TTC

Toronto’s subways expose passengers to more air pollution than Montreal, Vancouver systems

lanthierj — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 10:47:17 +0000

Toronto’s subways expose passengers to more air pollution than Montreal, Vancouver systems

lanthierj Tue, 04/25/2017 - 06:47

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Professor Greg Evans measures air pollution on A Toronto subway platform. A new study shows that airborne particulates in such locations are much higher than in the outside air (photo by Tyler Irving)

Tyler Irving

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Tyler Irving

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City & Culture

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Transit

TTC

Pollution

Subheadline

Airborne particulates on subway platforms and trains are up to 10 times higher than outside air, around three times higher than levels in Montreal’s Metro

A new study co-authored by U of T Engineering Professor Greg Evans shows that subways increase our personal exposure to certain pollutants, even as they decrease overall emissions – and that Toronto has the highest levels in Canada.

The findings come from data collected on TTC platforms and in trains over three weeks in the summer of 2010 and the winter of 2011. In collaboration with researchers from Health Canada and McGill University, Evans and his chemical engineering students used portable detectors for particulate matter – tiny particles suspended in air – and found them to be much higher than in the ambient air outside.

Read the CTV story

The team evaluated air quality using a metric called PM2.5, which measures the mass of airborne particles smaller than 2.5 micrometres per cubic metre of air.

“While larger particles get caught in your nose or throat, these ones can make the twists and turns to be able to get deep down into the lungs,” says Evans.

Read the Toronto Star story

For comparison, a typical human hair is 50 to 100 micrometres wide.

Evans says that a typical outdoor PM2.5 value for Toronto would be on the order of 10 micrograms of particles per cubic metre of air. On a poor air quality day in Toronto, that value might rise as high as 30 micrograms per cubic metre, and the particles would be visible in the air as haze.

But on Toronto subway platforms and trains, the team measured an average value of 100 micrograms per cubic metre.

“That’s comparable with a typical day in Beijing,” says Evans. The results are published today in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

On the street, combustion sources such as cars and trucks are the dominant contributors to PM2.5 levels. But subway trains are electric, so the particles in subway stations must be coming from a different source.

“We know from analyzing the composition of the particles that it’s not just everyday grime,” says Evans. “The metal concentrations are very high, and the ratios of manganese to iron are similar to what you see in steel.”

This composition suggests that abrasion between the wheels and track of the train is grinding off tiny steel particles. As each train comes into the station, it pushes a column of air in front of it, which stirs up these particles along with any other dust settled at track level.

In above-ground stations, such as Rosedale and Davisville, the team found that PM2.5 measurements were about half what they were underground. Vancouver’s Skytrain system, which is primarily above ground, also had much lower average PM2.5 values at an average of 17 micrograms per cubic metre. Montreal’s system, while entirely below ground, averaged 36 micrograms per cubic metre, which Evans says may be because its rubber wheels, concrete rails, and wood-based braking system leads to less abrasion than steel-on-steel.

Long-term exposure to PM2.5 pollution has been associated with negative effects on the respiratory and cardiac systems, and short-term exposures to high levels can aggravate asthma or trigger heart attacks. Current Health Canada guidelines recommend that indoor PM2.5 levels be kept “as low as possible,” and at minimum, lower than the outside air.

Evans points out that these findings must be taken in context. Most commuters only spend about an hour or so on the subway each day, which means that its impact on overall daily exposure is limited. “Taking transit only increases a given daily overall exposure by 20 per cent,” says Evans.

By contrast, the outdoor PM2.5 level can vary day to day by much more than 20 per cent simply due to the weather.

“The comparison between the three subway systems shows that this is a preventable exposure and we should take steps to reduce it,” says Evans. “These particles may also be more toxic than typical outdoor particles due to their high metal content.”

“The findings are similar to previously published studies conducted in metro systems across the world,” says Keith Van Ryswyk, scientific project coordinator at Health Canada’s Air Health Science Division and lead author of the study. “The results from the study can be used to help guide transportation planners in Canada to improve air quality for commuters.”

Evans says exposure could be reduced by upgrading ventilation systems and cleaning up the dust that may be the source of the particles. He points out that his measurements were taken before the introduction of new train cars on Toronto’s Line 1, the Yonge-University-Spadina line, in 2011. These new cars may already be reducing exposure through better braking systems and improved air filters, although those studies have not yet been done.

