City
Wither Spadina?
At a time when the TTC is - again - raising fares to solve its budget problems, the time has surely come to get creative with cash and efficiency saving measures. While service cuts are righfully anathema to commuters, there is at least one service cut that should be enacted - it will certainly save money and, counterintuitive though it might seem, could actually improve service. The time has come to close the North/South section of Spadina station (Spadina-Lowther).
Ever since the demise of the travelator between the two sections, North/South Spadina has been a station without a purpose; passengers looking to switch lines from Bloor-Danforth to University-Spadina (or vice-versa) are invariably better off making the switch at St George St, even if it means seeing Spadina twice - a situation that could be avoided with the closing of Spadina-Lowther.
The saddest part though, is that Spadina-Lowther isn't even efficient at getting passengers to the rest of Spadina station. The other day, with an hour to spare, I timed my journey from Union station to the Spadina streetcar. By getting off at St George St and transferring for one stop to Spadina on the Bloor-Danforth (versus going straight to Spadina-Lowther) I actually managed to shave a minute off my travel time, once the hallway walk was taken into account.
In addition to the transfer and streetcar benefits to closing Spadina-Lowther, the closure would even aid travellers who never set foot in Spadina station. By eliminating a stop along the University-Spadina line, any passenger who is crossing Bloor St would have an extra two or three minutes lopped off their travel time by allowing the train to pass straight through, rather than having to stop and open its doors. Add to this the extra cash savings for the TTC by having one less station to heat and light, and the closure of Spadina-Lowther is a win-win situation for everybody.
The only major downside to the closing of Spadina-Lowther is that it would mean an end to the beautiful, if seldom used, Kendal Avenue entrance. However even this negative has an upside to it, as the building could be converted into a TTC transit museum, allowing a place for tourists and transit geeks alike to explore the history - and the future - of the Rocket.
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I was thinking the other day about what the TTC could do to improve service. They have already expressed that they want to do away with tokens. What about a NYC style stansit card that you can just fill with money?? No tickets, no tokens, no hassle.
Small changes, rather than big ones, make all the difference. Sorry if they don't save you two minutes travel time.
(buy a bike)
Kendal Ave is about as far from a subway (not counting the Kendal Ave entrance) as Euclid Ave is from one. Should we put a subway entrance there as well? If you really think that no street should be more than a block and a half away from a subway entrance, then we're going to need to build a whole lot more subway entrances - especially uptown.
Closing the Kendal entrance is a small change - getting rid of tokens, by comparison, is a huge one.
Sorry if that means you need to walk for an extra minute and a half.
http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_03.02.06/city/news.html
Now I'm not sure what to think. Regardless, it would take a HUGE amount of money to set up the smart card readers etc.
also, I use the spadina n-s station every day. I think you underestimate the amount of time it saves not having to go to spadina, take the train to st. george, transfer and then go south. it's not huge, but it's certainly not a minute and a half!
I also wonder how much this could possibly save. It's not as if the northbound platform is staffed... there's just a token machine. So they'd save a few minutes' cleaning labour every day at best. Seems like a minor savings in exchange for inconveniencing a lot of riders.
Exactly - it's not as though the Annex area is currently underserved by transit. Yes, it would inconvinience some riders, but the vast majority of transit riders don't live on Kendal Ave, and it is that 99% who would see a service improvement by the closure.
Plus, as I stated in the article, a Transit Museum would be perfect for Kendal Ave.
It is doubtless that the people at the top of the TTC are making enough that they don't need to ride it (although they should, at least occasionally) - and I don't begrudge them that. I'm not too sure about a secret cabal of TTC operatives though.
There is certainly money to be saved, we just need to start getting creative and save it.
The service improvements for the vast majority of riders would come from not needing the train to stop at Spadina-Lowther. For anybody crossing the station, this would save them a few minutes directly, and for everybody else it would provide less direct service benefits through concentration of resources.
As for the cost savings, stations arn't cheap to operate. Even without the salary of the fare collector, you still have the salaries of the maintenance and cleaning staff, the heating costs (increasing even more now with the increase in gas prices), the lighting costs, and capital repairs (unused escalators don't need to be fixed. Close Spadina-Lowther and you save on all of this, while only inconviniencing a very small minority of riders.