In the first part of this series, I discussed The New Geography of Office Location, 2011, and then in the second part, its successor A Region in Transition, 2013. Now, I will turn to The Business Case for the Regional Relief Line, October 2013. All three papers were produced by SRRA (Strategic Regional Research Associates).
Only a 17 page summary version of the Relief Line report is available online, compared to the full versions of the first two. Considering the clear influence this series of reports has had on transit policy and the recent election campaign, the idea that
Detailed research is available to Investment Partners of SRRA [Page 1]
leaves a big hole in the range for public comment and review. I hope that Metrolinx will rectify this situation as part of whatever studies might take place.
My thanks to those of you who slogged through the first two articles.
Section 1. Background
The report begins with a clear statement of its origins:
The “Regional Relief Line” (RRL) was first developed in 2009 by Real Estate Search Corp and the CUI resulting from the research conducted in the study known as the “New Geography of Office Location”. This research showed that the location of employment had shifted from the centre of the City to several suburban nodes and employees in these nodes had no alternative to the automobile. [Page 1]
[For clarity, “Real Estate Search Corp” and SRRA have overlapping membership and should not be considered as separate entities in this context.]
From the first two reports, we know that the problem of how to serve suburban office development was a great concern, but no specific solution was put forward even though, according to this text, one was already being developed.
In a truly breathtaking claim, we read:
The new approach to solving congestion had to include reaching beyond the 416 and relieving congestion on the highways in the 905 as well as relieving transit congestion downtown. By identifying the route which forms the RRL the authors believed that the majority of the suburban auto congestion and the downtown transit congestion could be addressed in one high value project. [Page 1]
This is one of the more creative pieces of writing I have seen from a planning consultant during my long years watching transit issues. The idea that any one line can solve highway congestion in the 905 and transit congestion downtown presumes that it also addresses many choke points on the regional transportation network. Quite bluntly, that is a physical impossibility, and it should not require many paragraphs of detailed explanation as to why. In brief there are large areas in the regional network that are nowhere near the catchment area of this “relief line” and they cannot be affected by its implementation.
In another interesting claim, the report states:
The findings of the research as of October 2013 were provided to the Transit Investment Strategy Advisory Panel (TISAP) headed by Anne Golden co-chaired by Paul Bedford and included SRRA co-founder Iain Dobson. Much of the core evidence and conclusions from this study helped form the many recommendations of the panel which address the issue of creating high value, high capacity, and high ridership transit. [Page 1]
Well, no, actually, it did not. From my own conversations with Paul Bedford, I know that there was some discussion of “The Big U” which was the name used to describe the proposed Relief Line (to distinguish it from “The Little U” which we all know better as the “Downtown Relief Line”). However, the Advisory Panel’s mandate did not include making alterations to the Metrolinx Big Move, only to discuss how whatever transit projects might be built would be funded. Iain Dobson is now, but was not then, a member of the Metrolinx Board, and was an unofficial advisor to former Minister of Transportation Glen Murray.
Section 2. Introduction
We begin with another sweeping claim:
The “Regional Relief Line” (RRL) connects the majority of the Region’s office employment clusters, offering employers and employees an unprecedented degree of mobility choice, considerable reduction in commute time, significant congestion relief in the 905 and the downtown core. It further permits growth of employment in established nodes creating the necessary conditions for the Region to remain competitive.
The RRL delivers extraordinary value for public investment by creating solutions to congestion in by transit terms and has the potential to be implemented quickly without disrupting other transportation options. It will generate over 500,000 new riders within 5 years of commencing operations. It generates this high value by transforming a series of individual rail-based corridors into a cohesive, high speed, high frequency transit system. The RRL will connect to and incorporate the following existing projects or projects under construction to create the most important interconnected network possible for relieving congestion. [Page 2]
As we know from the earlier reports, the focus was on a number of nodes notably the 404/407 office cluster, the Airport Corporate Centre, the core and its satellite “brick and beam” districts. We also know that other potential nodes were systematically ignored on the basis that they were stagnant, even though they might already have substantial transit demand. The overwhelming consideration was to provide more transit to make office parks more viable as sites of greater development.
The claim of half a million new riders is quite a stretch, but I will leave that until we come to more details later in the report. To put this in context, daily TTC ridership is about 1.8 million distinct rides, and this probably translates to something like 750-900k individual riders. Getting 500k new transit riders (never mind those who may already be on transit) would be quite a feat.
Important words here are “high speed, high frequency transit system”. However, what is proposed is not a system, but one line, and both the speeds and frequency proposed (a) bear no relationship to what is practical or reasonable, not to mention (b) being significantly more aggressive as a transit operation that what was proposed in SmartTrack. That’s an important distinction because some of the claims for the RRL found their way, unchanged, into claims for SmartTrack, notably ridership estimates.
The line is purported to give many new options for travel on a variety of routes including some local streetcar lines. In fact, the RRL only crosses these lines, and not necessarily at a station. The degree to which it would provide an alternate path for the local type of travel taken on these routes is minimal.
The unique opportunity to serve employment destinations at either end of the line will result in highly productive passenger loads on trains in BOTH directions. This has only been successfully achieved in a few transit projects in the history of transit. [Page 2]
Without question, the holy grail of any transit planner is a route with bi-directional demand where what might otherwise be a low volume counterpeak move actually carries passengers. We can see this any day on the King car that serves a variety of neighbourhoods and does not exist simply to bring people downtown.
However, it is one thing to sit at the bottom of a funnel in the core of Toronto at Union Station collecting riders from several widely-space origins, and quite another to connect outward to a suburban node. For starters, many (most?) of the people working at those nodes will originate either beyond the end of the RRL, or they will come from directions it does not serve (e.g. east and west of a node in Markham). They will certainly not go out of their way to take a route that does not serve their trip unless it offers a massive advantage.
RRL will provide high frequency, high capacity and high speed transit service to car-dependent office employment clusters in Mississauga and Markham. These two clusters already have enough ridership potential (150,000 jobs in each) to make the RRL an instant ridership success and provide immediate congestion relief in the two busiest suburban areas of the Region. [Page 2]
However, the 300,000 jobs (and note that these are potential jobs, not existing ones) will not all be commuters from south of Markham and from east of Mississauga.
As for the core:
In Toronto’s Financial Core – already well serviced by transit – the line will offer significant relief to overcrowding on the Yonge line. Transit commuters will have the choice to go directly downtown from the ends of the Danforth and the Bloor subways in less than half the time or transfer from the busy Queen and King Street car or use the new crosstown LRT at Eglinton to access the core from the east or west – all for the same fare. The line will also allow employment growth to occur at “shoulder” nodes such as Liberty Village and the Lever Bros site, permitting continued growth of the core’s employment districts.
For starters, the reference to the “ends” of the Danforth and Bloor subways implies that the route will take the CPR/GO Milton corridor passing by Kipling Station. This is quite different from the Weston/Eglinton route proposed by SmartTrack and shown in the RRL map later in the report. Next, the viability of a transfer to RRL at Kennedy or Kipling presumes that (a) the service is frequent enough that a less direct transfer connection is tolerable and (b) that riders are destined for somewhere served by the RRL. We all know of the anguish caused by the SRT to subway transfer at Kennedy, and moreover, once the Scarborough subway opens, riders would need a strong incentive to get off trains westbound at Kennedy to transfer to the RRL. Kennedy will no longer be the end of the line.
(By the way, a Kipling connection aligns better with the “Big U” discussed by Paul Bedford that would have operated via the GO Milton corridor in the west end. Possibly someone had second thoughts about this idea, and switched to the Eglinton alignment, problems and all, closer to the publication date.)
