Despite what Ford says The Streetcar in Toronto is here to stay.

[gweed123]

Sure, and that's with an exclusive right of way, something that for whatever reason (maybe TTC, maybe city wishes, maybe community input, I don't know) was not going to happen with Eglinton.

It wasn't planned for Eglinton because the TTC CHOSE not to do it for Eglinton. Aside from the SRT, the TTC seems to have a fetish for in-median LRT. Aside from the occasional tunneled sections where necessary, nearly all of TC is in-median LRT. I really don't think the Richview corridor was given it's due dilligence, especially considering that it was studied for BRT with the Eglinton West subway project as was found to be a viable BRT corridor.

Ok, I get it now. You want to put a mode transfer to the west. Aren't there enough complainers about the mode change at the end of the Sheppard stubway?

The west portion of the ECLRT will not be built for the next 10+ years. If we can get BRT there now as an interim solution, not only will it get rapid transit there quicker, it will make upgrading to LRT a lot easier, as the ROW and stations will already be there. And my complaint with the SELRT is not that there's a mode change, but that it castrates the Sheppard Subway from being extended. It's a lot easier to go from BRT to LRT or subway than it is to go from LRT to subway.

Just curious how you'd do this grade separation at some intersections. Would you be trenching your BRT under the cross-streets or elevating it to bridge them? Both would add significant engineering work and cost.

What cross-streets would you be doing this grade separation? At the major ones passengers might want to be transferring to north/south routes (and so would have to ascend/descend a level to get their connection). The minor ones probably wouldn't have the traffic loading to present much of an impact on Eglinton through traffic, particularly if they got some transit priority to the signals.

I would trench just before the intersection, and put the station directly underneath the cross street. This would provide shelter from the winter elements, and would allow for an efficient transfer. Side streets would likely not need a grade separation (see Iris Station on the Southwest Transitway, at-grade intersection with Transitway stops on both sides). More major stations at more important intersections would be grade separated, and hopefully equipped with passing lanes.

Yes, the cost associated with that would be higher, but remember, you're only trenching 5-10% of the total route, everything between stations would be at-grade. And the cost of doing the trenches is still less than the cost of ripping apart an entire street (utilities, services, and all), and rebuilding it. Not to mention, it's significantly less disruptive. BRT also has the advantage of allowing bus routes to use the BRT route for a portion of their route, in order to increase reliability. Many transit routes in Ottawa do this (Transitway to/from downtown, get off the Transitway at a given exit, and then become a local service servicing a specific suburban community).

 

[Asterix]

I really don't think the Richview corridor was given it's due dilligence, especially considering that it was studied for BRT with the Eglinton West subway project as was found to be a viable BRT corridor.

So is there anything at all that the TTC or anyone else can say that could possibly change your mind? Or is this just an example of them not going with your idea and so therefore definitively means they didn't properly look at all the options (and their various implications)?

Yes, the cost associated with that would be higher, but remember, you're only trenching 5-10% of the total route, everything between stations would be at-grade. And the cost of doing the trenches is still less than the cost of ripping apart an entire street (utilities, services, and all), and rebuilding it.

It's not just a bunch of trenches you are digging, but digging under existing reasonably busy multi-lane streets. Not only do you have to worry about constructing solid foundations for the bridge that wasn't originally built to be a bridge, but you've also got the various sewers, water and gas mains and whatever other utilities run under that street whose path you are cutting right through.

If it was just a straight down and up trench, then sure, I'd agree it would be simple and possibly cheap (although your ramps on either side would have to be fairly long - look at the length on either side of the St Clair W portal and still how steep they are). But not when you have to go under a major street.

 

[gweed123]

So is there anything at all that the TTC or anyone else can say that could possibly change your mind? Or is this just an example of them not going with your idea and so therefore definitively means they didn't properly look at all the options (and their various implications)?

The thing is, it's not my idea. The TTC studied it in the past, and found it to be a viable option. It's not like I pulled this idea out of thin air. It just seems bizzare to me that they would choose ripping up an entire street over just building a new ROW through a corridor that was purposely set aside to be a transportation corridor. Building the new ROW would be at best much less expensive, at the very worst equal in cost to ripping up the street.

It's not just a bunch of trenches you are digging, but digging under existing reasonably busy multi-lane streets. Not only do you have to worry about constructing solid foundations for the bridge that wasn't originally built to be a bridge, but you've also got the various sewers, water and gas mains and whatever other utilities run under that street whose path you are cutting right through.

