Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[car4041]

If the TTC or Metrolinx had any form of respect for the tax-weary citizens of Ontario. which they don't, the ONLY option would be to extend the SRT using SkyTrain.
[...]
Heads should be rolling over such an obscnely high cost line which will be the most expensive to operate and build, and be slowest and most unreliable due to running that small at grade section.

This post is so full of misrepresentations that I almost feel like trollbait for responding. For one thing, a new yard would be needed regardless of the choice of LRT or SkyTrain, as there will be a massive increase in the size of the fleet and no space for a massive expansion of the Ellesmere yard. Also, the entire human-run TTC only costs 86 cents per rider, and that includes money pits like the Sheppard Subway, so 77 cents per rider on the Expo Line isn't much of a difference. And I'm highly doubtful that using SkyTrain rather than LRT for the Scarborough RT upgrade would save enough funds to elevate the entire eastern leg of the Eglinton line -- it's longer than the whole Scarborough RT and would have to be built from scratch; can we really expect to build it with the spare change from the RT upgrade?

 

[officedweller]

Geography. The station is on a hillside, with Keele to the west at a considerably lower elevation.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

Ahh. So I guess that the depth is to mitigate the grade between Caledonia and Keele, especially since the distance between the two is quite short.

We're not really comparing doing cut and cover on Cambie compared to Eglinton are we? Have you driven down Cambie? Much of it where they tunnelled is residential. And it certainly seems to be a lot wider than Eglinton. Also you have parallel major streets (Oak and Main) on either side, that cars could use instead.

The central part of Eglinton can be bored, the outer sections can be cut and cover.
The University Line was built using a combination of cut and cover and bored tunnel.
Wasn't the Sheppard Line built using both methods too?

I don't see why the Eglinton Line needs to be all bored tunnel especially when you see wide rights of way in the east and west segments.
As for alternate routes - St. Clair and Lawrence parallel Eglinton, don't they?

The narrowest part of Cambie street (through Cambie Village) was reduced from 4 lanes to two lanes with a trench for stacked tunnel construction down the middle. The stacked tunnel was the innovative way of using cut and cover in a narrow street. The rest of Cambie was reduced from 2 or 3 lanes each way to one or two lanes each way depending on the segment.

Here's pic of Canada Line cut and cover at Cambie and King Edward (where the grassy median disappears and the road narrows)
- the tunnels are stacked so the excavation is a narrow trench. The extra width to the left is to connect to the King Edward Station.
You can see that two-way traffic is maintained to the left of the fence (one lane each way).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Canada_Line_Construction,_Vancouver,_Cambie_Street_at_25th.jpg

 

[Paleo]

The capacity for the fully expanded 3-cars Canada Line train (>50m, may be even close to 60m) is set to 500 per train. The maximum planned headway is 2 minutes (30 trains per hour) in combined section, due to the single tracking at the end of either branches. However, this does not prevent them to short-turn trains within the busiest segment. With automation, the Expo Line is already capable of running at a headway of 77 seconds.

Everything I have seen in print said 50m platforms. If the trains are oversized to 60m I could see 500 per but not at 50m. If the branches are really single tracked, I have to ask why. Not only shoe box sized stations but constrained terminals.

The way that guy from BC keeps coming in here extolling the virtues of the Canada Line, you would have thought that it was immaculate but the whole thing smacks of corners being cut everywhere.

They should run a bus service every 30 minutes like the Yonge bus. At that price (250/KM) you want that line to be as fast as possible.

Drop oakwood, Chaplin and Laird

Wow so people from the east will save 30 seconds and people from the west will save 1 minute.

 

[nfitz]

The central part of Eglinton can be bored, the outer sections can be cut and cover.

Yes, that's a possibility. The Don Mills area might be suitable for cut-cover for example - most of the areas where it would have less impact on local businesses, it will be at surface.

Though looking at the photos, I'm pondering the soil types and groundwater table in Vancouver. I'm not that familiar with the geology of the Cambie area they used cut-and-cover. What is the soil type?

