TTC: Flexity Streetcars Testing & Delivery (Bombardier)

[Dan416]

Hipster and Cbab: there seem to be two kinds of streetcar proponents: Those who think streetcars are better than buses, and those who think streetcars are better than subways. Don't lump us all in with the latter.

Replacing the downtown streetcars with subways is great, but replacing them with buses is a step backward.

Absolutely Right(TM).

Streetcars are better than buses, but streetcars aren't better than subways.

I used to think the Queen streetcar was cute. With all this LRT vs. subway talk, I'm beginning to realize more and more that Queen needs a subway. Most likely as part of the DRL.

 

[Hydrogen]

Never knew you could run a streetcar on a seemingly endless desert.

 

[MisterF]

It turned from a profitable route to an unprofitable route and from a slow route to an even slower route. If that's a victory it's a pyrrhic victory. Ridership also went up because the TTC threw so many of its streetcars on Spadina, compromising other routes in the process. Come to think of it, there might be a parallel between Spadina's ridership increase (from 26,000 to 45,000) and Queen's decline (from 80,000 to 40,000). In the bus world, you can always throw more buses on a route and have the option to buy buses (off the shelf) that might get delivered next year. Not so in the world of streetcars.

You can't do that with subways either. Better technology takes longer to get. So what you're saying is that there were more streetcars on Spadina and that allowed ridership to increase. So to switch back to buses would require even more vehicles, making bunching even worse. But even with more buses I suspect ridership would fall because streetcars attract more riders.

The current TTC streetcars are hampered by a simple design flaw that prevents the routes from being used to their full potential: they're basically oversized buses on rails. A vehicle as big as a streetcar needs all door loading to be practical - you can only have so many people lining up to file past the driver before it really slows down the route. New low floor all-door loading streetcars will make loading faster, speed up the route, and increase efficiency. That's the answer, not regressing to buses.

Yeah, a lot of the streetcar vs bus preference issue is stuff like snobbishness (and largely theoretical/anecdotal, at that)...streetcars: aww, how cute! vs buses: eww, they're for the poor!

There's places where streetcars should replace buses (although the price tag of a billion dollars per arterial route presents an often obscene barrier), but there's places where buses and subways could replace streetcars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

 

[CGM]

The Alstom TTC cars look great... just need windows that open at seat level and it will be perfect..

 

[scarberiankhatru]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

I suggest you read that page, because you clearly don't know what 'straw man' means.

 

[MisterF]

I suggest you read that page, because you clearly don't know what 'straw man' means.

"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to describe a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view but is easier to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent (for example, deliberately overstating the opponent's position).[1] A straw man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it carries little or no real evidential weight, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.[2]"

You're overstated and misrepresented the opinions of streetcar proponents in this thread to make it easier to refute their arguments. That's a straw man argument. It's a tactic you've used repeatedly in this thread. You've made intelligent and persuasive arguments in other threads; why resort to straw men here?

 

[Hipster Duck]

You can't do that with subways either. Better technology takes longer to get.

Where did I say anything about subways? My position on streetcars is that they're worse than buses.

So what you're saying is that there were more streetcars on Spadina and that allowed ridership to increase. So to switch back to buses would require even more vehicles, making bunching even worse.

I didn't say that either. What I clearly said was that ridership was allowed to increase on Spadina because the TTC clearly yanked vehicles from other routes. After Spadina, the famous days of never leaving sight of a streetcar on Queen street disappeared and so did half its ridership. If ridership is high on a bus route, it can be easily supplanted by procuring more buses - you can just call up Orion in Mississauga and they'll have one on the streets in mere months. If you're in real dire straits you can probably even lease surplus buses on the spot from any transit agency in Ontario. Clearly, you don't have this flexibility with streetcars. If the TTC doesn't bungle their bid requirements, we will be lucky to see 204 LRVs on the streets by 2014. At $4 million a pop (almost certainly to be more), these things aren't exactly cheap, either.

