King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

[drum118]

This load factor is proving what I and other stated back in 2005 and since then, unless TTC is doing a 1:1 replacement of existing fleet numbers, you are only moving from one cattle car system to another and not dealing with the pent-up demand that exist today, more stroller and accessibility riders, but also new rides as the city grows.

In the last 12 years, how much growth has taken place not only along King, but within a 5 minute walk of it???. With better service being offer today. it is being hamper by the increase of riders either coming back to the system or are new ones. At this time of year, people will use transit than walk in the cold and snowy sidewalks. TTC is short cars and it will remain that way until 2025 after TTC place another order for more cars that should not only been order on day one as 1:1, but to deal with expansion and growth. By rights come 2020-2025, there needs to be a car every minute in the downtown area and not going to happen until more cars show up as well a true Transit Mall is built for that area and the expansion of the pilot project for all of King.

Who listen to a radio these days considering I haven't in the last 10 years even at home. Very rarely I listen to one in a car for music only and if so, its very short doing hwy driving.

 

[gweed123]

Bingo. Travel time is a bit faster. Wait times are equal or longer. So what's the point really? I see so many crowds at the stop and streetcars passing by that can barely accommodate 5 extra people.

Good post. Travel times mean nothing if you can't even get onto the bloody streetcar.

I've started using Queen st.

We'll see what happens once more of the new streetcars start showing up. I'd imagine that any of the new ones that show up now are destined for King, no?

But yes, I do agree that increasing speed does little good if you're still having trouble accessing that speed. I think that whatever additional capacity was actually generated by the pilot decreasing travel times has been swallowed up by a combination of latent demand and shifting from parallel routes.

As an aside, this latent demand phenomenon is also a cautionary tale for the Yonge Line. Even if the DRL is built to Sheppard, the amount of current (and future, with all the development happening) latent demand along the corridor will likely swallow up any and all capacity that the DRL frees up, leaving us right back to where we are now.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Induced demand occurs on transit just as it does on highways. Who knew?

 

[micheal_can]

This load factor is proving what I and other stated back in 2005 and since then, unless TTC is doing a 1:1 replacement of existing fleet numbers, you are only moving from one cattle car system to another and not dealing with the pent-up demand that exist today, more stroller and accessibility riders, but also new rides as the city grows.

In the last 12 years, how much growth has taken place not only along King, but within a 5 minute walk of it???. With better service being offer today. it is being hamper by the increase of riders either coming back to the system or are new ones. At this time of year, people will use transit than walk in the cold and snowy sidewalks. TTC is short cars and it will remain that way until 2025 after TTC place another order for more cars that should not only been order on day one as 1:1, but to deal with expansion and growth. By rights come 2020-2025, there needs to be a car every minute in the downtown area and not going to happen until more cars show up as well a true Transit Mall is built for that area and the expansion of the pilot project for all of King.

Who listen to a radio these days considering I haven't in the last 10 years even at home. Very rarely I listen to one in a car for music only and if so, its very short doing hwy driving.

This is why I love the Green line in Boston. 5 branches of a streetcar, all used to use the surface streets. Then, they dug tunnels and created the first Subway. Today, the lines still are well used, and there are no hold ups downtown.

 

[blixtex]

Unless you're claiming people are now doing random trips just for leisure, the induced demand argument makes no sense. Public transit is the most efficient way of moving people, if you're inducing demand for it, you're likely stealing people from uber/taxi and personal vehicles.

They could be 'stealing' people away from other TTC lines. Mainly Queen St.

 

[blixtex]

This load factor is proving what I and other stated back in 2005 and since then, unless TTC is doing a 1:1 replacement of existing fleet numbers, you are only moving from one cattle car system to another and not dealing with the pent-up demand that exist today, more stroller and accessibility riders, but also new rides as the city grows.