The University Line was built using a combination of cut and cover and bored tunnel. Wasn't the Sheppard Line built using both methods too?

Yes, there's pieces of both - and there's also the piece of Sheppard that's above-ground east of Leslie. You do what makes sense. Most of the Spadina extension is bored, but for the Yonge extension, there's more cut-and-cover - for example much of the proposed tunnel from Finch station to Cummer station is cut-and-cover.

I don't see why the Eglinton Line needs to be all bored tunnel especially when you see wide rights of way in the east and west segments.
As for alternate routes - St. Clair and Lawrence parallel Eglinton, don't they?

Well they do ... but it's about 2 km away from Eglinton. Oak and Main are closer ... checking Google, I get 2.1 from Eglinton to Lawrence, and 850 metres from Cambie to Oak. Granville and Fraser are closer to Cambie than Lawrence and St. Clair. Also, I never see the type of congestion in that part of Vancouver in rush-hour when I drive compared to around Eglnton. Heck, even though I live here, I drive more frequently in that part of Vancouver in rush-hour than I do around Eglinton ... because I just wouldn't try it here.

 

[BurlOak]

If the TTC or Metrolinx had any form of respect for the tax-weary citizens of Ontario. which they don't, the ONLY option would be to extend the SRT using SkyTrain.

SkyTrain is a proven, safe, comfortable, reliable, fast, high frequency, and efficient rapid transit system. On only has to look at Vancouver's SkyTrain to see that. It has been an incredible success and due to it's automation each trip on the Expo Line costs Translink a paultry 77 cents per rider. Considering Toronto and the TTC are always bitching about the lack of operational funding, SkyTrain is a logical choice. It is also manufactured by Bombardier which is the TTC defacto supplier and is a requirement for any funding coming from Queen's Park and everyone, including Bombardier itself, knows it.

Just because the TTC screwed up the SRT and has left it to rot has nothing to do with the technology and everyone to do with the TTC, Even the beloved Steve Munro speaks highly of the Vancouver SkyTrain system and clearly states that the reason for SkyTrain success is due to Translink and the reason for the SRT's failure is due to the TTC. It is also very reliable even in snow and it doesn't even have the heating mechanisms installed.

It is the most cost effective option for Eglinton due to the garage/maintenance centre already existing {yes it will needed to be expanded but that is far cheaper than building a brand new one}, there would be no massive funds needed to redo all the current stations which LRT will require. Remember due to the stupidity of using LRT not only will the tracks need to be replace, they will have to build all the overhead catenary wiring, and all the stations will have to have to "raise the roof" on the current SRT stations to accomodate the catenary. All this just for sake of Miller's wet dreams over LRT. All they have to do is put in the heating mechanisms, upgrade the one small section under the GO line to accomdate the new MK111 cars and problem solved.

With the hundreds of millions saved they could elevate the line from DM to Kennedy and make it one continous line, to say nothing of not having to shut down the system for years. It will also have over twice the capacity of LRT with similar sized stations due to the Eglinton line having to run at grade which essentially limits frequency to every 180 seconds per direction at the maximum. SkyTrain stations could be just 70 meters underground and still have far higher capacity than 100 meter LRT stations.

Toronto is building the most expensive LRT line on the planet yet using LRT will result in the lowest capacity and highest operational costs of any of the 4 train technologies of subway/metro, SkyTrain, LRT, or monorail.

Heads should be rolling over such an obscnely high cost line which will be the most expensive to operate and build, and be slowest and most unreliable due to running that small at grade section.

I knew you would chime in and I am glad you did. I wish I had been paying more attention 5 or 10 years ago, since it would be nice to know the logic (or lack thereof) that brought us to where we are today.