Next, we see that the Lever site finally makes an appearance. Between it and Liberty Village, we now have potential relief for office space growth in the core. This was an explicit concern of the earlier reports that treated the core as if it were almost “full”.
Transferring from the Queen or King lines to the RRL imposes a time penalty both on the rider for transferring, and on the RRL itself for providing more local stops. Moreover, the riders have to be bound directly for Union Station because otherwise they would be better off just staying on their streetcars.
The RRL enables the network to add over 250,000 commuters during both the morning and evening rush hours, … [Page 3]
These are added riders, but we are also diverting traffic off of the existing network, and so the total ridership must be even higher. That 250k showed up in the SmartTrack campaign material, but for a service with comparatively short trains running every 15 minutes. Some basic math is in order.
- If we assume a four-car train with a design capacity of about 650 (that’s roughly equivalent to a train on the Sheppard subway), we are looking at 2,600 passengers per hour at the peak point for the proposed SmartTrack headway.
- Assuming that there is both a west side and an east side “peak”, and that we are able to attract an equal demand outbound, we might get up to around 10k/hour if the trains are full on both legs in both directions.
- Generously, there are six peak hours per day, and so that gets us to 60k riders. If the off peak period carries (over more hours) an equal demand (the TTC actually carries about 60% of its riders off peak), we are now at 120k daily riders. This is far short of 250k, let alone the combined total of the new and existing demands that appear to be presumed.
Then we come to the question of travel times:
Most significant will be the time saved by commuters coming to the core from places like Rexdale and Etobicoke in the northwest and Scarborough in the northeast; all these commuters will enjoy a 50% reduction in travel time and convenience. [Page 3]
The exact calculation of this saving does not appear in the report, but it is likely that it applies only to the leg of the journey actually taken on the RRL, not to the full trip that will almost certainly include a bus feeder. Also, as we will see later, the claimed speed for RRL greatly exceeds what is practical given the station spacing and track geometry of the lines it would use.
In this Nirvana, the RRL will have, among other benefits:
Created two-way peak traffic where fare revenue will exceed operating costs allowing for the elimination of operational subsidies. This will afford transit planners greater financial ability to continue to expand the system instead of subsidizing transit solutions with sub optimal ridership.
Reduced commute times by at least 15 minutes and in some cases over 45 minutes for over 250,000 commuters improving the quality of life for employees.
Given high speed access (maximum commute of 45 minutes) to employment for over 750,000 people, a benefit to employers making expansion more competitive in the Region. [Page 3]
Anyone who tells me they are going to make money on transit is immediately suspect, and the challenge here is that this is a claim that can blind gullible readers (for which read politicians) who leap at the thought of a project they can announce, but won’t have to pay for.
Partial capital funding will come from beneficiaries of its services. [Page 3]
This is an echo of the financing scheme for CrossRail, and it makes big assumptions that there will be buy-in from affected property owners.
And by the bottom of page 3, we have:
The RRL will have unlocked the capacity of businesses to grow, people to get to work with many choices, and increase the capacity of the entire Region Transport system by over 20%. Estimated new ridership is 500,000 passengers per day.
Sounds marvellous (but is that 500k passengers, or 500k riders — they are not the same thing), but it all depends on running a service that can actually attract and carry them.
In previous articles, I have not reproduced the illustrations because they were too numerous, but it’s worth putting the RRL map here for reference. [Source Page 4, click for a larger version.]
Here we clearly see that the RRL does not go near to Kipling Station, and using it would require transferring closer to the core at Dundas West where the time saving would be rather less than a transfer at Kipling. The RRL also makes that turn west onto Eglinton in Mt. Dennis which has been the subject of some discussion in the SmartTrack context.
Section 2.1 About the Regional Relief Line
This type of transit solution is called a “surface subway” because it moves quickly between stops unimpeded by other transit or pedestrians, and carries as many as 70,000 people per hour. [Page 4]
70k/hour you say! Amazing! And with what technology? Service frequency?
The RRL will operate through a 62.8 km of rail on the surface. Two additional parts of the system can be added at a later date to further improve the project and they will be underground. Those options are underground subway components (10.47 km) under central Toronto and the airport. These two additional high value parts of the project can be phased in as required. [Page 4]
During the election campaign, there was some debate about whether “SmartTrack” included any tunnels, but this question focussed on the difficulty of the Eglinton West leg. Now we can see that RRL has tunnels, but not on Eglinton West. They are an airport link north from the Airport Corporate Centre, and a future tunnel through downtown as a bypass for congestion at Union Station. The link from Weston’s rail corridor to the airport is quite definitely on the surface on the RRL map.
We also learn that the Meadowvale to ACC leg of the RRL would unlock the growth potential in the Airport Corporate Centre. This presumes that the majority of the net addition of commuters could reach the ACC via the RRL. More generally, we learn that the RRL will open up many areas to redevelopment along its route. [Pages 4-5] That is possible only for land adjacent to stations, and more stations means slower trains, a tradeoff the report does not explore.
Where Do Those Capacity Numbers Come From?
I have to jump out of sequence here because so many of the report’s conclusions depend on the speed of the line, the frequency of the service and its total capacity. For this we must jump ahead to section 2.5 New Trains and Stations starting on Page 11.
The rolling stock, a new high speed electric train which looks and feels very much like the new subway cars on the TTC, will be assembled in Ontario, built tested and delivered in a similar manner as the rolling stock for Crossrail in the UK which allows for the cost effective delivery of the rolling stock over time and the provision of new capacity as the system grows. Benefits of the new Rolling Stock are speed, comfort, flexibility and safety. They have the capacity to be lengthened as need be. Initially they will run on 5 minute intervals at peak hours but increase frequency easily and cost effectively as demand grows.
The new trains are being designed to meet the needs of passengers Greater Toronto Area. They will travel at speeds of up to 160kmh thereby delivering fast cross town service. Critical to increased speed is the spacing between stations, which is why stations are on average more than 2.5 kms apart. They will be electric and organized by the world`s most advanced signalling system allowing the frequency of service up to every 90 seconds if demand requires. Initially frequent (less than 4 minutes between trains) service can be delivered at peak demand times, while less frequent as demand reduces.
With Crossrail rolling stock as the model, we launch into an operating model of 5 minute headways initially (12 trains/hour, or 3 times the capacity proposed for SmartTrack) or is it a less than 4 minute headway as claimed in the next paragraph?
As for 90 second headways, that will not happen unless these trains have completely exclusive right of way for reasons that have been discussed at length here before. Conventional rail traffic cannot co-exist with a rapid transit operation, especially an automated operation needed for very frequent service.
The experience will be similar to the new TTC subway cars, only they will carry slightly more passengers with more seating and travel at twice the speed. [Page 11]
As for speed, 160kmh is faster than GO trains except, possibly, on a few stretches with widely spaced stations and a high track speed. At the RRL station spacing, especially east of Union, it would be impossible to run this fast because trains would be stopping before they reached top speed. Also, operation at this speed on the shared GO network would have implications at stations RRL did not serve, and would place demands on track geometry that may not be physically possible to build.
Now let’s go back to where we left off:
Section 2.2 Benefits of Phased Delivery
The report proposes that RRL be implemented in stages:
1. Markham to Union
The report claims a travel time of 21 minutes from what is now Ellesmere Station to Union via RRL. The overall travel time is about 40 minutes from Markham to Union (implied by the text) as compared with 47 minutes for GO trains today. The authors compare this to a small saving available to users of the Scarborough Subway (amusingly setting up a competition between the two routes which, in today’s political climate, will both be built). Of course, the last time I looked, Ellesmere Station is not at Scarborough Town Centre, and one must add the access time for the roughly 2km jaunt eastward.
