The TTC has launched a new website devoted to the design of the new Toronto streetcars. The video on the opening page is a bit cheezy, but the basic idea of the site is to solicit feedback from people about these cars.
I am sitting on a review panel for this process, and in our first meeting the common thread was that we all wanted to talk about more detail than was on offer. It will be interesting to see what the general feedback is, and how much of it is reflected in the final design.
Meanwhile, Long Branch riders take note: the graphic for this consultation shows a car signed “501 Long Branch”. You will get new cars eventually, although they may not show up very often.
Steve Munro 
There’s also a chnace to suggest a name. Given we have the ‘rocket’, I suggested the ‘arugula’.
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They are also asking for suggestions for the name. I submitted:
Munro Cars
Named for Steve Munro, transit advocate. Not only for his decades of transit advocacy and role in maintaining the current streetcar network and promoting the Transit City network that these LRVs will be used on, but also in honor of all the citizens of the Toronto who put in time and effort help make the city a better place, without the expectation of reward or elected office.
(Of course, if it all goes wrong, we will always remember to who blame.)
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The TTC’s probably got their own design in mind, just like the city had with the waterfront. As with the waterfront, I don’t think much public input will wind up in the design of the streetcar.
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You’d think they could have at least used artwork that accurately depicted the modified Toronto design. The model shown still has the first and fourth doors on the wrong side of the trucks. If they want the right feedback they should show the right layout.
Steve: The illustration shows the first door forward of the truck. That’s where it is now.
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If I were in a silly mood I might propose Pretty Cool Car? Too long? Use the initials and add ‘II”.
And if that’s silver trim paint, get rid of it and add cream instead Silver sucks.
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501: Long Branch. Ironically, the CLRVs were launched on the 507.
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Still in a silly mood – Bombardier already builds Rockets for the TTC, why not keep the warlike theme and call the new cars Bomb(s)? Perhaps not – may be too close to the truth!
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Steve,
Will this be the final look of the new LRVs (besides the paint job that they are soliciting)? Will all of the lines have cars with four segments?
Steve: The physical look of the cars is final.
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Michael, the cars have five modules, not four.
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If the door is remaining forward of the front truck, what happened since the debacle with Bombardier about the derailment hazard? The amount of overhang forward of the truck was supposed to be reduced to soften the dynamic forces through curves. What’s the deal?
Steve: They have figured out a way to design the car that meets this criterion.
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It is very disappointing that we are losing the green advance light and the single, central headlight. If the physical look of the cars is already final then this public relations excercise is a waste of time and money. I don’t care about naming the car or choosing the seat colour. I’m trying to understand what is left to be decided that makes any significant difference. I’m going to be pretty upset if this simply leads to a goofy name and an awful paint scheme.
I’ll at least say that the front end of the car is slightly nicer looking than in the original promotional materials or renderings. I can’t quite tell if the glass over the front/rear destination signs is curved, but it looks like it. This would be really bad for reflections on the glass interfering with viewing the sign.
Steve: I agree that the design panel has been brought in rather late in the game. As for the advance light, yes, a point I plan to make is that the dinky truck marker luminaires now used on the CLRV/ALRV fleet as markers leave a lot to be desired. The advance light has a proper lens to project its beam well down the road so that a streetcar can be seen and identified a long way off. Duh … that’s why it’s called an “advance light”.
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The old streetcar promotional site is now an info page on sex toys.
Also, I guess the TTC also wants to remind everyone to still be excited for some good news coming their way.
Steve: The registration was approved on July 15, 2009, probably because the previous holder let it lapse.
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The website FAQ says that the new vehicles will allow Transit Priority signals to work better than the current vehicles. Do you disagree? I always thought it was Transportation Services that were the problem, not the streetcars themselves.
Steve: This claim is based on the premise that for frequent routes, cars will be further apart. If they are not arriving on every light cycle, in theory, more aggressive priority can be granted to them. However, I think this idea breaks down when one considers that even on a 4-minute headway, there will be a car in one direction or the other every 2 minutes on average, and that’s almost one streetcar per cycle. I am not convinced that this claim actually is applicable to routes like Spadina, King or St. Clair.
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I hope that they create a short list of finalists for the designs, from which we can then choose from. Better than announcing the final design out of the blue, so to say.
Would like to see the finalists on HGTV or some other show on TV and the internet.
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Please all governments. Please don’t pull any more funding before we can even choose a style and give them a name.