1. I read that in 2006, converting SRT to Mark 2 was the TTC top priority - then in 2007 everything switched to LRT. I guess they wanted a one-size-fits-all solution to transit - LRT everywhere.
2. There was significant extra closure time predicted for converting the SRT to LRT in 2006. After Transit City and LRT everywhere, the difference in closure time was suspiciously reduced to a minimal amount.
3. Transit City wanted to be at-grade as much as possible to save money. It appears that when about 80% of the Crosstown line became grade separated, nobody looked at the benefits of grade separating the entire line. Smaller tunnels with full subway (as Sheppard) or Skytrain would have reduced the excavation (TBM) costs and also marginally reduced many station depths - even without considering cut-and-cover.
4. Eglinton/Don Mills station appears to have been planned as at-grade. When it was decided to build it underground, a side-of-road alignment appears to not have been considered even though it could reduce the cost of the station and reduce traffic disruption.
5. Many transit City proponents state that LRT is needed at-grade, which spurs development better than underground. This week, the star had an article about how the central portion of Eglinton is already transforming (http://www.thestar.com/news/transpo...he-eglinton-lrt-will-transform-neighbourhoods).

It seems that the main requirements were to use LRT and to have a least some portions in the median. If the goal was simply to get the best transit bang-for-the-buck, we quite probably could have seen the Skytrain here.

As for cut-and-cover, I would like to know how much less expensive it really is. I would guess that a TBM tunnel is about $100M/km, and each station is about $100M/km, and the track, signals, cars, etc. are $100M/km. Could cut-and-cover save $50 to $100M/km? How about construction time. I would guess that deep cut-and-cover stations needed with TBM would take about 4 years and be located 800m appart. With cut-and-cover, I expect the exacavation is essentially continuous, but lasts maybe half the time. I am not sure that cut-and-cover could have worked in the Central portion, but there are some advantages that appear to never be considered.

 

[car4041]

It appears that when about 80% of the Crosstown line became grade separated, nobody looked at the benefits of grade separating the entire line.

80%? I think you're forgetting that this is just the first phase of the Eglinton line; Weston/Jane is a temporary western terminus, with the ultimate goal being Pearson. The benefits of grade-separating the entire line need to be calculated over the entire planned length of the line. Choosing an obligatorily grade-separated technology like SkyTrain might make the 11km extension from Jane to Pearson (through a rather low-density area) too expensive to ever justify.

 

[Rainforest]

Cost-effective choices for Eglinton are either subway or LRT, but not Skytrain.

A subway would be fully grade-separate and most expensive when completed, but have lots of spare capacity for the long term.

The partly tunneled LRT (present plan) saves construction costs in Golden Mile and allows for a much cheaper extension from Jane to the airport. But it might get into capacity issues in the long term, and require parallel lines to serve the demand.

Skytrain would just combine the negatives of the above two options: cost almost as much as subway, yet have a much lower capacity.

 

[gweed123]

I knew you would chime in and I am glad you did. I wish I had been paying more attention 5 or 10 years ago, since it would be nice to know the logic (or lack thereof) that brought us to where we are today.

1. I read that in 2006, converting SRT to Mark 2 was the TTC top priority - then in 2007 everything switched to LRT. I guess they wanted a one-size-fits-all solution to transit - LRT everywhere.
2. There was significant extra closure time predicted for converting the SRT to LRT in 2006. After Transit City and LRT everywhere, the difference in closure time was suspiciously reduced to a minimal amount.
3. Transit City wanted to be at-grade as much as possible to save money. It appears that when about 80% of the Crosstown line became grade separated, nobody looked at the benefits of grade separating the entire line. Smaller tunnels with full subway (as Sheppard) or Skytrain would have reduced the excavation (TBM) costs and also marginally reduced many station depths - even without considering cut-and-cover.
4. Eglinton/Don Mills station appears to have been planned as at-grade. When it was decided to build it underground, a side-of-road alignment appears to not have been considered even though it could reduce the cost of the station and reduce traffic disruption.
5. Many transit City proponents state that LRT is needed at-grade, which spurs development better than underground. This week, the star had an article about how the central portion of Eglinton is already transforming (http://www.thestar.com/news/transpo...he-eglinton-lrt-will-transform-neighbourhoods).