A major issue for the Markham end of the line is that the rail corridor is somewhat distant from the actual job centre. This link would depend on the York VIVA BRT network, a rather odd way to deal with inbound traffic to a major employment node, and a chunk of the commuting time about which the report is silent.
2. ACC to Union (2019)
This is the most problematic for RRL and SmartTrack because the authors don’t know what they are talking about here.
This phase will take a little longer to complete than the Markham phase because there are no tracks on the section from Mt Denis to the Airport Corporate Centre. This right of way will take longer to design and obtain approval in an EA process. It is owned by the Province and was intended to be an expressway.
There is ample room for the dedicated right of way. [Page 6]
The right of way is not owned by the province, but by the City of Toronto which has been selling it off for new housing developments. There is not ample room for the dedicated right-of-way.
Note that this claim implies that the line would not be underground because otherwise it would not require a right-of-way. This is the same location where surface LRT operation was met with great hostility, in part because of bad design for LRT/traffic intersections. They should have lots of fun with a high speed RRL train that will need a well-protected corridor.
At no point is it explained how the line will get from the Weston rail corridor to the former Richview Expressway lands on Eglinton that begin west of the Humber River. I discussed this in some detail in my review of John Tory’s SmartTrack line.
3. Meadowvale to Airport Corporate Centre (2021)
This corridor from ACC to Meadowvale runs parallel to the 401 highway and connects the Hurontario LRT and Go Lines to employment areas currently containing over 100,000 commuters. The 401 highway is the most congested roadway in the Region, with all commuters completely auto-dependent. This is also a heavily travelled trucking corridor which needs to be freed up for the movement of goods and services. [Page 6]
If capacity is needed for trucking, this must occur on more than a comparatively short stretch of the 401. Only commuting traffic that is actually diverted onto RRL counts against such a benefit, and one must ask whether the highways would simply backfill with latent demand.
4. Wellington Street Union Relief Subway (2022)
This phase would shift the RRL into a dedicated subway from west of Bathurst to Broadview. For the benefit of readers, this is similar to the alignment I have often advocated for the DRL subway.
This tunnel, whatever runs in it, will be one of the most complex parts of any new cross-downtown line. It is intriguing that it magically can be in service in less than a decade under this proposal when a similar structure for the DRL almost certainly would have a much longer claimed delivery date.
5. Subway Connection to Pearson (2024)
This phase would see an underground branch off of the RRL to directly serve Pearson Airport. Of course the same service, as a surface operation, was proposed as part of the Eglinton LRT.
And so, yes, gentle reader, we could have all this in a mere 10 years if only we started today.
Section 2.3 Future Demand
The forecast growth in the GTA is quite substantial with 3 million more people living here by 2036. This represents a huge growth in travel both for work and for other purposes. Transit demand is expected to rise by 45%. This sounds impressive, but not quite so when put beside a projected 50% increase in regional population.
Even with RRL and its claims, we would not be keeping up. Moreover, many parts of the GTA would not be served by RRL. It is designed primarily around a handful of development nodes, and if it serves anything else, that’s o-by-the-way.
If we are really talking about that scale of population growth, and we intend to increase transit’s share of the market, we will need much more than one new RRL route. Moreover, it can only make a dent in the demand provided it operates as a rapid transit line, not as a now-and-then commuter rail system. There lie the two challenges: changing the operating rules for the rail corridors in general, and recognizing that large-scale improvements to transit will be needed throughout the region.
Unfortunately, thanks to the absence of details, the claims of large scale reductions in present congestion are unsupported by information such as demand models, and there is no discussion of the degree to which vacated capacity will be backfilled rather than bringing an actual reduction in congestion.
Preliminary calculations put the number of cars which will be initially taken off the road on a daily basis at 70,000. This is a number which will have an exponential impact on mobility of the highways of the Region and will reduce congestion significantly. [Page 11]
We are going to carry 250k riders in each of the peak periods, but we are only going to reduce car traffic by 70k? The key word is “initially” and it gives some sense of the early days riding and benefits that are anticipated rather than the much grander numbers for a full buildout.
Section 3. The Economic Case for Regional Relief Line
This section depends on some of the questionable techniques we have seen in Metrolinx “benefits/business case analyses”. The first and most obvious is that the construction cost and effort is counted as a benefit. That is a misleading premise because it completely avoids the question of whether spending $X billion is the best use of the money, and not just within the limited scope of transit alternatives. I can create economic stimulus simply by handing out $20 bills, a tactic already employed by one recently retired Toronto Councillor.
Spending extra billions because someone has their heart set on a more expensive option is not necessarily the best investment of public funds.
The report claims that there is
a cost benefit ratio of 2.5 to 1 making it on a par with the most valuable transit projects in the world [Page 12]
At this point we are at pure fantasy because the assumptions behind this claim are not published. With the grandiose claims made for the success of this project, it is no wonder it has a high ratio. Is this genuine, or are we talking Florida swamp land? This claim really needs detailed review, and the numbers should be in the public domain. There should be no “commercial confidentiality” about estimating the cost and benefits of a public investment on this scale.
There is no question that improved service levels and quality on the GO network will have a major effect on its attractiveness and on travel patterns within the GTA. However, there is no one magic solution, and claiming that the RRL or whatever we call it can be the one project that makes all others unnecessary is a simplistic attempt to highjack the discussion for one favoured project and for the land developments it will support.
Metrolinx is supposed to be planning regionally for all of the region, not just for those corners where a rail corridor conveniently strings together development sites of interest.
After the detailed planning background in the Geography and Transition reports, the so-called Business Case for the Regional Relief line is almost a parody, the kind of sloppy, half-baked paper one expects from amateurs, not from professionals. Metrolinx and Mayor Tory should be wary, and should review the claims made for RRL/SmartTrack with care.
Steve Munro 
Kevin’s comment:
When you do review these papers, I will be interested in your opinion on:
1. The claim that for the Regional Relief Line (ie SmartTrack) “fare revenue will exceed operating costs allowing for the elimination of operational subsidies.”
Source: Page 3, first bullet point
2. “Estimated new ridership is 500,000 passengers per day.”
Source: Page 3, last bullet point.
3. “…carries as many as 70,000 people per hour.” Source, Page 4.
4. “… routing RRL through a new underground tunnel at Wellington Street…” Source, Page 5.
5. “…a new superstation under Wellington Street between University and Yonge St… expected to attract private sector investment to pay for the construction of the station” Source Page 7.
6. Pages 3 and 6 both contain claims of a 50% reduction in commute times.
7. “The Meadowvale phase is the only land acquisition part of the RRL system.” Page 6.
8. “The new trains… will travel at speeds of up to 160kmh… They will be electric and organized by the world`s most advanced signalling system allowing the frequency of service up to every 90 seconds if demand requires.” Page 11.
Steve, what is your opinion of the feasibility of trains running every 90 seconds at 160 km/hr carrying 70,000 passengers per hour with zero operating subsidies?
Steve: I hope this article met your expectations. The report brings boosterish fantasy to new heights not seen in Toronto since the heady days of magnetic levitation trains 40 years ago.
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Funny. The RRL map looks like it was created in Microsoft Paint on an existing background layer. The digital equivalent to the “back of a napkin” drawing.
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Curious if a big-U Wellington SMRTTRK alignment would end up conflicting with a small-U DRL on Wellington…or is it the sort of thing where they could build 4 tunnels (maybe stacked) and run them both….
If it’s one or the other, there needs to be a very public and well-done report on which one should be chosen…and TTC/Metrolinx need to stay very, very neutral until the report comes out…
I guess there might be other alignments through the core (Queen, King, Richmond, Adelaide maybe Dundas) for a DRL….but of course a DRL that goes from Pape to Dundas would likely not solve the issues at Bloor/Yonge…
Steve: The RRL/SmartTrack only needs its own tunnel if it will run extremely frequently, and with the constraints on the rail corridors, this is unlikely. Wellington should be reserved for the DRL.
