Posts tagged budget

One more analysis with the maps. Isolating just the areas of Toronto that would be no longer be within a five-minute walk of late evening TTC service, should the proposed cuts proceed, then taking the sum of the proportion of all the census zones these areas intersect with, I get a decent approximation of how many people would actually no longer have late evening TTC service. That number? 160,000 Is this major? Roughly 1 in 15 Torontonians may be losing late evening TTC service. That’s pretty major to me. The commission meeting to decide on these cuts is February 2nd.

One more analysis with the maps. Isolating just the areas of Toronto that would be no longer be within a five-minute walk of late evening TTC service, should the proposed cuts proceed, then taking the sum of the proportion of all the census zones these areas intersect with, I get a decent approximation of how many people would actually no longer have late evening TTC service.

That number?

160,000

Is this major? Roughly 1 in 15 Torontonians may be losing late evening TTC service. That’s pretty major to me. The commission meeting to decide on these cuts is February 2nd.

It took me awhile to do this, but it actually changes my opinion a bit on the proposed route cuts during the late evening currently proposed by the TTC. Admittedly, the first map was very crudely put together on the whim - I had an old MapInfo table from 1999 - and many of the branches (even routes) in that table no longer exist. So all I could do is select entire routes that would be affected by the proposed cuts, and not show what the actual impact may be. However, after getting an updated map file for the current route network, I was able to do a better analysis, the results of which is the map above. Clearly, several areas of the city will be significantly impacted by the cuts, but in general, most people will still be within a 450-metre (five minute) walk of a TTC route in the late evening.  This goes back to what I mentioned before: the conflict between financial and service standards. The RGS-related ‘service on all routes until subway closes’ service standard made sense, but might not make financial sense when routes overlap as closely as some do. A suggestion for compromise, therefore, would be to change the service standard to ensure all Torontonians are within a 450-metre walk of late evening bus service. Thoughts?

It took me awhile to do this, but it actually changes my opinion a bit on the proposed route cuts during the late evening currently proposed by the TTC. Admittedly, the first map was very crudely put together on the whim - I had an old MapInfo table from 1999 - and many of the branches (even routes) in that table no longer exist. So all I could do is select entire routes that would be affected by the proposed cuts, and not show what the actual impact may be.

However, after getting an updated map file for the current route network, I was able to do a better analysis, the results of which is the map above. Clearly, several areas of the city will be significantly impacted by the cuts, but in general, most people will still be within a 450-metre (five minute) walk of a TTC route in the late evening. 

This goes back to what I mentioned before: the conflict between financial and service standards. The RGS-related ‘service on all routes until subway closes’ service standard made sense, but might not make financial sense when routes overlap as closely as some do. A suggestion for compromise, therefore, would be to change the service standard to ensure all Torontonians are within a 450-metre walk of late evening bus service.

Thoughts?

How are we supposed to plan and build a sustainable public transit system when funding comes and goes at the whim of each provincial budget? It seems easy enough if you are in the business of building highways, on the other hand. data source: Ontario Budgets 2005-2010

How are we supposed to plan and build a sustainable public transit system when funding comes and goes at the whim of each provincial budget? It seems easy enough if you are in the business of building highways, on the other hand.

data source: Ontario Budgets 2005-2010