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Chicago Tribune compliments Toronto's transit system -- thoughts?

44 North said:
Doubtful. Interestingly the Green Line wouldn't be considered a subway/metro by most standards, yet that single light rail line would blow any of our streetcar lines out of the water. It's brilliant, and I can only dream of the day that TO will finally find the fortitude to build a proper system like that for the 501, 504, or in place of our waterfront "LRT" (i.e streetcars operating on the sidewalk at 5-10km/h). We planned to...and spent many decades proposing something so bold through our downtown. But unfortunately didn't.
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Not all of the Green Line would blow our streetcar lines out of the water. The 4 branches of the Green Line are very different from each other, even though you wouldn't be able to tell from the map. The C branch operates exactly like Spadina and actually felt slower than Spadina. Proves again that you can't really tell how rapid transit is by looking at an MBTA rapid transit map.

The C and B branches have no signal priority and run in a median right of way. Maybe you rode one of the other two branches?

http://archive.boston.com/news/loca...s_smart_lights_but_t_isnt_along_for_the_ride/
 
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LNahid2000 said:
Not all of the Green Line would blow our streetcar lines out of the water. The 4 branches of the Green Line are very different from each other, even though you wouldn't be able to tell from the map. The C branch operates exactly like Spadina and actually felt slower than Spadina. Proves again that you can't really tell how rapid transit is by looking at an MBTA rapid transit map.
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Thankfully I'm not relying on an MBTA map. So the C Branch operates exactly like Spadina? I'm not aware of the 510 streetcar offering full grade-separation across downtown like the C Branch does in Boston. As well as the B, D, and E. Before the 2013 cutback to North Station the C Branch had 7km of complete grade separation from St Mary's to Lechmere (more than the entire length of Spadina altogether). Whereas the 510 has, what, half a kilometre?

Over a hundred years ago Boston thought it wise to improve the speed, reliability, capacity of its streetcar system by providing a tunnel through its city centre. And while Toronto thought the same for many decades, more than half a century later our best hope of providing a cross-downtown streetcar improvement is a surface transit mall proposal - which logically will be slow and over-capacity on day one (if it ever is built).
 
44 North said:
Thankfully I'm not relying on an MBTA map. So the C Branch operates exactly like Spadina? I'm not aware of the 510 streetcar offering full grade-separation across downtown like the C Branch does in Boston. As well as the B, D, and E. Before the 2013 cutback to North Station the C Branch had 7km of complete grade separation from St Mary's to Lechmere (more than the entire length of Spadina altogether). Whereas the 510 has, what, half a kilometre?

Over a hundred years ago Boston thought it wise to improve the speed, reliability, capacity of its streetcar system by providing a tunnel through its city centre. And while Toronto thought the same for many decades, more than half a century later our best hope of providing a cross-downtown streetcar improvement is a surface transit mall proposal - which logically will be slow and over-capacity on day one (if it ever is built).
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The downtown section may be grade separated, but it's SO slow with 4 branches converging on the same station. Outside of the slow grade separated section, it runs exactly like Spadina.

It takes 13 minutes to travel the 3km tunnelled section of the C branch between Kenmore and Park St during rush hour. That's an average speed of 14km/h, which is barely faster than our streetcar lines.
 
LNahid2000 said:
The downtown section may be grade separated, but it's SO slow with 4 branches converging on the same station. Outside of the slow grade separated section, it runs exactly like Spadina.

It takes 13 minutes to travel the 3km tunnelled section of the C branch between Kenmore and Park St during rush hour. That's an average speed of 14km/h, which is barely faster than our streetcar lines.
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Ok, but in order to sully the entire Green Line you picked a specific branch, then focused on a specific portion of a branch (completely ignoring the most important component of the Green Line system).

And yes, there can be problems. Service might be slower than it could be if better invested in, and just like Toronto we could utilize signal priority where necessary. But these points have more to do with the shifting dynamics of investing in a system. What was once great can become shoddy, and what was once shoddy can become great. What remains static in this instance however is that there's a lengthy tunnel and guideway to carry streetcars across downtown Boston (without having to wait for every left-turning car, or jaywalker, or fender bender). Perhaps it might require a bit of investment to improve the present-day status quo (e.g automating the tunneled portion similar to the Eg Crosstown to improve speed/frequency/capacity). But when it comes down to it, I'd much rather have the 510, 504, 501 operate completely grade-separated across downtown vs the current situation of having a quarter million daily streetcar riders south of Bloor throttled by using the surface network.
 
44 North said:
Ok, but in order to sully the entire Green Line you picked a specific branch, then focused on a specific portion of a branch (completely ignoring the most important component of the Green Line system).
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My original point was that all parts of the Green line are not the same. That's why I focused on a specific branch. I only mentioned the specific portion of that branch because you emphasized that it is fully grade separated. I also already mentioned that the D and E branches work well.
 
LNahid2000 said:
I only mentioned the specific portion of that branch because you emphasized that it is fully grade separated. I also already mentioned that the D and E branches work well.
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I never emphasized that. If anything I emphasized that the Green Line isn't entirely grade-separated (by saying it wouldn't be considered a subway/metro). Any emphasis on my part was that the Green Line blows any one of our streetcar lines out of the water, a point which I still stand by.
 