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Hi Steve:-
Wow I’m impressed by your ability to slog through such a mountain of ‘facts’ in those reports that you have cited. I appreciate it as you have made it a reasonable read for me, thank you. It is interesting to note that this ‘Big U’ now has four names, the BU one, the rebranded ‘Tory Smart Track’, RRL and the original RER.
I guess by using all of these names, wool over eyes can be more easily applied.
I have long proposed greater use of the north south Uxbridge sub for expanded GO service. But surface subway, well I must think on that.
Sheesh, and to think we came so close to the beginnings of a transit ‘network’ with LRTs. Too good to be true I guess so it had to be squashed. But in my conspiracy theory, if the LRTs had been built on time, we would have had to have committed and be spending money we don’t have. So much better to let the project change, morph, be rethunk ad infinitum than actually do anything that would actually aid us. So seriously sad.
Dennis Rankin
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Steve good article, enjoy the considered comment, including this one. I like to further note Steve that there is the beginnings of the opportunity to serve reverse commuting, as people will start to opt to live downtown, and use the RER to counter commute, provided there is high quality transit at the far end (currently not likely), and a good way for them to access that line at/near the core. Your previous commentary on the poor service to Union on Spadina and the massive overcrowding of transit at & near the core of course makes this much less likely. To make this fabulous idea work, requires as you have noted a real system of collection and distribution at both ends. Something that is currently weak in most areas, hence it being such a rare achievement. Driving your car to transit to head to a high transit service area works, riding transit to an area that requires a car does not.
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Dennis, I agree that it is sad, however, I suspect that at the time (ie if Miller’s timing had been left alone) the federal government would have been happy to fund much of it under the Action plan (big political points). The real issue here was to get Toronto, and Queen’s Park to get out of the way. The political need in Ottawa has now passed, and the realisation that we have no money has set in again, and the option that would have likely grown the tax base by more than its costs, appears to also have passed (really there, but somehow politics have moved on). I think it is not so much a conspiracy as it is stupidity and political opportunism, which to me is actually worse, as it is the electorate itself calling the tune (for lack of real thought).
I would be willing to bet, that a good economic impact study, just in terms of real tax revenue that would be generated in Ontario, the LRTs are unique in the projects in that their impact is large enough and cost small enough that on a 10 year time horizon, I would bet the pure increase in taxes (excluding property tax impact) would swamp the cost of construction and operation. That is I think it would be net revenue positive to the government through increased business activity, and employment without having to net in non government revenue impacts.
I do not believe that will be so on the mega subway projects and I doubt it for Smarttrack. I would love to see the econometric model and assumptions required to justify the other projects on such a basis.
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Dear Transport Minister,
Great bumping into you on the greens again yesterday. Like I was saying … companies are chomping at the bit to build a subway-like service from Union Station to Pearson. With all the airport riders, workers and offices around Pearson, a subway-like service would be a real cash cow. The rails are mostly built already, so we could get it up and running in 2 or 3 years max, without a penny of government money. Anyways, thanks for agreeing to put the RFP out, as I’m sure plenty of companies will reply. We understand money’s tight, and figure it’s our duty to take this burden off your hands.
Hope your wife enjoyed the flowers, and, as usual, we’ll see you at the next fundraiser.
S.N.C.
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Tory wants to create a separate track with some sort of technology that is incompatible with GO. I don’t think this is a good idea because there is not enough room for additional tracks in certain areas, particularly on Lakeshore East. Also Tory does not say anything about how the rest of the GO train system will be improved. Why does this remind me of GO ALRT? Tory needs to use the existing plans for this corridor, which means Metrolinx’s plans for Georgetown and Stouffville expansion and the western portion of Eglinton LRT.
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Steve, have you ever considered running for office? You couldn’t possibly screw things up more than they already are. Many thanks for putting these three articles together – I echo others’ praise on wading through all the “Facts” for us less educated readers.
Having done computer simulation with the aid of easing Vancouver’s congestion (a trivial “issue” compared to anything Toronto faces) for the better part of a year, I wonder somewhat seriously whether the time and cost of simulating the entire GTA with live data with the aim of planning transit would be comparable to generating these reports. At least it wouldn’t suggest 160km/h trains on 90 second headways (HA!).
On a somewhat more serious note, I wonder how problems like these would be tackled if Toronto had the same attitude towards transit as, say, NYC…i.e. the majority preferred it. Would we start to see support for the scale of improvement required? Or would we continue to complain about every tiny issue, while ignoring the increasingly critical problem of over congestion on more and more lines? I worry that Toronto now needs a fundamental change in transit to catch up to itself (the 45% transit increase vs. 50% growth echos this), and that we’ll never get there if we can’t even build one. More. Line.
We clearly have real issues with creating remotely realistic plans, so I’ll add a few more to the mix – replace the entire go network with subways, and add stops every 1 km. BAM, six new subway lines! While we’re at it, remove every streetcar stop not a major intersection, and use good ol’ concrete to force them into their own right of way – BAM, 7 more! Now we’ve got like 17 subways criss-crossing every which way, from downtown to the 905 and everything in between. I mean, there’s no more local transit anywhere in the core, and the regional commutes take twice as long…but who cares, amiright?! I can feel the crazy rubbing off on me… :S
P.S. Crazy as the above is, I do sometimes wish they’d remove every second streetcar stop, even if only during peak hours. Yonge, Victoria, Church? You’ve got to be kidding!
Steve: Although there are a few locations with closely spaced stops, they are the exception, not the rule. I may pull together an article on this because the topic comes up regularly, but at the scale of entire routes, it is a red herring.
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It would seem to me that where there is room, the ROW could be used to meet in 416 demand. However, I believe the RER plan needs to be done as “Regional Express Rail”. That would allow for the current GO stops, but not adding a large number.
Perhaps there may be room for additional tracks for local LRT services to support ridership within and beyond Scarborough, whether there would be demand enough to support this with RER in place is another question.
The idea put forward that 70,000 passengers per hour can be served seems ludicrous. However, just as important would be the issue of, is there actually the demand, and is there a reasonable prospect of their being the demand to build a technology at this level. I personally suspect that simple EMU with reasonable length trains, or even LRT at high frequency would provide the reasonably required capacity.
Before we get all caught up in details of this plan, or any other, we need to talk about the real demand that is to be served. If the last mile or detailed routing issues cannot be resolved by the detail level we have… Then we need a highly detailed survey of origins and destinations, the province should be asking schools, and employers across the city and region, for their hours of operation and the postal codes of their students and employees.
Alternately, some of this information could be requested from Revenue Canada, as a closed dataset, stripped of anything but origin and destination postal codes. Does not give the required time of day information, but would get us very close.
Both SmartTrack, and Ford Subway proposals both draw a line on the map, and then use politics and pressure on planners and skewing land use models to create justification. This is a very expensive way to discover you built a massive and nearly useless network.
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The problem if I may, is that people likely feel that they are stopped far too much of the time. Perhaps people would worry less about the frequency of stops, if someone would just go and address the issue of Signal priority. I really liked the wording you chose on this issue a couple of weeks ago ie “creating a wave of green”.
When you finish boarding and are then watch the facing light turn red, the fact that you stopped a block ago suddenly feels much more material than it should. This likely increases greatly the perceived cost of this stop (even though the light is random from the perspective of the streetcar).
I am personally of the mind that mixing in new plans, rather than getting down to the business of building what the models say should be built in the order the models dictate, is pure politics in the worst sense of the word.
