Will candidates lower wait times, improve reliability, and speed up transit?
Improving surface transit is absolutely essential to growing ridership on the TTC. Surface modes account for more than half of all TTC passenger boarding, and given the tight integration between surface and rapid transit, the success of the entire system hinges on buses and streetcars. Furthermore, the bus network serves employment lands, neighbourhood improvement areas and other places rapid transit currently does not reach.
In spite of this, surface transit gets the short end of the stick when it comes to road priority. Buses and streetcars are routinely stuck in traffic at all times of the day; making existing riders late and not incentivizing current drivers to switch to transit. The expansion of RapidTO bus and streetcar lines is urgently needed across the city. The few sections of RapidTO that exist right now have dramatically improved surface transit performance. For example, reliability on the 116 Morningside bus improved 19% after red lanes were introduced on Eglinton East, Kingston Road and Morningside.
The streetcar system is the backbone of the downtown transportation network relied upon by hundreds of thousands of riders a day. However, transit priority measures have been slow to implement on the network, making our streetcar network among the slowest in the world.
In order to grow ridership and maximize speed, there needs to be a network-wide streetcar reform. This would include measures such as street parking removal, left turn bans, active signal priority, dedicated lanes, modernized switches, truly level and accessible boarding, improved shelters and seating, and expanding transit malls similar to the King Street zone. These measures are proven in many cities around the world, as well systems close to home like Kitchener-Waterloo’s ION, to be effective in making streetcars faster and more reliable.
8. Will you commit to complete 1 RapidTO route in your ward by the end of the next Council term?
| Ausma Malik (Incumbent) |
Yes |
| Ian Cunningham |
No |
| Xue Ding |
Yes |
| Andi Hoàng-Lefranc |
Yes |
| Bashar Kassir |
No Response |
| Paul Nash |
Yes |
| Husain Neemuchwala |
No Response |
| Aanchal Vashistha |
No Response |
9. Will you commit to voting in favour of RapidTO routes in other wards to get bus and streetcar riders moving?
| Ausma Malik (Incumbent) |
Yes |
| Ian Cunningham |
Yes |
| Xue Ding |
No |
| Andi Hoàng-Lefranc |
Yes |
| Bashar Kassir |
No Response |
| Paul Nash |
Yes |
| Husain Neemuchwala |
No Response |
| Aanchal Vashistha |
No Response |
10. Will you commit fixing subway Reduced Speed Zones (or slow zones) faster and funding state-of-good-repair maintenance so that slow zones are eliminated entirely?
| Ausma Malik (Incumbent) |
Yes |
| Ian Cunningham |
Yes |
| Xue Ding |
Yes |
| Andi Hoàng-Lefranc |
Yes |
| Bashar Kassir |
No Response |
| Paul Nash |
Yes |
| Husain Neemuchwala |
No Response |
| Aanchal Vashistha |
No Response |
11. Do you endorse adopting a comprehensive, network-wide strategy to reform streetcar service into a world-class, fast, accessible, and reliable system?
(i.e. measures such as street parking removal, left turn bans, signal priority, dedicated lanes, modernized switches, truly level and accessible boarding, improved shelters and seating, and expanding transit malls similar to the King Street zone)
| Ausma Malik (Incumbent) |
Yes |
| Ian Cunningham |
Yes |
| Xue Ding |
Yes |
| Andi Hoàng-Lefranc |
Yes |
| Bashar Kassir |
No Response |
| Paul Nash |
Yes |
| Husain Neemuchwala |
No Response |
| Aanchal Vashistha |
No Response |
12. Will you oppose cuts to TTC service levels and instead invest in more frequent service to grow ridership?
| Ausma Malik (Incumbent) |
Yes |
| Ian Cunningham |
Yes |
| Xue Ding |
Yes |
| Andi Hoàng-Lefranc |
Yes |
| Bashar Kassir |
No Response |
| Paul Nash |
Yes |
| Husain Neemuchwala |
No Response |
| Aanchal Vashistha |
No Response |
Some candidates offered further comments about their commitment to service and reliability: