Updated August 8, 2014 at 6:40 am: According to an article in today’s Toronto Star, TTC CEO Andy Byford is advocating a move to Proof-of-Payment (POP) fare collection on all streetcar routes effective January 1, 2015. He will also seek funding for service improvements including a return to the 2012 crowding standards, although this will only be applicable for off-peak service thanks to the shortage of vehicles.
Updated August 7, 2014 at 4:20 pm: The City’s Planning & Growth Management Committee has voted to defer the McNicoll Garage issue until 2015. More political point scoring by the Ford/Stintz faction in their waning hours.
Updated August 7, 2014 at 7:50 am: Information has been added about the bus and streetcar fleet sizes in 1990 before the recession that led to widespread service cuts. Service in 1990 was better on the streetcar network than it is today, and the bus fleet is barely back to 1990 levels in terms of scheduled capacity across the system.
Comments about system capacity that were originally in the post about service changes for August 31, 2014 will be moved to this thread.
Transit is “The Better Way”, or so we have been told by the politicians responsible for managing our transportation system. Road building simply won’t work — there is no room for more cars in many locations even if we could build more expressways — and transit is the answer.
Sounds great! Transit advocates like me should be cheering. With the election of those champions of infrastructure spending, Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals, to Queen’s Park and the imminent demise of the Escalade-loving Brothers Ford at City Hall, transit’s future should be assured.
If only it were that simple.
The Subway
Toronto has not opened a new rapid transit line since the Sheppard shuttle from Yonge to Don Mills in 2002, and even that did little for the network as a whole, especially for the critical links into the core area where capacity is at a premium.
Our next line, the Spadina Extension to Vaughan, will open in late 2016 if you believe the TTC’s website, or more likely early 2017. “At this time, the in-service date remains the fall of 2016 although the project is facing a serious scheduling challenge,” according to the July 2014 CEO’s Report.
The subway has a reasonably new fleet with brand new Toronto Rocket (“TR”) trains plying the Yonge line, and on Bloor a fleet of “T-1” trains built between 1995 and 2001.
Fleet size isn’t an issue. The TTC will have a surplus of TRs for the foreseeable future because they have ordered 10 extra trains for the Spadina extension, and a further 10 trains for service improvements. Meanwhile, the T-1 fleet is larger than the Bloor and Sheppard subways need between them because original fleet plans assumed that some of these trains would stay on the Yonge line. Now the TTC is scrambling to find locations to store all of the T-1 trains.
The problem for both subway routes is that there is only room for so many trains on the track thanks to a combination of the signal system and the terminal geometry. Headways (the space between trains) lower than the now-scheduled 140 seconds are possible, but challenging.
The signals keep trains from coming too close together. At busy stations like Bloor-Yonge with long stops for boarding, the next train can be kept waiting some distance from the station until its leader not only departs but runs far enough down the track for a clear signal to be given to occupy the platform.
At terminals, there are basic operating limits — how fast a train can move through switches without throwing passengers onto the floor, how long it takes a 6-car train to drive through and completely clear the crossover so that another movement can occur, how quickly the next train can be ready to move off. A 120 second headway is theoretically possible, but difficult to achieve, and even at 130 seconds there can be congestion with the slightest delay.
(A separate problem familiar to many riders is the long queues of trains stretching back from terminals especially at the end of peak periods. This is caused by trains arriving at the terminal faster than they leave, a side effect of the scheduled transition to off-peak service and an indication that, for that time period at least, there are too many trains trying to use a limited amount of track time.)
The TTC’s solution, touted for years, has been to convert to Automatic Train Control with a computer-based signal system that will allow trains to safely operate closer together on the mainline, and which could reduce terminal times. This system will not be in use on the Yonge line until 2019, and it is unclear when it might appear on Bloor-Danforth because this will also involve the purchase of a completely new fleet. (The T-1 trains are not ATC-capable at reasonable cost, and the older they get, the lest cost-effective an upgrade program becomes for their remaining lives.)
Until ATC is switched on, the TTC’s ability to run trains closer together will be limited, and with this, their ability to add capacity to the subway system where it is really needed.
This capacity problem was recognized in the late 1980s when TTC ridership was booming and the Yonge line was packed to the doors. Variations on what we now call the “Downtown Relief Line” were proposed to increase capacity into the core area, but this line was traded away in a political deal for the Sheppard Subway. The capacity crunch was effectively wiped away by the recession of the 1990s when the TTC system lost 20% of its ridership falling from 450m to 360m annual rides. Toronto passed the 450m mark long ago and the TTC projects 537m rides for 2014.
Without question, some additional capacity is possible on the proposed GO Transit “RER” network provided that GO becomes truly an urban operator with convenient stations well connected to feeder transit routes and with attractive fares for urban travel. If they persist with a model focussed on 905-based commuters, GO’s contribution to “relief” will at best be a lessening of demand that might otherwise feed into outer parts of the subway network.
Meanwhile, Councillors argue about more suburban subway lines and decry the need for additional capacity in the core area.
The Streetcar Network
For many years, the streetcar network languished both because it was seen as something for “downtown”, and because the population of areas it served was stagnant. The last new streetcar to roll onto Toronto streets dates from 1989, and the first of the “CLRVs” (Canadian Light Rail Vehicles) will hit its 40th birthday in 2017. New Flexities will replace the aging fleet, but not immediately as production deliveries only just began (this for an order placed before Rob Ford was Mayor) and they are temporarily halted by a strike at Bombardier.
Toronto last added a new streetcar route to its network in 1997, the 510 Spadina line (although there was a small connection on Queens Quay from Spadina to Bathurst that brought 509 Harbourfront CNE extension into existence in 2000). These additions were possible only because service cuts earlier in the decade had freed up cars from other lines.
In 1990, total peak streetcar service required 222 vehicles including some PCCs that were still in use. This did not include the Spadina route which was still operated with buses. No streetcar route has as many peak vehicles assigned today as in 1990, nearly a quarter-century ago.
By November 1997, the AM peak scheduled service required 178 cars (plus spares) out of a fleet of 252. In January 2014, the peak requirement had grown to 202 cars (out of 251) from an aging and less-reliable fleet. This number will rise slightly when track on Spadina south of King and on Queens Quay comes back into operation this fall, the first time in some years that the entire streetcar system will be served, on paper at least, with streetcars.
Streetcar_Fleet_Scheduled_Service_1990, 1997 & 2014
To the degree that service was added between 1997 and 2014, many of the peak scheduled cars are “trippers” that go out for a specific journey, possibly not even a round trip, to cover demand on the busiest part of various routes. Such runs may use the less-reliable members of the fleet (or not go out at all) so that some work can be had from cars that might not be trusted for a full day’s operation.
Demand has grown on the streetcar system over two decades, especially on routes like King where there are whole new neighbourhoods that did not exist in 1997 with riders eager to travel by TTC to downtown, if only they could board the service.
Current plans call for the replacement of the CLRV/ALRV fleet with the new Flexities, but the TTC wishes to dispose of its least reliable cars (the ALRVs) as quickly as possible. This will require some juggling of the remaining CLRV fleet to replace lost ALRV capacity on 501 Queen and 504 King. The big problem, however, is that it will be several years before the growing Flexity fleet actually provides more capacity than the cars it replaces, and some routes will not see meaningful improvement until at least 2017.
