Steve Munro

But when track maintenance is crap, the issue isn't blade count. Here are two photos from King & Church in April 2024 before reconstruction.

TTC's Audit Committee meets on March 11. The agenda includes a discussion of customer information and metrics, as well as an update on the peer review by UITP of TTC asset management. stevemunro.ca/2026/03/04/t...

A reliable control system should also eliminate the need to crawl through junctions lest a switch throw under a car, assuming of course that the track is otherwise in good shape.

Yes I am working on an article about the audit reports now. There's a lot of stuff about website and gtfs-rt data, as well as the importance of metrics that are meaningful to riders.

I worry that ever-cautious TTC will not be able to get past a system-wide stop-check-go policy claiming it is too confusing to have different rules at different locations.

I suspect GPS will be used more for TSP as a replacement for loop detectors, but there has to be a way to handle switch alignment especially when streetcars are queued at the approach to a complex intersection.

From the Mar 11 Audit & Risk Management agenda is management's response to the UITP review including this text re streetcar switches.

GPS can give vehicle location mainly for TSP, but routing info has to come from the vehicle/operator especially when not running on the scheduled route e.g. diversions and short turns. The main issue is to get away from last-minute detection right at the switch point.

I know they want to shift to GPS based detection as this gives flexibility in changing locations as no physical infrastructure is involved.

The old system depended on a contactor that is incompatible with pans. Also it doesn't deal with the issue of advance detection and integrated tsp.

I am planning to review the changed routes and have been collecting data. Stay tuned.

This situation is a good example of how many design decisions combined to hobble transit with no public debate even while claims of faster trips remained in public materials. Issues that would have been obvious in testing were ignored.

I refuse to pursue this thread further. Good night.

Shitty infrastructure includes bad maintenance. You have an undue focus on only one part of the problem. The question is how to improve ops without waiting 30 years for a replacement cycle, or worse finding that underlying issues were ignored.

That has been the central focus of online chatter and of recent presentations by advocate/consultants at TTC board. If you don't acknowledge the maintenance issues management avoids the hard questions of how we got here.

This would become part of the lore about how streetcars are inherently "bad". That's where this is headed if there is too much focus on only one aspect if the problem.

The SRT derailment came from sloppy inspection and poor maintenance, practices that were found to have infected subway ops too. If this cultural problem is not fixed nothing will change. Even worse a now and forever double blade "fix" could give the impression that nothing can be done.

We have slow orders all over the place in the subway due to track conditions, not track designs or controls. On the streetcar system slow orders and rules like no cars passing on special work mask management incompetence in allowing deterioration.

I am not whining. The problem is that double blades are being advanced and perceived as the *single* and essential fix needed, and this means we will have slow orders eternally. The slow orders on all special work is a maintenance issue unaffect by blade count or control systems.

Also double blades have nothing to do with declining maintenance such as we see at intersections like King/Church that were left far too long before replacement.

This goes back to the introduction of the ALRVs which triggered the need for a different control system that never worked. The 10km per hour limit arose from concern of the switch throwing under a car. Slow ops are needed if turning, but the dynamics of blade count don't apply to straight moves.

As I said, the control system is independent of the switch itself. Without better advance detection, route selection and signals, not to mention reliability, two blades won't eliminate the rationale for slow ops.

The stop and proceed arose from unreliable switch controllers, not from single blade switches. Controllers can be updated far faster than track. Bluntly I think the obsession with blade count lets TTC get away with ignoring problems of bad electronics and failing maintenance standards.

You do understand that just changing the switches won't change TTC operating rules, and many of us will never live to see the project completed.

Do you remember when it was published and was it part of a board meeting agenda?

There is no graft in making trains just run faster.

A major issue even assuming a congestion tax were implemented and improved streetcar speed is whether TTC would claw this back in reduced cars in service rather than shorter headways. Too often they spin things like red lanes and tsp as opportunities to reduce opex not to improve service.

Delay stats for 6 Finch West were recently published by TTC for January 2026. This article compares the first two months of operation. stevemunro.ca/2026/02/24/l...

With the Bloor-Danforth SUbway's 60th anniversary just days away, here is a series of articles I published for the 50th anniversary. stevemunro.ca?s=new+subway...

Now if only the folks at Metrolinx would provide equivalent tracking data via the TTC we could actually measure the benefit.