LNahid2000 said:
Is underlining not emphasis?
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I brought up the Green Line as being better than any one of our streetcar lines. You countered this by saying the C Branch "operates exactly like Spadina" and runs "in an in median right of way". Since this isn't true, I pointed out that the C Branch doesn't 'operate exactly like Spadina', and runs underground through central Boston (unlike the 510). I also pointed out that you're focusing on one specific portion of one specific branch in order to undermine an entire line.

Again, I never said or emphasized that the Green Line (or the C Branch of the Green Line) is fully grade-separated.
 
Obviously it's true that American cities like Washington and Chicago have significant problems. But those problems don't change the fact that they still have bigger rapid transit systems that cover more of the city than what we have in Toronto. Some of you are talking as if a bigger system necessarily means worse service or inadequate stations. It doesn't have to be that way. And that kind of reasoning can make it easy to get smug and complacent, and next thing you know two generations have gone by and the system has barely changed.

Comparing ourselves to American cities is largely pointless. They're mostly pretty poor examples of what rapid transit can be.
 
44 North said:
I brought up the Green Line as being better than any one of our streetcar lines. You countered this by saying the C Branch "operates exactly like Spadina" and runs "in an in median right of way". Since this isn't true, I pointed out that the C Branch doesn't 'operate exactly like Spadina', and runs underground through central Boston (unlike the 510). I also pointed out that you're focusing on one specific portion of one specific branch in order to undermine an entire line.

Again, I never said or emphasized that the Green Line (or the C Branch of the Green Line) is fully grade-separated.
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With some green line branches having average speeds slower than our streetcar lines, I'd disagree that it's better than any of our streetcar lines just because they have a congested tunnel downtown.
 
wilson_wu said:
LOL Someone referencing WMATA as something to aspire to. Their system has an abhorable safety record. A quick Google search will reveal numerous safety oversights with numerous trains crashing into eachother.

Just a while ago, I read somewhere that an operator noticed smoke in the tunnel. Transit Control advised the operator to drive the train FULL OF PASSENGERS into the smoke filled tunnel and put out the fire with an extinguisher. In the end, passengers had to be taken to hospital for smoke inhalation.

This would NEVER happen on the TTC. The train would immediately offload and evacuate the station and Toronto Fire would be called. No one in their right mind would send a train full of people into a tunnel to deal with a fire whose source is unknown.

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Upon more googling:
""[The] investigation found that it was common practice to use trains with passengers to investigate reports of fire or smoke instead of stopping all trains and using a qualified person to follow up on a report," the NTSB said during Tuesday's hearing."

A passenger died!

This defies stupidity and quite frankly its an insult to say Toronto should aspire to be like Washington's Metro. We are miles ahead in terms of safety, which is tops in my book.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incidents_on_the_Washington_Metro#Collisions

An exhaustive list of collisions and derailments.
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I stated that i preferred the washington dc system because its coverage and efficiency at moving people. You countered with the safety criteria. Well, i would say that coverage and ability to move people is more verifiable than safety. You can see and experience for yourself my criteria, whereas your safety criteria requires comparative statistics. Do you have comparative statistics to defend your claim? Something other than selective use of google.? Because just by selectively using google, even i can come up with things that suggest that our subway is not safe. But i am not going to get into that kind of endless back and forth. I will stick my criteria.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...improve-worker-safety-record/article17996123/

No doubt, safety is important. But if its the most important thing in life and in decsions we make as a community, then its best we dont build anything. Thats the safest option, stay home be safe. A city that has no subway can claim statistically to have no safety incidents.

PS.: i would add, good luck finding statistics that will standup to scrutiny when its comes to transportation safety records. As i have said many times here about statistics, thay are subject to interprettation. For example airline and aircraft safety. Its almost impossible to infer anything objectively about an airline or aircraft or its safety record from statistics. A large network airline with a fleet of 300-500 aircraft is statistically going to show more incidents in the av herald than small operator of 20 aircraft. Same can be said for years of operation, type of incident (maintenace related, environment, fatalities, no fatalities, reported, un reported..etc etc). Same applies to aircraft types. So again, i will stick with my criteria in regards to subway and public transit systems.
 
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Burnt creek said:
I stated that i preferred the washington dc system because its coverage and efficiency at moving people. You countered with the safety criteria. Well, i would say that coverage and ability to move people is more verifiable than safety. You can see and experience for yourself my criteria, whereas your safety criteria requires comparative statistics. Do you have comparative statistics to defend your claim? Something other than selective use of google.? Because just by selectively using google, even i can come up with things that suggest that our subway is not safe. But i am not going to get into that kind of endless back and forth. I will stick my criteria.
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Having to shut down the entire system on a business day due to conduct emergency repairs due to potential fires is a HUGE safety issue. Washington DC was essentially shut down that day. This would never happen on the TTC.

Also, the TTC moves more people than WMATA, so the TTC wins on ability to move people.
 
LNahid2000 said:
Having to shut down the entire system on a business day due to conduct emergency repairs due to potential fires is a HUGE safety issue. Washington DC was essentially shut down that day. This would never happen on the TTC.
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Hmm i missed a couple events last summer because of closures on the on yonge line on the weekend. The closures were due to signal upgrades. Arent signals there for safety reasons?

Didnt we shut down a couple of weeks ago or months ago during rush hour due to a fire? Maybe not for day. But it has happened frequently. And almost everytime its for safety reasons.
 
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