The TTC has proposed a 60-car add-on to the current 204 Flexity order, but this is a “below the line” capital project with no funding. In a Rob Ford world, we will be lucky to see even the first 204, never mind a supplementary order.
Some streetcar capacity improvement will be possible through a combination of better line management especially avoidance of bunching which wastes time at stops and operates many cars well below capacity. More and better transit signal priority is also needed. A big improvement can come with all-door loading on the new streetcars, but this will benefit only the routes where they operate, and much will depend on the capacity and reliability of service provided.
“It will all be better with the new cars” is absolutely no excuse for failure to improve what we have today.
The Bus Network
The TTC faces a major problem with its bus network. Thanks to service cuts implemented by the Ford/Stintz regime, plus the cancellation of plans for more buses and a new garage, and compounded by reliability problems with the Hybrid bus fleet, the TTC has hit a wall on improving bus service.
First, it is important to understand the size and makeup of the fleet, and the capacity of service it can provide. Here is a table and a chart showing the makeup of the AM peak scheduled service from 2005 to 2014, and the relative capacity of those fleets.
Bus_Fleet_Scheduled_Service 1990, 1997 & 2005-2014
Bus_Fleet_Scheduled_Service_Ratio 2005-2014
The table shows the makeup of the scheduled bus service primarily from 2005-2014 with 1990 and 19977 as references back to the pre-accessible fleet.
In 1990, the fleet included 90 Orion III articulated buses, a number that had dwindled by 1997 thanks to poor manufacturing quality. I have not broken them out in the table because the TTC service summaries do not give a specific number in service on routes with mixed artic and standard bus operations. The striking comparison is that the peak scheduled vehicle count in 1990 was not reached again until 2014. Only the Wilson-to-Downsview and Sheppard subway extensions did not exist in 1990, and the Spadina bus had not yet been converted to streetcars.
The scheduled requirement has grown from 1216 buses in November 1997 to 1563 in March 2014, but this growth in vehicle count masks a change in vehicle capacity. Even without the more generous provisions of the Ridership Growth Strategy, the capacity of a bus for planning purposes is 10% lower with low-floor vehicles than with high-floor buses.
This is reflected in the lower half of the table where the raw vehicle counts are restated as “equivalent to 12m low floor buses”. The 1216 high-floors of 1997 equate to 1338 low floor buses, and so about one third of the growth in scheduled requirements comes from the reduced capacity of the low floor buses. The remainder is real growth. (For the purpose of this table, the articulated buses are counted as 1.5 standard low floor buses.)
Since 2005, the number of vehicles on the road during the peak period has grown by almost 20%, but their capacity is up only about 13%. The chart shows this in graphic format. Note the drops in 2011 and 2012 corresponding to the Ford-Stintz cutbacks.
Improvements in 2013 and 2014 came from a few sources:
- The budget process was less draconian and effectively gave the TTC a boost in subsidies. The amount was “flat lined” to previous years, but because the TTC had a “surplus” in 2012 and in 2013, getting the same subsidy (including the unspent surpluses) made for a real increase in funding relative to spending.
- Buses that had been ordered before Rob Ford became mayor continued to be delivered through 2012. A future order was a victim of the service cuts along with the McNicoll Garage that would have housed the vehicles. All orders now in the pipeline are simply to replace vehicles that will retire soon.
- The older Orion V and Nova buses have remained in service longer than planned to keep the total fleet numbers up. This has been a particular challenge in 2014 when the amount of City and Metrolinx construction work has required about double the number of “construction extras” on various routes. Contrary to popular belief, this is not all on the streetcar system.
The TTC has already stated that its spare ratio — the proportion of the fleet in excess of scheduled requirements — is lower than it should be, and they plan to reduce service requirements just to add to their maintenance pool. Some services that would normally be restored with the fall schedules — standby relief buses and school trippers — have been omitted because of a bus shortage. Other peak service improvements are on hold for the same reason.
McNicoll Garage was originally planned almost a decade ago, but it was removed from the TTC’s capital planning when Transit City was announced. The network of suburban LRT lines would so reduce the bus requirements that another garage was not needed. Rob Ford (aided and abetted by Dalton McGuinty and an unduly pliant City Council) cancelled Transit City, but also slashed fleet requirements through changes to the Service Standards. His hand-picked TTC Chair, Karen Stintz, went along with this “for the greater good” of the transit system.
We now see where that “greater good” has brought us.
The TTC has no net-new buses in the pipeline, nor any garage to store and maintain them even if they were ordered yesterday. Reliability of the current fleet is challenging, and yet the TTC’s focus has been on “good news” stories about cleaner subway stations, not about problems with the bus fleet.
The short-term bridge provided by a subsidy flat-line-that-wasn’t depends on a constant surplus, and the TTC is unlikely to show one for 2014. Older vehicles have been kept in service, but there is a limitation to how much of this is possible.
The hybrids are a special problem because their power systems have not performed as well or as reliably as originally hoped. In its original 2014 capital budget, TTC management proposed changing the target life of a bus to 12 from 18 years. This would have both accelerated the retirement of the hybrids, but also produced a bulge in capital spending that the city did not want to fund. The target life remains 18 years, but this issue does not go away just because the bean counters don’t like the look of the numbers.
Reporting on System Capacity and Reliability
Once upon a time, and a very long time ago it was, the TTC actually published information about the reliability of its fleet. This disappeared in a simplification of what we now call the CEO’s report during an era when the Commissioners did not want to trouble their little heads with a lot of operating details, and the reports have never returned.
Even worse, there is no regular report showing the degree to which the published service actually operates, the latent demand for service that may go unmet, or a measure of service quality that does not perpetuate the TTC’s long-standing mythology that being within 3 minutes of schedule, 2/3 of the time, is good enough. What is reported is done at far too summary a level, too many averages over time and space with no sense of what service is really like on the street for a would-be rider.
The emerging problem with capacity on all of Toronto’s transit modes, and hence on all of its network, is not a state secret, and it is the sort of information that a Commission, not to mention its management, who were doing their job should routinely have available for debate and for policy direction.
For much of the current Council term, however, we have a Commission that wants to make the mayor’s threadbare tax-cutting policies look good, a Commission that cares about style — how clean are the buses — but not whether there are enough of them on the street or whether the service is well managed. The TTC is a stepping stone to higher office, as well as a place where Rob Ford could try to get even with the lefty, pro-transit policies of his predecessor. If the riders were screwed in the process, that really didn’t matter.
The problem here is a simple one: we claim that we must make transit better because it is the only viable alternative to increased use of private automobiles. However, the in-the-trenches policy is to squeeze transit as hard as possible because there must be “waste” and “gravy” just sitting there for the taking.
Buy more buses? Hell no! Be more “productive” with the ones we already own. Build more subway capacity downtown? Why would we do such a thing when there are suburbs waiting to be filled with half-empty subway lines? And streetcars? Let’s not even go there.
