Finch West Line 6 LRT

[Bojaxs]

Rode Line 6 today;

Only noticed a slight improvment heading westbound. Eastbound was noticeably faster. Even if all the improvments on Line 6 are implemented, the curve at Humber College will continue to be the weakest point. My westbound driver took the curve at 5km/h. Eastbound driver took it faster at 10km/h.

Makes me concerned that the Ontario government wants to implement a downtown loop on the Hurontario line and also move forward with two tight turns on Dundurn st, instead of building the 403 bridge for the Hamilton LRT.

The eastbound train had an obvious flat spot on one of it's wheels. The sound of it got rather grating after awhile. Probably didn't help that I was sitting on one of the raised seats above the wheel well.

 

[yurt2022]

Rode Line 6 today;

Only noticed a slight improvment heading westbound. Eastbound was noticeably faster. Even if all the improvments on the line 6 are implemented, the curve at Humber College will continue to be the weakest point. Westbound the driver took the curve at 5km/h. Eastbound driver took it faster at 10km/h.

Makes me concerned that the Ontario government wants to implement a downtown loop on the Hurontario line and also move forward with two tight turns on Dundurn st, instead of building the 403 bridge for the Hamilton LRT.

The eastbound train had an obvious flat spot on one of it's wheels. The sound of it got rather grating after awhile. Probably didn't help that I was sitting on one of the raised seats above the wheel well.

View attachment 717200
View attachment 717201

Still way too slow, needs to be at least 23 km/h as advertised.

 

[officedweller]

Some problems with these ideas. Transit planning has to take into account the reality on the ground. How far apart are the major arterials? Half a mile on one city of the city, 5/8 on another. How many riders live in between, how many of those on perpendicular side roads, and how far from stops? How many do you lose if they are too far from stops. Remember, when they took out the minor stops in Etobicoke to speed up the journey, ridership estimates significantly decreased.

I've heard the duck under major intersections idea many times. If your stations are far apart, there are only stations at major intersections. So essentially you are building a line with subway stations and at-grade running, a roller coaster that maximizes costs by quintupling the cost of the stations and then energy and maintenance costs by having trains slam on the brakes to stop and stations at the bottom of a ramp, then straining the motors to climb a hill after stops. Going over major intersections is more logical, but not pretty. So eventually Why not just build a subway is the result.

Assuming that appropriate rezoning follows, lines can be growth-shaping rather than growth-serving. Ridership will increase over time as redevelopment occurs around stations.
Increased costs for grade separating major intersection stations (at the insistence of municpalities) was the official reason for the Province switching Vancouver's Millennium Line from a planned at-grade LRT down Lougheed Highway (after much planning) to a fully elevated SkyTrain line. The different between costs of the 2 options became closer, and given the added benefits of full grade separation and automation, SkyTrain was chosen.

 

[thenorth]

Rode Line 6 today;

Only noticed a slight improvment heading westbound. Eastbound was noticeably faster. Even if all the improvments on the line 6 are implemented, the curve at Humber College will continue to be the weakest point. Westbound the driver took the curve at 5km/h. Eastbound driver took it faster at 10km/h.

Makes me concerned that the Ontario government wants to implement a downtown loop on the Hurontario line and also move forward with two tight turns on Dundurn st, instead of building the 403 bridge for the Hamilton LRT.

The eastbound train had an obvious flat spot on one of it's wheels. The sound of it got rather grating after awhile. Probably didn't help that I was sitting on one of the raised seats above the wheel well.

View attachment 717200
View attachment 717201

I wonder why there is so much variability in speed. Yesterday we had some people reporting 23 km/h.

TSP rollout isn’t complete yet, so maybe the variability is a consequence of that.

Something to keep and eye on.

 

[Bojaxs]

Yesterday we had some people reporting 23 km/h.

I don't believe them.

They may have thought they were going that fast, but in actuality they weren't.

I would kindly ask those people to prove it.