It seems that the main requirements were to use LRT and to have a least some portions in the median. If the goal was simply to get the best transit bang-for-the-buck, we quite probably could have seen the Skytrain here.

As for cut-and-cover, I would like to know how much less expensive it really is. I would guess that a TBM tunnel is about $100M/km, and each station is about $100M/km, and the track, signals, cars, etc. are $100M/km. Could cut-and-cover save $50 to $100M/km? How about construction time. I would guess that deep cut-and-cover stations needed with TBM would take about 4 years and be located 800m appart. With cut-and-cover, I expect the exacavation is essentially continuous, but lasts maybe half the time. I am not sure that cut-and-cover could have worked in the Central portion, but there are some advantages that appear to never be considered.

I think that the biggest benefit of using ICTS Mark II would have been that Eglinton East would have been likely built as an elevated structure, in order to save on tunnelling costs. In fact, I could imagine that everything east of Laird would have been elevated.

But yes, the sudden decision to change from ICTS Mark II to LRT for the SRT was a pretty suspicious decision, with no public consultation or anything about the change. Normally when a TMP is completely thrown out, there's some sort of public consultation that takes place before they say "look, here's the new one!".

Ottawa is looking to do an update to their TMP soon, because the current one was done in 2008, and is now considered too ambitious in the post-recession economy. There will be a bunch of public consultation on it.

 

[car4041]

But yes, the sudden decision to change from ICTS Mark II to LRT for the SRT was a pretty suspicious decision, with no public consultation or anything about the change. Normally when a TMP is completely thrown out, there's some sort of public consultation that takes place before they say "look, here's the new one!".

I seem to recall from reading Steve Munro that the analysis always worked out better for LRT versus ICTS Mk II as long as the line was going to be extended, and the TTC had to work pretty hard to make ICTS Mk II look like the preferred option. If that's true, then what was suspicious was the choice of Mk II in the first place, not the switch to LRT.

As for public consultation, switching between two similar train technologies on the same route doesn't really amount to "completely throwing out" the plan. In fact, I'm not even sure what the public would have been consulted about. The route, speed, and capacity would all be unaffected.

 

[snowystar]

Skytrain would just combine the negatives of the above two options: cost almost as much as subway, yet have a much lower capacity.

The Expo line in Vancouver now deemed to have an ultimate capacity of 25,000-31,000 pphpd using 5-cars train with 75-93s headway. I wouldn't say it is much lower.

 

[ssiguy2]

The Expo line is expanding all stations to 100 meters by 2020 and the MK111 cars have a capacity of 290. In other words 3 MK111 cars , which is 98 meters running at 75 second intervals each direction, has a capacity of about 35,000 pphpd. Somehow I think that will take care of Eglinton for a little while.

Also, according to the TTC, it is going to take a truly unbelievable 5 years and $1 billion to change the SRT to LRT and a little 3 km extension. Vancouver's new 11 km Evergreen SkyTrain line which, unlike the new little extension of the SRT to Sheppard, will be totally grade separated, have large accessible stations complete with bus bays, automated, have twice the capacity, include a 1 km tunnel, and be built in 28 months is only costing $1.4 billion.

Now I do understand that land in Toronto is far more expensive than dirt cheap Vancouver, Toronto has to build to high earthquake standards which is not an issue in Vancouver, and Vancouver has a very flat geography but even still the difference in time and money just doesn't seem to add up.

 

[nfitz]

The Expo line in Vancouver now deemed to have an ultimate capacity of 25,000-31,000 pphpd using 5-cars train with 75-93s headway. I wouldn't say it is much lower.

Sounds like it's a function of the number of cars and frequency. What's the ultimate length of those trains - not the stations, the trains? Any reason you couldn't build a 10-car train?

We have 6-car trains (450-ft), but in New York, using pretty much the same technology, they run the equivalent of 8-car (600-ft) trains on some lines.

Really, if we're going to debate the ultimate capacity of any technology, all were really debating is platform lengths.

 

[snowystar]

Sounds like it's a function of the number of cars and frequency. What's the ultimate length of those trains - not the stations, the trains? Any reason you couldn't build a 10-car train?