We have a Commission that does not want to know how bad its own system is or what the options might be to improve it, and a management that seems unwilling to tell them just how deep is the hole in which the transit system now finds itself. If there is a plan for how Toronto will get from 2014 to the balmy days of 2019 when finally we might see greater capacity on the system, it hasn’t been published or even hinted at by anyone at the TTC.
As for Queen’s Park, they have grand dreams of regional transit, but no money for local system improvements. That’s the city’s job, they say, and after all we give you all that gas tax revenue. The fact that this is a pittance compared with former provincial subsidies is lost on those who only want to tell us how much they will spend on new transit construction.
At Council, the word has been cut, cut, cut. The TTC has a huge unmet need for capital funding, and a definite need for better operating subsidies. The idea that somehow the system can be so efficient that every new rider travels without a net loss is a pipedream, especially when so many new riders are sought in areas where short, inexpensive trips are far from the norm. To get the excellent transit we claim we want to have in our world-class city, we need to pay for it.
What does Council have money for? Over $1-billion for a subway line in Scarborough to be raised through a new tax. Meanwhile, Toronto saves tens of millions by cutting service, and a few hundred millions by putting off vehicle purchases.
We bought the myth that transit spending could be cut, and we weren’t watching when critical decisions traded away the capacity for future growth.
Any new mayor, any new TTC Commissioner, should demand full information from TTC management about the state of the system and the options for making improvements now. The request should be without condition, no “can you get by with $100m”, but an open ended request for honest, forthright advice and policies that can rebuild the transit system.
Any new mayor, any new Council, should be prepared to dig deep to properly fund the restoration and improvement of the TTC network — all of it, not just a handful of pet subway lines whose primary function is to get votes, not to carry riders.
Get ready for lots of crowded riding because there is little Toronto can do to avoid it.
Steve Munro 
Every time I have ridden it in the rush hour it has been “all door loading.” They would be even later if they forced the front door only rule.
Steve: Yes, I think that some of the benefits are being oversold possibly (no, likely) because management does not know what is already happening out on the streets. All the same, it’s an opportunity to get the whole streetcar system switched over. Pre/post running time comparisons will be tricky because December and January are quite different months for traffic and this can cloud the results.
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I have noticed occasionally that a streetcar driver on the 505 route might leave the rear doors open at Yonge street. I’m not sure if this was an accident or deliberate to facilitate boarding. There was no “doorman” present like at King & Yonge. Most people still go to the front door though.
Steve: Yes, the operator is encouraging those who can to use the rear door.
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Yes, but it is up to the city to plan for the long term… after the condo boom of the 80s there was a condo glut – markets swing back and forth and developers will do what will be most profitable in the short or medium term, not what will make the best use of expensive infrastructure that they are not directly paying for.
In the 90s until about 2005, most of the office and residential growth was in the 905 – sprawl and edge city type development – but then, the green belt was one change, but the City of Toronto is also shifting the tax burden to residential and away from office and industrial.
The “Kings” was a mistake in so far as there was no planning for the long term about where the financial district would grow to in the long term… in the rush to get rid of the discos and rowdyism, the city failed to think about where the jobs in the core should be and to essentially guarantee a “land bank” of lands in reserve for that growth.
Steve: The Two Kings policy was in place long before the glut of discos. Indeed, it was this policy that created the Entertainment District by finally abandoning the fantasy that the century-old industrial lands could be recycled for that type of land use.
Union Station has one subway line, and one LRT line, and in future, what other transit lines can connect in?
If we are going to be bringing in more people(employees) by GO train into Union Station (or Tory’s plans to add transit to those corridors too), then where do they go from Union to where they will work? If they aren’t walking to work, then either we need better transit to other places in the Downtown core that are also connected into Union (the DRL will be up at King – not all that easy to quickly change modes) or else then we need to be thinking more about building other nodes and making investments in station in Liberty Village, Unilever, Main etc. as secondary nodes – though of course, the plan was always that the 4-5 “Centres” were to fill that function of decentralised nodes.
Steve: The DRL is more likely to be at Wellington which is not quite so onerous a transfer. There are also possible direct connections between the DRL West and a new GO stations at Spadina & Front or near the Unilever site.
We might see Allied properties demolish/intensify more of their brick and beam properties – but this is a shame as these buildings have unique character and heritage value and I am sick of “facadism” and sticking massive buildings atop older buildings – a trend that ruined the old stock exchange, the distillery district etc.
I don’t see any real long term planning in this city – like having a picture of this city as it will look in 100 years – and then figuring out how we get there to not have development where we don’t want it, having the development where we want it at the right scale, and then have it tied together with the necessary infrastructure that makes it work.
Other than the issue of the OMB, the city has to decide how it can get development to go where it wants. We are building a lot of transit – will development follow at the right time, or like Sheppard, are we going to be stuck with a lot of white elephants because the market is elsewhere and the city has approved that ability to develop elsewhere without having an overall idea of the pace of development and how to “phase” development of the city in the right places at the right times.
At the hearing on Bill 20 about the OMB, most of the pro-development people kept complaining about the planning department and how most of the city is “under-zoned” – quite the opposite is true, there is not even demand to build out the city and we are approving development every year without any idea of the total inventory of development that is possible on lands that are approved, in the pipeline, or likely to be approved (waterfront, downsview, etc.)
When the city did its study of Eglinton (Avenue study) it is upzoning a lot of the land – but there is no calculation as to how many extra units it will mean, over what time the city expects this to be built out, and how it fits in to the big picture. The city planners publish numbers every year of how much development is in the pipeline, but it excludes such upzonings done by the city (Secondary Plans, avenue studies, Avenue segment studies, Area Specific Policies) and not in response to specific applications.
So, are we now going to start making transit investments to please/profit First Gulf and Streetcar because they own a lot of land east of the Don River that they hope to make a fortune on? This impacts not only what we do with the Gardiner, but the viability of the Portlands too.
Look at how long it took for the railwaylands/CityPlace to get built out – just as the office market tanked, should we have rezoned it to something else because the world did not unfold as expected? That was rushed through, as was the decision to build the SkyDome where it is, without thinking long-term about the eventual fate of the Gardiner.
In future, people will actually be rolling on the floor laughing when somebody says that Toronto was once known as “The City that Works” and “New York if run by the Swiss”.
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Terminal geometry is a key constraining factor that will force a comparable headway no matter what average speed the line operates at. Roomier trains will increase capacity, but a new signal system will only meaningfully increase capacity if a new pocket is added on the east end somewhere, otherwise it cannot do the staggered turnbacks required to get around the terminal geometry constraint. The west end has one just east of Islington, but the east needs an equivalent. The Chester and Ossington pockets are useless for staggered turnback purposes. Without that east end pocket, and with the current fleet that still has at least another decade of useful service life (i.e. no roomier trains for a while yet), my numbers hold.
Steve: I often run into this misconception even among people at the TTC who should know better. Capacity is a function of trains per hour past a point, not how fast they are moving. They could run at 500 km/h, but if they are 140 seconds apart, that sets the capacity. The only difference speed makes is the length of time a trip takes, and the number of trains required to provide the service.
