Legacy Streetcar Network Poll

[Electrify]

Neither do heavy rail subway? Or GO trains? Or VIA trains? Or airplanes?

Thing is, those articulated buses can carry the same amount as one of our CLRVs. The trade off is that one takes up a little more space, while the other is on a fixed guideway and cannot maneuver around obstacles.

I'm not suggesting getting rid of streetcars entirely. On corridors where higher order infrastructure is in place, adjust operational practices to take advantage of that infrastructure. Meanwhile on the 501 which uses vehicles which are significantly larger than any bus available to us though the infrastructure is not available for a tramway, adjust operation to optimize performance.

However on other routes where we are using streetcars which do not carry any more than articulated buses, yet have limited mobility, we need to ask ourselves if it is in our best interests to keep them operational.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Thing is, those articulated buses can carry the same amount as one of our CLRVs. The trade off is that one takes up a little more space, while the other is on a fixed guideway and cannot maneuver around obstacles.

I'm not suggesting getting rid of streetcars entirely. On corridors where higher order infrastructure is in place, adjust operational practices to take advantage of that infrastructure. Meanwhile on the 501 which uses vehicles which are significantly larger than any bus available to us though the infrastructure is not available for a tramway, adjust operation to optimize performance.

However on other routes where we are using streetcars which do not carry any more than articulated buses, yet have limited mobility, we need to ask ourselves if it is in our best interests to keep them operational.

Except that we're getting 100% low-floor streetcars that are double the size of the CLRV's, while the buses are generally not 100% low-floor and waste space because of the wheel-wells.

What can be done is to eliminate unneeded streetcar (and bus) stops. They slow done streetcars (and single-occupant automobiles), while spacing the stops further apart will increase the speeds (if there is a real transit priority in place) of everyone.

 

[spaced]

With signal priority, the stops are supposed to be on the FAR SIDE of the intersection. If they're not then that is a huge and inexcusable flaw in the design of the St Clair ROW... the streetcar is supposed to clear the intersection before stopping to let passengers on and off. That is how signal priority is supposed to work.

I'm not too familiar with the new St.Clair row. My examples are from situations I've seen mostly in the west end--specifically along dundas and college.

 

[Asterix]

With signal priority, the stops are supposed to be on the FAR SIDE of the intersection. If they're not then that is a huge and inexcusable flaw in the design of the St Clair ROW...

Which St Clair ROW stops are near side and not far side? Might help to identify them before bolding an inexcusable design flaw.

 

[doady]

Oh I thought spaced was talking about St Clair when he said "SC". But I guess not. I know that the Spadina streetcar does not have all the stops are on the far side of the intersection and I wouldn't be surprised if St. Clair if the same...

 

[Justin10000]

The stops on St. Clair are farside. Should have checked before criticizing the design of the ROW.

 

[Asterix]

Oh I thought spaced was talking about St Clair when he said "SC". But I guess not. I know that the Spadina streetcar does not have all the stops are on the far side of the intersection and I wouldn't be surprised if St. Clair if the same...

You can see St Clair for yourself and find out. Google Earth/Streetview will enable you to do so from your computer.

The majority of Spadina stops (not all) are far side. But then they've also got to deal with short blocks and many street car line cross-streets.

 

[SlickFranky]

There are actually a few near-side stops on the 512...not very many though. It's not terribly relevant though since signal priority can be programmed to work that way as well, though it's a fair bit more complicated.