Finch West Line 6 LRT

[asher__jo]

... alongside the currently planned lines and extensions. Building your own rapid transit on top of the SSE is a big no no, but building an extension of Eglinton east or a new rapid transit line along say Jane? No problem at all.

I suppose media poorly reported the law and I failed to do my research.

 

[Rainforest]

Something to note, there is a video on Transmania Ontario's channel where he compares the speed of the Sheppard Line and the Night Bus from Sheppard-Yonge to Don Mills. The result was: approximately a tie. This didn't include the time it took to get from the platform to the surface, just from station to station. This is a fully grade separated subway with stations every 1-2km. Now imagine if it was a surface LRT with stops every 700m. Granted this is the night bus at around 12, but I think even at late hours like 9 the LRT might begin to struggle against even local bus routes.

In the night run scenario, the LRT would probably tie with both the subway and the night bus. LRT can skip surface stops just as easily as the night bus, if there are no riders. With the same number of stops and same acceleration, all vehicles will take approximately same time to make the trip, regardless of the wheel type and the place where they run, surface or tunnel.

I don't see any physical reasons for LRT to strruggle against a local bus. Unless some geniuses in the management introduce artificial silliness, such as slow orders on the perfectly functional and unobstracted tracks.

 

[Rainforest]

How does that help? Sheppard LRT is planned now McCowan to ... somewhere further east in Scarborough.

How does extending Finch West only to Kennedy relate to that?

Extending Finch West all the way to Kennedy would be more than doubling the total length (18 km new to the Phase 1's 11 km), and a huge step forward. Once it gets to Kennedy, it will be very easy to get it extended further east. Perhaps one branch to Malvern, and the other down McCowan to reach the SSE terminus at Sheppard.

Obviuosly, that doesn't serve the Sheppard corridor, but Sheppard corridor is a separate matter altogether.

 

[W. K. Lis]

In the night run scenario, the LRT would probably tie with both the subway and the night bus. LRT can skip surface stops just as easily as the night bus, if there are no riders. With the same number of stops and same acceleration, all vehicles will take approximately same time to make the trip, regardless of the wheel type and the place where they run, surface or tunnel.

I don't see any physical reasons for LRT to strruggle against a local bus. Unless some geniuses in the management introduce artificial silliness, such as slow orders on the perfectly functional and unobstracted tracks.

Ditto with the Blue Night streetcars...

 

[Rainforest]

Ditto with the Blue Night streetcars...

That's a great example.

And the suburban LRTs should operate even better. From the video, the Carlton / College streetcar has to make a partial direction change every few hundred meters (I didn't even realize that before when riding it, only noticed now when watching the video).

The suburban LRTs will operate in lanes that are almost as straight as a beam of light.

 

[micheal_can]

Do you think we'll ever need full subway out to Meadowvale ... or Pickering?

Why force people to stay on bus? Heck, A lot of the people on the LRT portion of Sheppard end up heading the other way towards UTS. And I'd think at Sheppard East, there's be more changing to Line 2 than Line 4.

Ideally though, if the government keeps it's promise to extend Line 4 to McCowan, that they change the technology along the entire line, to a vehicle and power system that can on the surface - certainly on the eastern part of the line, to avoid that transfer.

Though I'm struggling to see how transfer for a minority from LRT to Line 4 is bad, while ignoring that for the majority transferring to Line 2 is good.

Did I say the need is there? I am for the full extension of the Crosstown. I am not for the Subway to just be truncated. Mississauga will see Line 2 extended eventually. So will Richmond Hill be sing Line 1 extended. What is wrong with extending Line 4 to Pickering when the demand becomes there?

 

[ARG1]

In the night run scenario, the LRT would probably tie with both the subway and the night bus. LRT can skip surface stops just as easily as the night bus, if there are no riders. With the same number of stops and same acceleration, all vehicles will take approximately same time to make the trip, regardless of the wheel type and the place where they run, surface or tunnel.

I don't see any physical reasons for LRT to strruggle against a local bus. Unless some geniuses in the management introduce artificial silliness, such as slow orders on the perfectly functional and unobstracted tracks.

Again that's assuming that it will have a skip stop pattern, which while according to @smallspy is what the TTC wants to do, from what I've seen Metrolinx say so far, it seems the plan at least at launch is to not skip stops at all. If you want to keep to a consistent headway, allowing LRVs to skip stop is the easiest way to absolutely kill that and to introduce bunching into the system as we see with Viva in York Region or the Toronto Streetcars (In York Region, while Viva Blue did operate every 7.5 minutes off peak, you would quite often see a situation where busses start to bunch up and you have a bus 4-5 minutes after the last, and the next bus 10 minutes after that. This persisted even after the new rapidway opened). Also, if the LRTs does skip stops, remind me exactly what the difference between Line 6 and the 510 is again, and why are they branded differently?

 

[nfitz]

Extending Finch West all the way to Kennedy would be more than doubling the total length (18 km new to the Phase 1's 11 km), and a huge step forward. Once it gets to Kennedy, it will be very easy to get it extended further east. Perhaps one branch to Malvern, and the other down McCowan to reach the SSE terminus at Sheppard.

Obviuosly, that doesn't serve the Sheppard corridor, but Sheppard corridor is a separate matter altogether.

I 100% agree. In my mind, extending Finch east to the DVP (Seneca College) is needed. Probably should go to the new Finch-Kennedy GO Station that they've promised.