If it was just a straight down and up trench, then sure, I'd agree it would be simple and possibly cheap (although your ramps on either side would have to be fairly long - look at the length on either side of the St Clair W portal and still how steep they are). But not when you have to go under a major street.

And relocating the water, storm sewer, sanitary sewer, gas lines, hydro lines, telephone poles, etc over the entire length of Eglinton from Jane to Martin Grove is a better option?

Assuming that there are 10 grade separations over the course of Eglinton West (admittedly, a random number, but let's just use it for simplicity sake). Each overpass would likely have a span of about 20m (the width of a standard 2 lane road ROW). That's a total of 200m of services that would need to be built into or attached to the underside of the overpass. Compare that to relocating the services on the 5+ km of Eglinton between Jane and Martin Grove. Not to mention resurfacing, recurbing, and residewalking literally all of Eglinton between those two points.

The ramps on the Transitway take up relatively little space (see: Tunney's Pasture). Remember, buses can handle a steeper grade than streetcars can. And engineers grade separate rail corridors all the time (either a rail bridge over the road, or a road bridge over the rail). They wern't initially intended to be bridges, are you suggesting the foundations on those bridges aren't solid?

 

[leopetr]

I find it quite distressing when people believe that curbside BRT isn't rapid transit...

Curbside BRT gets stuck in traffic. Viva Purple and Pink get stuck at the 404/Highway 7 interchange whenever there's a traffic jam. Yonge south of Centre is a slog.

I live at Christie/Bloor and work at Warden/Highway 7. Sometimes I take Viva Pink (curbside BRT) from Finch, sometimes I take 68B (regular bus) from Warden station. The only difference is that Viva runs more frequently.

(Sadly, the only part of Highway 7 not getting a Viva median rapidway is the aforementioned 404/Highway 7 interchange. They can't widen the roadway there and they won't take away car lanes. Bah.)

 

[gweed123]

Curbside BRT gets stuck in traffic. Viva Purple and Pink get stuck at the 404/Highway 7 interchange whenever there's a traffic jam. Yonge south of Centre is a slog.

I live at Christie/Bloor and work at Warden/Highway 7. Sometimes I take Viva Pink (curbside BRT) from Finch, sometimes I take 68B (regular bus) from Warden station. The only difference is that Viva runs more frequently.

(Sadly, the only part of Highway 7 not getting a Viva median rapidway is the aforementioned 404/Highway 7 interchange. They can't widen the roadway there and they won't take away car lanes. Bah.)

Are those sections just carpool lanes, or are they dedicated buses only lanes? Because I live in Ottawa now, and I can tell you that the buses only lanes on Woodroffe between Baseline station and Hunt Club flow very well, even during rush hour. The lights are also spaced far enough apart that the buses generally only hit 1 light along the entire route, the rest of the lights are timed to be green when the bus arrives.

EDIT: Extra question: do those routes have separate right turn lanes at intersections, or is the carpool/bus lane in a lot of cases the right turn lane? That could potentially slow things down as well. Woodroffe has right turn lanes on the outside of the bus lane (traffic crosses the bus lane 50m or so ahead of the intersection, and then slows down and turns in the turning lane, which by and large doesn't disrupt the bus traffic at all).

 

[Asterix]

The thing is, it's not my idea. The TTC studied it in the past, and found it to be a viable option. It's not like I pulled this idea out of thin air. It just seems bizzare to me that they would choose ripping up an entire street over just building a new ROW through a corridor that was purposely set aside to be a transportation corridor. Building the new ROW would be at best much less expensive, at the very worst equal in cost to ripping up the street.

I don't profess to know what they studied or how they came to their decision (I suspect neither do you). Is it possible they were given different priorities this time? That city planning goals had changed? Development plans for that area? Without knowing all these things and more, we're really just grasping at straws to explain why they decided to change their minds.

And relocating the water, storm sewer, sanitary sewer, gas lines, hydro lines, telephone poles, etc over the entire length of Eglinton from Jane to Martin Grove is a better option?

Are they being relocated? Is Eglinton being widened (hence requiring sewers to be moved)? Burying hydro or telephone lines would be a street scaping issue and not necessarily required with the road work.

They wern't initially intended to be bridges, are you suggesting the foundations on those bridges aren't solid?