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Bob Kinnear was objecting to the TTC proposal to have POP and fare inspectors on all streetcars beginning January 1, 2015. Apparently the issue is that this will require more supervisors (never mind that they are sorely needed for proper line management), 100 more enforcement staff, and an unknown number of new management bodies … all of whom will (according to him) take away from service, not improve it.
Funny how he discounts the fact that POP would transfer the responsibility for fare enforcement away from the operators and on to the trained TTC Safety Officers … thus letting operators avoid fare disputes (a major trigger for harassment and violence) and focus on operating their vehicles safely.
Today Ford was also talking up the full burial of the Eglinton Crosstown … discounting the increased costs, not to mention the flooding risks of tunnels and stations in areas at risk of flooding.
With comments like those … it’s no wonder transit in Toronto has gotten this bad.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: Fare inspectors will have nothing to do with line management. These are two separate functions.
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That won’t be possible. The new streetcars do now allow for anything other than POP. The question is simply when the streetcar network shifts to POP – not if.
I’ve only ridden VIVA a handful of times, but the one time fare inspections boarded the bus I was on they boarded through all doors and methodically went through the vehicle. Anyone who was near the doors was checked first.
According to the TTC “International experience shows that, with proper enforcement, fare evasion will actually shrink, said chief customer officer Chris Upfold. The goal is to inspect about 4 per cent of fares.”
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I rarely go for a week without a fare inspection on GO. Recently, there appears to be some extended blitzing going on, as inspections have been almost daily for the last two to three weeks, including multiple instances of being inspected on both trips (to and fro) in the same day. And here’s the kicker: I’m a reverse-peak commuter!
Properly staffed, this can be an extremely effective system.
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As Karl and Steve have said headway, not speed, determines capacity. There are four main factors that determine headway: dwell time at the busiest station (Bloor-Yonge), the ability of a station to empty itself of passenger before the next train arrives, signal block length, and terminal turn around capacity.
Automatic Train Operation will shorten the effective block length and make the trains stay closer to schedule assuming there is not a delay in closing the doors at the busy stations. The Transportation Co-operative Research Project says that ATO will only improve headways by 2 – 4% and not the numbers that the TTC has bandied about.
The original Yonge line ran shorter headways because the two terminals had shorter crossovers and the operators were allowed to key by red signals and close up on the train ahead. There would often be one train pulling out of Bloor while another train was entering. This was forbidden after the rear end collision on Spadina.
Steve: Southbound, this was also possible because Bloor Crossover was manual and only had regular block signals, not interlocking signals. Keybys are not possible at the latter, and with the current setup, a southbound train would be held at all of the double aspect signals from Rosedale south until there was clearance unless a special automatic call on was added. (This is used at terminals on the first set of interlocking signals before a crossover, but it is not used at interlockings elsewhere because the signal spacing is not designed to bring the approaching train right up to a crossover. ATO can improve this provided that the system designers allow such operation.)
Increasing speed will not increase the capacity of a line because if you double the speed the stopping distance will be closer to 4 times longer thus decreasing the number of trains that go past any point in a given time. Kinetic energy varies as the square of the speed and ability of brakes to dissipate heat and energy does not increase.
Similarly increasing the length of a train will not necessarily increase capacity because the length of time to clear a crossover and block length will both increase. While it increases the capacity per train it decreases the number of trains per hour. Like all changes there are trade offs in benefits and costs such as longer stations and more stairs, escalators, etc. There is probably a very good reason why most rapid transit stations are 400 to 500 feet long.
Steve: Another factor in station design is the grade permissible on the platform. If the station is longer, the grades between the stations must be steeper to compensate.
With one man operation and a one way trip time close to 90 minutes the TTC will need to provide one, if not two drop, back operators at terminal stations to allow the operators a decent washroom break. If the ATO will take the trains into and out of the pocket track without an operator on board at the short turn stations that would save the need for operators to take the train into the pocket track, walk 450 feet to the other end of the train and drive it out. This would probably take 2 people to operate efficiently.
Steve: Not to mention that depending on the platform and stairway layout at the turnback, switching trains may not be a simple case of just walking across a platform.
The turn back pocket tracks should be long enough to hold 2 trains and have switches for 2 entrance exit points so a second train can get into the track past the first train in the pocket. This would provide more flexibility for service and time to recover from backups that will happen with or without ATO.
Speed is not really a factor in determining carrying capacity providing it is not ridiculously slow. The best capacity for expressways is reached at a speed closer to 80 – 90 km/h and not 120 or more.
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Now, how can that possibly be correct? Yes, the braking distances are longer, and therefore the brakes are being applied sooner, but the high-rate train is still moving faster than the low-rate train while the brakes are on, until the point where it has slowed down to the low-rate train’s speed. At which point it’s reached the low-rate train’s braking point anyway.
The only way higher speeds can be a problem is if the brakes overheat and fade. They didn’t on M1 and H1/2/4 trains on Bloor-Danforth in the high rate days. With regenerative braking, that’s even less likely.
Steve: More to the point, braking rates (regardless of technology) are limited by what the passengers can handle (especially the standees). The amount of kinetic energy taken out of the system to get from 70km/h down to 60 is more than from 60 to 50, etc., and the brakes must be capable of absorbing that energy. Stopping distances will always be longer for faster trains. There comes a point where “faster” is meaningless because most of the time a train is not at top speed given the station spacing. Operating in “high rate” gives about a 20% reduction in the Eglinton-Finch travel time (I have measured this on trains that were clearly in high rate even though that does not officially happen). However, that speed is only possible on the track between stations, and in particular cannot be operated through the crossovers where lateral acceleration limits safe speeds. It is very hard to break the rules of physics, although ill-informed politicians and transit “planners” try it all the time.
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The distance between adjacent trains has to be long enough to allow the trailing train to stop if the lead train suddenly stops dead from hitting the cloaking shield around a Klingon Bird of Prey or some other unlikely occurrence, but is is still necessary; therefore, the trains are farther apart. The kinetic energy of a vehicle at 141 km/h is twice that of one at 100 km/h. Friction brakes, disk or tread, have a maximum rate at which they can dissipate heat and if they get too hot they fade as you mentioned.
The track voltage on the subway is 600 volts DC. During regenerative braking it can go up to 700 V but no higher. During acceleration there is a linear part of the speed graph below the constant power point and a curved part above it.
The linear part of the graph is the constant tractive or braking force point. It depends on the maximum acceleration that people can tolerate and also on the point were wheel slip occurs. In this portion the motors are working below their power rating; power equals force times speed.
The point where the curve starts is called the constant power point; as the speed increases above this point the force has to drop to keep the product of force times speed constant. So deceleration at the start of braking at high speed is not as great as below the constant power point. The higher voltage during regenerative braking does mean that the force is greater than at the same speed during acceleration and friction forces will also help to slow you down.
Since standard practice is to keep the deceleration curve close to a mirror image of the acceleration curve this means the distance to accelerate or decelerate increase at a faster rate than speed does. Also the maximum distance that a train can accelerate on level track is half the distance to the next station when it would need to apply the brakes. Track geometry also limits maximum speed.