In the last 12 years, how much growth has taken place not only along King, but within a 5 minute walk of it???. With better service being offer today. it is being hamper by the increase of riders either coming back to the system or are new ones. At this time of year, people will use transit than walk in the cold and snowy sidewalks. TTC is short cars and it will remain that way until 2025 after TTC place another order for more cars that should not only been order on day one as 1:1, but to deal with expansion and growth. By rights come 2020-2025, there needs to be a car every minute in the downtown area and not going to happen until more cars show up as well a true Transit Mall is built for that area and the expansion of the pilot project for all of King.

Who listen to a radio these days considering I haven't in the last 10 years even at home. Very rarely I listen to one in a car for music only and if so, its very short doing hwy driving.

Something interesting. It's like highways. Build more highways doesn't solve traffic issue. It just creates more houses and traffic or people choosing to drive. For Streetcars, sounds like it here. Like the ol digging the sand but watch it continue to cave in. People also want to be within eye sight distance to the financial district where alot of them work or near areas such as the tech boom type places. And of course, today, it has to be new and shiny since we live in this Instagram world (heaven forbid there's Parkay flooring where you live). This is success and progress!

I listen to AM 640/1010 almost exclusively when driving to the subway station. My wife too for her commute to the GO. I told my cousin about AM Talk radio and he too loves it/is converted as he finds that it's more engaging. So I would think a fair amount of drivers still listen to it. But mostly those in the burbs again.

 

[drum118]

Something interesting. It's like highways. Build more highways doesn't solve traffic issue. It just creates more houses and traffic or people choosing to drive. For Streetcars, sounds like it here. Like the ol digging the sand but watch it continue to cave in. People also want to be within eye sight distance to the financial district where alot of them work or near areas such as the tech boom type places. And of course, today, it has to be new and shiny since we live in this Instagram world (heaven forbid there's Parkay flooring where you live). This is success and progress!

I listen to AM 640/1010 almost exclusively when driving to the subway station. My wife too for her commute to the GO. I told my cousin about AM Talk radio and he too loves it/is converted as he finds that it's more engaging. So I would think a fair amount of drivers still listen to it. But mostly those in the burbs again.

I used to listen to Chum before it got change as well 1010. After the departure of number programs and one person who seem to be calling the shots, stop listening all together.

What the Waterfront area was to be and has become, but moreso once its fully built, why do you need a car?? Just rent one when going out of town like I have for over the past decade and either walk or use transit since its not closes to stressful being behind the wheel.

The better the quality of service is and meet riders needs, the greater the chance of people using it than driving. King is one of many routes that will see a spike in ridership if all the changes are done to make it better for everyone.

 

[reaperexpress]

This load factor is proving what I and other stated back in 2005 and since then, unless TTC is doing a 1:1 replacement of existing fleet numbers, you are only moving from one cattle car system to another and not dealing with the pent-up demand that exist today, more stroller and accessibility riders, but also new rides as the city grows.

The loading standard, by definition, accommodates the pent-up demand by always ensuring there is spare capacity along the line. As more people ride the line, the number of people per vehicle increases, which in turn triggers more vehicles to be added to the line.

The peak-period TTC crowding standards are:
CLRV: 74 people
Flexity: 130 people

But the manufacturer's vehicle capacities are:
CLRV: 133 people
Flexity: 251 people

The problem on King is that the TTC is physically unable to add enough streetcars to keep the line within the crowding standards. This is for a couple reasons:
1. There aren't enough streetcars in the fleet to run the service which should be run.
2. Even they did remove streetcars from other routes to put on King, the increased frequency could exceed the practical capacity of the street itself, causing the line to grind to a halt as every vehicle gets stuck behind every other vehicle (think Line 1 when there's any kind of delay during rush hour).

The practical capacity of the street is based on the signal cycle, which can be as long as 120 seconds. It's not consistently possible to get more than one streetcar through per green, because it then sits on the far side serving the stop, preventing any subsequent vehicles from proceeding for about 30 seconds. If a streetcar enters the intersection at the start of the green (i.e. was waiting at a red light) it might leave the stop just in time for a following streetcar to enter the intersection just before the end of the green, but we can't really count on that.