In the meantime, Evans says he will continue using subways for his daily commute, at least when biking is not an option.

“Public transit offers the advantage of better air quality overall across the city,” he says. “This isn’t enough for me to stop taking the subway, but at the same time, we should try to reduce our exposure.”

Transit expert Michael Schabas says Toronto must recognize transportation is a business, not just a service

Romi Levine — Wed, 11 Jan 2017 17:49:42 +0000

Transit expert Michael Schabas says Toronto must recognize transportation is a business, not just a service

Romi Levine Wed, 01/11/2017 - 12:49

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Michael Schabas says he's still optimistic about Toronto fixing its transportation woes (photo by Linus Follert/Flickr)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

City & Culture

Transportation

City

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

Subheadline

The U of T alum brings lessons from London to Toronto transit: "You need to offer a better service quality – faster and more frequent trains, all day and on weekends"

Few transit systems hold a candle to London’s sprawling network of trains. Its comprehensive web of rail lines serve everyone from well-to-do businesspeople to blue-collar workers, transporting them to every corner of the city.

Transit consultant Michael Schabas, an alumnus of U of T's John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, played an important role in making the London transportation system what it is today.

He is sharing his insights from the United Kingdom in a new book, The Railway Metropolis: How planners, politicians, and developers shaped Modern London.

“The book is about how London learned to build railways that were worth having that attracted passengers, that operated efficiently, that were affordable and efficient,” says Schabas.

Schabas, who has worked on transportation projects all over the world, is currently in Toronto helping Metrolinx implement the Regional Express Rail project, a large scale transformation of the GO Rail network.

He spoke with U of T News about what Toronto can learn from London’s successes and missteps.

Why is it important to tell the story of London's transportation system?

Because railways are so expensive and take so long to plan and build that some cities never learned from their mistakes. The last railway Toronto built was the Sheppard subway – that was about 20 years ago, and before that, the Spadina RT, which came 10 years before it.

You have to learn from other cities. You can't just learn from your own city because it's probably too long ago.

London learned from Vancouver when it built the SkyTrain. I worked on the first line in the early 1980s, and London copied it with the Docklands Light Railway, an automated, elevated system that other cities around the world have also copied. But Toronto still learns only from itself so it only wants to build subways and streetcar lines.

What are Toronto's other transit shortcomings?

Toronto only thinks about the capital costs. It assumes that a railway always loses money and doesn't do analysis of business cases – so you have plans like the Scarborough subway, which is supposed to replace the Scarborough RT but obviously won't attract any more passengers because it's going to do pretty much exactly the same thing as the existing line. And, it may actually cost more to operate than the RT it will replace.

Most of the investment in London over the last 30 years has been to upgrade the surface railway. The London Overground is a new service created by knitting together and electrifying surface railways. That's the lesson Toronto is learning with the Regional Express Rail project that's now going ahead.

I'm a Toronto boy. I grew up in Toronto. I left Toronto in 1979 because I didn't think Toronto would do anything clever with railways for the next 30 years. I went to Vancouver and then London and built a lot of railways. Most of which have been successful but also a lot of mistakes were made.

My book tells the stories of the projects that have been delivered in London. If you get to the last page, you will see that I give London a score of 7/10. Not bad, but plenty of room for improvement.

What score would you give Toronto?

At the moment, we don't want to talk about it. But I would say if I write the same book on Toronto in 2040, 8/10 is still within reach.

How do we get past the roadblocks Toronto's transit system is currently facing?

Toronto needs to learn that transport is a business as well as a social service. You need to offer a better service quality – faster and more frequent trains, all day and on weekends. There's a line I use as a title of one of my chapters, which is credited to the mayor of Bogotá: the successful city isn't a place where the poor people have cars, but it's a city where the rich people use public transit.

By rich people, I don't think he meant millionaires. He meant people with jobs, people with cars, people carrying knapsacks with laptops in them.

In Toronto, those people do use public transit to go downtown, and they love it. But they don't use it to go from Scarborough to Mississauga because it's too slow, and they end up sitting in their cars on the 401.

In London, those people use public transit. Toronto is a rich city, and it needs its public transit system to also be for "rich” people.

How optimistic are you that Toronto will get to the point where it can create the transportation systems it needs?

