Toronto St. Clair West Transit Improvements | ?m | ?s | TTC

[ShonTron]

That's a great idea. Why not a quick white bar aspect at the end of any part of the light cycle. 5-10 seconds of a white bar display, and 3-5 seconds of red, would be easy to accomplish to let a waiting streetcar through before the car turn phase.

Those white bars are for transit-exclusive phases. Relatively few transit-only phasess exist in Toronto (the green means that regular through traffic can also go) - Harbourfront is one exception, though they are regular aspects in a specially marked and signed signal casing.

Here, the white bars are used usually only for special turns, left turn bars like at Dundas and Broadview, Jane northbound to Interchange Way, Hespeler Road to "SmartCentres" Cambridge, and the true queue-jumps in Ottawa.

 

[adma]

Here, the white bars are used usually only for special turns, left turn bars like at Dundas and Broadview, Jane northbound to Interchange Way, Hespeler Road to "SmartCentres" Cambridge, and the true queue-jumps in Ottawa.

Yonge + Duplex also comes to mind.

 

[Irishmonk]

I took a couple of the video tours and was highly frustrated by the lack of priority the streetcar is getting. Oakwood to Lansdowne was particularily galling. The driver missed a high ratio of lights by a few seconds, thereby having to wait 30 seconds to advance a few meters to the next stop where the dwell times were much longer than necessary. So many riders are getting off at the front doors, thereby adding 10+ seconds to the dwell time. For cryin out loud, enforce people to get off at the centre doors. This is not rocket science.

Also, why on earth are left turns are given priority over the streetcar? Once again, this is not rocket science. It's like the TTC live in their own oblvious little cloud where practical thinking is never even considered, much less applied. This ROW is still a pokey, local milk run, even though some very easy measures could be applied to at least get it up to the speed of a suburban bus. But for the TTC, speed, once again, is not an issue.

Other than that I thought the physical infrastructure itself was fairly decent, considering all the carping that's been going for the past 4 years. But the service could be so much better.

Transit City cannot follow this model if it's to succeed at any level. Streetcars cannot be forced to wait at red lights or have people straggling out the front doors one at a time. Please learn from this, TTC, before spending 8 billion dollars on a glorified streetcar network.

 

[Jimbits]

For cryin out loud, enforce people to get off at the centre doors. This is not rocket science.

People don't care about dwell times when they're about to get off. With time people should learn to get off at the rear doors because of the prevalence of farside stops on the route, and in a few years the problem should hopefully be no more with all-door loading on streetcars.

Also, why on earth are left turns are given priority over the streetcar? Once again, this is not rocket science. It's like the TTC live in their own oblvious little cloud where practical thinking is never even considered, much less applied. This ROW is still a pokey, local milk run, even though some very easy measures could be applied to at least get it up to the speed of a suburban bus. But for the TTC, speed, once again, is not an issue.

I think some of the blame lies with the traffic people at Toronto Transportation Services. The Spadina Streetcar route was supposedly built with signal priority, but it's never been turned on.

 

[rbt]

Also, why on earth are left turns are given priority over the streetcar? Once again, this is not rocket science. It's like the TTC live in their own oblvious little cloud where practical thinking is never even considered, much less applied.

You seem to believe the TTC has any control over traffic lights. They don't.

At most, they can put in a request which will be happily ignored by the works department. The traffic engineers (car people) decided left turns get priority and transit lights will be short.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Look at this sign pollution at this intersection.

And with the European traffic lights.

Why have words saying these lights are for transit? As it is, they are confusing for everyone. Including those who can't read English. The European lights have no words, but is better understood even by those who are illiterate. One knows that the lower lights are something different. Those are the transit signals, which can be ignored by motorists, but obeyed by transit.

 

[Dan416]

Look at this sign pollution at this intersection.

And with the European traffic lights.

Why have words saying these lights are for transit? As it is, they are confusing for everyone. Including those who can't read English. The European lights have no words, but is better understood even by those who are illiterate. One knows that the lower lights are something different. Those are the transit signals, which can be ignored by motorists, but obeyed by transit.

Those European transit lights are better because they're different and don't need a separate sign to tell you what they're for.

 

[Lilibet]

Can someone please explain the logic of farside intersection stops

I have several options to get to my office downtown near Osgoode subway which include the 168 Symington to Dundas West subway, the 127 Davenport to Dupont subway or in a pinch even the 41 Keele to High Park subway. On average it takes me about 40 minutes on any of these routes.
This morning I thought I'd try the 512 for my morning commute. It's the first time since the official launch of the streetcar ROW as far as Lansdowne and frankly I'm disappointed. I was 20 minutes late for work.
I live west of Lansdowne so I still have to transfer over from bus to streetcar. No problem. That part went very smoothly, however, I find the layout of the streetcar stops baffling. Can someone please explain the logic of having the majority of loading platforms on the farside of an intersection?
In nearly every case this morning, the streetcar was stopped by a red light only then having to stop again on the far side to pick up or drop off passengers. We were moving like molasses. I don't get it.

 

[CDL.TO]

Can someone please explain the logic of having the majority of loading platforms on the farside of an intersection?
In nearly every case this morning, the streetcar was stopped by a red light only then having to stop again on the far side to pick up or drop off passengers. We were moving like molasses. I don't get it.

AFAIK, there are three reasons why.

Most importantly, the stops are on the far side in order to make room for a left-turn lane for vehicles on the near side.
Secondly, far-side stops make more sense if the TTC ever manages to get signal priority implemented on St. Clair (or Spadina).
Lastly, it doesn't have that big of an effect on travel times. You may be losing time by waiting at the red light, but you make up some of it by being able to depart the moment the streetcar has finished loading. Often on buses and non-ROW streetcars the vehicle has to load on green and gets stuck at the red once they are done loading.
`

 

[casaguy]

I understand defending the TTC here, but you're forgetting the most important part: the customer.

