TTC breaks single-day ridership record

Published On Tue Oct 04 2011
Tess Kalinowski

The prospect of longer waits and more crowded buses next year doesn’t appear to be discouraging riders from flocking to the TTC right now.

On Sept. 15, the TTC saw a record 1.71 million rides on a single day.

It was the fifth time this year that the TTC exceeded the Oct. 27, 2010, record of 1.68 million rides.

The TTC delivered 493.6 million rides between Sept. 15, 2010, and this year’s record-smashing date.

It expects to exceed its projected 487 million rides during this calendar year, anticipating an additional 15 million rides in 2012, to about 503 million.

But the city’s financial stress has the TTC planning a retreat to pre-2008 loading standards in the new year, meaning buses will be more crowded than they already are, and the wait for a bus will probably be longer.


http://www.thestar.com/news/transportation/article/1064488--ttc-breaks-single-day-ridership-record

Ridership goes up, service goes down. Brilliant!

I think the new transferable TTC passes have really helped to up the ridership.

Service is directly determined by budget. We need the budget to be increased, not decreased. Therefore we need more and sustained input
from senior levels of government to try and erase some of the damage done in the past decade by complete, utter neglect by those governments.

Keep in mind, the new standards have not gone into effect yet. We'll what the ridership is, then.

Service is crap during rush hour on the Yonge line with trains going to a dead stop between EVERY station. It's even worse with signal problems, mechanical problems and passenger assistance alarms pressed.

Curious............why doesn't Toronto run articulated buses like everywhere else?
A new modern artculate provide room for 50% more passengers at the exact same operating cost. It's exactly the same the TTC did when it began operating the articulated streetcars in the late 1980s.

Service is crap during rush hour on the Yonge line with trains going to a dead stop between EVERY station. It's even worse with signal problems, mechanical problems and passenger assistance alarms pressed.

meh I find it's a lot better now then a couple months ago ... mechanical problems are rare and far apart ...

There's really only slow downtown now between Lawrence and Davisvile - and at times only .....

Curious............why doesn't Toronto run articulated buses like everywhere else?
A new modern artculate provide room for 50% more passengers at the exact same operating cost. It's exactly the same the TTC did when it began operating the articulated streetcars in the late 1980s.the TTC has had some bad experiences with articulated buses in the past (Ikarus buses forced on them by the Ontario government to prop up Ontario Bus Industries).

Then there is the additional storage and yard space required - facilities have to be larger, etc.

TTC also has higher standards for buses as compared to other cities which can replace their buses more frequently. It is hard to find an articulated bus that meets those standards.

I believe that the latest crop of New Flyer Articulated buses (the ones operating in Mississauga) do meet the expectations. Who knows, maybe we will see articulated buses on some of the proposed Transit City lines in the future.

Cheers, m

The VIVA articulated buses are pretty nice too.

If it wasn't for this forum, I would have never realized that they stopped running articulated buses. I used to ride them all the time on Steeles.

A new modern artculate provide room for 50% more passengers at the exact same operating cost. It's exactly the same the TTC did when it began operating the articulated streetcars in the late 1980s.

Articulated buses cost more to operate than 40 foot buses/ Not to say the TTC shouldn't operate artics, but they do cost more than 40 foot buses to operate.

I know that they do cost slightly more to operate aka fuel but they carry 50% more passengers and the largest cost is labour which is exactly the same.
Some new buses are really amazing especially the new bi-articulated ones.

The VIVA articulated buses are pretty nice too.

If it wasn't for this forum, I would have never realized that they stopped running articulated buses. I used to ride them all the time on Steeles.Right now Mississauga and Ottawa may be the only cities in Ontario that have been running lots of articulated buses for a very long time (VIVA being a "new" service). I know Hamilton used to have an artic fleet but I hardly see them when I go there (maybe I'm not noticing them around).

Mississauga has 6 or 7 routes that regularly seem to operate with artic buses (1, 1C, 110, 101 and 5, plus 109 & 107 occasionally)

I remember when Toronto had the Ikarus/Orion buses on 35 Jane, but I cannot recall riding them on any other routes.

I always hoped that "Transit City" could have been implemented as a "Metrolinx Rapid Transit plan" with demand-appropriate rapid-transit plans for different cities throughout Ontario.

For example, some "Transit City" routes in Toronto would be LRT, while others would have articulated buses & bus lanes. The Hurontario corridor in Peel and the Main St. corridor in Hamilton would get articulated buses and bus lanes but the plan would be to build LRT in 10 years. Ottawa would see a conversion from bus to LRT along the central core of the Transitway. VIVA would become a Bus Rapid Transit with plan for an LRT in 15 years, etc.

That would have been far more effective for the GTA & other cities in Ontario than the "LRT-only, Toronto-only" Transit City plan.

Cheers, m