Nowhere did I suggest they weren't solid. The point is that the roadbed was originally laid to be on solid ground. When you trench under it and remove that solid ground, you have to do a lot of work to build those required foundations. It's by no means impossible, but it's just a lot more work than digging your trench.

 

[Justin10000]

I find it quite distressing when people believe that curbside BRT isn't rapid transit...

In it's own private ROW, BRT can be rapid transit. Of course, you never considered surface LRT to rapid transit.....

 

[nfitz]

We do have a full LRT in Toronto. The 501 averages about 28km/h on the Queensway.

Subway from Dundas West to Old Mill = 6 minutes
501, Humber loop to Ronces, = 7 minutes.

These two are directly comparable in level of transit service they provide. Difference is, the 501 is a fraction of the cost.

Shh ... you'll spoil the fantasies of the anti-LRT Nimbys.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Rob Ford thinks only of the present, not future. There is a report (see this link) that says:

If the world's oil reserves were the 1.332 trillion barrels estimated in 2008 and oil consumption stood at 85.22 million barrels a day and growing yearly at 1.3 percent, oil would be depleted by 2041, says the study published online last week by Environmental Science and Technology.

That is in thirty (30) years. Rob Ford thinks that we have still have an endless supply of oil (gasoline or diesel) for everyone to use in either their own individual automobile or buses. We don't. What happens when oil gets too expensive for a bus or automobile? At least with light rail, we can be ahead of the problem. We may still have a family vehicle, but we will not be able to hop into it each time we need to buy a lottery ticket, nor to get to work or play. We need coverage across Toronto, not just the small corners that a heavy rail subway may access. Light rail can do that, and less expensively.

 

[gweed123]

In it's own private ROW, BRT can be rapid transit. Of course, you never considered surface LRT to rapid transit.....

I do consider it rapid transit. I just don't consider it an effective use of funds. If the ridership is low enough that in-median LRT is effective, curbside BRT can be just as effective, for less. If the ridership is too high for curbside BRT, it's likely in the upper range of operability for in-median LRT. You can get maybe an extra 3000-4000 pphpd with in-median LRT over curbside BRT.

This has been demonstrated with the first Ottawa LRT plan. Both the current system and the proposed LRT used surface through downtown. The plan acknowledged that after 2019, surface LRT wouldn't be sufficient, and that was with an increase of only a few thousand pphpd.

 

[gweed123]

I don't profess to know what they studied or how they came to their decision (I suspect neither do you). Is it possible they were given different priorities this time? That city planning goals had changed? Development plans for that area? Without knowing all these things and more, we're really just grasping at straws to explain why they decided to change their minds.

I don't know exactly how they came to the decision, no. I just know that it was looked at, and it was deemed feasible. I think the main difference is the technology of choice. In the 80s and 90s, the technology of choice was subways. Now, it's LRT. And I think the decision to use in-median LRT was done across the board. The only places where they didn't choose this is where they had to tunnel. In-median LRT is not right for every corridor, especially when there's a viable transit corridor right beside it.

Are they being relocated? Is Eglinton being widened (hence requiring sewers to be moved)? Burying hydro or telephone lines would be a street scaping issue and not necessarily required with the road work.

Well yeah, I would think they kinda have to be. The entire drainage pattern of the roadway will have to change, which will require the replacement of all the storm sewers for the roadway. If not complete replacement, significant modification. Think of how disruptive the St. Clair ROW project was, Eglinton will be pretty much the exact same thing. The only saving grace will be that there's enough room to create some temporary traffic lanes.

Nowhere did I suggest they weren't solid. The point is that the roadbed was originally laid to be on solid ground. When you trench under it and remove that solid ground, you have to do a lot of work to build those required foundations. It's by no means impossible, but it's just a lot more work than digging your trench.

I acknowledge that's it's some work for sure. However, it's been done before. Just look at the open cut section of the Yonge subway between Rosedale and Eglinton. A lot of the roads were built as overpasses. They're still doing fine today, 50+ years later.

 

[gweed123]

We do have a full LRT in Toronto. The 501 averages about 28km/h on the Queensway.

Subway from Dundas West to Old Mill = 6 minutes
501, Humber loop to Ronces, = 7 minutes.

These two are directly comparable in level of transit service they provide. Difference is, the 501 is a fraction of the cost.

Just out of curiosity, what's the stop spacing on the Queensway section? If I remember correctly, the stops are pretty widely spaced out. Just an honest question, because I never really measured it out.

