TTC: Flexity Streetcars Testing & Delivery (Bombardier)

[turbanplanner]

What utter crock. Again, why should accessing the electrical components be made more difficult so that a very small portion of the population doesn't have to look at electrical innards? When you go to the CN Tower, does it take away from the experience that there's buildings with HVAC and telecommunications equipment on the roof you have to look at?

It's not even an aesthetic consideration - the vast, vast mjajority of time spent looking at the cars will be done from the ground. Please find something worthwhile to focus your energy on.

Everyone here is so narrow minded I don't know how you don't bump into things while walking around. This goes for everyone, It's pretty crappy to think you can dictate what other people should do or talk about, who made you king of the city? This thinking is the same logic that got us shit faregates, or people arguing all stations should have no art and be concrete because it's cheaper and aesthetics don't matter. Why can't we have things we're PROUD of! The culture difference in Japan is amazing! "useless" things like different chimes in different stations add personality and make the experience feel more enjoyable.

If you want people to actually get out of their cars you need to kick the transit is for poor people mantra. When I used islington station daily, the passenger pickup entrance had (and still has) mismatched door handles for a decade. Yeah this is a "stupid" thing to complain about but it looks really ratty, 1 or 2 things are fun but when you have hundreds it adds up, how do you expect to be anything more than the transport mode of last resort when every aspect of ridership sucks? It's too late to change the streetcar problem but why not consider things like this in the future? The Vaughn extension stations are BEAUTIFUL! But I'm sure plenty of people would have rather had non descript concrete boxes.....

It's kind of funny ya'll will complain about John Tory having zero sense of Vision, but make fun of people here for having one that doesn't follow your incredibly narrow POV

I've not seen individual lights out for any period of time of note, after I've reported.

How long are people here seeing after they've reported it?

The whole system is working much, much better than a few years ago; it's rare to even have to report.

As to the equipment visible on a streetcar? I can't even begin to comprehend how anyone would have an issue with this. How much more were the Alstom units where it's covered? 50% more? 100% more? I have to wonder if we're being trolled, given the person who raised it, lives by a streetcar line, walking distance to Yonge, but talks about how they prefer to drive downtown than take transit.

Yes, FINALLY THSL & the City are moving into LEDs - I just wish they would work harder/faster at converting whole streets or blocks not individual lights as the mish-mash of lighting colours/warmths is jarring!

I feel like they're scheduling certain streets, I saw some giant sections of streets converted in a few days. I know of several lights that have been out of days or months, including individual.

 

[T3G]

You are allowed to care about whatever you want. But when you post in a public forum, people will respond to that in ways that they see fit. It goes two ways. You are allowed to crusade for covered tram roofs until the cows come home, but I am allowed to point out that basically no city in the world does it, so you are wasting your time. If you think that that means I must think I'm King of the city, that's your problem, not mine. By all means continue to waste your time trying to solve a non issue no one will do anything about. It's your life, not mine.

I'm not sure where you got this idea that I have a transit is for poors notion. Would you like to back that up with a citation or two?

The people standing on the street making the decision to take transit or not are not looking down onto the streetcar, so I'm not sure why some stupid open roof area would factor into their decision.

Why don't you point out an example of a city that actually does have covered tram roofs? I've never seen one. It's already been pointed out that the only difference between Ottawa and us is that their roof equipment is painted white, not grey, so that's not a valid example. Show me a low floor tram with a fully covered roof.

 

[turbanplanner]

You are allowed to care about whatever you want. But when you post in a public forum, people will respond to that in ways that they see fit. It goes two ways. You are allowed to crusade for covered tram roofs until the cows come home, but I am allowed to point out that basically no city in the world does it, so you are wasting your time. If you think that that means I must think I'm King of the city, that's your problem, not mine. By all means continue to waste your time trying to solve a non issue no one will do anything about. It's your life, not mine.

I'm not sure where you got this idea that I have a transit is for poors notion. Would you like to back that up with a citation or two?

The people standing on the street making the decision to take transit or not are not looking down onto the streetcar, so I'm not sure why some stupid open roof area would factor into their decision.

Why don't you point out an example of a city that actually does have covered tram roofs? I've never seen one. It's already been pointed out that the only difference between Ottawa and us is that their roof equipment is painted white, not grey, so that's not a valid example. Show me a low floor tram with a fully covered roof.

saying "You are allowed to care about whatever you want. " very much contradicts with "Please find something worthwhile to focus your energy on."

"solve a non issue no one will do anything about" Who in charge do you think is reading your comments here? You say this as if anyone in power cares what people here say, little ironic? I'm sure Olivia chow and Phil Verster are browsing your comments as we speak lmfao.

"I'm not sure where you got this idea that I have a transit is for poors notion. Would you like to back that up with a citation or two?"

I'm saying the "functionality over everything" mindset you and most others here have leads to a death by 1000 cuts, you'd probably make fun of me of complaining that the ttc couldn't find 2 matching door handles. Several stations have had their "ceiling" missing for decades, and that looks terrible. It's "just" aesthetic but it does add to that whole transit of last resort vibe a lot of people think about.

I'm not saying to change things that already exist, but there is ZERO or a minimal cost involved for future design considerations. Clearly the TTC agrees at some level otherwise the extension stations, libraries and other public assets wouldn't be designed by top architects.

"Why don't you point out an example of a city that actually does have covered tram roofs? I've never seen one."

Not a tram, but Mississauga? Their buses have skirts or whatever you want to call them for the top equipment and it looks a lot nicer, the same orion buses here don't.