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They showed a design with a centre headlight at the Designing Transit Cities Symposium, that has now been removed. I had hoped they would have kept that.
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Names, well let’s see …
Since my 1981 contest name for the RT, “the holly trolley” came in 2nd place, I’d call this streetcar …
THE TR DOUBLE-HEADWAY
or
THE TR ANTI-ROCKET
ACCORDION has a nice ring to it — at least that’s what its joints remind me of.
Steve — since you’re on the design panel, do me a favor — SPONGE seats, none of this velvet on steel crapola.
Steve: We get to talk about the seat coverings, but not the seat materials. Alas, we’re a design panel with a half-empty box of crayons.
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Centre headlight? … green advance light? … ah, you gotta love railfans.
I have a feeling that if they drop the DING DING DING bell, that’ll be the straw that breaks the LRT advocate’s back. Do I smell some subway con-verts?
By the way, for the sake of nostalgia we evangelical subway big-gots (myself included) want the double-whistle reinstated on the TR rockets. To hell with them three-tone chimes. Oh, and we also want the old identra toilet seats front and center.
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John Bromley writes: “If I were in a silly mood I might propose Pretty Cool Car? Too long? Use the initials and add ‘II’.”
I like your train of thought, but Philadelphia beat you to it, with completely-rebuilt (with plain, fiberglass interiors) PCCs on the 15-Girard route. At least the exteriors look really nice.
As for the loss of the green “advance” lights, it appears that the new cars do get twin blue “advance” lights, similar to the buses indicating accessibility. I really appreciate the TTC’s order specs requiring these blue lights at front. They make approaching buses easy to spot in combination with the orange destination signs. They date from the earliest wheelchair-accessible buses in the fleet, the Orion Vs, the Nova RTSs and the New Flyers.
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Why do I get the feeling they only let you on The Panel because at this point there’s nothing of substance that can be altered?
By the way, since they are widening the headways (the service cut I warned about is now official) an advance light is going to be all the more important for spotting your approaching streetcar from twice as far away.
Steve: The full quote from the website is:
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My vote goes to calling them “the Swans”, as both a homage to the romantic water based amusement, and the ugly ducklings from which they spawned.
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So really, no chance for single centre headlight? That’s it, it’s over?
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For name I proposed Flexity.
The ALRV was an ALRV
The CLRV was a CLRV
a PCC is a PCC
a Peter Witt was a Peter Witt
Why should a Flexity be anything else?
Interior I went with the red and grey scheme. Very professional an inoffensive. I think the inside is too “bright” even though, it needs to be toned down. Our newest buses are perfect IMHO.
Exterior, I presented a (somewhat poorly drawn) modification to one of the base proposals.
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Can we have addons? I would really like to have some sort of overhead bag racks so that people can put their backpacks etc there. It will actually avoid a lot of complications for people who are standing etc. Also, keep most of the street car standing room only. Just keep a few seats in the front and the back.
Steve: People like to sit, and a lot of people need to be able to sit. Standing is for the peak period and peak areas on routes. We’re trying to compete with auto travel, not drive people to it. As for overhead racks, there is a safety issue with things falling off them on curves. If you have a backpack, put it on the floor, or just hold it.
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Seriously, putting a headlight in the centre and an advance light on the top are pretty minor modifications that could be added to the spec, so why not? The TTC should go for it! It’d help the Toronto streetcars retain some of their character as opposed to being generic, base model TTC clearances compatible Flexity cars.
Nailing down the particulars for the order of new streetcars right now would be a sensible time to consider a return to a maroon and cream colour scheme, which, if played well as part of an overall move to return to the basics of running good quality transportation service with good customer service, could help the TTC earn back some goodwill with the public. That’d only work as part of a much larger strategy though. I’m not for a moment suggesting that slapping some maroon and cream on the side of these this is going to fix any problems in itself.
All of that said, it would be pretty disappointing if the TTC left the public input to the design of the new streetcars this late intentionally so that it would be too late to be able to make any meaningful input to the design. That was the reason for my snide comment earlier, that it’s so late now especially if the design is in fact frozen, that it doesn’t matter what anybody suggests because the design that the TTC’s had in mind all along is what’ll be built. If this is the case with the public design consultation, it means the TTC has learned absolutely nothing from their customer service debacle and has no plans to stop treating the public with the indifference and disdain they feel we deserve.