But even with more buses I suspect ridership would fall because streetcars attract more riders.

What proof do you have to back this up? By the way, a propaganda piece from lightrailnow.org like the one WK Lis posted doesn't count.

The current TTC streetcars are hampered by a simple design flaw that prevents the routes from being used to their full potential: they're basically oversized buses on rails. A vehicle as big as a streetcar needs all door loading to be practical - you can only have so many people lining up to file past the driver before it really slows down the route. New low floor all-door loading streetcars will make loading faster, speed up the route, and increase efficiency. That's the answer, not regressing to buses.

Wake me up in 2014, or even later if these Alstom VaginaTrams have teething problems. We might as well get used to waiting, because that's exactly what we will be doing when the TTC cuts 20% of its streetcar fleet.

 

[Whoaccio]

Wait a minute, was that article about the SF F Market car supposed to be used to support legacy trams? I just read it and it seemed to highlight evey problem I have with legacy trams. For one, it hardly has any ridership.

According to the article:

The streetcars, sometimes called "museums in motion," have committed the cardinal sin of public transportation: They have become too popular...Municipal Transportation Authority spokesman Judson True says the vintage cars carry some 21,000 riders a day, more than all three of the more-famous cable car lines put together.

"Too popular" at 21k riders a day? When is the next time the 41 Keele gets an article about being "too popular". This is route is one of SFs most well travelled, and it is "crowded" at 21k? That isn't a sign of success, it is failure.

So, to review, the cars are classy, unique and popular. There is just one problem: There aren't enough of them.

Frankly, that isn't going to be solved anytime soon. About 10 to 16 cars have been put in the pipeline for renovation, but no one expects them as soon as next summer, and 2010 looks like a better guess

Wow, sounds like a system that is really flexible to the needs of it's operators. This system needs private sector benefactors to do it's work for the love of god. Is Steve Munro going to start repairing our CLRVs?

The Market car is a tourism & nostalgia thing. If Toronto wanted to copy it, we could just make a loop running from Queen-Spadina-College-Parliament or thereabouts. Running 305km of track is not quite the same as a 21km tourist attraction in San Fran.

EDIT: I just checked the Muni Website, the F car has 18,520 daily boardings, not 21k like the article claimed. It is now officially as "successful" as the 100 Flemingdon Park.

 

[smuncky]

Never knew you could run a streetcar on a seemingly endless desert.

my fault.

here are some corrected ones in an environment you all know.

 

[urbanfan89]

"Too popular" at 21k riders a day? When is the next time the 41 Keele gets an article about being "too popular". This is route is one of SFs most well travelled, and it is "crowded" at 21k? That isn't a sign of success, it is failure.

Back to square one: Toronto is leaps and bounds ahead of *any* city in North America when it comes to public transportation apart from NYC and Montreal. Because of this we'll need infrastructure that is unique when it comes to North America but commonplace when it comes to Europe. Like, say, inner-city streetcars.

Wow, sounds like a system that is really flexible to the needs of it's operators. This system needs private sector benefactors to do it's work for the love of god. Is Steve Munro going to start repairing our CLRVs?

And we know that buses have never, ever, ever, never, in the history of public transit, been allowed to fall into disrepair. The fact that Ottawa let 150 buses rot due to lack of maintenance is just, um, a coincidence.

The Market car is a tourism & nostalgia thing.

San Francisco in general (the city proper, not the Bay Area) is all about tourism/nostalgia. Besides, there's still an impressive system of streetcar and light railways that residents depend on. By contrast...

If Toronto wanted to copy it, we could just make a loop running from Queen-Spadina-College-Parliament or thereabouts. Running 305km of track is not quite the same as a 21km tourist attraction in San Fran.

Toronto is much more business-like and much more intense. Transit ridership in general will be much higher and therefore we need much higher capacity vehicles. Unless every streetcar is replaced by subway, and unless you can fit one of these on King Street, streetcars are necessary.