 

[T3G]

And yet, if you look at that bus from up above, you will see the exact same thing you see on our streetcars.

https://flic.kr/p/RG8CKq

 

[dowlingm]

No one has suggested the top appearance of the streetcars is a problem. I'm merely making an observation and stating an aesthetic preference for clean lines and a finished look.

I've had a quick look online at low floor LRTs and I can't find any with a clean, colour matching top panel; so I suppose the likes of Siemens, Alstom CAF et al, and their customers don't see the need.

Isn’t the difference though that aside from being materially less complex vehicles, much more was going on at floor level in those days?

 

[T3G]

Yes, the reason the roof of a high floor car is much cleaner is because all the equipment that is on the roof of a low floor LRV was placed under the floor.

Perhaps we should go back to high floor cars to ensure that the 2 people who look down from their condo onto a Flexity and decide that the roof looks cluttered and therefore they will not ride transit with the dirty poors change their mind. /s

 

[Admiral Beez]

I never would've thought that this would be a problem for anyone...

What utter crock.

the TTC has FAR larger problems.... Sheesh!

only rabid transit fanatics would care....

I don't know what the problem is.

You guys are hilarious, though easily triggered for some reason. No one has stated the open tops of our (and seemingly everyone's) low floor streetcars/trams/lrts are a problem. I only mentioned that the cluttered and exposed look it's not my aesthetic preference, but that's far from a problem. Given the universality of this design choice for low floor units where the machinery is on the roof; clearly the tram industry and its municipal/regional customers have deemed the open top, easy to access layout as acceptable or ideal. I'm not suggesting the TTC spend any energy, money or attention on this, so, peace.

Interestingly in China, their trackless low-floor trams have partial roof panels.

As a very infrequent user of the TTC, I've never been called a rabid transit fanatic before. So, that's something new.

 

[crs1026]

To be very pragmatic, the whole maintenance infrastructure for the Flexities is built around putting things on the roof. Even adding shrouds will mess up the design of that infrastructure and greatly complicate maintenance. Ain't gonna happen. And then there is airflow to things that heat up....

Maybe when the next generation of technology is procured, components may be smaller and easier to streamline, but for now the roof is where they go. That's fine with me. Form following function at its best.

- Paul

 

[drum118]

April 2
4612 has enter service on 504

4613 has finished its burn in and testing

4514 maybe off loaded today or tomorrow

4615 is scheduled to be offloaded Thursday subject what CP does for it. More like Friday

 

[smallspy]

You guys are hilarious, though easily triggered for some reason. No one has stated the open tops of our (and seemingly everyone's) low floor streetcars/trams/lrts are a problem. I only mentioned that the cluttered and exposed look it's not my aesthetic preference, but that's far from a problem. Given the universality of this design choice for low floor units where the machinery is on the roof; clearly the tram industry and its municipal/regional customers have deemed the open top, easy to access layout as acceptable or ideal. I'm not suggesting the TTC spend any energy, money or attention on this, so, peace.

Interestingly in China, their trackless low-floor trams have partial roof panels.

As a very infrequent user of the TTC, I've never been called a rabid transit fanatic before. So, that's something new.

No, they don't have partial roof panels.

Those are the battery packs. As it turns out, having fully exposed batteries and gubbins isn't particularly good for them.

Dan

 

[turbanplanner]

And yet, if you look at that bus from up above, you will see the exact same thing you see on our streetcars.

https://flic.kr/p/RG8CKq

Thanks for ignoring the rest of my post! I guess the irony cut deep.

I never said to make it flat I doubt anyone else did either, just to make it more aesthetic in the future

 

[T3G]

I didn't respond to the rest of your post because it's all blustering and ad hominem attacks. I didn't say anything about mismatched doors or the dungeons pretending to be stations known as St Patrick or Queen's Park, and I have no earthly clue why you would assume I think Olivia Chow and Phil Verster would be reading my posts. What kind of response are you expecting, exactly?

 

[turbanplanner]

I didn't respond to the rest of your post because it's all blustering and ad hominem attacks. I didn't say anything about mismatched doors or the dungeons pretending to be stations known as St Patrick or Queen's Park, and I have no earthly clue why you would assume I think Olivia Chow and Phil Verster would be reading my posts. What kind of response are you expecting, exactly?

If you’re going to continue this, please pm me instead

 

[Bojaxs]

I only mentioned that the cluttered and exposed look it's not my aesthetic preference, but that's far from a problem.

I would probably be more partial to LRTs and streetcars if their energy source came from underneath at the track level instead of the pantograph, catenary setup that make our streets look cluttered and messy. I hate the spiderweb of cables located at the intersection of Spadina and Dundas. I can't stand the fact that the Eglinton & Finch LRT's catenary setup makes it look like we constructed hydro poles that run down the middle of the roads.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I would probably be more partial to LRTs and streetcars if their energy source came from underneath at the track level instead of the pantograph, catenary setup that make our streets look cluttered and messy. I hate the spiderweb of cables located at the intersection of Spadina and Dundas. I can't stand the fact that the Eglinton & Finch LRT's catenary setup makes it look like we constructed hydro poles that run down the middle of the roads.

View attachment 553090

God your photo shows the true ugliness of our creation. We should have just dug a tunnel from Mt. Dennis to Kennedy. After all the delays and cost overruns of the overland system I can't imagine we saved much over going with a traditional subway. We could still run the LRT rolling stock, and Eglinton could have been narrowed, with proper separated bike lanes and nice street furniture etc. added in preparation for the coming residential boom along the street.