I believe that real modelling was used to tell us that we need the Downtown Relief line, and that it will eventually be required to a minimum of Eglinton, well tell you what spend your billions there. Model says LRT in Scarborough RT will addresses that need, well get down to it. Model before somebody forced it said subway is Sheppard would be a mistake, guess what it was, oops.
The issue in Toronto comes down to BS politics and management. I hope that our new Mayor can see that and get down to the issue of governing, to create the best possible Toronto, and that starts with being realistic, with what can be reasonably be done now and later. So tell you what new AVL and real transit priority, along with real route management should be priority 1 for the city. Priority 2, well not sure if that is replacement of RT or DRL, both need to be addressed now. Finch West and Sheppard are both relatively small projects, so go ahead.
After this is done, we can come back and talk, and look ahead at what is required. However these projects were largely developed with the reality 0n the ground and existing ridership and land use in mind. That is how we need to move forward. RER for the region, yes, and likely ridership, needs to dictate what order.
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PS Steve, I think we should be calling the Sheppard subway, the Lastman Goof. The fact that this was forced despite all the best advice, is something that should be hammered on, and retained as a clear part of his legacy, and how much of a mistake it was should be harped on. Perhaps if this is done, Mayors would not want their names associated with such sillyness in perpetuity, and will strive to have their names associated with the most appropriate and prized routes. Having Mirabel airport named after you would be a slap, Malton or Dorval however, well that is another story.
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This is actually the norm on a busy street (like King or Queen). Typically, a streetcar arriving at a red light (an optimal time to load, in theory) will end up behind 2 or more cars, and will be too far from the corner to load (at least as operations seem to go). The car must then wait for the green, roll forward 20m and then start loading, at about the same time the pedestrian countdown starts. The streetcar will almost never make it through that green, and will need to wait another cycle of the light.
This is worst on King, westbound, at Yonge and Bay, since the curb lane on the far side of both of those intersections is used as a taxi stand. (And there are often stopped vehicles between Victoria and Yonge too.) This forces all traffic to squeeze into the left lane, reducing the throughput of those intersections, and putting more traffic into the left lane where it will get in the way of the streetcar.
What’s really annoying about this is that every time I’ve looked, the only signage on those blocks is either for no stopping, or at a minimum no stopping in rush hour. Nothing about a permitted taxi stand, and yet the taxis are _always_ there, blocking traffic. If the city is serious about improving traffic flow, they need to move the taxis. (Certainly there’s no reason they can’t be waiting on Adelaide, it’s only about 20m further from the First Canadian Place elevators than King St. is, and we could get rid of some of the street parking there to accommodate a sanctioned taxi stand.)
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I am not sure how you could effectively enforce this short of having an officer sitting on the corner all the time. You would expect that as soon as the driver knew an officer was about to appear to ticket them they would scram. Perhaps it will require use of camera surveillance, and photo radar like enforcement for these people, (with the fine going against the taxi license??), so that the driver must assume that enforcement is there and ticketing him whether he/she can see it or not.
Clearly we do not want the cabbies or any vehicle sitting on the corner. Ideally real well marked stands out of traffic would be better, where there were a limited number of cabs sitting and not circulating or blocking traffic. Where there is real room to create this would be the issue, however, blocking King street should not be an option. Having stopped vehicles in the curb lane also makes it very hard to practically enforce any exclusivity for the streetcar.
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Hi Steve:
I’m not sure whether to place this here or not but I saw something on the City News last night that caught my attention. I left the link below. I’m just curious about this SmartTrack, do anyone know exactly what form of mode of transportation (subway or GO Train or something new)?
Steve, you need to give yourself a pat on the back 🙂
Steve: SmartTrack itself, no we don’t know what it is. The so-called Business Case report talks of new trains being developed although they are for CrossRail services in London. Sounds like something a tad bigger than a subway car but with robust propulsion and suspension so that it can operate at higher speed. Given the disconnect between the service described in the Business Case and in Tory’s campaign literature, it’s really hard to know what vehicles they were talking about. Hot air would be the likely power source.
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That would be amazing, the mere discussion with regards to unbuilt transit would likely provide it with ample power, and of course this massive untapped source of power for transit would go a long way to explain how it can be run profitably.
Steve: What is also amusing about the “Business Case” report is that it talks about the RRL vehicles as if they are already being designed with a view to imminent manufacture. Somebody either has their verb tenses screwed up, or there’s a nice example of Bombardier getting ahead of themselves on product development. Now if only they could just deliver orders we have already placed …
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The capabilities described based on what you have said, seem to make the applicability very thin, at least in my mind. The capacity is beyond what I can see being required, given the densities along most of the line, and the implied access times.
Also the notion of getting to 160kph and 2.5 km stop spacing, also seems out of keeping with anything that could actually run at that sort of headway (90 seconds), Would you not have to take your seat prior to leaving the station at that sort of acceleration? If so would doing so not basically make the requisite dwell time virtually impossible? At that sort of headway the size of the trains required in order to support 70K capacity would seem to indicate people standing, or an extremely large train with a massive number of doors. It would seem to me that regardless of product development, the limits of the people boarding and alighting would be stretched to make this sort of thing work.
I think I am far more comfortable with technology that I know exists, and where I can see a network being evolved, as opposed to a big bang type solution. I am of the mind that this is also a solution to a problem other than the one the GTA has. I do not believe that a single line can address the dispersed even scattered nature of the real problem(s) the GTA has.
So Steve, I am with you, the more I read about the ideas underlying this, the less convinced I become. At least in my mind Toronto does not really have a single huge problem with congestion, but rather a huge number of small problems. This will likely mean a wide network of much lower capacity lines and routes and likely a single really high capacity additional line (and even that will not be 70k) that will act to collect many smaller routes.
RER makes sense, but it needs to be rolled out, and be regional, and can be built with basic EMU cars. I would prefer that the focus be on solving the real transit and capacity issues before us, more attractive GO service for Richmond Hill and Markham, Union Station, Yonge Line, the Lakeshore East railway corridor … and most of all basic bus, and surface transit around the city.
I would argue that the East Bayfront LRT is more important than SmartTracks, and the Eglinton & Don Mills to Core subway is much more important. The time being wasted here should be spent on getting plans for these underway, and finding the additional buses to get good basic service, and get back to building LRT, including in Scarborough (just build all the Transit City proposals so there is a full loop).
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I think there should be a challenge along the lines of the Ansari X-Prize for the most creative engineering solution that would allow passengers to board and disembark from trains running at the speed and headway suggested in this report without requiring subsequent hospitalization.
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P.S. and get Traffic Management to serve TTC and TTC management to actually run their service to schedule.
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Kevin’s comment:
Yes, it did meet my expectations. It is profoundly disturbing that the Mayor of Toronto wants to hire people who show such basic incompetence.
This paper shows the two basic flaws that I see over and over again from people who do not know what they are talking about.
1. Fundamentally, there is not and cannot be one single magic silver bullet of a line on a map that solves Toronto’s transportation problems all on its own.
2. Any significant solution will not run an operating surplus and will not be voluntarily paid for by the private sector. Real solutions involve involuntary payments, also known as “taxes.”
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I wonder if it makes sense to study a model where SmartTrack and DRL use same rail technology, and share the Wellington tunnel.
One eastern branch of the “Wellington” rail service would follow the DRL East route, to Danforth & Pape / Greenwood, Thorncliffe, and eventually to Eglinton / Don Mills. This branch would be mostly tunneled, with some surface or elevated sections. (Just to clarify, this service would not use the existing Bala Sub / RH GO track, which is hard to connect to Danforth subway and the surface network.)
The other eastern branch would be John Tory’s eastern SmartTrack, that uses the Uxbridge Sub corridor and runs mostly on surface.
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I can add nothing to the article, the comments by Steve or the comments by readers.
