I was one of the many that didn't have a data phone, so when the scheduled connections are irregular, what am I to do than try to guess a reasonable time frame to go three stops. I did that countless times going longer distances on the Transitway and it seemed to work there. Incidentally, 25 minutes would usually get you all the way from downtown to Greenboro. Even if I had access to Google maps and OC Transpo's website, this takes time to go through these websites, time that could also mean a missed connection as well. Technology is great but it can be time consuming and frustrating to use, when a more predictable system does not need this.
Well do you have a PC with an internet connection? Clearly you since if you're typing here. If you have to deal with 30 minute frequencies, always plan your trips ahead of time. See what can or cannot be done - see how long a trip takes so that you can make intuitions ahead of time. Now I agree that dealing with 30 minute frequencies is a pain, but I'll talk about that later.
I am not sure how Flirt trains can avoid the slow down over the switches to get on and off the passing tracks. A double length train will take twice as long to make those movements. If we designed Line 2 properly with double tracks as was planned in 2006, we would not be limited on frequency or capacity and the trains could operate at a faster speed. Show me a city that is trying to do as much as Line 2 with a single track.
Most of the slowdown occurs from having to weight for the oncoming train to catchup or viceversa. While the extended length of the trains could result in slowdowns in certain scenerios, the increased acceleration will help deflect those negatives. I'd argue that train acceleration is one of the biggest issues that the Trillium Line faces - it takes a long time for the train to accelerate from standstill to max speed - especially when compared to the Confederation Line. An improvement in acceleration will do wonders to improving the service quality of the line.
As for cities that do as much as Line 2 with a single track, there are plenty of services in Japan and East Asia that fit a ton of trips and rides on single tracked lines, Montreal's REM will have the tunnel leading into the Airport completely single tracked, many regional rail services in many european cities (which for the record is what Line 2 is trying to emulate) have single tracked sections even with tight headways, there are plenty.
As a simple user of the transit system, why point fingers at buses over trains? It is a problem with both. To me, you fix your trunk line, not every bus route that interacts with it especially when it means that we need to increase operating costs on every bus route to do it. How many times do we have to fix Line 2 to get it right?
There's a simple rule to follow my friend. Organization > Technology > Concrete. In short, if one wants to make improvements to a transit system, the order of priority should be 1) Reorganize the system and what you have to better suit the needs of the city and the network, 2) Invest in new technologies to upgrade what you already have, and last and at the very bottom of the priority list: 3) Get shovels in the ground and build something.
Let's go through this process step by step, and in this case let's look at Step 1) Organization. Your issue is that the LRT and busses arrive at desynchronized times which can lead someone to barely miss a connection and wait for 30 minutes. How can we reorganize the system to avoid this issue? We have 2 options, reorganize the LRT, or reorganize the bus. The LRT has track restrictions requiring it to operate at set intervals, and as such organizational flexibility is extremely minimal We can go back to the old 15 minute headways, however this would require worsening the capacity of the line - capacity that it desperately needs. Otherwise, we have the option to modify the bus, and here we have far more flexibility. We can get the bus wait at the stop for the train if it reaches the station close the train, or we can run busses more frequently so that at no point would anyone ever have to wait 30 minutes for a bus. If we look at Toronto, even in the most suburbiest of suburbs, you will still see core bus routes that travel anywhere between 10-15 minutes, and as such an issue such as "The bus left and now I have to wait 30 minutes for the next bus because the subway was 1 minute late to the station" never happens. This in turn also makes less frequent services such as the GO train far more reliable since even though the Barrie/Stouffville Lines only run hourly, one of the modes you need are guaranteed to show up at a reliable frequent time.
In short, Line 2 isn't at fault here - it isn't the weakest link in the chain. The solution here is to not run busses every 30 minutes - that headway is ridiculous. Even if we added more tracks to Line 2 and got headways down to 3-5 minutes, you can still be 2 minutes late to the bus and now "oops", you have to wait 30 minutes.
We will see how Phase 2 looks when it opens but I have zero confidence that we will have something better.
My main point here is that we seem to be content to build rapid transit that does not interact with local transit properly. If this is what we want to do, then I (and many others) will not use it.
Except we do. We are building Rapid Transit Stations like Hurdman and Tunney's Pasture that have great connections to bus routes with fare-paid zones. If we compare how the O-Train designs its stations with how Toronto designs its stations, its actually more or less on par. The sad reality of the O-Train network is that the failings aren't with the hard concrete. In terms of alignment (mostly), station design, design philosophy and standards, the O-Train is a 9/10. The station layouts are great, the way the stations connect to nearby bus routes is fantastic, and the route it travels through is amazing. The issue isn't with the rapid transit we're building, its purely with the local transit we're running. We need more busses, more connections, higher frequencies. The O-train isn't at fault for this... the only thing its at fault for is the more low level design issues such as mode and rolling stock choice.
