The one that got away

By Murray Crawford

To think, Toronto had a green solution to bus transit since the 1940s and chose to ignore it.

Between 1947 and 1993 the TTC had a network of ten trolley bus routes.  By 1992 the fleet was aging fast.  A trolley bus is like a streetcar, in that it is dependent on a connection to overhead wires, but is instead independent of a track system.  Instead of updating the trolley bus system, the TTC chose to invest in buses that run on natural gas. Diesel-hybrid buses replaced the natural gas buses in the mid 2000s.

When the TTC explored environmentally friendly options for its bus fleet it never considered bringing back trolley bus alternatives. Transit activist and blogger Steve Munro thinks that it should have at least looked at the long-term comparative costs.

“It’s a debate about do we believe that future technologies will be there when they’re supposed to be there,” Munro said. “15 years from now if we look at a trolley-bus network and a diesel-hybrid network, what would the relative merits be.”

Munro questions why a new trolley bus network wasn’t even examined in comparison to a diesel-hybrid bus.

This is not to say there aren’t issues with a trolley bus system.  Globe transit columnist Jeff Gray was quick to point out that it is not a perfect system.

“There are, of course, various problems with the trolley idea,” Gray said.  “They are expensive, the wires are ugly and some bus routes are too small to justify the infrastructure.”

The idea behind the switch to the diesel-hybrid is that the green technology will eventually come and investing now would benefit the city as new hybrid technology comes to the market, Munro questions that argument.

“We keep hearing that there is going to be some marvelous new technology,” he said. “That will somehow miraculously save us from using what we have today.  It’s always just far enough off that we’re not going to buy them tomorrow, but it’s close enough that investing in the infrastructure is important.”

Trolley buses remain in service in large cities, across Europe and North America.  In Canada only two cities still employ these buses, Vancouver and Edmonton.  Edmonton is currently performing the investigation that Munro thinks the TTC overlooked, comparing the costs between the alternatives.

Vancouver also maintains an extensive trolley bus network, and its growing, said Derek Zabel, media relations manager for Coast Mountain Bus Company.

“Most companies are getting rid of their trolleys,” Zabel said. “But we’re one of the few actually increasing investment.”

Vancouver’s geography is very conducive to a trolley bus network, Munro said.  Diesel-hybrids do not benefit from hilly routes while trolley buses are more efficient when climbing Vancouver’s rolling hills.

Trolley buses require a network of overhead wires. From time to time the tether can be dislodged from the wires, but Vancouver trolleys, among others around the world, are now using buses that also have a battery back up that turns on when that happens.

Peter Sanford, a daily trolley bus rider in Vancouver, sees the wires as aesthetically negative.  He’s had experiences on both trolley and diesel buses.

“The biggest difference in driving feel is that after a diesel has been in service for about six months, it’s less powerful than an electric trolley,” Sanford said. “That said I’ve noticed that the feel of the trolley bus is a bit jerkier.  You can really feel it when the driver puts his foot on the ‘gas’.”

A new system in Toronto would come with a lot of costs, especially the installation of new overhead wires.

“It costs about a million dollars to put in trolley overhead so it is not feasible to adapt other existing bus routes to trolley routes,” Zabel said.

Another issue that inevitably comes up is that while trolley buses are locally emission free they are dependent on energy from other sources.  In Ontario this means that the nuclear and coal plants would be required to generate the power necessary for the buses.  Munro said that shouldn’t be a reason to rule out trolley buses for Toronto’s roads.

“I have even heard that old shibboleth about trolley buses that because they consume electricity, and that comes from coal/nuclear, therefore trolley buses use “dirty” power,” he said.  “This same argument is never heard about subways, streetcars, or, more recently, LRT, oddly enough.”