 

[Rainforest]

Again that's assuming that it will have a skip stop pattern, which while according to @smallspy is what the TTC wants to do, from what I've seen Metrolinx say so far, it seems the plan at least at launch is to not skip stops at all. If you want to keep to a consistent headway, allowing LRVs to skip stop is the easiest way to absolutely kill that and to introduce bunching into the system as we see with Viva in York Region or the Toronto Streetcars (In York Region, while Viva Blue did operate every 7.5 minutes off peak, you would quite often see a situation where busses start to bunch up and you have a bus 4-5 minutes after the last, and the next bus 10 minutes after that. This persisted even after the new rapidway opened). Also, if the LRTs does skip stops, remind me exactly what the difference between Line 6 and the 510 is again, and why are they branded differently?

IMO there is nothing wrong with skipping stops, if there are no riders who wish to board or alight there. Making all LRVs stop at all stops will reduce the average speed, while still not ensuring even headways. The headways will be off somewhat due to the traffic signal timing along the route.

There are more effective methods of managing the headways than telling all drivers to serve unused stops. One is the terminal recovery padding, when a vehicle that arrives early just waits a few extra min before the next trip. The other is smart transit priority, that kicks in then a vehicle is late, and tries to help it through ASAP.

No method is perfect, but that's the nature of transit service. You probably noticed that subway train intervals off-peak aren't exactly even; bunching occurs there as well. During the peak, the headways are even simply because of the safe distance requirement, so if one train is late, it simply delays all trains behind it.

Re. Line 6 vs the 510, one substantial difference is the stop spacing. 670 m average for Line 6, vs something like 250 m for the 510. Why they are branded in a certain way, is a question for politicians and has little relevance for the actual operation.

 

[ARG1]

IMO there is nothing wrong with skipping stops, if there are no riders who wish to board or alight there. Making all LRVs stop at all stops will reduce the average speed, while still not ensuring even headways. The headways will be off somewhat due to the traffic signal timing along the route.

There are more effective methods of managing the headways than telling all drivers to serve unused stops. One is the terminal recovery padding, when a vehicle that arrives early just waits a few extra min before the next trip. The other is smart transit priority, that kicks in then a vehicle is late, and tries to help it through ASAP.

The issue then is especially if off peak your headways aren't going to be that even (10 mins I believe for Finch West), what does it mean for people who need to catch the train at a certain time? The train just zoomed past the station 2 mins ahead of schedule and now you have to wait possibly 12 minutes if not more for the next train.

Re. Line 6 vs the 510, one substantial difference is the stop spacing. 670 m average for Line 6, vs something like 250 m for the 510. Why they are branded in a certain way, is a question for politicians and has little relevance for the actual operation.

Well consider the fact that one is out in the burbs, and the other is in the downtown core. Line 1 in downtown has stops every 400m, whilst outside of downtown its up to every 2km. If we had a purely downtown subway route that had stops every 400m, should we brand it differently from Line 4?

Finally as I've previously mentioned, Line 6 only reaches that average stop spacing because there's a lot of sections where it travels through empty patches of nothing. If we look at how often stops are spaced when there's actual stuff, its roughly every 400m or so.

 

[duffo]

The issue then is especially if off peak your headways aren't going to be that even (10 mins I believe for Finch West), what does it mean for people who need to catch the train at a certain time? The train just zoomed past the station 2 mins ahead of schedule and now you have to wait possibly 12 minutes if not more for the next train.

Well consider the fact that one is out in the burbs, and the other is in the downtown core. Line 1 in downtown has stops every 400m, whilst outside of downtown its up to every 2km. If we had a purely downtown subway route that had stops every 400m, should we brand it differently from Line 4?

Finally as I've previously mentioned, Line 6 only reaches that average stop spacing because there's a lot of sections where it travels through empty patches of nothing. If we look at how often stops are spaced when there's actual stuff, its roughly every 400m or so.

I would imagine the LRT is going to use headway-based operation rather than schedule-based, meaning there is no "2 mins ahead of schedule". Something that hasn't been mentioned here yet is that the P3 consortium managing these projects wants to reduce door operations for two reasons:

a) Running A/C in the summer and heat in the summer is expensive and opening the doors lets fresh air in which increases costs
b) Wear and tear on the doors and brakes has a non-trivial cost which can be reduced if the train is doing less of braking and opening its doors.

 

[ARG1]

I would imagine the LRT is going to use headway-based operation rather than schedule-based, meaning there is no "2 mins ahead of schedule". Something that hasn't been mentioned here yet is that the P3 consortium managing these projects wants to reduce door operations for two reasons:

a) Running A/C in the summer and heat in the summer is expensive and opening the doors lets fresh air in which increases costs
b) Wear and tear on the doors and brakes has a non-trivial cost which can be reduced if the train is doing less of braking and opening its doors.

b) is fair enough, but for a) the solution is to only have the doors open on request, similar to what you see on the trillium line in Ottawa.

 

[micheal_can]

Why not work it like the *gasp* streetcars. You want off, push a button. You want on, step out enough for the operator to see you. Do this for the off peak times and have them required to wwait at certain spots .During the peak service, stop at all stops.

 

[APTA-2048]

Why not work it like the *gasp* streetcars. You want off, push a button. You want on, step out enough for the operator to see you. Do this for the off peak times and have them required to wwait at certain spots .During the peak service, stop at all stops.

The depressing and short answer to this: it's "too confusing" for people and the TTC will probably be inundated with complaints about missed trains.

 

[micheal_can]

The depressing and short answer to this: it's "too confusing" for people and the TTC will probably be inundated with complaints about missed trains.

I forgot that common sense is a super power these days.