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Streetcars are obsolete?

LRT and streetcars are exactly the same technology and the street design has makes no difference in their terminology. There are just 2 things that separate an LRT from a streetcar...............LRT's can be coupled together and LRT have bi-directional driver control so they do not need turning stations at the end of each line. Certainly LRT usually implies ROW, light coordination, fewer stops, and more elaborate stations but those are not necessary to make the distinction.

Many US cities have opened new streetcar routes for the sole purpose of ribbon cutting and the mantra that "everyone else has one". The vast majority have been an overwhelming failure. They get high initial ridership but after that ridership plunges and all the money spent for politicians is money not spent on purchasing new buses or bus-only lanes that would actually help the people who take transit everyday. Definitely not worth the money invested. Toronto is definitely different as it has the experience and infrastructure in place {ie garages, control, maintenance facilities} to easily expand the system.

The reality is that streetcars can do precious little an articulated bus can't and they aren't at the mercy of a traffic accident or broken down train which brings an entire streetcar route to a screeching halt. Streetcars are definitely not obsolete especially in a city with a pre-existing large system like Toronto's but with evermore higher capacity buses, hydrogen buses, and buses becoming more streetcar or advanced in their appearance, streetcars are a mode of transport with diminishing returns.
 
ssiguy2 said:
Many US cities have opened new streetcar routes for the sole purpose of ribbon cutting and the mantra that "everyone else has one". The vast majority have been an overwhelming failure. They get high initial ridership but after that ridership plunges and all the money spent for politicians is money not spent on purchasing new buses or bus-only lanes that would actually help the people who take transit everyday. Definitely not worth the money invested. Toronto is definitely different as it has the experience and infrastructure in place {ie garages, control, maintenance facilities} to easily expand the system.
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Exactly... most new US streetcar systems are meant for tourist or real estate development purposes, more out of a sense of nostalgia or novelty than to meet a real transportation need. They come every 20 minutes at peak...at that frequency there's clearly no need for the additional capacity of a streetcar.

ssiguy2 said:
The reality is that streetcars can do precious little an articulated bus can't and they aren't at the mercy of a traffic accident or broken down train which brings an entire streetcar route to a screeching halt. Streetcars are definitely not obsolete especially in a city with a pre-existing large system like Toronto's but with evermore higher capacity buses, hydrogen buses, and buses becoming more streetcar or advanced in their appearance, streetcars are a mode of transport with diminishing returns.
Click to expand...

Toronto has a large and expansive streetcar system that effectively plies high-traffic downtown routes. They're higher capacity than the buses, and they are emissions free. They are an asset for the city.

But for cities that do not already have a network of trackage, garages, catenaries, know-how, an expensive fleet, etc like Toronto does, they would likely be better off spending on improved bus services than paying all the overhead of establishing a new mixed-traffic streetcar line.

It's the same thing with Toronto's trolleybuses: getting rid of them was a mistake. But the TTC did an analysis and determined that re-establishing the trolleybuses wasn't worth the cost.
 
aquateam said:
What aspect of this project is "new and unproven" to Toronto? The financing?
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The financing and governance, for starters. It's partially wireless, using battery power as well as overhead. It's a mixture of at-curb plus center-of-road. And it was conceived, planned, approved, funded, and built in only a few years' time.

- Paul
 
aquateam said:
I think it's actually a good thing that they are reserving a lane while they can. It's better to have the ROW now when traffic isn't bad, rather than wait until the section of road becomes congested and THEN try to take a lane from frustrated motorists.



The C-train has surprisingly high ridership considering the built environment. Calgary has transit ridership about double what you'd expect for a city that size, built post-war. Calgary's secret: parking policy. Instead of parking minimums, they have parking maximums. That's why I think it's a particularly cruel joke when people on this forum talk about the need for new development to provide sufficient parking.
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Majority of Lake Shore in southern Etobicoke is never a very busy road and never will be. It makes less sense to remove all the on street parking and wipe out all the small businesses while loosing all the parking profit right now. I think the city realize that right now and has cut back the restarted Waterfront LRT EA to Park Lawn while the real development happened.

In Calgary, the C-Train is the only form of rail transit. The entire C-Train bus network is design to feed the LRT except a few BRT routes. Their BRT routes are indeed BRT lite like Zum and 1st phase Viva. It's not that surprising. I'm sure Ottawa will develop a LRT network of a similar size and ridership. TTC's network is very different compare to Calgary. TTC routes are designed for cross-city travel without reaching the subway. It is also the reason why TTC subway ridership is lower than the Montreal Metro.
Maximizing parking has big con. It doesn't develop the local bus network. It means urban spiral can continue as people will continue to use their cars to get to the station. The TTC doesn't maximize parking and in fact minimize parking which contribute to an effective bus network. It's like designing a city with no future. If we don't want the Toronto Portlands to be flooded with cars, don't build wide roads with plenty of parking. Once people start with driving in mind, it's hard for them to get rid of their cars.