The time spent at maximum speed is less than 20% of the time because so much time is spent stopped in stations, accelerating and decelerating. High range would probably save 3 or 4 trains on Bloor-Danforth but is the increased maintenance and operating cost worth the crew and capital savings? That is the question that needs to be answered.
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100 enforcement officers for 250,000 rides a day on the streetcar network…25 checks a day gets you 1% of rides…so if each officer checks 100 a day then we are at 4%…seems like they could do a lot more if they put their minds to it…
Essentially there are only 200 vehicles, so if each officer basically just rides along on a specific vehicle, and then drops back or forward at each terminal throughout the day between two specific cars and just hit the people as they are boarding then there is a 50% chance you would get on a vehicle with an inspector (for any specific 8 hour period, of course the rest of the time it would be 100% guaranteed to not be inspected)…so about 1/6’s of rides should have an inspector – and obviously most of that is during the daytime when most people are riding…except in very busy periods where it’s essentially impossible to move around the vehicle – the inspector should be able to get to everyone on board within a reasonable amount of time (except when writing tickets etc.)…the challenge is to not “double or triple check people by having multiple inspectors board at different times)…this of course all degrades if they are paired together, or only at specific stops.
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Since the low floor buses have a reduced capacity I am surprised that more operators have not switched to 45 foot buses which are legal. Almost all suburban and intercity companies use them as does GO transit. This would give a 12.5% increase in length but probably at 15 to 20% increase in capacity because it would all be between the wheels. A couple of US operators use them, LA I think is one.
It would probably require a change in lifts but so will articulated buses. It is one way to get back to the same capacity as the old high floors.
Steve: This would have operational implications for tight curves, not to mention garage layouts.
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True, but there are a lot of 45 foot luxury motor coaches running around downtown Toronto and they manage to get around the corners.
Steve: Yes, but they don’t spend their time loading and unloading at the curb at every intersection.
The design of lifts inside the garage could be the major problem if they are fixed into the floor. Eight 45 foot buses will take up the same space as nine forty footers with the same capacity more or less. If the TTC is crying about the lower capacity of buses then they should do something about it. They used to run 35 foot fish bowls for routes with tight curves but they have all disappeared. They could always keep 40 footers for tight curves until they too disappear.
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I think I understand part of the problem about capacity, speed and headway…
Call it the merry-go-round illusion.
The faster the merry-go-round goes, the more times a person will pass buy you in a given period – this is like increasing the speed a subway running on a loop… except that with a merry go round, the “headway” between riders on a merry-go-round is a specific distance.
If headway is in terms of a distance, then increasing the speed does increase capacity – if the headway is measured in terms of time, then speed doesn’t matter, the headway sets the capacity.
Steve: Increasing the speed actually increases the distance between trains because they have to be able to stop without hitting the one in front which, as a worst case, must be assumed to have hit a brick wall.
I would assume that most transit (subway) and railroads have a minimum distance between trains at any speed… at 1 mph, a subway train would likely take longer to pass a given point than the TTC’s headway.
Steve: Pre-computerized signal systems were based on physical space with the line divided into blocks, and a minimum spacing enforced no matter what the train’s speed. There were various exceptions to this that used to be in place on the TTC:
One was called a “station timing signal” that would be used at the entrance to a station and could clear if the platform was empty and the approaching train was moving slowly. The other was the “automatic key by” that, at single aspect signals (not at an interlocking where there could be conflicting train movements) a red signal meant “stop and proceed”, not “stop and stay”. Trains could and did follow each other nose to tail with this arrangement effectively running “on sight”. This practice was, as Robert Wightman already mentioned, outlawed after the Russell Hill subway crash, but it was part of the original design for YUS and BD, and permitted closer headways to operate than are now possible.
As for acceleration and braking, obviously faster acceleration uses more energy and costs more, same applies to braking – even with regenerative breaking there is a loss, with mechanical braking the loss of the extra energy used to accelerate is total.
Here is a question Steve – does the TTC design its subway so as to be downhill when leaving a station, and uphill when entering a station, to be more energy efficient?
Steve: No. There are two reasons for this. First, on the YUS, there is a prevailing grade already southbound and in some places this is rather steep. A roller-coaster subway design only works for a fairly flat route. That brings us to BD where there remain a few problems such as station spacing (no point in going down just to turn around and go up again) and geological conditions which would make deeper tunnels far more expensive to build. There would also be additional energy expended to build these tunnels that must be factored against whatever propulsion savings would be anticipated.
At the risk of sounding horribly dismissive, the cost of energy for the entire system in 2014 is budgeted at $46.6-million out of a total budget of $1.601-billion, or less than 3%. The subway is probably on the hook for about 3/4 of this, or, say about $30m. The roller coaster design has to save a bundle just to pay back the investment in more complex infrastructure, and that’s just to break even. There are times that “saving energy” is not as simple as it appears.
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Out of curiosity Steve, with the announcement of the streetcar network switching to POP, is there any word on whether the TTC will be accelerating their plans to install preboarding fare payment machines at stops like those used along VIVA routes?
Steve: No word on that. The fare machines were supposed to roll out in parallel with the new streetcars, which in turn would drive the POP cutover. I’m waiting to see the report on the August board agenda to find out what knock on effects of the “big bang” POP cutover have been taken into account.
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I am not talking about huge differences in the gradient – much as you noted before that acceleration and braking needs to be gentle enough because of riders who are standing and would lose balance.. but I thought I noticed a few stations where it seemed like the stations were closer to the surface than the tunnels with a bit of a slope at the end of each platform for a few hundred feet or more…. we might only be talking a 10 foot difference – having stations closer to the surface means short escalators etc., and having tunnels slightly deeper shouldn’t make much difference if tunneling, but would be more expensive with cut and cover.
Steve: No, there is nothing done deliberately anywhere in the system like that. Deeper tunneling does cost more especially if you run into a more difficult geological stratum, or worse, bedrock. Tunnels, by the way, cannot be close to the surface because of structural considerations for the soil around the tunnel during construction (not to mention utilities). It’s not just a case of pointing the TBM “up” as you come to a station. The Eglinton line is particularly challenging because the tunnel is going across rather than parallel to the many valleys and glacial leftovers. The underground strata do not go in a straight line, with the result that the TBM is constantly changing the type of material it is digging through. All of this bears on construction costs: it is not just a case of drawing a line on a map and saying “go dig”. The Spadina extension has bumped into all sorts of problems from ground water that was at a higher level than expected (levels can fluctuate due to precipitation patterns). With all of these considerations, adding a few hills for “energy saving” comes a fair way down the designers’ list of priorities.
I assume you mean only electricity, not all energy sources such as diesel etc. – so yes that makes sense. Other than running the subways, I assume that most of the electricity is in running streetcars or in lighting and running buildings and facilities.
Steve: Actually the value is for “traction power”, that is electricity purchased to move vehicles as opposed to lighting, escalators, ventillation, etc. This is a separate line item in the budget.
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In my opinion, a major part of the problem is politicians who do not understand the concept of pent-up demand.