I'm very optimistic.

Toronto is a potential railway metropolis. It's very dense, even in the suburbs. Even Scarborough and Mississauga are much denser than American suburbs. People don't realize that.

Toronto has six freeway lanes in to the downtown. Houston has 43.

Toronto has very little in the way of a freeway system. Rail is the only way to make Toronto keep growing, and luckily for Toronto, it's not too late – the corridors are there for the RER, and Toronto never had the problems American cities had that made “rich” people stop using transit.

U of T joins the city of Toronto in social procurement pledge

Romi Levine — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 16:02:51 +0000

U of T joins the city of Toronto in social procurement pledge

Romi Levine Mon, 10/24/2016 - 12:02

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Environmental Science and Chemistry building at ��Ƶ Scarborough (photo by Ken Jones)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

Subheadline

AnchorTO brings the city’s largest public institutions together for ‘buy local’ strategy

Nothing beats spending a sunny afternoon at a nearby farmer’s market, picking up fresh produce grown only a few kilometres away.

The “buy local” philosophy has been spreading beyond the farmer’s market to restaurants and boutiques – and now to Toronto’s public institutions like the ��Ƶ.

U of T Scarborough, for example, is working with its food services provider Aramark to find ways to source local food.

“There are a tremendous number of farms around the campus,” says Andrew Arifuzzaman, chief administrative officer of U of T Scarborough. “We’ll be bringing local farms in, talking about what they need to become suppliers to Aramark.”

U of T's downtown Toronto campus already sources and buys local food. Since the campus' food services began operating in-house, those volumes have increased, according to Anne Macdonald, director of ancillary services.

In that same vein of "buying local," U of T Scarborough has also partnered with an organization called Hammer Heads, which hires local apprentices for on-campus construction projects, most recently at the Environmental Science and Chemistry building and at Highland Hall.

The university's downtown Toronto campus is now hoping to do something similar.

U of T is looking to expand its community engagement with local businesses and workers by teaming up with the Atkinson Foundation and anchor institutions such as the City of Toronto and public sector organizations like the TTC, Ryerson University and Toronto Public Library. Anchor institutions are public or non-profit organizations rooted in their community, hence the name of the initiative, AnchorTO.

Along with U of T, 13 institutions have signed on, pledging to research and create a plan for sourcing and utilizing local goods and services – a practice called social procurement.

“It is to our benefit to ensure that the community is as successful as it can be because it’s essentially a symbiotic relationship,” says Sheila Brown, U of T’s chief financial officer.

For U of T’s Director of Procurement Services Renata Faverin, it’s important that AnchorTO takes a collaborative approach to procurement.

“It’s about working on projects and identifying ways, always within our regulations, to encourage participation and further economic development for our disadvantaged communities, our smaller suppliers,” she says.

Implementing new procurement strategies will be complicated, guided by the legal framework already in place, says Brown.

“We must do everything in accordance to the current rules, which are complex, and the current rules in Ontario,” she says.

Arifuzzaman believes all that hard work pays off for the university and the community at large. That's what he hopes will happen in Scarborough.

“Creating opportunities for local suppliers makes Scarborough more attractive to live work and play,” he says. “It creates a whole system – a micro ecosystem of economic growth and prosperity.”

Other Toronto organizations signed on to AnchorTO:

Atkinson Foundation
City of Toronto
Centennial College
George Brown College
Metrolinx
Ryerson University
Seneca College
Toronto Public Library
Toronto Transit Commission
Toronto Community Housing
United Way Toronto and York Region
��Ƶ
��Ƶ Scarborough

#UofTBTS16: U of T research hopes to ease student transportation woes

Romi Levine — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 16:00:00 +0000

#UofTBTS16: U of T research hopes to ease student transportation woes

Romi Levine Wed, 09/07/2016 - 12:00

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Photo by Romi Levine

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

City & Culture

Transportation

Geography and Planning

Sonali Patel spends four hours on public transit almost every day, getting to and from the ��Ƶ’s St. George campus.

That’s a bus to the Bronte GO station from her Oakville home, a train to Union Station and then a subway ride to St. George.

“My day is go from 9 am to 9 pm,” says Patel. “I’m at the train at 7 in the morning and I don’t get home until 11 at night. I basically live on campus. I just go home to sleep.”

