria Park Avenue, Warden Avenue, Birchmount Avenue, and Kennedy Road, replaced the all-stops 85G Sheppard East service, which operated from Sheppard-Yonge Station to Scarborough Centre Station. It should be noted that the TTC's grid system of transit routes requires that many passengers must transfer to reach their destination. There are very few locations in the city where passenger demand warrants the provision of the direct, door-to-door type service that is provided by either of these service arrangements between Sheppard Avenue and Scarborough City Centre.

In particular, the concerns expressed have come from residents of the senior citizens’ complex on Sheppard Avenue at Allandford Road, between Birchmount Road and Kennedy Road, and from passengers at mid-block locations between Birchmount Road and Victoria Park Avenue. Before the routing change in November 2002, an estimated 100 passengers per day utilised the direct service from these mid-block locations to Scarborough City Centre provided by the 85G Sheppard East branch. Half of these passengers used the direct service during the midday period. For these passengers to travel to Scarborough City Centre they must now either walk approximately 400 m to the intersection of Sheppard Avenue and one of the north-south major roads to get on the 190 Scarborough Centre Rocket service, or take any 85 Sheppard East local bus and transfer to a 21 Brimley bus to complete their trip.

Because of Councillor Kelly’s concerns, an early detailed count of customers on the 190 Scarborough Centre Rocket was conducted in April 2003. Total ridership on the route was approximately 3000 customer-trips each day, well above the initial projection of 1500 customer-trips. These passengers save between two and ten minutes in travel time as a result of the introduction of the limited-stop express service. Approximately 2200 customer-trips each day were made between Scarborough Centre Station and Sheppard Avenue, which is higher than the approximately 1400 trips made between Scarborough Centre Station and Sheppard Avenue on the former 85G Sheppard East local service.

Because there are significantly more passenger benefits being provided by the new limited-stop express service than the inconvenience caused to some passengers by having to walk further for direct service to Scarborough City Centre, it is recommended that the 190 Scarborough Centre Rocket service continue to operate on a limited-stop basis.

Customers on the 167 Pharmacy North route, as well as Councillor Kelly, contacted the TTC shortly after the subway opened, to express their concerns about the additional transfers required for some customers of the former 67B Pharmacy route, which provided direct service along the sections of Pharmacy Avenue north and south of Highway 401. The main concerns were from students who lived south of Highway 401 and attended one of several schools near Pharmacy Avenue north of Highway 401. TTC staff examined the schedules of the 167 Pharmacy North and 67 Pharmacy routes, observed ridership on the routes, and contacted staff at Sir John A. Macdonald C.I. Senator O'Connor S.S., and Wexford C.I. regarding the possibility of scheduling specific individual bus trips which would directly link the schools north of Highway 401 with Pharmacy Avenue south of Highway 401. The conclusions reached from this evaluation, which were supported by school management, was that relatively few customer-trips each day were affected by the route changes, and that special through service for students attending these schools would not benefit enough customer-trips to warrant the cost of the service.

Customers on the 268 Warden North route, and Councillor Ashton, have contacted the TTC with their concerns about the need to transfer between this route and the 68 Warden route, where in the past there was a through service. Peak point ridership counts have been conducted on both routes, and detailed counts will be completed soon. Those counts will allow staff to evaluate how many customers are transferring between 268 Warden North and 68 Warden buses, and how many customers are benefiting from the new direct service to the Sheppard Subway from Warden Avenue, north of Sheppard Avenue. This evaluation will comprise the main part of the post-implementation review of this service change, and will be reported to the Commission.

Councillor Shiner has contacted the TTC to pass along the concerns of customers who use the 85 Sheppard East bus route at stops between Yonge Street and Don Mills, and who are concerned about the infrequent service operated, especially during the midday from Monday to Friday. Some customers have also contacted the TTC directly about this concern. The 85 Sheppard East bus service between Yonge Street and Don Mills Road duplicates the service provided by the Sheppard Subway, but is important for customers who are beyond a convenient walking distance of the subway stations. The lack of a station at Willowdale Avenue – which was dropped from early plans, in part because of local community opposition to the station – also makes subway access more difficult. Over this part of the route, buses are scheduled to operate about every 10 minutes in the peak periods, and every 12 to 30 minutes at off-peak times. Early peak point counts on the 85 Sheppard East bus route near Sheppard-Yonge Station, since the subway opened, show that the average number of customers per bus at all times of the day is well within the maximum loading guidelines. TTC staff will carefully review detailed ridership counts on the 85 Sheppard East when they are available, and will make any changes which are necessary and consistent with the Commission-approved service standards.

Requests have been received from Councillor Cho to investigate the addition of an express service on the 85 Sheppard East route, and this request will be examined as part of the report on Service Improvements for 2004, which is expected to be completed early in 2004. Several additional requests have been received for route changes in the Sheppard Subway area, including the introduction of a direct service from the subway to the area east of Don Mills Road and south of Highway 401, and these are being considered for inclusion in the report on Service Improvements for 2004.

The Sheppard Subway has increased ridership along the Sheppard Avenue corridor. Overall ridership on the subway will likely be lower than projected at the end of the first year of operation. A review of the provision of local versus express service connecting Sheppard Avenue to Scarborough City Centre has concluded that the current 190 Scarborough Centre Rocket express service provides more benefits to passengers that the previous, local 85G Sheppard East service and therefore should be retained in its current form. Several necessary service level adjustments have been made to connecting bus routes, and the formal comprehensive evaluation of these routes is underway, as detailed ridership counts are collected.

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October 7, 2003

11-55-57

Exhibit 1: Sheppard Subway Opens November 24, 2002 customer information

Exhibit 2: Excerpt from report on Service Improvements for 2002, pages 10 to 17