 

[T3G]

Even if all the improvments on the line 6 are implemented, the curve at Humber College will continue to be the weakest point. Westbound the driver took the curve at 5km/h. Eastbound driver took it faster at 10km/h.

The curve is not that long. If speed improvements were implemented on line 6 one curve would hardly set it back any considerable amount.

 

[T-Bor]

I don't believe them.

They may have thought they were going that fast, but in actuality they weren't.

I would kindly ask those people to prove it.

I think some people were saying 23 km/h on the part that allegedly has TSP installed. Not on the entire line

23 km/h on the entire line would get total trip time down to 27 minutes. Amazing, but light years beyond what we were originally expecting.

 

[nfitz]

I wonder why there is so much variability in speed

If it's taking 44 minutes, then it's likely on-time. If it's faster than that, presumably it's either behind schedule, or the driver and/or transit control are incompetent.

 

[thenorth]

I wonder why there is so much variability in speed. Yesterday we had some people reporting 23 km/h.

TSP rollout isn’t complete yet, so maybe the variability is a consequence of that.

Something to keep and eye on.

I don't believe them.

They may have thought they were going that fast, but in actuality they weren't.

I would kindly ask those people to prove it.

I think some people were saying 23 km/h on the part that allegedly has TSP installed. Not on the entire line

23 km/h on the entire line would get total trip time down to 27 minutes. Amazing, but light years beyond what we were originally expecting.

Idk if this counts as sufficient proof, but this was posted on Reddit yesterday. That same Reddit user was highly skeptical of TSP in the first place, so I doubt they’ve gone out of their way to fabricate these stats.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TTC/s/kRcdwbrsHW

It also corroborates the observed speeds in the Transmainia video from two days ago: https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/finch-west-line-6-lrt.11783/post-2355691

 

[Bojaxs]

Idk if this counts as sufficient proof, but this was posted on Reddit yesterday. That same Reddit user was highly skeptical of TSP in the first place, so I doubt they’ve gone out of their way to fabricate these stats.

View attachment 717232

https://www.reddit.com/r/TTC/s/kRcdwbrsHW

It also corroborates the observed speeds in the Transmainia video from two days ago: https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/finch-west-line-6-lrt.11783/post-2355691

I did the entire line.

When I approached Humber College, the curve dropped my avg. speed from 16km/h to 14km/h.

 

[JMSRead]

Wow. If we're really talking about going from 55 minutes at launch to 30 with signal priority that feels like a major win. Certainly well beyond what I thought was reasonable to hope for.

 

[lastcommodore]

Major vibe shift in this thread hahaha

I think people have reasonably been burnt out heavily from both the "Subway vs LRT" debate alongside the anemic speeds of the current streetcar and the dedicated ROW streetcar lines of the Harbourfront, Spadina, St. Clair, etc. Dreaming of a better tram felt like waiting for the second coming of Christ, except the latter felt more likely to occur in our lifetimes.

The initial failure of 6 FW made most people instinctively go "Oh, all of our lines have been screwed for decades now, and now we just have another line joining the pack."

Now that the city seems to actually be doing something and dragging themselves to speed up 6 due to the blowback, and now results are starting to trickle in... we're now starting to dream again. I'm starting to dream too of a sub-30 6 FW

 

[Voltz]

Wow. If we're really talking about going from 55 minutes at launch to 30 with signal priority that feels like a major win. Certainly well beyond what I thought was reasonable to hope for.

The LRT doomsday proclaimers won't know what to do with themselves.

 

[thenorth]

Wow. If we're really talking about going from 55 minutes at launch to 30 with signal priority that feels like a major win. Certainly well beyond what I thought was reasonable to hope for.

What really exists me too is that we’ll be able apply the lessons learned on Finch West to the downtown streetcars. Especially around TSP.

 

[Bojaxs]

What really exists me too is that we’ll be able apply the lessons learned on Finch West to the downtown streetcars. Especially around TSP.

I reckon only with the downtown streetcars that have their own ROW. I feel the city will maintain the status quo for streetcars in mixed traffic.