2008 Budget – BRT Details

The 2008 Transit Servicing and Financing Study provides some details on progress towards the Bus Rapid Transit implementation.  In addition, I have a copy of DRT’s submission to Metrolinx for “quick win” status on the initial phase of implementation.  The following material is combined from both sources:

The proposal describes a transit network consisting of the following:

• BRT service on Highway 2 from Pickering to Courtice, with a peak service frequency of every 7.5 minutes, off-peak frequency of 15 minutes, and Sunday/late evening frequencies of 30 minutes..  This service would replace the current GO Transit “94 Highway 2″ service, although GO would continue to operate express and semi-express services in the highway 2 corridor.
• Taunton Road / Rossland Road “Rapid Bus” service – a high frequency bus service implemented using transit priority, and running the full length of the corridor.
• Bayly-Victoria-Bloor service – continuous along these streets
• Simcoe Street service – a high frequency service between Oshawa and UOIT
• Port Perry service – a limited stop semi-express bus connecting the northern communities to the rest of the higher-order network

This is obviously a bit vague, but it implies that the other corridors would have better service than they do today, including transit priority, but would not be up to the level of the BRT corridor on highway 2.

The BRT implementation itself specifically consists of the following:

• Transit connections to the City of Toronto (Scarborough Town Centre or U of T Scarborough mentioned as possibilities) and to Bowmanville
• Use of accessible hybrid buses
• Widening of highway 2 to provide two additional curb lanes, except through narrow areas in downtown Ajax (Pickering Village), Whitby, and Oshawa.  These would be transit/HOV lanes initially, but would become exclusive transit lanes when ridership levels justify it.
• Implementation of transit signal priority (so that buses get green lights when they need them, instead of waiting for the signals to change)
• Development of multi-modal transit hubs to facilitate transfers to feeder services
• Facility upgrades to support maintenance of the buses

The five year cost (to 2012) of this implementation is estimated at $175 million, in 2007 dollars, broken down as follows:

• $17 million for land acquisition for road widening
• $26 million for planning, EA, and design
• $2 million for a public outreach program to promote the initiate
• $6 million for passenger amenities, including bus stops, stations, and hubs
• $71 million for road infrastructure (widening)
• $17 million for $26 accessible hybrid buses (with additional bus purchases planned for later periods)
• $7 million Intelligent Transportation System infrastructure (e.g. bus positioning, passenger counting, etc)
• $29 million for facilities upgrades

Metrolinx has approved $82.3 million of this cost for “quick win” approval, which will hopefully come in this year’s provincial budget.  The amounts for road widening were notably omitted, given that Metrolinx has deemed those sorts of elements to be ineligible for “quick win” status.  This would, if implemented, give us new buses, transit priority, and improved infrastructure on highway 2, without the dedicated lanes.  In other words, the initial implementation would look a lot like the current Viva service in York Region.

In general, this is a reasonable proposal to improve local transit in a region that is very car-centric.  However, I’m a bit concerned about the availability of the extra lanes as HOV lanes, as without enforcement this means that we will just end up with an extra lane of traffic, making this effort potentially a standard road widening being funded under transit auspices.  When the time comes to add the extra lanes, they should be made transit-only and physically separated from the rest of the roadway.

And of course, this implementation can only be fully evaluated in the context of other improvements, including frequency of service improvements on GO Transit’s trains and buses, the extension of the Lakeshore line to Clarington and its electrification, and the construction of an on-highway GO BRT route westward from Pickering GO.  TTC Transit City initiatives are also important as they will effect where DRT’s routes connect.

Of course, much of the route forward on this will be affected by the Metrolinx Regional Transportation Plan being developed this year.  The context of the Durham BRT may well change considerably.  In fact, there is discussion in various Metrolinx papers about extending Transit City LRT lanes into Durham, and even the operating manager of DRT has mused about the highway 2 implementation becoming an LRT further down the road.

So for now, we have more detail on an interesting implementation, although there are still areas that are disconcertingly grey, including the provision of effective transit connections to Toronto.  I’m heartened to hear discussion of other routes as part of a higher order network, though.  A single bus route on Highway 2 is not going to be the solution to Durham’s transit problems, no matter how well done it is.  A solution requires a network, and it’s good to see that is recognized.