Currently the scheduled service frequency and loading-standard capacities on King are:
15 CLRVs/hour on the 504
7 Flexities/hour on the 514
5 buses/hour on the 503
and some extra CLRVs, but we don't really know how much that increases the frequency. Let's say 2 extras per hour.

The combined frequency is about 29 vehicles per hour, which is an average headway of 124 seconds. That's roughly equal to the practical capacity of the street, so adding more vehicles to the line may make things worse rather than better by increasing streetcar-to-streetcar queuing at signals, which increases travel times, which in turn reduces frequency. So the speed would go down and the capacity would stay the same.

The most practical way to increase the physical capacity of the line is to use bigger vehicles. Multiplying the vehicles in the current schedule by their loading standard provides a total capacity of
2423 people per hour. In comparison if all 29 vehicles per hour were Flexities, the capacity would be 3770 people per hour (a 64% increase).
Also in comparison, a 4-lane urban road can carry about 900 automobiles per hour per direction in ideal conditions (no parking, no loading, no bicycles, no transit, no left turns, no right turns etc), which is about 1000 people per hour at the average 1.1-1.2 vehicle occupancy.

In a more short-term basis, I see a couple ways of increasing the line capacity:
- convert the 504 from CLRVs to Flexities on a 1:1 basis as quickly as possible, which is exactly what the TTC is doing. But that's subject to deliveries from Bombardier given that it's not politically viable to take them from routes that have already been designated fully wheelchair-accessible.
- convert the 503 from buses back to CLRVs, and extend it as far west as practical (Charlotte loop?)

 

[reaperexpress]

Induced demand occurs on transit just as it does on highways. Who knew?

Most other cities in North America would kill to have the latent demand for transit that we have in Toronto. Obviously it's a challenge to have such spectacularly overcrowded service, but it's also fortunate that with simple and cheap transit priority measures we can instantly achieve an increase in transit ridership greater than the reduction in automobile capacity.

So although most of the time saved by reducing traffic delays gets offset by increased dwell times at stops, the end result is more trips on transit and fewer trips in cars, which helps reduce infrastructure costs (i.e. taxes), improving air quality, reducing ambiant noise, etc.

 

[micheal_can]

So, how do we move more passengers on the line? Double decker trains?

 

[innsertnamehere]

Oven noticed that dwell times seem significantly shorter on the new cars than the old.

 

[drum118]

The loading standard, by definition, accommodates the pent-up demand by always ensuring there is spare capacity along the line. As more people ride the line, the number of people per vehicle increases, which in turn triggers more vehicles to be added to the line.

The peak-period TTC crowding standards are:
CLRV: 74 people
Flexity: 130 people

But the manufacturer's vehicle capacities are:
CLRV: 133 people
Flexity: 251 people

The problem on King is that the TTC is physically unable to add enough streetcars to keep the line within the crowding standards. This is for a couple reasons:
1. There aren't enough streetcars in the fleet to run the service which should be run.
2. Even they did remove streetcars from other routes to put on King, the increased frequency could exceed the practical capacity of the street itself, causing the line to grind to a halt as every vehicle gets stuck behind every other vehicle (think Line 1 when there's any kind of delay during rush hour).

The practical capacity of the street is based on the signal cycle, which can be as long as 120 seconds. It's not consistently possible to get more than one streetcar through per green, because it then sits on the far side serving the stop, preventing any subsequent vehicles from proceeding for about 30 seconds. If a streetcar enters the intersection at the start of the green (i.e. was waiting at a red light) it might leave the stop just in time for a following streetcar to enter the intersection just before the end of the green, but we can't really count on that.

Currently the scheduled service frequency and loading-standard capacities on King are:
15 CLRVs/hour on the 504
7 Flexities/hour on the 514
5 buses/hour on the 503
and some extra CLRVs, but we don't really know how much that increases the frequency. Let's say 2 extras per hour.

