just east of the creek
Active Member
Drum is spot on. Transit Priority in Toronto is the single largest issue, and if implemented, would save time on all at grade lines, regardless of whether the top speed exceeds 60 kmh or not.
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allengeorge
Senior Member
It’s wild to me that it’s not - and that no one at City Hall seems to care.
Incredibly disappointing from this Mayor and Council.
Incredibly disappointing from this Mayor and Council.
zang
Senior Member
I wouldn’t criticize Chow on this. She’s always been pro transit. It's a relatively low cost upgrade for the entire system, and I think she’ll get to it eventually. It’ll be the regular conservative suburban councillors who’ll find a way to put the kibosh on it.
cplchanb
Senior Member
yea i dont think she even knows about this issue. she only came in last year and all these operation speeds were determined long before tory stepped down.
what we need to do is raise awareness to her office so that her staff can bring it up to her.
zang
Senior Member
I do think she’s probably very hands-on with transit, cycling and pedestrian needs. If anything, I think she’s just being incrementalist and diplomatic about her goals and not pushing everything at once.
Under her watch, we have seen (minor) priority improvements to the 504. I think full system priority is a much bigger and harder ask, and certainly a stark wake-up for drivers.
CapitalSeven
Senior Member
Yes, she is hands on. I lived in the Annex in the 90s and recall that she was personally responsible for adding back in some of the stops on the Spadina car the TTC wanted to eliminate.
Rainforest
Senior Member
For a long time, I was convinced that LRT is cheaper to operate than BRT on high-flow routes.
But then the city requested an additional funding from the province, to begin operating ECLRT and Finch LRT. I get Eglinton, it has many underground stations and those are expensive to run.
But Finch? The route is almost entirely on surface, and the LRT is replacing a very busy bus. If the LRT is cheaper to operate, then why does the city need an extra funding. I'm not sure any more.
Eager to see Finch LRT in operation. Hopefully that will answer a lot of questions, on the speed / reliability / traffic priority, and on the operating costs as well.
Dan416
Senior Member
But the Spadina streetcar is probably the best example of an “LRT” having way too many stops and being super slow.
junctionist
Senior Member
True. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement for Chow from a light-rail efficiency perspective.
eglinton1661
New Member
Lots of new detail on the Eglinton East LRT here:
www.toronto.ca
Eglinton East LRT: Public Consultation
There are two phases of public consultation for the current stage of design, referred to as the functional 10 per cent design stage.
www.toronto.ca
dowlingm
Senior Member
Ah I see. My point was that not that the cars wouldn't operate at 80 - but that they would operate at 80 over the majority of their duty cycle which I saw as different from operating at that speed more slowly over much of it. One of the frequently heard complaints about ION is that the nature of the alignment doesn't allow the cars to operate at design speed over much of its length.
Sunnyside
Active Member
There is a thread for this, but Anyhow,...Lots of new detail on the Eglinton East LRT here:
Eglinton East LRT: Public Consultation
There are two phases of public consultation for the current stage of design, referred to as the functional 10 per cent design stage.
27 stops...? No wonder the thing is gonna be slower than the bus. There is no way that many stops are necessary today or in any realistic future. I would not be shocked if an elevated line would be cheaper since It'd have only a third of these.
nfitz
Superstar
Are you joking? 27 stops over 18 km is about a 700 m stop spacing. Finch West is 600 m, and Line 1 and 2 downtown are even shorter.
It's not like anyone will ever ride the whole thing in one shot, other than a few fanatics.
Sunnyside
Active Member
I'm not going to address the comparison to Line 1 downtown because it's self-evidently apples and steak. We are in the burbs. Still, for Finch, the case is much clearer; demand exists, and the trip generators are in place (straight along Finch). This is all conjecture though; further unlike Finch, most of the connections for this line don't exist yet. We have no idea what demand will be like to or from them.
here's my angle, it's nothing new. While on the one hand, I understand that this is meant for local trips, on the other we aren't exactly building a cheap Parisian tramway. This is going to cost a lot, and its worth asking if this is the best use of the money for rail transit specifically. As for determining the best mode... if this is to be for local travel, I'm not convinced there is enough demand to justify LRT over BRT. But if alot of demand is coming from connections, then both might fail at moving people quickly enough. The mode choice seems to be a recognition of that, but completely compromises the network utility that could exist for most subway riders. GO riders have a better prospect here I'll admit.
Rapid Transit here is a good idea, don't get me wrong; this simply doesn't seem the best way to do it for those nearby or city-wide. For instance, I am not sold on this being a great deal for connecting Malvern, but admittedly I am not from the area so I can't say for certain.
In brief... you/we need to look at the tradeoffs here. The province certainly has...
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drum118
Superstar
Streetcars built Toronto, LRT can do the same thing for areas that need to grow while buses will not. PPL prefer steel rail over rubber wheels for a smoother ride. Then there is the operation cost for both systems with LRT winning so long it not underground.
With an LRT system, you can say headway is every 5 minutes using one LRV and ridership grows, you add a 2nd or 3rd car using one driver. A BRT cannot maintain a 5 minute headway as ridership increase, that you need to reduce the headway by adding more buses and drivers to the point headway could be less than a minute like the Ottawa BRT that where it is bumper to bumper at peak time and have seen it first hand..
Seen a number of systems in the US and you have to shake your head why an LRT was built in the first place when just a local bus was good enough in the first place. Ridership was non existing at all hours. Even a BRT would have been better.
One has to look at the orange line in LA that should be an LRT, but strong opposition kill the LRT plan.