I can only wonder why I am not able to charge ludicrous fees so that I could write feel-good crap like this “Business Case for the Regional Relief Line” report. Honestly, people are paid good money to write this stuff. Why not me?
I’d love to see some semi-qualified financial & actuarial people conduct a real cost-benefits analysis of this report. Heck, even Grade 12 Business Administration students would know how to write a comprehensive SWOT analysis that would be an improvement on this “Business Case.”
Honestly, people are paid good money to write … oh wait … said that already.
Cheers, Moaz
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Gee SWOT on this line would be nice, however, since this is really a political piece based on the developers ideal dream to create maximum market opportunity one likely has already been written in that context. Not sure how to do the grid here, so well … here is likely something vaguely like the SWOT that has already been done (behind closed doors)
Strengths:
1. Political Gold, places transit within the imagination of a working majority of voters. Close enough to make them think it can be a service.
2. Is not buildable, so after extensive study, pushing, bullying and pressing will have option to back off and concede that it cannot be done, without actually committing to anything material, other than study.
3. A reasonable proxy of it can be built, but falls entirely on the province to execute, and as such keeps the mayor and his team out of the line of fire, while permitting some credit to be claimed at the next election.
Weakness:
1. The strengths above, are transparent when someone looks hard enough. If the public were to actually decide to pay attention could make for issue.
Opportunity:
1. Buys time to put together a real plan, back the province based on real planning that has been done, and thereby arrive at a conclusion that functions. Province implements RER, and Mayor pushes for greatly improved connections and claims that a slightly modified RER oriented version of Transit City, and this achieves his goals, with little political capital, and large political payout, deliver transit that will work. Can run the next campaign on needing to be re-elected to finish implementation of city wide transit service, that lives up to the dream he promised.
Threat:
1. Due to the weakness, the political manipulation, and market opportunism that is at play will be laid bare, and the players will find themselves at war trying to cover their positions, and proclaim their personal innocence. This will undermine the political capital of all involved. However, low risk, because the Toronto voters clearly do not pay that much attention, look at how many voted for Doug, and Sonacki was not even a factor, even though he had the best transit plan in a transit focused election, and the person thought most electable and with the 2nd best plan finished 3rd.
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Maximum speed and acceleration are 2 very different properties. Most transit vehicles are limited to a maximum acceleration rate of 1.1 m/s^2. To get to 160 km/h (about 44 m/s) you would have to accelerate for 45 seconds if you could maintain the 1.1 m/s^2 rate until maximum speed which is an impossibility unless you are a rocket so it would probably take 90 seconds to reach maximum speed and a distance of probably a minimum of 1250 m. If the stop spacing is 2.5 km you will need to start braking as soon as you reached 160 km/h.
If a train has a dwell time of 20 seconds at a station a following train should start braking at least the braking time plus the dwell time before the station so you should not get within 110 seconds of the train in front and this would presume automated control. If you trust the computer you could wait until you are closer to the train but my advice would be to ride in a middle car.
They do not seem to realize that minimum headways are controlled by a number of factors including maximum speed, acceleration deceleration rate and times, train length and station dwell times. There is a sweet spot combination for each combinations so you cannot increase speed while decreasing headway beyond a certain point.
Steve: By now it should be obvious that we are dealing with someone whose expertise does not lie in railway technology, but in political posturing and a tenuous understanding of lines on maps.
Most of the rights of way are too narrow to allow for the extra tracks. IIRC modern Transport Canada regulations call for 10′ for the track plus 16′ on either side of the track or 42′ of width. Each extra track requires an additional 10′ plus a 3′ buffer zone. This would require 55′ of width for a 2 track line. Except for the CN and CP right of way up through Weston there is not any room to add 2 LRT tracks without a change in regulations.
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To Moaz:
I feel your pain. This just smacks of more transit via denistry.
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Although you mainly cover inside-city transit and not intercity, SmartTrack kind of straddles this territory. With the politics going full steam ahead (voted 42-1 to study SmartTrack today), province and Metrolinx strongly in favour (as a GO RER equivalent), and recently Ontario went ahead with an EA starting for high speed rail to Ontario, it does seem SmartTrack has a lot of “momentum” in a manner of speaking.
I make several interesting co-relating observations about SmartTrack, GO RER, and HSR, with some interesting coincidences::
1. [DEC 11th PDF] A lot of us have thought SmartTrack is simply a tweaked GO RER.
2. [Early Dec] Environment Assessment proceeds for High Speed Rail (HSR) in Ontario
3. [Recent release of March 2014 studies: Study / HSR Impacts] High Speed Rail studies, preliminary
Interesting observations made:
Corridor to Kitchener has heavy electricification potential
SmartTrack, UPX, GO RER, and HSR share the same rail corridor up to approximately the Pearson airport area (Eglinton in case of SmartTrack). In theory, this simplifies electrification.
Steve: Provided that there is enough room for all the trains and technologies are compatible, something which already does not apply to station configurations (high vs low platform). Also, operating “high speed” through stations has its limitations. There is a physical constraint on UPX trains thanks to the station design especially at the airport.
Metrolinx just said SmartTrack is congruent to GO RER
…So in theory, SmartTrack is anywhere between a tiny Flexity vehicle, all the way to a massive 12-car bilevel electricified GOTrain. So, realistically, let’s guesstimate it’s about the same size as a subway train similiar to Paris’ GO RER (aka longer than 4 traincars, but may be shorter than 12 traincars).
…This interpretation seems to materially change the capacity throughput ballgame, especially if SmartTrack begins to replace GOTrains, and that daily traffic on Lakeshore line surged when they started half-hour all-day service in 2013. Assuming SmartTrack becomes is “the” defacto GO RER for the central all-stops section of the Kitchener line and the Stoufville line, it’s going to capture 100% of the urban all-stop GO traffic, by replacing the GOTrains (and freeing up the trains to improve service on other lines, and/or the longer-distances of the full line).
…It seems several say it was a provincial responsibility since they were going to do SmartTrack anyway (ala GO RER) making it a waste of money (“bad on Tory” perspective), while others say it was a brilliant move to accelerate GO RER plans indirectly and educate the population about the potential of GO to become a true “subway feel” service with more pedestrian-friendly infill stations (Liberty/Gerrard/etc) and more politically uncancellable (“good on Tory” perspective).
Reading all of these documents, it appears that all of these Ontario-province funded documents show that GO RER Kitchener and HSR Kitchener share the same corridor, to somewhere past Kitchener, so HSR to Kitchener may theoretically be started cheaply if Metrolinx adds express passing tracks like suggested on Page 9 of the first PDF above (and suggestively indirectly referring to HSR as one of the “Next Wave” projects, on Page 11) — if the express passing tracks are made HSR compatible, then theoretically the GO RER express trains could be HSR trainsets, by the year 2030s. Seeing the province is funding the HSR study, and the Metrolinx ownership of the corridor, there is an incredible amount of congruence between HSR and the express version of Kitchener GO RER, while simultaneously being an incredible amount of congruence between SmartTrack and the all-stop version of Kitchener/Stoufville GO RER.
Steve: There are severe problems with HSR alignment through Guelph and surrounding territory, and that’s why the HSR proposal completely bypasses it. Guelph riders are expected to use the lower speed “local” service co-existing in the corridor. You are not going to see GO downsize its trainsets to the considerably lower capacity likely for HSR, let alone the size and type of cars used on UPX which have been talked of as a possible SmartTrack fleet.
The writing on the wall suggests GO HSR (under a future Metrolinx brand), by around the 2030s, at least as a “low lying apple add-on” to the Kitchener GO RER, theoretically with Metrolinx HSR trainsets being limited-stop and super-limited-stop (nonstop) version of GO RER, with SmartTrack being the shorter all-stops version of the GO RER.