Lilibet's experience was that they were moving like molasses. How is this even defensible after the nightmare that was caused by putting in this ROW?

And how can we shrug off the inconvenience of there not being signal-priority at this stage in the game?

After years and years of planning and construction and millions of dollars why wouldn't this ROW be an example to the world of how to do it right?

This is truly shameful and an incredible embarrassment to all involved... unless of course the standard is set to "barely acceptable" -- then I guess all is well.

Ok, there's my rant for the day.

 

[CDL.TO]

I understand defending the TTC here, but you're forgetting the most important part: the customer.

...

And how can we shrug off the inconvenience of there not being signal-priority at this stage in the game?

I wasn't defending, I was explaining their logic. Though I can see why you would think that I was.

I only recently moved out of the St. Clair neighbourhood, after living there for over two years. I used the first phase of the ROW, between the two subway stations, on a regular basis. Even with the ROW, streetcars were needlessly slow and unreliable. In the middays and evenings, there is a streetcar scheduled every 5-6 mins. But yet I would FREQUENTLY experience either boarding a streetcar at St. Clair and wait for 10 minutes to depart, then have two leave at once. There were 6 cars in service on the line, but it was common (maybe more common than not) to be waiting at St. Clair or St. Clair West with 4 or 5 streetcars waiting in the station.


The TTC service summary from June gave a run time of 15 minutes (not including terminal time) for a round trip between St. Clair and St. Clair West, which works out to an average speed of only 15.8 km/h.

Using the current service summary (effective Jan 3), here are the average scheduled speeds for streetcar routes:
501 (Neville-Long branch): 17.5 km/h
501 (Neville-Humber): 15.3 km/h
504: 14.9 km/h
506: 14.8 km/h
512 (Yonge-Lansdowne): 14.7 km/h

But the thing about the ROW is that it can be fast. Those times when I would wait 10 minutes for the streetcar to depart, the driver would often make proper use of the ROW, pick up speed and get us to St. Clair West in 5 minutes or so.
`

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

AFAIK, there are three reasons why.

Most importantly, the stops are on the far side in order to make room for a left-turn lane for vehicles on the near side.
Secondly, far-side stops make more sense if the TTC ever manages to get signal priority implemented on St. Clair (or Spadina).
Lastly, it doesn't have that big of an effect on travel times. You may be losing time by waiting at the red light, but you make up some of it by being able to depart the moment the streetcar has finished loading. Often on buses and non-ROW streetcars the vehicle has to load on green and gets stuck at the red once they are done loading.
`

^^ Unacceptable...

Accomodating left turns makes transit second fiddle to automotive traffic. Does every intersection require a left turn?

That's IF the TTC (or Traffic works dept) ever decide to turn on transit priority along the line. I understand that Spadina has a high density of streetcar routes crossing it, so prioritizing Spadina would mean sacrificing Dundas, or Queen, or King. Wonder what the excuse will be on St. Clair as there are no major streetcar lines intersecting it. Furthermore a nearside stop could just as easily be integrated with transit priority as a farside stop. The vehicle is able to hold the green light a little longer if it is ready to depart, or even delay the appearance of a green if it is still boarding passengers.

If a bus route option is 20 - 30 mins quicker than this streetcar ROW then there is a problem.

 

[CDL.TO]

Furthermore a nearside stop could just as easily be integrated with transit priority as a farside stop. The vehicle is able to hold the green light a little longer if it is ready to depart, or even delay the appearance of a green if it is still boarding passengers.

Have you considered the logistics of implementing such a system?

With a farside stop, engineers can be confident that if the streetcar is moving at speed x, that it will arrive at the intersection in y seconds, and the system can try its best to ensure that the light is green when the streetcar gets there.

But with what you propose is to implement uncertainty. Now we don't know how long it will be until the streetcar needs to get through the intersection. You suggest allowing the driver to hold the green if he wishes to, which would be a great improvement over the TTC's current signal priority system which automatically holds the green for streetcars, even if the driver doesn't want the green held, but still has its limits. The idea that a driver would choose to prevent a green from coming is pretty laughable, though. And in both your cases, he can't make the green come any faster.

Have a look on Google at the new Tramline 3 in Paris, the line that is often used as an example in Transit City documents, as it actually runs along the median of a street for its length (unlike the other 3 tramlines in the city, but let's not get into that). All the stops are either far-side, or side-by-side on one side of the intersection. Not a single stop contains two near-side platforms. I don't think anyone would accuse Paris of doing things that don't maximize the benefit to transit.

 

[Jonny5]

^^ Unacceptable...

Accomodating left turns makes transit second fiddle to automotive traffic. Does every intersection require a left turn?

You have to let people turn across the ROW somewhere. Accomodating this does not make transit a lower priority. Not allowing transit vehicles to advance through an intersection before any other vehicles is what makes them second-fiddle.

This signal technology is something that is already figured out implemented and proven workable in dozens of cities in the world. The TTC just can't seem to make it happen, either because they are grossly inept or they are blocked from doing so by council. Yes, the Traffic Department is who would oppose this, but they can be muzzled by a stroke of council's pen. Council has chosen not to do anything. The blame lies only there.

 

[junctionist]

If this is the way we allow streetcars on ROW to operate, it's not unreasonable to doubt that the next light rail ROW projects will be better implemented, especially because they will be built in less walkable, more car-oriented parts of the city. And frankly, it makes these projects seem a little wasteful.