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Finch West Line 6 LRT

Bojaxs said:
Did this Canadian company not have what the city was looking for? Toronto wanted signals along Finch with "Lidar" tech, and Miovision didn't offer such tech?

Also, is this contract being procured after Finch West's completion? Because I thought TSP was built into the line?

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yea this is a non-story. the ceo even confirms it but tries to shrug it off

"if im riding it i dont care what technology is used as long as it works well"

City was looking for something he didnt provide
goes to the media when he loses a contract

the buy canadian rules arent super strict for a reason
 
generalcanada said:
yea this is a non-story. the ceo even confirms it but tries to shrug it off

"if im riding it i dont care what technology is used as long as it works well"

City was looking for something he didnt provide
goes to the media when he loses a contract

the buy canadian rules arent super strict for a reason
Click to expand...
Yeah, that comment caught my attention as well. Surely using the right tech should matter.

But you got the quote slightly wrong. He talked about "driving around", never mentioned "riding".

Throughout the interview he talks a lot about their signals serving "drivers", but makes no references to the fact that these signals are for improving a transit line and is more about serving "riders".
 
Bojaxs said:
Key word being "reduces". I never claimed it entirley does away with issues surrounding labour strikes.

Automation helps to deter the impact of when operators/ drivers go on strike.
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TTC strikes are not that frequent to design the transit operations around avoiding the strikes. But even looking from that angle: it is likely that the people who operate the control centre will be in the same union as the drivers.

If the union goes on strike, then the control centre will be on strike too.

If the union is not on strike, then I don't think one particular transit line can be on strike individually; automated or not.
 
Well let's what the improved TSP can achieve.

And once the TSP-driven improvements reach the practical limit, I guess the next issue to look at is the Alstrom car design and their acceleration profile. If they are considerably worse than the cars purchaced for Line 5, then maybe the Alstrom vehicles can be gradually rebuilt to improve their acceleration.
 
Undead said:
Are there any updates on whether they’ve improved operations? i.e. faster acceleration from stops and higher top speed in between them
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I rode the line a couple of days before the TSP was instituted on those three intersections, and already it felt faster. I rode from Finch West to Islington Ave., and while I didn't have a stopwatch on the trip was a shade under a half-hour. However...

At a good number of stops the operator accelerated from a standstill after closing the doors, then had to momentarily apply the brake as he had accelerated enough to put it into overspeed.

This will hopefully get fixed before too long as they increase the speed limits on the line, but already it's pretty irritating.

Dan
 
Bojaxs said:
Did this Canadian company not have what the city was looking for? Toronto wanted signals along Finch with "Lidar" tech, and Miovision didn't offer such tech?

Also, is this contract being procured after Finch West's completion? Because I thought TSP was built into the line?

Click to expand...
Well it isn't the first time the TTC didn't look to other Ontario examples for help.

This is referring to the lack of looking to Kitchener ION LRT for operational advice by staff at the first post opening board meeting.

It is surprising that actual physical infrastructure was missing from the line to support this.
 
One thing that frustrates me is the LRT still slows down to 30km per hour when crossing an intersection, and in some sections it goes slow. I hope once TSP is sloved the city increases the speed limit and removes speed restrictions when crossing intersection. I think if City does all three actions, the LRT could be way better.
 
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FW36 said:
One thing that frustrates me is the LRT still slows down to 30km per hour when crossing an intersection, and in some sections it goes slow. I hope once TSP is sloved the city increases the speed limit and removes speed restrictions when crossing intersection. I think if City does all three LRT could be way better.
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Three LRTs?
 
FW36 said:
I meant 3 actions
1. Improve TSP
2. Increase speed limits
3. Remove speed restrictions crossing intersection.

If City does all three actions, I imagine the LRT would run more smoothly
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As far as the line speed goes, the City granted this line and Eglinton derogation from the street speed limit (50km/h) so the LRVs may run at up to 60km/h on the surface. Obviously depending on stop spacing the trams won't be able to make that on all portions of the line even if #1 and #3 were addressed.

What does amuse me somewhat is overhead shots which have been posted of cars and even buses overtaking the trams. While I imagine the buses need to keep somewhat close to the speed limit, they aren't subject to dynamic speed governance as the trams are, and definitely not the autos - and it's not like we can have photo radar to keep the latter in check any more thanks to Doug.
 
T3G said:
It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If they had TSP from the get go you'd have thousands of complaints about extra red lights from the car brained suburbanites who think that transit getting special privileges means that their personal rights are being violated.
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I don't think so. I think that argument is something created by your gutless Mayor and company to make it look like they are taking a "balanced" approach.

Just because people drive in the suburbs doesn't mean that they don't appreciate that transit is vital to the workings of the city. They appreciate, as much as your average transit user, that it is only fair that a vehicle carrying 20 or 30 people has priority over a vehicle carrying one or two. I've never heard such people get mad at the addition of HOV lanes because they personally won't use them and ditto for bus-lanes. I've never heard anyone complain that they have to stop for GO or VIA train at a crossing. They may be ticked that they have to wait for a train to go by but nobody thinks that they shouldn't have priority.

Added to this, car drivers are also taxpayers. They don't like to see billions of their hard earned tax dollars go to waste all because City Hall can't figure out TSP. Remember this line is on Finch and the vast majority of people using the road are Torontonians themselves. Chances are these much maligned drivers were once transit users too, especially for those who went to post-secondary. They know what it's like to crawl on a bus.

Just because someone drives does not mean they are unreasonable, that job has been taken by your politicians.
 
thenorth said:
Major vibe shift in this thread hahaha
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Definitely. The 34 minutes ML originally stated for Line 6 was slow to begin with. Now that it sounds like they'll hit sub-30 and usually beat the bus speed, and do it in a nicer vehicle, Line 6 is looking much better.

It also gives me hope that the slow surface section on Line 5 will improve to the point that we'll at least get what we were originally promised from the line. I also like how line 5 has given us a good deal of redundancy for dignified (sorry, 900 bus) transit trips to the airport, with its connection to UPX.

And the streetcar improvements on top of that are making Toronto transit seem, as crazy as this may sound, somewhat decent?
 
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