The long, cumbersome commute isn’t unique to Patel – in fact, a third of students in Toronto spend two hours or more per day, traveling to and from campus, according to a survey released earlier this year by StudentMoveTO, a collaboration between the ��Ƶ, OCAD University, Ryerson University and York University.

Getting the universities to work together on a survey of this magnitude -- 15,226 students responded -- was part of a ground-breaking effort by the four university presidents to collaborate on solving critical issues for the city-region. It has since inspired U of T researchers in engineering and geography to dig deeper into the issue.

Monir Moniruzzaman, a postdoctoral researcher in geography and planning, is working alongside assistant professor Steven Farber to further analyze the survey data. Moniruzzaman researches student attitudes toward different transportation options. He says the survey offers researchers a large sample size, often not found in other studies.

“Do we need more transit or more bicycle paths or dedicated shuttles for university students?” Moniruzzaman asks. He hopes his work will help answer that question, and the survey results will help planners and policy-makers create a more student-friendly city.

Matti Siemiatycki, associate professor of geography and planning at U of T and one of the lead researchers of StudentMoveTO, said the initiative is working with transportation agencies like the TTC and Metrolinx to help them find ways to utilize the survey results.

“We’re in the process of building those relationships and getting the data out there,” Siemiatycki says.

Siemiatycki says it’s the best way to inform change and inspire research.

“It allows others to come with their own creativity and ideas that, for those of us involved at the beginning, we may not have envisioned – and that’s great. I think that’s where innovation comes from and new ideas,” he says.

U of T applauds new transit proposal for Scarborough

sgupta — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 15:31:14 +0000

U of T applauds new transit proposal for Scarborough sgupta Thu, 01/21/2016 - 10:31

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“U of T Scarborough is an exciting and growing campus,” President Meric Gertler says. “It is central to the cultural and intellectual life in the Eastern GTA and very much a part of Toronto’s overall growth.”

Don Campbell

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Don Campbell

Topic

City & Culture

StudentMoveTO: thousands complete transit survey created by students

sgupta — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 08:07:06 +0000

StudentMoveTO: thousands complete transit survey created by students sgupta Tue, 12/08/2015 - 03:07

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Four universities collaborated in the survey about commuting to school (photo by Sean_Marshall via Flickr)

Alan Christie

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Alan Christie

Topic

U of T experts on why Tory's tax plan is not enough

sgupta — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 16:32:38 +0000

U of T experts on why Tory's tax plan is not enough sgupta Fri, 12/04/2015 - 11:32

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“We have dramatic needs for infrastructure investment,” Matti Siemiatycki says (photo by Ashton Pal via Flickr)

Alan Christie

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Alan Christie

Topic

Subheadline

It's a good start but more revenue is required for infrastructure, researchers say

Toronto Mayor John Tory’s plan to introduce a property tax dedicated to public transit and social housing infrastructure is a good start, ��Ƶ experts say – but just a start.

Tory announced on Nov. 2 that he will be seeking an annual “city building” tax of 0.5 per cent added to property tax bills, for transit and housing. It would start in 2017 and add about $13 to the average property tax bill of $2,654.50.

Enid Slack, director of the Institute on Municipal Finance and Government at U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs and one of Canada’s foremost experts in municipal finance, said Tory’s plan “shows that the city recognizes it has a revenue problem,” not a spending problem.

The Institute did a study before the last municipal election in 2014 on the fiscal health of problems of Toronto that showed it has not been increasing property taxes very rapidly, and has huge infrastructure needs.

“Increasing the property tax is a good start,” Slack said, “but it may not be enough. It’s not a lot of money coming in, so I think they may still have to think about other things to do, perhaps increasing borrowing.”

Dedicating the tax increase to transit and infrastructure for housing “makes it a bit more palatable for taxpayers,” she said, noting that such infrastructure lasts for 30 or 40 years and citizens can reap the benefits at the same time the city is paying back loans over the same period.

Matti Siemiatycki, an associate professor of geography who focuses on municipal infrastructure and transit, echoed Slack’s views.

Siemiatycki pointed to a report from city manager Peter Wallace this week that City Council has planned $23 billion in capital projects without identifying any sources of funding.

“We have dramatic needs for infrastructure investment,” Siemiatycki said.