The combined frequency is about 29 vehicles per hour, which is an average headway of 124 seconds. That's roughly equal to the practical capacity of the street, so adding more vehicles to the line may make things worse rather than better by increasing streetcar-to-streetcar queuing at signals, which increases travel times, which in turn reduces frequency. So the speed would go down and the capacity would stay the same.

The most practical way to increase the physical capacity of the line is to use bigger vehicles. Multiplying the vehicles in the current schedule by their loading standard provides a total capacity of
2423 people per hour. In comparison if all 29 vehicles per hour were Flexities, the capacity would be 3770 people per hour (a 64% increase).
Also in comparison, a 4-lane urban road can carry about 900 automobiles per hour per direction in ideal conditions (no parking, no loading, no bicycles, no transit, no left turns, no right turns etc), which is about 1000 people per hour at the average 1.1-1.2 vehicle occupancy.

In a more short-term basis, I see a couple ways of increasing the line capacity:
- convert the 504 from CLRVs to Flexities on a 1:1 basis as quickly as possible, which is exactly what the TTC is doing. But that's subject to deliveries from Bombardier given that it's not politically viable to take them from routes that have already been designated fully wheelchair-accessible.
- convert the 503 from buses back to CLRVs, and extend it as far west as practical (Charlotte loop?)

First of all, capacities claims by manufactures will never be achieve for a number of reason and not worth trying to do it. Using TTC numbers is more in line what can happen, but not with the Flexity.

If true what been stated an hour ago, TTC will/should have 4455 in service come Sunday and 4456-4459 by year end on 504. 4 cars were supposed to be delivery today to Hillcrest and a first seeing more than one a day when there been more than one to be delivery by CP and off loaded by TTC.

Even if TTC does a 1:1 for 504, it will still not have enough cars since the new car order is less than a 1:1 system wide that should taken place on day one, but money got in the way not doing the 1:1 since the city was picking up 2/3 of the cost in the first place.

If all the changes are made to make transit first, ridership will spike more than it is now, since it will be faster than the car with even better headway than it is today. but will be slow down because of lack of new cars. It also shows TTC needs longer cars up to 45m long for various lines in place of the current 29m ones. A number of systems are doing this even going up to 56m, but 56m is too long for TTC. The loops will be a major issue.

The route itself can be broken up to having 504, 504A. 504B since the bulk of ridership is between c to u, not a to z with 514 offering some help.

What is happening to ridership wise is no surprise to me since I saw that over 2 decades ago using modern cars.

 

[WillTo]

So, how do we move more passengers on the line? Double decker trains?

People just aren't using all available space

 

[reaperexpress]

First of all, capacities claims by manufactures will never be achieve for a number of reason and not worth trying to do it. Using TTC numbers is more in line what can happen, but not with the Flexity.

Yes, obviously it's not possible to achieve the theoretical capacity in the real world. My point is that the current ridership is almost certainly over the loading standard, so you can't blame the overcrowding on the loading standard being too high.

Even if TTC does a 1:1 for 504, it will still not have enough cars since the new car order is less than a 1:1 system wide that should taken place on day one, but money got in the way not doing the 1:1 since the city was picking up 2/3 of the cost in the first place.

So far, King is the only route which had an infrastructure change which caused ridership to skyrocket, which necessitates a 1:1 conversion. The other routes which have been converted are operated with far fewer streetcars at rush hour than they were with CLRVs. Today the 510 runs every 3 minutes at rush hour, whereas before it ran every 2, which required 50% more vehicles.

That said, you're almost certainly right that 204 streetcars will not be enough to accommodate ridership growth, and that we should figure out how to get some more streetcars that will run on our network but aren't made by Bombardier.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

It's funny how we gave up running proper transit for areas that would by nature be the easiest to capture riders to chase the reluctant converts from cars where all the dice are loaded against transit use.

AoD