Not saying this isn’t happening, but the language in a lot of these documents is quite coincidental; suggesting a converging may eventually be happening, merging services and routes for cost-effectiveness and speed.
Steve: Metrolinx staff is hedging its bets so as not to offend the supporters of Tory’s plan including a fifth column within their own Board. Don’t read anything beyond political cover in what Metrolinx has published so far.
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As I tend to be the eternal optimist, I must say that there are some positive items coming out of the last week’s developments…
1) Tory finally admitted that ST was just co-opting of the GO-RER idea. And today he mentioned at council that this would likely be a Metrolinx project… Also heard that Pennachetti felt that there was some legs to the TIF proposal. He is quite respectable, and if we couple this, with a major Lower Donlands redevelopment and a couple other places (i.e. some private investment), we may not be as far away as we think financially.
Steve: Except that the TIF revenue claimed by proponents keeps including development charges we were expecting to get for other purposes. Moreover, TIF has to relate to development that would not occur but for the new line. There are lots of buildings in the West Donlands and more to come, none of which requires ST. In any event, the ST station is likely to be on the east side of the river to serve the Great Gulf development, and ST will contribute nothing to lands west of the river. In some of the more fanciful TIF calculations, every pending building downtown is presumed to be the result of ST, but that is flatly not true. A developer could have lots of fun fighting a TIF assessment on the basis that his buyers/tenants don’t, in the main, depend on ST’s existence.
2) I think it’s a great idea that we are talking about linking employment corridors to higher order transit… something that there is very little of in the city of Toronto, and there should be more of.
Steve: Except that the majority of the employment corridors are (a) in the 905, (b) in locations that happen to support the Smart Track thesis. Other areas where people desperately want better transit are ignored because, to a real estate developer, they don’t count. Remember that the underlying premise of ST is that it will unlock areas like the ACC which can’t handle any more auto commuters, according to the reports.
3) Tory also explicitly called out good ‘ole Robbie after he went on a tirade, and basically said that all is he asking is to study ST, unlike when the unilateral decision was made to “cancel transit city” sans evidence.
4) Tory explicitly said that he will not cancel or change any projects that are currently in development – and specifically mentioned the 2x LRTs, DRL work, Scarb. Sub… so some hope there.
5) Pasternak didn’t mentioned his “North York relief line” when given the chance today.
6) Even Jim Karygiannis said that he “supports the Sheppard LRT” but needs to show his residents that at least a study was done. As the last study was only ~2-4 years old, I wonder if the next study request will get past the floor of council.
Steve: It will need a consultant team acceptable to both sides, and that’s going to be a challenge.
7) Josh Colle’s interview with NOW last week where he specifically said that for Finch/Sheppard, there is no grey area, the debate is closed, and the numbers justify LRT.
8) Even Mammoliti didn’t completely throw the Finch LRT under the bus today when he had a chance (although I was following that on Twitter, and many of the TOPoli press gallery don’t report every word, and especially not out of his mouth)….
9) Question to a planner today about priorities – reiterated that DRL is the priority, even with ST being built.
So, with all that in mind, HSR, and some GO-RER progress, I think there is a lot to smile about.
Of course, it’s still early days, but at least we aren’t talking about a severe U-turn on planning like in 2010. Additionally, the Scarboro subway vote was very very close, and if ~3 councillors changed their vote, any chance of delaying/reopening Finch/Shepard is shot down, and even then, the province would have to open the opportunity to the change…
Steve: Until there is something significant to change the project’s credibility such as unexpected extra cost and complexity, or bleeding of the supposed ridership that “justified” the subway to SmartTrack, I think that the subway would actually win by a wider margin today.
So, I’m optimistic. I even had the chance to discuss this with Mr. Ed Levy at the ITE Xmas lunch on Friday. He did say that given the recent events/comments, he felt that this was the first time in his 50+ year career doing this, that there was so much alignment and traction on the Toronto transit file…
Next is to get the Feds onboard … which I would argue is a matter of time — either the Cons chip in, and they’ll lose ON support next year, and the Libs will support transit….
Steve: I would not count on the Liberals, not even the NDP, until we actually had the cheque in hand. Promises and platforms do not necessarily translate into actions.
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Yes, however, Robert speed achieved and acceleration are highly related, which is what I was driving at, 160 kph and back in 2.5km, as you so clearly point out, you barely make speed and are on the brakes. Also while I did not check your math I would also point out that the lengths of these trains would be huge, and the tail of the train is going to be (1750-assuming 175 passengers per 10 cars long) 300 or so metres behind the nose which a non trivial amount with another train so close behind (90 seconds nose to nose). I did not do the math, and am surprised it is so low. I would not have thought much of discussing a 160 kph achieved speeds with 5+ km stops, as this would seem more reasonable.
I was hoping that there might be space in Stouffville, although it appears narrow in areas. However, I would be really surprised if there was residual demand anyway if RER can actually be built to the core, and a stop at Kennedy to link the subway anyway.
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To the first part (Tory saying SmartTrack is really just RER) an unequivocal “Yeah” perhaps even a “Hurrah”. To TIF financing for any application, “BOOOOOOOO”. To count on and segregate revenue without a clear need and link is pure and dangerous politics. I would strongly prefer to see normal budgeting methods being used, that are much more transparent, and require far fewer assumptions, therefore mean less risk.
I would argue that Toronto voters need to focus on what the real planning dictates, and start to look at the pols that are using transit to get elected, with the same skepticism, that my mother reserved for door to door vacuum salesmen.
The planners need to be able to do their jobs, and good governance, is about taking the best possible advice, not forcing that advice to be what you want to hear. The projections for the subway need to be redone with proper landuse assumptions (as opposed to the ones which the chief planner concede were skewed), and an allowance for the RER to be in place (assuming that the model actually supports RER).
Proposals for additional LRT to relieve other issues might make sense.
However, they also need to be evaluated through a model unskewed for politics. My personal issue with the Subway proposals, and SmartTrack, (as opposed to the initial RER) is that they were proposals made with an eye to the number of votes attracted not level of useful service provided.
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I thought you were talking about the need to be seated before the train left the station.
The answer is clearly no as acceleration rates would be limited for passenger comfort and safety. You are right about needing to add the length of the train but I did a quick calculation to show that you could not run a 90 second headway with a zero length train so anything else is more of a problem. There is a way to allow closer headways and that is to have two tracks with island platforms at each station per direction. That is done in some places for very busy stops but it gets extremely expensive in terms of costs and land requirements.
A cost trade off needs to be done to see what the actual time saving is with high speed running as a commuter train spends only a fraction of the time at maximum speed. Total trip time rather than maximum speed if the important factor. If you have to run longer trains on wider headways with greater dwell time to be able to reach 160 km/h rather than on 100 km/h but only increase the average speed from 60 km/h to 65 then was it worth it? Maximum speed sound more sexy than trip time but trip time is more important.
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Ah! You’re right. But SmartTrack seems like it could be a defacto “middle section” of GO RER (by another name) – Metrolinx seems to be suggesting this in their recent document – so it’s already an indirect downsize, maybe forced politically. I also see Metrolinx mention the phrase “diversified fleet” in one of their earlier GO RER PDF files; illustrating Paris’ equivalent that use both single level and bilevel trains. They mention use cases of single-deck (offpeak) and double-deck (peak/busy) as being candidates for GO RER.
