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Some Effects of Conversion from Streetcar to Subway Transit Lines in Toronto

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Some Effects of Conversion from Streetcar to Subway Transit Lines in Toronto SOME EFFECTS OF CONVERSION FROM STREETCAR TO SUBWAY TRANSIT LINES IN TORONTO Donald N. Dewees Research Paper No. 76 Centre for Urban and Community Studies and Department of Political Economy University of Toronto January 1976 SO.ME EFFECTS OF CONVERSION FROM STREETCAR TO SUBWAY TRANSIT LINES IN TORONTO I. Introduction The construction of urban rapid transit lines has always been expensive, and the cost of this construction has been rising more rapidly than the general rate of inflation. Current additions to the Toronto subway system cost over35 million dollars per mile to construct . .!/ What benefits justify these enormous expenditures? While rapid transit means different things to different people, three major arguments have been used in favour of most of the subway construction that has been undertaken in North American during the last quarter century. The first is to improve transportation service for some particular group of travellers. A second frequently offered reason is that improvement of the transportation service will attract the inevitable growth in travel to public transportation. This is good presumably because of the undesirable side effects of the alternative forms of transportation, prin- cipally the automobile. A third motivation, closely related to the second, is to reduce congestion on city streets by "getting motorists out of their cars and into public transportation". Because of concern about air pollution, noise, and highway congestion, it is recognized that substantial social benefits could be achieved if the total number of motorists were actually reduced. It is often the hope that such a reduction can be achieved by improving public transportation performance with a subway or surface rapid transit line. - 2 - Despite the tremendous expense of constructing an urban subway system, the existing empirical literature is not decisive in determining the extent to which these expectations may be fulfilled. The first effect, improving transportation service for particular travellers, is quantified in some studies. This is usually described by the change in average speed or the reduction in travel time for a particular trip or trips. Rarely is it mentioned that there are inevitably some persons for whom transportation service is made worse by the conversion from bus or streetcar service to a rapid transit line. Since this is not mentioned, it is not quantified. The effect on modal split and on total motoring in the city are also not carefully studied. In many cases there will be a survey shortly after a new service begins to determine what mode of transportation was used by the patrons of the new service before that service was instituted. These surveys are used to assert the number of motorists who have been removed from the highways by the transportation improvement.~ One would expect however, that major changes in travel patterns would occur over a period of years, rather than instantaneously upon opening of the facility. Yet, when a long time horizon is examined, other changes take place in the city, including expressway construction, suburban development and sub­ stantial changes in travel patterns generally. These combine with generally rising incomes to mask the direct effect of improving the performance of one transportation facility. The growth and change of cities over time raises a conceptual problem with examining the effect of a subway on transit riding or motoring: whether one is interested in the change over time as the city grows, or in - 3 - the difference between these travel patterns now and what they would have been at this date if the subway had not been constructed? In a dynamic city, these two questions are radically different. It is non­ sense to ask how Torontonians would travel today if there were no subway system, since in the absence of a subway system that city could not possibly have grown to its present density, nor could current commutation patterns involving long work trips have been achieved. It is difficult to make meaningful comparisons between Toronto in 1975 and Toronto in 1950, yet it is equally difficult to guess how Toronto would look today if no subways had been constructed. This study cannot solve the problems of evaluating the long term effect of subways on travel behaviour. It represents only an attempt to answer some basic questions about these impacts. Three questions will be considered here. The first is the measurement of service quality changes for travellers along Bloor Street, before and after opening of the Bloor subway in the middle 1960's. The second is an examination of the effects on Bloor Street vehicular traffic of replacing the streetcars with subway service. The information derived here will be useful both for estimating the effect on auto congestion, and the effect on overall modal split. The third issue is an examination of some cordon count data which bear upon the modal split for commuters to the downtown area of the city and to a larger central area. These data cover more than 20 years, and give some indication of the long run trends that have taken place while the subway system has been expanded. Although it is not possible to draw cause and effect conclusions from these data, they do suggest the limits of - 4 - possible effects from the subway expansion. II. Comparison of Subway and Streetcar Service It seems clear that replacing a streetcar line with a grade separated rail rapid transit such as a subway should improve service. Operating speeds may be twice as great for the subway as for streetcars. Before one can evaluate the side effects of the conversion from one service to the other however, it is necessary to have a quantitative description of the change in service quality. A simple specification of headways and operating speeds is not sufficient. The time saving from higher operating speeds is greater for long trips than for short trips, so that different travellers are affected differently. Furthermore the distance between stops is almost invariably increased. This increases the amount of walking to reach the transit facility, and to some extent there­ fore degrades the service. It seems likely that travellers who are mid­ way between subway stations and travelling only short distances may find service is worse with the subway than it was with a streetcar which would have stopped closer to their origin and destination. This section will develop a model to describe transportation costs in a single variable called "weighted time". The cost model will then be used to evaluate travel costs for various trips by streetcar and by subway along Bloor Street. Conclusions will be drawn regarding the change in service quality for different locations and different trips. A. Weighted Time as a Measure of Transportation Cost The primary factors considered by travellers who are evaluating - 5 - alternative transportation modes are the time and price involved in each. We can ignore the price element when comparing streetcars and a subway in Toronto, since a flat fare is applied equally to both modes. Thus the difference between the two can be captured entirely by differences in time required for a trip. A number of empirical studies give some guidance on the disutility that passengers place upon travel time, waiting time and walking time, in dollars per hour or as a percentage of the hourly wage rate.JI If we know the value or disutility that the traveller attaches to an hour spent in each of these activities, then we can compute the total cost of any trip between two points by multiplying the amount of waiting, travel and walking time by the hourly value in dollars of time spent in each of these activi­ ties. This would yield a total dollar cost for the trip. It may be argued that travel time is valued at approximately one third the hourly wage rate of the traveller.if Thus we can use travel time as a numeraire rather than dollars, and adjust waiting and walking time by their relative weights to convert them to equivalent travel time hours. In this study two bases for time calculation will be used. In the first, we will use a naive assumption that all time is valued equally. The total time cost for a trip is simply travel time plus waiting time plus walking time in this calculation. The alternative assumption is based upon several empirical studies of the value of time. It is reasonable to assume from these studies that waiting time for a bus or a subway train is valued at approximately 1.5 times travel time. Walking time to or from a station, is valued at three times the rate of travel time valuation. Thus when we - 6 - compute weighted travel time, this will involve travel time plus 1.5 times waiting time plus three times walking time. Both sets of results are presented so that the importance of the weighting of times can be observed in the final result. B. Description of Streetcar and Subway Services Bloor Street in the West and Danforth Avenue in the East form a major straight artery running through the city of Toronto, crossing Yonge Street in the middle of the city. Streetcar service originally ran from Jane Street, about five miles west of Yonge to Lattrell Avenue, almost five miles east of Yonge Street. On February 26, 1966, subway service replaced the streetcars between Keele Street, about four miles west of Yonge and Woodbine Avenue, almost four miles east of Yonge. In 1968, the subway was opened an additional three miles in each direction to Islington and Warden. Table 1 shows the service levels offered by the streetcars in 1961 and by the subway in 1971, along Bloor Street and Danforth Avenues.
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