Toronto Needs More Bus Lanes

Toronto needs and deserves more bus lanes, and there is no valid argument against them. I said it!

A few days ago, I saw this tweet thread from August, who often speaks about transit issues in Toronto. I have attached the first tweet, you can see the others by clicking on it.

toronto could justify bus lanes on most arterials in the city just by sheer number of buses and the ridership on these corridors (this isn't the case in most US/CA cities) and yet we only really have one proper corridor

— august 🍂 (@augustAP12) May 6, 2022

August is 100% correct: the ridership on Toronto's bus routes alone justify some material improvements, end of sentence. Unfortunately, Toronto only has one bus lane corridor: the Eglinton-Kingston-Morningside RapidTO corridor, used by the 12D, 86, 116, 905 and 986 bus routes.  While many other corridors have been proposed, little progress has been made due to opposition.

In this piece, I will explain why Toronto's lack of bus lanes is out of line with other cities, why nearly all opposition to bus lanes is invalid, and what Toronto's bus lane plan should look like.

Toronto's Lack of Bus Lanes is not in line with Best Practices

In their thread, August identified a threshold for 10,000 bus riders per weekday on a route being enough to justify some form of bus lane. While this is a bit of an arbitrary amount, I think it works well: 1,000 riders is enough for an all-day route, 10,000 for bus lanes, 100,000 for further rapid transit. Using this threshold, a large number of bus routes in Toronto would automatically qualify, 59 TTC bus and streetcar routes exceed this 10,000 rider-a-day threshold. Notably, the 504 King carried 84,300 riders a day pre-COVID, and the 39/939 Finch corridor carries 57,000 passengers a day. Even routes that are not arterial, and not frequent, like the 38 Highland Creek, identified by August, exceed 10,000 riders a day.

However, this isn't the case presently. In this section, I will provide examples of other North American cities and their experiences with transit upgrades, including bus lanes, to show why Toronto is out of line.

Vancouver's 99 B-Line

Vancouver's 99 B-Line is a major bus corridor operating between UBC and Commercial-Broadway Station. This route carries 55,900 passengers a day (note: less than the 39/939 bus). In order to offset some of this demand, TransLink is replacing the section east of Arbutus with an extension of the Millenium Line SkyTrain. This is quite a high-level upgrade: if this many bus passengers a day justifies upgrade to rapid transit, Toronto appears far behind.

San Francisco

After years of proposals, the new Van Ness BRT opened in San Francisco last month. This is quite a high-level BRT, with central platforms. The route that uses the BRT is the 49 Van Ness/Mission, which carries... 25,000 people a day. That is far less than many TTC routes, yet receives such a significant upgrade. It was much needed in San Francisco: this proves need in Toronto, no?

Durham Region

Metrolinx is working on a new project that would see center-street bus lanes, similar to Van Ness, along Highway 2 throughout Durham. This would replace the 900 Pulse route, which carries 10,000 people a day. Again, this is a high-level upgrade for a route that has low ridership compared to many TTC routes.

Omaha

Relatively recently, Omaha opened ORBT, their new rapid bus line along Dodge. This route connects Westroads to Downtown, with a stop at UNO, and replaces the old 2 route. How many passengers did the 2 carry per day? Less than 3,000. This is kind of insane. The vast majority of TTC routes carry more than this, yet have no form of bus improvements. ORBT would be like putting high-level BRT on a road like Greenwood, a somewhat low-ridership corridor in Toronto. A mid-sized city like Omaha doing this for what would be low ridership for a large city shows truly how far behind Toronto is.

Montreal

The same day I saw August's tweets, I saw another tweet that announced new bus lanes in Montreal on Jarry, Queen-Mary, and Ray-Lawson, in order to improve a bunch of busy routes. What's crazy is it didn't even require years of study, it just happens. Montreal's network of bus lanes is relatively extensive, and yet is not mapped or listed. Bus lanes in Montreal are seen as an inevitably, and not something that needs advertisement.

Montreal's bus lanes tend to be simple, without special central stations, but there is one example with a higher-level improvement: on Pie-IX. These lanes, when open, will feature central stations, more similar to true BRT.

Bus Lane Opposition is Lame

Whenever bus lanes have been proposed in Toronto, a few arguments tend to come up again and again. Here, I will lay them out, and explain when they are simply untrue. 

The first is that it takes space away from drivers, making traffic worse. Yes, space is taken from drivers, but it is being distributed equitably. If half the traffic on a corridor is by bus, why should anything less than half the space be allocated to buses? This is common sense: cars take up to much space. This is related to the traffic argument: the only thing that causes traffic is cars. If traffic is worse with bus lanes, this reflects more the fact that there are too many cars on the corridor. And guess what? Most of these trips could be accommodated on the bus anyways.

The second main argument is that it removes on-street parking. I am biased here, but I am dead-against on-street parking. Public space should not be used as storage for private investments, sorry. While I do agree that some individuals, particularly those with limited mobility, may need to park close, adding a bus lane does not mean that parking close for these individuals can't be accommodated: this is a key part of the consultation process, and may allow for better parking locations to be identified. Many people who have limited mobility, by the way, use the bus, as many can't drive. So using disabled people as your justification for not improving transit is dead wrong.

If the expectation is for me to feel bad for an able-bodied person who is too lazy to walk 100 feet from their parking spot, get fucked. I really do not care.

Unlike Montreal, where lanes can just be installed, Toronto Council, which is very conservative, must pass them first. This is the big sticking point. Council votes down bus lanes because they serve interests of a minority of drivers who believe the above untrue points, and are not interested in actually improving the city. They bitch about problems in the city non-stop, but will never actually do anything to solve said problems. Councillors in this city are willfully ignorant to the experiences of transit passengers today. Toronto can't move forward with this governance model.

So, What should Toronto Do?

Based on the above, many Toronto bus routes require improvements based on two key truths:

1) Toronto bus routes have very high ridership by North American standards;

2) In North America, it is best practice to make material improvements to the highest ridership routes.

Simply, Toronto needs more bus lanes. They don't have to be high-level, like the Van Ness BRT, or ORBT, they can literally be red paint. A road can be converted easily within a week.

The original RapidTO proposal listed five corridors, which are mapped below, with a sixth added later. Toronto staff have expressed interest for eventually having bus lanes everywhere, but let's be realistic, it won't happen if we a new lane every 3+ years.

I think this plan, despite barely moving, is way too conservative. Toronto needs more of this, especially in the absence of rapid transit in many parts of the city. Below, I have made a map of what I think the RapidTO network should look like: mostly routes over 10,000 riders a day, but with some additional inclusions and some areas excluded (i.e. Royal York between Evans and Dixon could justify bus lanes, but the road is only a single lane each way). I have added the subway onto the map, for reference, but have not added streetcars, as they require more complex projects due to them running center-street. This is not a finite list!

Spot your street!

EDIT: I realized I forgot a few corridors because I did not add routes together. To the above map, add: Dundas between Aukland and the Etobicoke Creek, and Danforth Avenue from Main to Warden.

Conclusion

I don't really have anything to add here that is different than above. More bus lanes! Toronto is behind other North American cities in terms of transit improvements! Bus lane opposition is not rooted in fact! Toronto needs a new governance model!

Thanks for reading pals :)