As a GO user (Lakeshore), I like the 30-minute service it now gets so I see the potential for it to become more subway-ish (like Paris’ RER, their GO equivalent, which I’ve also taken. Service quality of their GO train equivalent over there feels more like a TTC subway than a GO Train). I feel bilevels are a bit overkill for 15-minute service at 1pm or 8pm (they are often almost empty at certain hours), so there’s huge potential to diversify the fleet in order to keep costs down, and lighter trains accelerate/stop faster. You can still push all the people per hour with 15-minute allday offpeak service using single level trains, as often, far less than one single-level trainful’s of people are often on a GO Train at 1pm or 8pm. They’d obviously still need to keep the bilevels as they need them but can allocate capacity more efficiently. I doubt Metrolinx is going to approximately double frequency (15 min offpeak) using only bilevel trains. I am on the Lakeshore line (Hamilton/Aldershot) and am thrilled at the 30 minute service, and with the talk of 15-minute in 10 years, I see the potential of RER to turn the GO network into something more subway-feel (eventually) than it currently is today. But with my daily commuting experience (offpeak and onpeak), I think it needs to be accomplished with a diversified fleet like Paris’ RER.
Then again, Paris’ first TGV line has bilevel highspeed trains with 3-minute headway during peak — pushing more people per hour than GO’s Lakeshore line during peak period — so anything is possible in the distant future — but that’s not on Toronto’s current horizon.
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Also, I see them ultimately pushing for, and choosing, long trainsets for SmartTrack, in some kind of an agreement eventually, depending on what they ultimately decide to do at Eglinton (which may determine which trains, and lengths, they use).
There would be an extremely strong incentive to use longer trains due to GO platform sizes (300 meters) which would make UPX-sized trains silly. And the potential of SmartTrack to be used as the central frequent section of GO RER (already strongly hinted by Metrolinx to also utilize single-level electric trains to achieve 15min offpeak), is an additional strong incentive. The province would be wise to withhold funding until SmartTrack fits GO RER criteria.
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Steve,
Given your comments on Dobson’s report, what are your expectations for the January 23rd report when it comes back to Executive Committee? How much progress can they really show, what do you expect the quality will be?
Steve: I know that Dobson’s report has not been warmly received by staff either at City Planning or at Metrolinx. The question is whether the review will really take a hard look at the issues, and especially the simple questions of alignment, that were so cavalierly dismissed by Tory’s campaign. Also, we need a good review of how this service would co-exist with other plans including RER.
If the Mayor and Premier, behind the scenes, say “we will brook no dissent”, then we are in for serious problems because they will hit walls on technical, operational and financial matters fairly quickly and, eventually, have little to show for the effort after a few wasted years. Conversely, if there is openness to alternative schemes, and if Dobson’s view of what constitutes a good plan is not taken as gospel, then there is a lot of hope here.
It is very important to remember that the provincial interest is in the $2.7b Tory claims to bringing to the table, even though Council is nowhere near authorizing this.
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Addendum to add relevant links:
Diversified fleet talk on several pages of this GO RER PDF.
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Yes, I was thinking in terms of making this actually work so it would nearly make sense. 1.1 m/s2 is not sustainable, and to make it make sense I was thinking the initial acceleration would be unworkable for a standee. Your point, is in essence mine – you take a long period to get to speed and this means, the time saved is small for a very large energy expenditure (kinetic energy being a squared function of speed) the extra speed makes sense only if it is to be sustained.
Sorry, I should have clearer in terms of this. Without having done the math the notion seemed much like putting your foot to the floor when the light turns green to race to the next light. Even if the light responds to your presence it means burning gallons to save a few minutes. An idea that seemed to me the antithesis of good planning (Which by the way your math makes extra-ordinarily clear, perhaps even better than a Ford quote).
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But Robert, I refuse to conform to the SI standards. I have to deal all day with Americans, and deal with prints that are called out in inches not metric units, I have become a rebel. Just a small rebellion on my part.
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You have my sympathies but if everyone refused to use their non standard abbreviations and dumb units then they would be forced to adopt or lose business.
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Indeed! :->
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My back-of-the envelope calculation came out to 4km traveled in 90s at 160km/h. That assumes trains are travelling at sustained speeds, rather than accelerating to peak speed and immediately braking for the next stop. Also, I don’t know how to calculate the safe braking distance, which will take into account the mass of the train, and the speed it was travelling.
If the stops are less than about 4km apart the trains will never be able to reach top speed. If they’re more than 4km apart, they’ll have to have longer headways if they do spend any time at top speed, because otherwise they will be running into the train ahead while it is dwelling at a station.
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I have a programme which gives the speed, distance and net force curves for rail equipment versus horse power per ton and different loads. The programme works in Imperial (i.e. US units) and I have not bothered to convert it to metric because I would probably screw up one of the conversions. This programme only gives first order approximations but should show a reasonable comparison between different power to weight ratios. Remember that this is only an approximation and not a 100% accurate calculation. It also totally ignores the effects of grades and curves which affect maximum speed and acceleration rates.
The SRRA proposes a system with a maximum speed of 160 km/h (1oo mph) and a station spacing of 2.5 m, 8250 feet. Normal practice is to have about 5 hp per ton for a locomotive hauled train or 10 hp per ton for multiple unit operation. At 5.0 hp per ton a fully loaded 12 car train takes about 80 seconds to travel 4100 feet, half the station spacing. This occurs at a maximum speed of around 50 mph. Since all the wheels are braked it could stop in a shorter time and distance. At maximum rate it could stop in 12 seconds but this would not be good for brake, wheel and rail wear so a more reasonable time would be 20 seconds. With the extra time to accelerate it would travel about 6000 feet before decelerating. This would give 125 seconds accelerating and about 20 to 25 seconds decelerating with a top speed of just over 50 mph. A fully loaded GO train only has about 3.7 hp/ton though.
At 10 hp per tonne for an EMU train it would reach a maximum speed of about 65 to 70 mph before it would need to brake. The time between stations would be about 120 seconds. If we were to increase the power to 20 hp/ton we would reach a maximum speed of 80 mph before braking and total time between stations would be 90 to 100 seconds. The question then becomes would it be worth the extra cost to increase the power to weight ratio to be able to reach 160 km/h at a 2.5 km station spacing.
At a power to weight ratio of 25 hp/ton it would reach a maximum speed of 85 to 90 mph and take 85 to 90 seconds to travel between stations. At 30 hp/ton it would reach a maximum speed of around 95 mph and take 80 to 85 seconds between stops.
Increasing the power to weight ratio increases the mass of the cars and the unsprung mass of the motors which increases rail, wheel and break wear and were not factored into the calculations as I do not know the change in weights. As the time saving is only about 20 to 30 seconds per stop going from 10 hp/ton to 30 hp/ton per station and the greater stopping distance reduces the minimum headways the question becomes why the fixation on a top speed of 160 km/h (100 mph) when there is no demonstrable benefit for the greatly increased cost. Perhaps in the idea that 100 mph has broken another barrier like a mile a minute did when the first train hit 60 mph. Remember that very few people will ride from end to end and the average passenger would probably ride for only 1/4 of the route and get a benefit of maybe 5 minutes saved.
I have not been able to calculate the effect that running faster rains or longer trains or the effect of station dwell times would have on minimum headways. All of these should be calculated and a true cost benefit analysis of these trade off be demonstrated before we buy into a system of 160 km/h trains. Perhaps they also want to use the same equipment on the HSR line to London and Windsor.
Steve: Higher top speeds also require investments in more robust trackbed and overhead systems, not to mention better maintenance. On a much smaller scale, this issue came up during my ongoing and futile attempts to get the TTC to revert to “high rate” subway operation. One of their claims was that the extra track maintenance wasn’t worth the benefit of running fewer, faster trains. This may have just been an excuse for business as usual (not to mention allowing for larger orders to Bombardier for more trains). Either way, it is not enough to say “run them faster” without considering all of the implications, something SRRA appears singularly unable or unwilling to do. Their work is one step away from an armchair railfan, and even a fan knows that we’re not building an HSR to Markham.
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