If that really, truly is the case, the TTC should be upfront and honest about how they feel about the passengers and name the new streetcar the Cattle Car and be done with it.
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Overhead racks are a very good idea. All rail based transit vehicles in Japan have it. I have ridden on the Yokosuka Line where it travels at 110 km/h and nothing has fallen off.
There are several advantages in the overhead racks. First, a bag on the floor occupies space. This means one less standee. Second, if you are carrying a SLR with a few F2.8 zooms, putting it on a person’s lap will cut off the blood circulation. This is uncomfortable. Third, it eliminates the attractiveness of using another seating space for bags.
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If you look closely at the TTC’s lrv.ttc.ca site the new car is signed “507 Long Branch”… 🙂
We need this car on 507 Long Branch, we have a lot of seniors & families with strollers. But we need more, not less, frequent streetcar service.
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What will they look like? What shall we call them? All valid points, but I have an even more important one: will they work? My faith in Bombardier to deliver what they’ve promised is hardly monumental.
What irks me the most is that Skoda had the demonstrator car sitting at the plant in Pilsen and was ready to bring it over here, at their cost, to operate it in Toronto and display it in Mississauga, Hamilton and Kitchener. As the guy who lured Skoda into Toronto and then advised them on how to handle the unending political complications that go with challenging the status quo in this town, I was supremely pissed by the TTC’s unwillingness to even let the company bid.
The result is that, at last report, the firm has no interest in pursuing so-called opportunities here. Why should they? They’ve got a backlog of orders for their proven 100% low-floor streetcars, electric locomotives, electric multiple unit commuter equipment and trolley buses in Europe.
The Family Compact is alive and well in Toronto!
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Steve, do you know if there will be a “railfan” seat or seats at the end of each car? A seat that will face the direction of travel? They have been removed for the new TR and they were always very popular. I was on a Siemens S70 in San Diego that had them and you could view the operator and the approaching stations, albeit through tinted windows.
Steve: The proposed seating layout has two single forward-facing seats on top of the front truck just behind the first door.
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Good afternoon all,
Looking at the pictures, it seems like the LRT will have both a pantograph and a pole. Is that true? What’s the reason for both?
Steve: This applies to the prototypes, and will allow testing where the overhead has been set up to handle pans.
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I loved John Bromley’s PCC II suggestion. And I also suggested that they go retro with maroon and cream. We need cream, darn it!
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The only really great thing about the Orian Disaster Bus is the purple advance light. At least you can see them coming.
One night I was waiting for the Davisville Bus in a bad snowstorm. It was very windy and visibility was limited. I was very cold and had a pain (from the wind) on my forehead. To my great relief, I saw a purple light through the snow and gloom. As I watched it approach it turned out to be snowplow.
I hope when we finally get our new streetcars, they won’t be as disappointing as that snowplow. Bsed on the prototypes I have seen, my request would be for lots of forward facing seats, not on silly angles.
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The new pictures suggest the streetcars will have pantographs on the centre sections. Seeing as all the new overhead is designed to accommodate pantographs, am I correct to assume that the TTC has a plan to eventually convert to pantograph use? Are there any documents or plans available to the public about this? Do you know if the new streetcars will use pantographs right away on the compatible routes (ie St Clair if phase 1’s overhead is redone)?
Steve: The pantographs will only, as I understand it, be on the three prototype cars so that they can experiment with them on routes such as St. Clair that are supposed to have pantograph-friendly overhead. As for eventual conversion, well, maybe, someday, but there’s nothing in the capital budget for it.
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Greg, I share your thoughts exactly. I have great difficulty believing the Flexity will be reliable, smooth and quiet on our trackage, especially with them not making the full modification of the overhang I mentioned above. (And I don’t think they care – “Make it the TTC’s problem” was sentiment when challenged. Other recent examples – the T1s are noisy and had to have all their motor housings replaced, and the TR is butt-UGLY.)
I’m extra-irritated that Skoda never had the chance to prove their vehicle was superior by actually operating the demo model here. (Which model number was that demonstrator by the way? The 15T is awesome but I didn’t think it could handle our radii.)
I’ve been mocked before for my suggestion that no company other than Bombardier will bid on rail vehicle contracts in this Province ever again after this circus. Your insider information proves my point concerning Skoda and would be a good indicator of the feelings of the other competitors. Siemens already gave them the finger twice.