We have 6-car trains (450-ft), but in New York, using pretty much the same technology, they run the equivalent of 8-car (600-ft) trains on some lines.

Really, if we're going to debate the ultimate capacity of any technology, all were really debating is platform lengths.

5-cars train would be around 85m, which fit within the current 80m platform with overhang at each end and the door 1m away from the edge of the platform. The current plan is to upgrade line to 25,700pphpd by 2026, at a cost of 780 millions (2010$) mainly for fleet expansion, yard expansion, propulsion upgrade, and circulation improvement.

The Expo line is expanding all stations to 100 meters by 2020 and the MK111 cars have a capacity of 290. In other words 3 MK111 cars , which is 98 meters running at 75 second intervals each direction, has a capacity of about 35,000 pphpd. Somehow I think that will take care of Eglinton for a little while.

I don't think they're thinking of platform expansion now (except for two or three very busy stations with side entrance). The latest report deemed that the Expo line have enough capacity till at least 2041 with the current platform length and peak operating headway.

 

[rbt]

Sounds like it's a function of the number of cars and frequency. What's the ultimate length of those trains - not the stations, the trains?

Signalling, Automated operations controls, and station design can be the exact same for all modes. Even rubber-tire vehicles who's track is a painted line and optical sensor can use the same ATO signalling that the Expo line in Vancouver uses or the more advanced systems Japan has in place.

TTC's ATO has a theoretical peak of close to 60 second frequencies. FYI to expo fans but the peak frequency gets longer as trains get longer. 100m trains take twice the time to get through a switch as a 50m train.

TTC is targetting 90 second real-operations frequencies to allow trains to catch up when there are gaps.


Actual capacity is entirely based on car length + width with choke points (such as Yonge/Bloor interchange) accounted for. Much of the rest is the exact same.


Acceleration doesn't really apply. Electric motors can be installed onto all trains which would knock down passengers. Comfort of the passengers is the upper-limit for accelerator on all systems.

If you include non-metro trains then VIA Rails Canada Line is probably highest peak point-direction capacity in the world for a very short duration of time. For those 5 minutes when a Canada Line train departs Union Station in Toronto is the highest capacity passenger departure (measured by floorspace) as nothing else in the world runs with 25+ passenger cars. Chunnel trains (England/France) are a very close second.


I'm not a believer in LIM propulsion because you get zero benefits but have complete vendor lockin. For Vancouver to buy an Expo train from anyone but Bombardier would be a billion dollar exercise to modify their line.

 

[Hipster Duck]

You seem to be saying that the B-D line is not rapid transit...And in any case, I don't see how removing two stops from the Eglinton line would amount to "keeping rapid transit rapid". The increase in speed would be negligible, but the 1.3km gap between Bathurst and Avenue might be enough to force a parallel bus service that wouldn't otherwise be needed.

I should have been more clear: I am primarily opposed to building Chaplin and Oakwood stations because of their cost. The BD may have been able to get away with this because land costs, station design standards and the optics of expropriation were much much easier and cheaper in 1964, but nowadays all this stuff really adds to a project's cost. If an underground station costs upwards of 100 million dollars, we really have to ask whether it's worth the added local accessibility or whether we can just keep local bus service along Eglinton for all that it will cost us to add these stations.

re: technology

I don't have a problem with using LRT technology, but I wonder why they didn't even consider high floor LRVs with station platforms like Calgary or Edmonton. Low floor LRVs really have space and internal movement constraints because the wheel wells taken up by the central truck reduces the passageway in the central link to a little gangway barely two feet wide. In my experience with the low floor LRTs in Salt Lake City, Phoenix and Seattle, people tend to cram into the door area and don't circulate around the vehicle when it gets more crowded, while in Edmonton and Calgary passengers use the space more like a Toronto subway car.

You can even building high platform stations in tight, island ROWs similar to what we're building for Transit City. Here's an example from San Francisco: here/
and here. Note the wheelchair accessible ramp on the other end.