Even London regrets tearing their streetcars, but now the new mayor doesn't want to reintroduce them.

EDIT: I just checked the Muni Website, the F car has 18,520 daily boardings, not 21k like the article claimed. It is now officially as "successful" as the 100 Flemingdon Park.

See my point about Toronto being a nirvana when it comes to public transportation when compared to any US city of comparable size.

 

[Whoaccio]

Back to square one: Toronto is leaps and bounds ahead of *any* city in North America when it comes to public transportation apart from NYC and Montreal. Because of this we'll need infrastructure that is unique when it comes to North America but commonplace when it comes to Europe. Like, say, inner-city streetcars

Inner-city streetcars in Europe don't quite compare to what we have. For starters, they operate in much more effective semi & private ROWs which only really work with their spaghetti road system. Intersections are much less frequent. I for one don't hold much hope Queen will be turned into a transit mall anytime soon.

Europe is also not quite as tram crazy as some people think. Toronto has, 2.5m people? That puts Rome, Berlin, Madrid, Moscow, Paris & London ahead of us. Rome aside, each of those cities has 150km+ of subway. Other Euro cities w/more subways? Stockholm (105km), St. Petersburg (105km), Barcelona (105km), Hamburg (100km), Athens (75km) and Oslo (84km). Vienna is more or less tied with us. Trams are more popular in Eastern Europe, mainly because the communists couldn't afford to replace them. New Castle upon Tyne has 70km of metro for the love of God!

And we know that buses have never, ever, ever, never, in the history of public transit, been allowed to fall into disrepair. The fact that Ottawa let 150 buses rot due to lack of maintenance is just, um, a coincidence.

It's not that buses are more reliable, or even better in any way than legacy trams, it is that they don't cost millions of dollars per unit, necessitate a volunteer non-profit group to repair and years to deliver new units.

San Francisco in general (the city proper, not the Bay Area) is all about tourism/nostalgia. Besides, there's still an impressive system of streetcar and light railways that residents depend on. By contrastToronto is much more business-like and much more intense. Transit ridership in general will be much higher and therefore we need much higher capacity vehicles. Unless every streetcar is replaced by subway, and unless you can fit one of ] on King Street, streetcars are necessary.

Well, I actually do think you can fit an articulated bus along King, or pretty much any street in Toronto. And yes, the downtown core does need subway. Not on every s/c line, but we need at least one more E/W route going through the downtown core. Were a RT line strung along Richmond, surface transit could be moved to what it does best, local transport and distribution not "rapid" transit.

Even London regrets tearing their streetcars, but now the new mayor doesn't want to reintroduce them.

I don't know how true that is. I was discussing the matter with some London based transit planners, they had no particular attraction to the idea of inner city streetcars. They have the Croydon Tram, but that is LRT done right. More or less grade separated and fast. When I described the 501 Queen to them, they gave me the look I imagine I would give to someone who eats with their fingers. I would take London's double deckers over our legacy network any day. I actually prefer London's bus network to it's tube.

 

[Dilla]

Back to square one: Toronto is leaps and bounds ahead of *any* city in North America when it comes to public transportation apart from NYC and Montreal.

Sorry, I know it's off topic, but I've lived in Montreal, and Toronto is also leaps and bounds ahead of Montreal in public transportation. No comparison.

How many buses would it take to replace the capacity throughout the system? That's hundreds of extra buses, drivers (expensive, as we all know), petrol (also very dear these days) mechanics, pollution, etc. Please don't prattle on about electric buses, our hybrid ones have been enough of a fiasco. An articulated bus on King? That's ambitious to say the least.

Streetcars cost millions per unit? So? While this new streetcar purchase is a pain, that's as much to do with the TTC as a bureaucracy than it is with the way streetcars function. Moreover, it's not that big of a deal, and it's the first time we've had to do it in a few decades. How many buses are out there that are as old as our fleet or streetcars? Not many, I'd think.