In other words, incremental changes like reducing headways 20 seconds are not going to reduce congestion. The extra capacity will be swiftly taken up by the materialization of pent-up demand. Leaving us just as sardine-packed as we were before.
What is needed is transformative change. Things like the Relief Line, instead of suburban subways in places where subway levels of demand do not exist.
We need transformative change. Things like a car-free King Street to eliminate congestion. There is, of course, the famous poster showing how much street space is taken up by 60 people driving cars, vs. cycling, vs. riding a streetcar. But that isn’t anything we have not known for the last 70 years.
But instead of the transformative change we need to make things better, what we get instead is condemnation to a future of things getting steadily worse with insanity like the $505 million Gardiner Boondoggle. Sigh…
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Is it at all possible to improve bus capacity by redesigning the seat layout? The TTC’s buses have the worst interior layout I’ve ever seen, even on accessible buses.
The problem is the bottleneck that happens in the rear section, where there’s just a tiny aisle wide enough for one person. No one wants to stand in the rear section because they’ll get stuck there. Add in the fact that the front-facing seats are so close together an average person can’t sit in them, and the whole set-up is useless.
I was just on a Montreal bus this weekend, which has the same raised rear section, but with no front-facing seats, only inward-facing seats. The bus was much more spacious (although there may have been a two or three fewer seats).
Is it feasible to rearrange the seats on the buses? Would this help improve the service and capacity?
Steve: Some buses do have sideways-facing seats in the upper rear section, but not all of them. I have also noticed that the position of the single seats in the low-floor section varies from vehicle to vehicle probably because they were removed at some point and then put back in not quite the same location. Spacing betwen seats can vary.
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I can only assume that the news of the January POP change and proposed upcoming change in crowding standards mean that the 2015 budget is going to drop later this week, in preparation for the next week’s meeting. Should add fuel to the fire for the mayoral debate. It’s heartening to see TTC is moving to roll back the Karen Stintz cuts … though it make for an interesting debate at the commission meeting.
Steve: I’m not sure you will see a full budget, but a report saying “this is what we want to do and here are the implications”. Any substantive decision may be derailed until January by Stintz and her cronies.
I’ll predict that neither of these will happen.
TTC has already run POP for about a quarter-century on 501 with virtually no enforcement, and in the last couple of years back-door boarding at many other busy stops on other routes has become routine. Why does M. Briganti believe that with hundreds of enforcement staff being added, that evasion would get worse, not better?
It’s also disingenuous to say that GO has eliminated unlimited passes. GO eliminated ALL passes and replaced it with Presto, which allows for free trips between one’s normal station pairs after X number of trips, and also large discounts if you take trips on other routes after X number of trips. The net effect is that one pays no more now than with a monthly pass AND also receive significant savings on other trips that your pass would not previously have covered. Essentially GO has replaced passes with monthly rate capping. Surely this hurts M. Briganti’s case, rather than supports it!
Steve: And Presto version 2 supports equivalent-to-pass pricing so that there could be daily caps, weekly caps, monthly caps. Now if only we could get hourly caps (e.g. no new fare charged for tap-ins within say two hours), we would have timed passes without the incredible complexity of validating the TTC’s transfer rules, or of zone fares with a myriad exemptions. All of this requires a fundamentally different way of thinking about “revenue” and decoupling it from individual trips.
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At the risk of getting a bit off the main topic, does anyone know why this occurred, besides society’s typical going off half-cocked and implementing knee-jerk changes that have nothing to do with the issue needing attention.
Automatic key by involves an unusual operation that needs a great deal of concentration on the part of the operator to do without getting tripped by the stop arm, after which they need to proceed using line of sight precautions.
The Russell Hill crash was the result of an operator performing a routine operation [Steve: driving through a series of timed blocks] under incorrect situational awareness that was reinforced when a trip arm did not function as it should.
I know I am boiling down these to very simple descriptions, but the point is that they are two completely different situations, yet a new rule for one was implemented because they share the common feature of a trip arm.
Steve: The fundamental policy change after Russell Hill was that “red means red”, and the idea of any “run on sight” operation was out of the question. Of course the fact that the TTC had built the Spadina line with a section where there was no signal for a long, blind corner (something that could have been achieved with “half blocks” to maintain the desired train spacing while also providing more finely-grained control over trains) is something that nobody ever addressed. The basic design should provide a reasonably fine-grained control over train spacing, and using long blocks just because the section operates at higher speed actually works contrary to that principle.
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Could the TTC not reactivate the Danforth/Coxwell bus garage in fairly short order for more bus storage until the McNicoll Garage is built?
Steve: A good chunk of what was once Danforth garage is now occupied by buildings. Also, the TTC would have to relocate the operations that currently use the site elsewhere. Given that there is no on-site bus servicing or fuelling capability at Danforth, it would make more sense to lease a nice big lot (or two) somewhere else.
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Steve, how long before Yonge could be extended to Steeles for the extra turn capacity? Would it make sense to have 2 turn back points in the tail tracks as the extension is done? Also even with that the Yonge line limit would still practically 36000 per hour is it not?
Steve: Best case, you are probably looking at 4 years of which the first two would be approvals and engineering and the balance construction. That’s assuming a desire “today” to get on with it. This project may include an underground yard north of Finch Station to offload Wilson, and that will provide more turnback capacity than anyone could dream of.
Taking the capacity of a TR at about 1,100 for planning purposes (ie: the reasonable average one can expect to achieve over the hour), yes, 36k per hour is the number equivalent to a 110 second headway.
Once a Don Mills subway is underway, will it not make more sense to make sure we have a good integration between it and a Don Mills LRT, and a fast enough service here to allow it to be a good alternative for a decent portion of the bus riders?
I do not see how the medium term issues can be resolved without both more turn capacity on Yonge and a parallel line.
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What are the odds of getting the headway down around 100 seconds headway? If they installed the suicide barriers could they reduce the time trains required to enter and exit stations? If they also shortened the signal block length, could they reduce headway down to 100-105 seconds (36-34 trains)?
Steve: The concept of signal block length is meaningless in a moving block system, which is what they will have with ATC. The spacing between trains will be dictated by safe stopping distance. However, as already discussed, there are limitations at terminals that must be removed before shorter headways can even be contemplated. More likely would be a burst of 100 second headway achieved by inserting trains at strategic points (e.g. Davisville southbound), but there are limited opportunities to do this, and for it to work properly, one has to presume there is a gap into which the additional train(s) would fit.
This might allow enough time to build some parallel capacity, I wonder if 33 trains per hour will do much more than deal with the overload, and mop up a good chunk of the pent-up demand, especially if the bus loading standards are restored completely and to the levels during the Ridership Growth Strategy.
Steve: Er .. bus loading standards have nothing to do with demand on the subway. The issue is what capacity of service (and hence ridership) the bus network delivers. Only if you plan to reduce this capacity will you have any effect on train loads, and even then, given the backlog at major stations, I am not sure you would see much of a difference (i.e. buses are now delivering passengers to subway stations faster than trains can take them away during peaks).
I have a hard time thinking it could be 90 seconds (40 trains), just based on load/unload times at peak at Yonge & Bloor. However, even this type of capacity will not address the needs of more than Toronto itself for any period of time.