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Mr Munro,
What is the actual ‘size’ of the openings for entrance and egress? If the new vehicles are actually 100 % longer than the vehicles they replace, why is there what appears to be only an increase of approximately 30-35% in the number/size of doors?
It stands to reason that if the cars can carry twice as many passengers, then the means by which those passengers enter and exit should be proportionately increased, so as to shorten rather than lengthen the entry/exit process.
Steve: The drawings I have don’t have detailed dimensions, but one can scale off of them relative to the known car length. The double doors are a bit under 1.6m wide, and the single doors are roughly half of that. As a point of reference the door openings on the T1 subway cars (the ones with the wide doors coloured dark red inside) are just over 1.5m (5 feet).
On existing cars, people enter only at the front, unless there is someone checking fares at the rear doors. They fight their way through the car, and it is common to see room left near the back that could have been used by riders. Also, the existing fleet requires you to step up to the high floor of the car interior.
The new cars will load through all doors with self-service fare collection at every door, and the cars have low floors so that you don’t lose time going up and down steps. This will make much better use of the available doorway capacity.
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Re vehicle name:
In honour of the Leafs’ most immobile defenceman, I suggest the Brad Marsh Rocket – renowned for blocking traffic and for making even the surliest customers pay through the nose!
Or how about getting corporate sponsorship from Subway sandwiches – sure, we may not build subways, but we can still support the idea of them!
Steve: A subway sponsorship for streetcars??!!! Outrageous!
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My concern is with the speed at which the doors will physically open and close, as well how long they will be set to stay open. This really isn’t much of an issue during the day when there are heavy loadings at most of the stops, but becomes one during the late evening or at lightly used stops. My experience riding Siemens Combino, Alstom Citadis, and Bombardier Flexity trams in Europe all had slow doors. This wasn’t a big issue there because of the stops being far apart and all with heavy loading, but in Toronto with close stop spacing and 1 or 2 people getting on or off at each stop the time lost opening, holding, and closing the doors will add up very quickly. Perhaps we need to look at removing some stops that are very close to each other. Victoria street both directions on Dundas, Queen, and King. WB Simcoe and Queen, both directions on King. Etc.
You can just imagine how long it would take: The door slowly slides open, one person gets off, the door then holds open, then beeps, then slowly slides closed. Repeat at the next stop one block away. I fear that when the new cars start arriving and when lines still have mixed service, we will see CLRVs following the new cars close behind. Much like with the PCCs following the CLRVs when they first arrived.
Ideally, during late evening or light boardings, I would like to see dwell times no longer than 5-6 seconds, similar to the CLRVs when only 1 or 2 people are alighting. Perhaps, Steve, you could make the suggestion that the front door be able to open while the car is still in motion much like buses, PCCs, and the #1 door in SEPTA Kawasaki Cars.
Also, why do they insist on storing bicycles inside the new cars? It is much faster to bike downtown, and it will take space away that could be used for standees or more seats. If they insist on keeping this feature, perhaps they could employ a folding rack similar to those on the front of buses that can be stowed out of the way when not in use to make more room for people.
Steve: My gut feeling is that the bicycle space, like the wheelchair space, won’t be occupied most of the time as this will be used by other passengers. As you may have seen reported, the bike racks are not used very much on buses.
As for deleting stops, I can see doing this at locations where there is no traffic signal, especially where the stop is only in one direction (King and Victoria WB, Queen and Simcoe EB). Where there is a traffic signal, removing the stop is slightly less beneficial especially, as at Dundas and Victoria, where the traffic signals almost always trap the streetcar anyhow. Signal priority anyone?
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The doors look like sliding doors, with the single doors moving away from the wheels. Our current streetcars have the accordion doors, with little stop signs on them (which some drivers ignore anyways). What indication do the current European trams use to tell drivers to stop at open doors, or do they go without?
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I might want to play a bit with the design pictures, but there’s something missing from the templates: where will the ads go?
Steve: The design panel was told that there is no provision for internal advertising.
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In response to CLRV4037’s concern about bike rack space, I’m guessing that this will be similar to the Flexity’s in Minneapolis where that space just becomes extra standing space when needed?
I am puzzled by the suggestion “that the front door be able to open while the car is still in motion much like…”
Either it should be possible to begin the opening of ALL doors as the vehicle is coming to a stop, or it should not be possible for ANY of the doors. The new vehicles will have all doors BEHIND the operator, who will also be isolated from the rest of the interior. Try applying this suggestion to subway cars and see if you are puzzled as I am.
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