 

[urbanfan89]

Inner-city streetcars in Europe don't quite compare to what we have. For starters, they operate in much more effective semi & private ROWs which only really work with their spaghetti road system. Intersections are much less frequent. I for one don't hold much hope Queen will be turned into a transit mall anytime soon.

If the TTC implements more efficient signal synchronizations, then reliability will be improved.

Here's Amsterdam:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=52.372455,4.910545&spn=0.185502,0.525627&z=12

Here's Toronto:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.680536,-79.349785&spn=0.219738,0.525627&z=12

Notice how their street grid is much denser than anything we have. Notice again that mixed traffic areas exist.

If we simply enforce the transit lanes on King and Queen during rush hour, then reliability will be improved.

Europe is also not quite as tram crazy as some people think. Toronto has, 2.5m people? That puts Rome, Berlin, Madrid, Moscow, Paris & London ahead of us.

Toronto has perhaps six million. This puts us above Rome, Berlin, and about the level of Madrid. That aside,

Rome aside, each of those cities has 150km+ of subway. Other Euro cities w/more subways? Stockholm (105km), St. Petersburg (105km), Barcelona (105km), Hamburg (100km), Athens (75km) and Oslo (84km). Vienna is more or less tied with us.

Many of the above also have dense tram systems in addition to dense metro systems.

Trams are more popular in Eastern Europe, mainly because the communists couldn't afford to replace them. New Castle upon Tyne has 70km of metro for the love of God!

Trams survived in West Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands (hardly poor and communist countries).

Newcastle's system was easy to build because there were huge lengths of underused railway lines, a legacy of their industrial power. No subway line can be built in Toronto on a rail corridor except for a segment of the DRL.

It's not that buses are more reliable, or even better in any way than legacy trams, it is that they don't cost millions of dollars per unit, necessitate a volunteer non-profit group to repair and years to deliver new units.

Maybe if we take streetcars seriously, then there wouldn't be a shortage of parts and staff. You know, economies of scale and all that?

Besides, it's not a "legacy" system. Once the rolling stock is replaced, the tracks, the wires, the stops, and (hopefully) the synchronization will be 100% from the 21st century.

Well, I actually do think you can fit an articulated bus along King, or pretty much any street in Toronto.

But can they do so without the risk of swerving out of their lane and endangering traffic? No to mention precipitate a sizeable drop in ridership?

And yes, the downtown core does need subway. Not on every s/c line, but we need at least one more E/W route going through the downtown core. Were a RT line strung along Richmond, surface transit could be moved to what it does best, local transport and distribution not "rapid" transit.

Once the DRL is built there will still be a demand for local transit. And they're called streetcars.

I don't know how true that is. I was discussing the matter with some London based transit planners, they had no particular attraction to the idea of inner city streetcars. They have the Croydon Tram, but that is LRT done right. More or less grade separated and fast. When I described the 501 Queen to them, they gave me the look I imagine I would give to someone who eats with their fingers.

There were plans on the book for at least two inner-city LRT lines. Don't know what happened to them.

I would take London's double deckers over our legacy network any day.

I'd take spanking clean buses with AC which come frequently over rickety 30-year-old vehicles that show up whenever they want to.

But would you prefer this over this?

I actually prefer London's bus network to it's tube.

Perhaps that would be different if the Tube wasn't neglected because of a PPP which saw a private contractor gobble up two billion Pounds and then go bankrupt.

 

[CDL.TO]

It turned from a profitable route to an unprofitable route and from a slow route to an even slower route.

Okay okay okay. These points have been tossed around a lot on this forum lately even though they had been debunked when they were first raised.

For profitability, the TTC changed their accounting practices around the same time that the Spadina streetcar started service. The TTC used to have a whole bunch of "profitable" routes, now they have none, but only one of those routes was converted from a bus to a streetcar. Quoting from James Bow...

