Toronto Eglinton Line 5 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[Voltz]

So people wanting to cross the street will have to wait extended lengths in order to allow a tram that is further away to finally go through the intersection?

If this line were entirely surface level, I would agree, but this line is also partially a ""Subway"". Therefore the surface portion should have been designed and built to allow the trams to move as quickly as possible. Which would have meant constructing "two stage crossings" at every intersection. To allow for subway speeds above ground.

No, the signal phases could just be shifted around to line up with an LRV arriving.

Where does this idea that a two stage crossing is needed to allow for faster LRV's? They get a green light or they don't. The train signals will know where each LRV is, and could give enough advance notice as needed to each intersection.

 

[afransen]

For bunching, could an effective strategy not be to have the vehicle skip a stop or two, announcing the skip prior so that people headed for those stops can get off, and let the following vehicle absorb those passengers?

 

[nfitz]

Thus, using examples like the 900, which also see a scheduled slowdown in speeds, is relevant. The fact that this argument doesn't make any sense doesn't mean that bunching can't occur for other reasons, such as breakdowns, driver breaks, drivers misbehaving, passengers misbehaving, traffic along the route, etc.

It was your example. I'm not discussing, nor have I ever been discussing scheduled slowdown in speeds. I'm not sure why you keep going on and on about a thing that literally can't happen.

 

[micheal_can]

If bunching happens, but the overall frequency is high enough,why would it matter?

 

[urbanclient]

Not directed at anyone in particular:
I'm all for trams in the right places, and tram lovers should defend the inherent merits of trams like I have previously. Instead of denying the very existence of their drawbacks.

The walk from metro platform to street level can add a lot of time to a commute, trams are much faster from platform to street. This is especially noticeable on short trips. Walks out of larger deep-bore Chinese metro stations can take as long as 10 minutes for an able-bodied adult.

But trams tend to be slower than metros, trams tend to be more prone to bunching, more prone to cascading delays and reliability issues. These are inherent in their surface running, less-grade-separated design.

 

[EnviroTO]

If a car goes through a red and gets hit by a transport truck going 50km/h what happens? If we want to put crossing arms, flashing lights, etc in place to reduce the chance of mistakes leading to collisions with the LRT (protections that don't exist for heavy trucks that aren't confined to following the proper path along rails) that is fine, but we need to protect the LRTs right to go full speed and on time. Cowcatchers that slide vehicles off to the right of the vehicle perhaps, maybe big inflated bumpers.... whatever. Just get the damned LRTs going 50km/h regularly.

 

[ThenWhat]

For bunching, could an effective strategy not be to have the vehicle skip a stop or two, announcing the skip prior so that people headed for those stops can get off, and let the following vehicle absorb those passengers?

It is easier done at the end station, where the first vehicle of the bunch goes out of service for some number of stops, not picking up any passengers, until it catches up with its schedule, and then it resumes normal service.

 

[Westey]

I was at those presentations. I've talked to TTC's planners. This is not true at all.

The number of people taking the SRT north in every single potential potential system permutation was so much higher than the numbers taking Eglinton from the west that it never, ever made sense to connect the two.

The final EA designs reflect this, with the projection that 3-car LRT trains would have been required on day 1 of the SRT replacement service.

Dan

This really belongs in the Eglinton LRT thread and not Finch.

I think the problem is that you are thinking of this as a downtowner, and I am thinking in terms of a suburbanite.

In the morning, people want to get downtown as fast as possible. For someone from STC, this would have been taking SRT to a connected ELRT all the way to Yonge (or Don Mills if anyone would have thought about the DRL in 2009 or so). But too many people would want to do that, overwhelming on-street LRT, so they decided to break the line into 2. The most important criteria to maintain was that is must be on-street for part of the trip.

You are viewing it as a downtowner who would take B-D to Kennedy. Of course, with that assumption, most would take SRT to STC, and not double back on Eglinton towards Vic Park.

Here are some numbers (Eglinton Crosstown Rapid Transit Benefits Case, April 2009 ). 7 to 8k ppdph for the separate on-street ELRT and SRT, vs. 14k ppdph for the connected grade-separated LRT. This is from 2009, before Ford. Normally spending 35% more to satisfy 100% more riders would be considered a good thing. But here, the main criteria (the Prime Directive) was that part of the line had to be on-street.

 

[afransen]

It is easier done at the end station, where the first vehicle of the bunch goes out of service for some number of stops, not picking up any passengers, until it catches up with its schedule, and then it resumes normal service.

But doesn't that mean waiting for the cascade to grow? Once a vehicle is more than 5 minutes late, should it not adjust the service pattern to get back on schedule?

 

[duffo]

No, the signal phases could just be shifted around to line up with an LRV arriving.

Where does this idea that a two stage crossing is needed to allow for faster LRV's? They get a green light or they don't. The train signals will know where each LRV is, and could give enough advance notice as needed to each intersection.

Minimum signal cycle time is dictated by the crossing distance - you can't shorten the phase less than the time it takes someone to cross. Because of our very wide suburban streets this means that these times need to be quite long, reducing opportunities to insert or truncate a phase (i.e. if each phase is 30 seconds, that's 20 phases in 10 minutes, versus if each phase is 60 seconds, that's half the number of phases). You can't have the walk countdown suddenly change leaving people standing mid-crossing.

My understanding is this means that the detector needs to be further upstream of the intersection, since it needs a high minimum time before it can influence the signal. There is more variability in travel time the further the distance between the detector and the intersection, leading to more situations where the LRV misses the green priority window.

 

[micheal_can]

If they have proper signals for the LRVs can't they use them to hold trains to prevent bunching?

 

[Voltz]

Minimum signal cycle time is dictated by the crossing distance - you can't shorten the phase less than the time it takes someone to cross. Because of our very wide suburban streets this means that these times need to be quite long, reducing opportunities to insert or truncate a phase (i.e. if each phase is 30 seconds, that's 20 phases in 10 minutes, versus if each phase is 60 seconds, that's half the number of phases). You can't have the walk countdown suddenly change leaving people standing mid-crossing.

My understanding is this means that the detector needs to be further upstream of the intersection, since it needs a high minimum time before it can influence the signal. There is more variability in travel time the further the distance between the detector and the intersection, leading to more situations where the LRV misses the green priority window.

Yeah, changing the signal from further out is fine, there is no need to just suddenly change the light while pedestrians are still crossing. The train control system knows where each train is and should be able to communicate a precise enough time for an upcoming intersection to give a train a green light.

 

[stevensontransit]

View attachment 706428View attachment 706429

Thanks but now I got that map for myself. The 25 route that has been splitting on weekdays since January 2017 is pretty much now redundant now that that arrangement that was in place due to Line 5 construction at Don Valley station is all finished. I would suggest having a 25 Don Mills single routing only operating from Steeles to Don Valley Station only while service between Don Valley Station to Pape and Broadview Stations both on line 2 they can use 925 Don Mills Express, 72 Pape, and 100 Flemingdon Park in which the latter two already provides frequent bus services which would make the 25 Don Mill service south of Don Valley Station pretty much now redundant.

 

[Bordercollie]

This is what crossing arms are for.

View attachment 705407

That's what they should have done to protect intersections that are at grade.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

That's what they should have done to protect intersections that are at grade.

Why? It's not like it crossig the road in a way that is different from the traffic running beside it? If you look at Ion all of the places it has railroad crossing arms on it is on the right of way of a normal railroad or turning off of it to run on the streeet much like how Eglaigton runs. Crossing arms is just overkill for the line and ot;s not necessary at all.