Steve: The TTC in one of their more fantastical claims for ATC talked about 90 second headways, but this is not practical if trains have to actually stop and serve passengers.
If we actually want to direct/induce the increased travel from within Toronto onto transit it needs to be able to accommodate a much higher growth rate than it is currently experiencing and struggling with. RER or some radical commuter rail improvements are required to deal with load from beyond Toronto, including the area north of Yonge & Steeles, however, better links with this form will be required within Toronto.
I would like to see a system that can comfortably manage the current load, and with a plan that will permit it to reasonably accommodate a 5-8% per annum on going growth (to match the goal of having transit take the lion’s share of the increases in travel). I think this will mean more buses, more express buses, more BRT rights of way, many more streetcars and more enhanced ROW, more LRT as well as one more subway line. If we cannot provide a quick comfortable ride, many more people will drive. If we do make transit faster, and more comfortable, some drivers may just become riders, and many more will never become drivers.
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Interlacing short turns like that by extending Finch isn’t practical. It inconveniences passengers and it’s tricky to do.
The solution is to build a Steeles terminal with two track levels — one track on each level. Instead of a crossover, a facing switch on the upper level’s inbound track would route an incoming train into the upper or lower station platform track. Trains departing from the lower track would simply climb and merge back into the southbound stream without crossing any other track at grade. There could be NEXT TRAIN indicators like the ones Lower Bay had in 1966 so that passengers would know which platform to use. With the grade crossover constraint gone, you can get your headways down.
nfitz … oh sure, after 40 trips the free rides kick in on GO with Presto. Most aren’t going over 40 trips per month. I’m talking about the psychology of it — that model discourages trips that you might have made using a flat rate pass.
I remember when trains could run nose-to-tail with just one block separating them. You would see this on Yonge northbound in the late 80s.
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I’d think that psychologically the new scheme would give additional ridership. As those who were unsure how their month was going to go, wouldn’t buy a pass, and then would instead have to buy single and 10-ride fares – and psychologically would be tempted to drive. Now under these cases, there’s less penalty not to use GO – and no need to worry about whether one had to get a ticket or not.
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I don’t think it is that difficult to do as it happens now at St. Clair West southbound and it happens a lot on an unscheduled basis on Yonge. It is no different than merging the east platform service with that from the west platform at Finch now and your plan below would involve merging trains from the upper and lower track on similar headways as the short turn service.
This is a very intriguing idea and there could be an argument made for it on Yonge at Steeles which has high loading out to Finch right now. An alternative would be to put it beyond the terminal so all trains would leave from the same platform while leaving the leading edge crossover in place for use between the peaks. This would eliminate the double deck station extra cost at the cost of going beyond the end of the station for an extra 1000 feet (300 m).
If it is cheaper to put in a double deck station I believe an argument can still be put in for having a traditional station on top to eliminate the need for using the lower level between rush hours.
While I still believe that scheduling short turn trains will not be a problem it is good to have more “outside of the box” thinking.
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When you get down to this short of a headway, the constraint becomes station dwell time, mainly at Bloor-Yonge, and the ability of the station to get rid of one passenger load before the next one arrives. Even if ATO allows trains to close up on the train ahead as used to happen, it will do no good if the previous train’s passengers have not exited yet. This was a problem at King Station as soon as the subway opened. That extra exit further south was put in with in the first year of service if I recall correctly.
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Sorry Steve, I was talking in a post Steeles extension period. Therefore, the terminal issues would hopefully be dealt with by having a very large increase in capacity there, ie talking about potentially a answer to some of the issues 4 years hence. The moving block issue is good to know.
Steve, what I was thinking was that a large improvement in bus loading standards would induce yet more demand. Thus where a 33 train per hour rate would seem reasonable now, with increased ridership improved bus conditions would create, it would again represent insufficient capacity. I was looking not at restricting its growth, but the demand conditions that would be created on the subway, and therefore the amount of capacity required to get to the point where the buses would not be delivering passengers faster than the subway can take them away.
The issue in my mind is that transit needs to be the answer to moving more people that come with population and employment growth. To do that we need to get people out of their cars and into buses and streetcars. In the case of buses in many areas, a large portion of this ridership will require a subway segment in the journey, hence need more capacity (in economics perspective there exists a large unfilled demand, detered by conditions).
I think that if you actually improved bus conditions, and had subway capacity, ridership would likely jump more than 10% immediately, and then grow well above a rate of 2.5% per year as transit share grew (possibly as high as 5 or 6%). In my mind bus conditions will affect the latent demand for subway, ridership on the subway is in effect supply constrained (left over being termed latent demand). I am not even convinced that 36 trains per hour would reasonably meet the demand that would be enabled with a return to Ridership Growth Strategy bus loading levels within a few years. Ideally ridership should not be supply constrained, which is what you describe above. If we want transit to fill its role of absorbing most trip growth, even the myth of 40 trains per hour would not do it fairly quickly.
I tend to think of demand from the economics perspective, hence latent demand is still demand, just unfilled, demand to subway (and bus and streetcar) is there just not being met. The real question, is how large is that unfilled demand? I suspect if you added the buses to achieve a more comfortable loading condition and the trains per hour for a 33 K subway, it would be full shortly after people realised it was there. 36k would likely be full a couple of years later.
Steve: Ah yes, now I see what you are driving at. There is a huge problem with latent demand especially as one gets further away from the core area. We have built a network for a relatively low modal split in favour of transit, and I suspect that planners are terrified at the implications of, say, achieving even a 20% share in some areas. Getting to 50% would require provision of transit on a scale unknown in our lifetimes.
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The problem in my mind is that if you are going to talk about it being the answer to congestion, it has to be there and viable. Then the rest of the system has to be able to absorb the consequence of the outer areas being capable. Part of this will mean rethinking the tie to GO, or better RER services, so as to not direct all that load to the subways, but part of it needs to be more capacity in the rapid transit portion of the system. I do not care what you do on Yonge, it cannot meet the dream of dealing with all the growth in Toronto.
I think that Don Mills subway has to be built. A Don Mills LRT will also be required, with a stop spacing that will make it an attractive alternative to downtown bound bus riders on Steeles, Finch, York Mills & Lawrence. High frequency RER on Stouffville with a really good bus tie in should also help redirect load at the extremes away from Yonge. This would address natural growth where the transit share (of just the growth) was much higher, but not a switch in basic mode of a large chunk of the overall traffic. BRT and LRT in the outer areas would help a great deal, but I agree, you are talking about a basic transformation in the extent and frequency of transit service. RER in GO corridors to rapid transit levels of frequency, massive increases in the number of buses, and a lot of other services to actually move growth entirely onto transit.
Queen’s Park & City Hall need to start thinking about the possibility of ridership growth jumping 10-15% immediately upon service availability, and a supporting a sustained growth as high as 8% if they are to achieve their stated goals. I think this would be about what is required for transit to effectively absorb all the growth.
Transit City along with these changes would be a start, but not enough. Somebody with a lot more information on destination of travel would need to look at this in detail but a BRT on Steeles East, Finch East and Lawrence East, all meeting RER and Don Mills LRT as well on Kipling and Markham Road meeting both east-west subway and LRT, would likely scratch the surface of a more meaningful transformation.