 

[Darwinkgo]

Rob Ford thinks only of the present, not future. There is a report (see this link) that says:

If the world's oil reserves were the 1.332 trillion barrels estimated in 2008 and oil consumption stood at 85.22 million barrels a day and growing yearly at 1.3 percent, oil would be depleted by 2041, says the study published online last week by Environmental Science and Technology.

That is in thirty (30) years. Rob Ford thinks that we have still have an endless supply of oil (gasoline or diesel) for everyone to use in either their own individual automobile or buses. We don't. What happens when oil gets too expensive for a bus or automobile? At least with light rail, we can be ahead of the problem. We may still have a family vehicle, but we will not be able to hop into it each time we need to buy a lottery ticket, nor to get to work or play. We need coverage across Toronto, not just the small corners that a heavy rail subway may access. Light rail can do that, and less expensively.

Just remember that more oil is found all the time, and more inaccessible oil becomes accessible as the price goes up and technology is developed. Running out of oil isn't going to be a problem. As oil gets more expensive even if costs are passed along to transit riders the cost savings from taking transit become greater and greater. Remember that the ridership growth strategy and the second phase of transit city are both based on buses. When oil prices are high, people still are not going to walk 2 or 3 km to get on rail based electric transit.

Also, as a budding futurist you should read up on algae based biofuels. It and other evolutionairy technology likely supplement and then replace oil based fuel before oil gets ludicrously expensive.

 

[Still Waters]

One of the reasons that BRT was seen as a viable option in the Eglinton West/Etobicoke corridor was because the original plan was to build a subway from Eg West all the way to the airport, although final alignments at the extreme west end were never really finalized. The thought was that the subway would be phased and that BRT was a relatively cheap interim way of upgrading transit until a full subway was completed. On the timeline then thought to be realistic for the subway phasing, a BRT would have served the forecast ridership in the Richview corridor just fine during the interim pre-subway period. Truth be told, I don't think the forecast ridership numbers on Eglinton ever really did warrant a full subway, even back in the early 1990's.

Nevertheless, I don't think that LRT was really on anyone's radar in those days, simply because there was a "rut" of thinking that it was subways or buses, with nothing in between. Of course, that might have been ok then when funding for subways and transit operating budgets was much more stable and certain. Since then, both capital and operating funding has become much less stable and more subject to political whim. We have seen that the political appetite for subway spending cools very quickly once the bills actually start rolling in.

If Eglinton is now to be built with LRT as the medium to long-term mode for the central underground portion of the corridor, then the need to downgrade to a BRT through the less-used western end of the corridor becomes less of an issue given that LRT capacities and operating costs are so flexible. If this line is to be a link to the airport as planned, then the perception of having to transfer off of an LRT vehicle to a similarly-sized bus, reserved lanes or not, starts to become more important. If an LRT is regarded by many as a "second class" subway, then forcing a transfer to a bus certainly would be regarded the same way, if not moreso.

The local councillor for the Richview corridor has gone on record as opposing the surface LRT option (she wants a subway) in part because the homeowners who back onto the currently-empty part of the corridor on the north side of Eglinton want no reduction in that green space which they regard as a buffer between them and the busy, noisy road. Even if you disagree with their point of view, putting a separate bus road, or an LRT ROW for that matter, in that part of the corridor would not go over well, you can be sure. It also requires some grade separation at the cross streets to avoid creating too-closely-spaced intersections, which then starts to drive up the costs (both capital and maintenance) regardless of whether it's buses or light rail using the ROW. Median running is certainly more conventional and offers some advantages for traffic signal operation/priority. Side-of-the-road, or off-the-road running is feasible as well, but I'm not sure that the advantages are quite as significant as they may first appear.

BRT, LRT and subways all have their place and I think it is unrealistic to expect that we will get everyone to agree on which is best where. These issues are seldom that cut-and-dried. My fear is that in the bickering back and forth about whether Eglinton (or any other line) should be BRT, LRT, subway or gondolas (etc), we will end up with nothing. It's certainly an interesting debate, but I hope that we can all at least agree that "do nothing" is not a viable option for Toronto after the last 20-30 yrs of inaction.

Sorry for going on so long and thanks for reading through it all!

 

[nfitz]

Just out of curiosity, what's the stop spacing on the Queensway section? If I remember correctly, the stops are pretty widely spaced out. Just an honest question, because I never really measured it out.

We had a whole thread on this before. Without going back it was the same as the Sheppard East LRT ... 400 metres.