cplchanb said:
IMO a lot of the arguments for the streetcar in the traditional sense is based on nostalgia and sentiment towards an old form of transit; basically, fanboyism and rail fanaticism. Yes Toronto has one of the largest streetcar networks around,
but in this day in age, the traditional architecture of a streetcar with it being mixed in traffic with close stop spacing doesnt work with modern toronto. Toronto has simply failed to adapt with the changing urban climate. Remember the streetcar was a form of transport that was developed in the early 20th century when people didnt have cars, hence the close stop spacing and mixed traffic and the term street car. Lets face it, in the 21st century cars dominating in NA are here to stay. There is no dream world solution to have streetcars coexist with cars. One cannot shove new streetcars on King and Queen and assume that it will sort itself out in 10 years. The fact is, instead of streetcar infrastructure, LRT infrastructure is the way to go with longer stop spacing and ROW. Unfortunately for Toronto, we are still stuck in the 1980s and still trying to develop an antique network where in reality they need to convert to LRT
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Streetcars or the engineering term light rail vehicle (LRV) is a proven technology that will dominate the 19th and 21th century public transportation in suburban environment and smaller cities.

Germany being ahead of us has figured out in the 70s that it is just too expensive to replace an entire tram network with subways. It doesn't make sense to put the entire network on ROW. Only the downtown core. Portion of the network like Lake Shore, Kingston Rd and Queen East is just fine in mix traffic. Replacing it with ROWs will not save a lot of time. Berlin is a good example where many of their lines still have mix traffic section closer to the end of the line.
 
I agree with streetcars continuing but I think the age of the catenary is coming to an end. China has just started using it's first hydrogen tram/streetcar, in the north of Germany the state has decided not to electrify more lines but rather use new hydrogen powered trains There are several trams in Europe that now receive their power from the tracks themselves as the trams passes over each section. Many longer distance tram/trains use diesel in the more rural areas and battery in the cities.
 
MisterF said:
The reality:

Typical capacity of an articulated bus: 120
Capacity of a CLRV: 132
Capacity of an ALRV: 205
Capacity of a Flexity Outlook: 251
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And empty in the back of the bus, with almost everyone getting on and, worse, off the bus using the front door only.
 
MisterF said:
The reality:

Typical capacity of an articulated bus: 120
Capacity of a CLRV: 132
Capacity of an ALRV: 205
Capacity of a Flexity Outlook: 251
Click to expand...
Not sure where your numbers are from.

The numbers TTC reports are:
18-metre bus - 77
CLRV - 74
ALRV - 108
Flexity - 130

Now those aren't crush load (at which point route capacity drops, because of the excess dwell time, while people try and squish off). But when I've been on a crush-loaded CLRV, I've done the occasional head-count, and it doesn't get much above 80. I don't know how you'd get 132, unless you have a child on every lap.
 
nfitz said:
Not sure where your numbers are from.

The numbers TTC reports are:
18-metre bus - 77
CLRV - 74
ALRV - 108
Flexity - 130

Now those aren't crush load (at which point route capacity drops, because of the excess dwell time, while people try and squish off). But when I've been on a crush-loaded CLRV, I've done the occasional head-count, and it doesn't get much above 80. I don't know how you'd get 132, unless you have a child on every lap.
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Crush loads. But whether it's crush or some other measure isn't really relevant. What I was showing is simply that streetcars can carry a lot more people than buses, even articulated ones. Your numbers show the same thing.
 
Reecemartin said:
That's some pretty wishful thinking in my opinion. For higher speeds catenary is a better option, and it also allows vehicles to be lighter compared to multiple units where they have to carry power generation systems. Hydrogen might be a better option than diesel in a few years if the cost can come down, but overall it's gonna be a while until hydrogen becomes commonplace. Despite numerous attempts at hydrogen cars for example, they continue to be very unpopular. A big issue is that people look at hydrogen as a fuel whereas a better comparison would be a battery because in large part we have to produce the hydrogen (which is costly and storage and transport is also costly). What electric car companies have shown is that their is alot of improvements to be made to batteries still (of course the same is true of hydrogen) battery development is more compatible with current infrastructure and will likely leave hydrogen far behind for a fairly long period of time.

Lots o places have created hydrogen vehicles I'm not saying that we can't I'm just saying their are alot of less expensive and frankly better alternatives in my opinion. Check out this piece on what happened to BC Transits Hydrogen Bus fleet.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...-to-be-sold-off-converted-to-diesel-1.2861060
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Hydrogen, like Alcohol, lacks the *energy density* of more complex hydrocarbons. Enough on that save to refer it back to catenary: The *low source impedance* of a well designed catenary supply is almost always vastly greater than what a *safe* onboard storage system can provide. The problem with high discharge rate storage systems is that the same characteristic renders them highly explosive. (Ditto molecularly inert systems, like super-capacitors or flywheels)

Where 'catenary-less' systems are used, it's almost always a special situation deemed 'heritage' or the like where overhead wires are considered too unsightly or dangerous. Catenary remains the name of the game, albeit looking much more stately of lately.
 
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