Tory’s plan “is the beginning of a recognition that we have to come up with ways to pay for all of this. If you want to have it, you have to pay for it,” Siematycki said, suggesting a “variety of other” taxes could be needed.

Borrowing for infrastructure projects is a good thing, he said, as long as the right projects are chosen. They should be ones that “drive the economic engine and create jobs.”

The report released by the institute last year made three basic points: Toronto’s residential property tax is relatively low compared to other cities and growing slowly, and actually declining in real terms; the city can’t manage its infrastructure deficit without new revenue tools and Toronto’s debt load “is modest and manageable for a growing city.”

Slack said that Tory’s plan shows the city is starting to address the problems outlined in the report.

(See the original of the photo above at Flickr)

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sites/default/files/2015-12-04-tory-bus.jpg

Can this expert solve Toronto's transit woes?

sgupta — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 16:26:33 +0000

Can this expert solve Toronto's transit woes? sgupta Fri, 11/27/2015 - 11:26

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“We are non-ideological,” says Professor Eric Miller of U of T's Transportation Research Institute, which is assessing Toronto's transit needs and examining the SmartTrack Plan. “It has to be evidence-based.” (photo by Roberta Baker)

Alan Christie

Author legacy

Alan Christie

Topic

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Cities

Subheadline

Eric Miller on why we have to stop “setting ourselves up for failure”

For years, the ��Ƶ has been an “under-utilized resource” for the City of Toronto, Professor Eric Miller says – but he is at the forefront of changing that.

A civil engineering professor and the director of U of T’s Transportation Research Institute, Miller has had a close working relationship with the City of Toronto for many years.

But with both President Meric Gertler and Mayor John Tory stressing closer ties, that relationship has intensified.

Earlier this year City Council awarded a contract to Miller and the institute to do a major study on the transit needs of Toronto, including an examination of Tory’s SmartTrack proposal he made during last year’s mayoral election campaign. The report is due in January.

Miller told U of T News that “it is very important that we not look at just one project is isolation,” suggesting that the study could make recommendations about walking and biking as well as public transit.

During the municipal election campaign Miller wrote in an op-ed column for The Star that Tory’s SmartTrack plan, tabbed a “regional relief line,” was a good idea. But he also said Olivia Chow’s proposal for more buses was welcomed as well, because “increasing the capacity of the surface transit network is essential.”

The TTC is planning to add more buses, though its attempt to add more streetcars has been stymied by manufacturing delays.

Many transit advocates are pushing for a downtown relief line to ease the congestion on the Yonge/Spadina line. Miller noted though that the SmartTrack plan would also offer such relief. The SmartTrack line will provide service from the Airport Corporate Centre in the west, southeast to Union Station and northeast to Markham in the east. It would have 22 new station stops and five interchanges with the TTC rapid transit network.

Tory promised that the line would be built in seven years with service starting in 2021.

Miller stressed that the institute is not an advocate for any one plan. “We are non-ideological. It has to be evidence-based and, technically, make sense or not.”

While not coming out in favour of any plan, Miller made it clear that one of the frustrations for transit planners is the lack of political will to get things done.

“The root problem is the total unwillingness [of politicians] to deal with transit funding. The idea that they are not willing to pay for it is so ridiculous. We are setting ourselves up for failure” by not coming to grips with the issue.

Gertler and city manager Peter Wallace attended a session recently on funding for municipalities during which they discussed alternative sources of revenue and alumna Anne Golden, former head of the United Way of Greater Toronto, suggested raising revenue for transit through a city sales tax. Golden made the recommendation to the provincial government in December, 2013 along with former city planner Paul Bedford.

“The reports were fantastic,” Miller said. “It could have been the solution” to the problem of finding money for public transit. Instead, we got a “totally mindless, kneejerk reaction” from politicians. “They don’t want to bite the bullet to pay for things that will make your life better.”

One group of people whose lives could be made better by improved public transit are university students, who often commute for hours just to get to class.

Read about one student's commute

Miller was heavily involved in the creation of StudentMove TO which launched an unprecedented public transit survey of 170,000 post-secondary students in Toronto last September. One of his PhD students, Chris Harding, helped designed the survey.

Miller said “I am very, very excited” that the survey results will “lead to better policy decisions” that will help students. The results will be analyzed after the survey is concluded in January.