This was especially appearent in the earlier TTC service plans where route
accounting was done in a subsidy/profit per rider basis. In some of those
years, the most profitable route on the system was 31 Greenwood. And so, you
know that subsidy/profit per rider is not a good indicator of the true
importance of that route.

The TTC has made further changes in calculating cost recovery ratios,
however. It used to be that the 511 Bathurst streetcar made a per-boarding
profit of $0.02 per rider. The Spadina bus had a per-boarding profit of
around $0.01 per rider. Roughly equal to each other, in other words.
Now the cost recovery percentages indicate a per-boarding loss is being
taken on each trip -- but again roughly equal to each other. Since the
earlier numbers, Spadina has been converted to a streetcar route. NOTHING
has happened to the Bathurst route. So the statement that the Bathurst and
Spadina services are making back only 66% of their costs (compared to the
system farebox recovery of 82%) might be misleading.

I have no clue how the TTC's accounting system works, especially with regard
to how the fares are broken up when passengers transfer between routes.
Until I know, I can't comment any further.

TTC went through an accounting change in recent years. They
used to calculate route costs and revenues in such a way that some
routes actually showed a profit. These tended to be short routes where
costs were low and comparative ridership was high, like 22 Coxwell, 77
Spadina and 511 Bathurst. At one point 31 Greenwood was the most
profitable bus route on the system. Then the TTC changed things to take
transfers better into account. The result is that no route on the system
makes back all of its costs anymore.

And that's a pretty serious fallacy that Stephen Wickens has introduced
into his article. When he's talking about the cost recovery ratio of the
510 streetcar compared to the 77 Spadina bus, he's not only comparing
apples to oranges, he's comparing entirely different cost-expense ratio
models.

As for travel speed, the newspaper article that made that claim based it not upon recorded travel times, but instead upon the travel times printed on transfers (something that the TTC apparently hadn't updated since 1966).

The article also claimed that travel times had gone up by one minute over the previous bus. I'd say that with a ridership increase of 26,000 to 45,000, it's pretty damn impressive that it went up by only one minute with everyone filing single-file past the driver.


Streetcars and Transit City certainly have their issues. But using debunked claims to back up your opinion doesn't make much sense.

 

[MisterF]

What proof do you have to back this up? By the way, a propaganda piece from lightrailnow.org like the one WK Lis posted doesn't count.

"It is evident that rail transit is likely to attract from 34 percent to 43 percent more riders than will equivalent bus service."
Impact on Transit Patronage of Cessation or Inauguration of Rail Service, Edson L Tennyson, Transportation Research Record No. 1221 (link, full report)

"Motorists put light rail top of the list of preferred transport alternatives."
"Of the public transport options appraised in the survey, light rail was regarded as an acceptable and convenient alternative to the car and generally considered to be frequent, quick, clean and safe."
"The bus was perceived as falling substantially short of meeting the needs of respondents. Buses were seen as undesirable and low status; an opinion based both on hearsay and past experience."
Transport choices of car users in rural and urban areas, A Research Study for DETR by: URS Thorburn Colquhoun, Jill Watkinson Research and Marketing Services, Business and Market Research (link)

Wake me up in 2014, or even later if these Alstom VaginaTrams have teething problems. We might as well get used to waiting, because that's exactly what we will be doing when the TTC cuts 20% of its streetcar fleet.

TTC decisions have nothing to do with the inherent benefits and drawbacks of streetcars compared to buses.

Europe is also not quite as tram crazy as some people think. Toronto has, 2.5m people? That puts Rome, Berlin, Madrid, Moscow, Paris & London ahead of us. Rome aside, each of those cities has 150km+ of subway. Other Euro cities w/more subways? Stockholm (105km), St. Petersburg (105km), Barcelona (105km), Hamburg (100km), Athens (75km) and Oslo (84km). Vienna is more or less tied with us. Trams are more popular in Eastern Europe, mainly because the communists couldn't afford to replace them. New Castle upon Tyne has 70km of metro for the love of God!

You seem to be assuming that all streetcar proponents are against subways. Why is that?