Without this sort of basic change, growing transit share will be extremely hard, and thus the stated objective of congestion containment will be out of reach.
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Moaz: I remember seeing this kind of layout at the Sheung Wan MTR terminal in Hong Kong. If I remember correctly trains unloaded at the upper level then moved past the station to tail tracks and loaded at the bottom level.
I think the issue with having trains load on different levels would be the same as what happened at St. George during interlining, with people crowding near the stairs while casting an eye on the “next train” signs.
Cheers, Moaz
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Yes, would it not be simpler in terms of loading and future extension just to have a couple of turn arounds? Instead of people unloading at one level and loading at another, or trying to be on the right level, a 2 platform station would already have people unloading from one platform and set of escalators and loading on another, as there would be a north bound platform — which should never see any loading — and a south bound platform — which should never see any unloading except from possibly a cross platform transfer from bus or LRT.
I have a hard time seeing the loading of empty trains from a single platform with no opposing passenger traffic being slow enough that it is a bottleneck, given the issues that will still exist further south.
Another way to handle traffic from north of this point will be required. The Steeles and other buses should not be an issue for this station, and a point should be made that additional traffic from points north cannot be directed here. GO/RER/something to Richmond Hill and beyond will have to take that load, and will need to be frequent enough and well connected enough that passengers bound on or close to Yonge at Eglinton and south will go that way.
If we can overload a 2 platform station, with 5 or 6 escalators in each direction, do we not risk consuming too much capacity for the rest of the line? What loading level is actually reasonable to start with at the end of the line? If we get past say 18-20K passenger at peak hour here are we not in trouble further south on a line with a capacity of 36k?
Steve: Another important point about having considerable storage capacity at or near the north end of Yonge is that additional trains can be fed into the flow during the “superpeak”. It may be challenging to sustain a very frequent service over the entire length, round trip, of the line and actually would be a case of wasting trains where they are not needed. However, it would be much easier to slip an extra train into, say, a 110 second flow to bring the headway down lower when it is most needed.
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Steve, can we have an article outlining the transit agenda of the top 5 mayoral candidates? Which ones support the Downtown Relief Line? Which ones oppose it? Toronto Star is saying that Ford is promising to bury the Eglinton LRT completely if re-elected. I was just wondering if the Eglinton LRT were to be buried all the way to Kennedy and connected with the Scarborough LRT as originally planned, then will this save money over the current plans of having on surface LRT on Eglinton East and a Scarborough subway? Burying the LRT on Eglinton East will obviously cost more money than not doing so but that might boost the case for a Scarborough LRT which will then save money as the Scarborough subway would then be cancelled and a cancelled Scarborough subway to McCowan and Sheppard would also allow the subway to be extended east to the Eglinton GO station.
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Also Steve, just wondering which mayoral candidate do you support? Should we engage in strategic voting as the latest polls are quite disturbing with Ford in second place? Or should we ignore the polls which we have seen are all too often wrong?
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Speaking as someone who knows the Hong Kong MTR, Sheung Wan station is built in two levels because the tracks are built atop one another (a consequence of too many high rises and not enough space). The line in Hong Kong island is stacked atop one another until near the fringes at the end, so East and Westbound platforms are on different levels. Hence the Sheung Wan solution is very expensive as compared to a simpler configuration if you want one way flows: Woodbine and Keele Station. A better question is should we shift the crossover to tail tracks instead of before the station such that trains don’t have to wait for the crossover to clear before moving?
Back to topic, I think we are starting to see the effects of all of those below the line unfunded costs come to fruition. With so many expenditures coming up just in maintenance and regular system upgrades (e.g. signalling system), the Commission is in crisis, as problems in one part causes a cascade effect on maintenance due to cash flow problems (ATU doesn’t like too be paid in IOUs to do the necessary maintenance and upgrades).
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And to add a suburban perspective to the RER/GO trains transit, the majority of users of GO stations in Toronto drive to the station, even though many of the stations are on frequent bus routes. Why should you expect people to pay for a metropass as well as the monthly GO fare (worth around $350 in total) when it would probably be cheaper and more convenient to drive to the GO station? Now if I could get on the GO for the price of a TTC premium fare, then that is something worth looking into. That should be the driving goal for Presto when the majority of TTC users have Presto, else it would be a solution looking for a problem, and another legacy of wasteful spending that the Liberals will have in addition to E-health, ORNGE, gas plants etc.
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Steve, any sense how many riders would transfer to an RER in Stouffville from the eastern end of these bus routes? How many additional riders would it likely attract, assuming the buses were made available? Any sense of how many riders would actually take a short ride east to RER, instead a longer ride west to Yonge, thereby riding the bus in what is now the contra peak direction?
Steve: It all depends on the fare structure and service frequency, not to mention the locations of RER stations. At least the Stouffville line already has one at Kennedy & Eglinton. Further north is more of a challenge. I wish Metrolinx would publish an Origin-Destination map for potential users of this line — we really don’t know what it might achieve until we know where people want to travel. A related problem is the reverse peak flow that was described by some on the Golden panel as the “Big U”, but without explaining how riders would get from the RER line to the employment centres.
Definitely, the RER will have little purpose as an inside-416 relief mechanism if it does not have an attractive fare as an alternative to or jointly with the TTC.
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Sorry, Steve, I was asking that question with regards to RER, because, I think that generally, in order to address quality of service, and capacity on some bus runs, BRT is likely something that should be looked at.
I suspect that BRT on Finch and Steeles east should be desirable projects in terms of service quality…, but without core bound capacity such local improvement might well cause a network wide quality of service degredation.
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On a bit of a tangent, out of curiosity, why does it seem to take so much longer to turn back trains when an emergency arises at a non-terminal station (take Keele for example) in contrast to the turnback time at a regular terminal station like Kipling? I realize operators must change ends of the train, but this could be mitigated through injecting one or two employees (supervisor or otherwise) as a stand-in driver, or, by allowing guarding from the last car of T1 trains. This would help mitigate bunching on the operational part of the line.
Steve: There are two typical problems. First, a train must be offloaded at a point where the riders would not normally exit, and this takes time. Second, these turnbacks are usually done with only one of the two platforms, and this limits the headway to about 5 minutes (a lower value is possible, but given the circumstances, unlikely. Also, at terminals, the signals and switches operate automatically. For an emergency turnback, this has to be done manually by someone at Transit Control.
All that said, I often wonder myself why some emergency turnbacks don’t have more “urgency” to their operation.
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Moaz: That’s the layout of Sheung Wan terminal and the stacked platforms in the Bangkok Metro. If you want to switch between platforms you have to back up to concourse level.
Cheers, Moaz
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Not much detail but clearly (to me anyway!) POP means that we also need timed transfers. If I have a transfer and board by the rear doors I could presumably have committed the (current) crime of having walked to the next stop. An inspector would not know where I got on unless s/he were lurking beside the doors.
Today at Public Works Committee there was a letter in support from 4 Councillors on the 504.
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