Hamilton: General Service Discussion

[mdrejhon]

Cherrypicked from the main GO projects thread, due to its Hamilton nature:
New photos of JamesNorth GO station.

As of today, Sat Jan 17th.. 5 more months til PanAm
(taken by me)

 

[Jonny5]

On that topic -- I really feel that TTC streetcars NEED that "Turn Light Green" pushbutton, to speed them up; they sometimes get stuck at stoplights for 3 stoplight cycles! They pick up passengers, but then a red light stops a car in front of them, they pick up more passengers, car in front goes, and the streetcar is still stuck another red light cycle, etc. With all-door boarding and traffic preemption, Toronto's streetcars can probably pierce through busy downtown intersections at least 50% faster. It will actually speed car commuters up too if the stoplight cycle is real-time tweaked a bit -- the ones that are stuck behind the streetcar for 3 stoplight cycles.

More information about the "Turn Light Green" systems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_signal_preemption
In some cities in the world, the city bus and LRTs use this system... Hamilton LRT will be using something similiar...

It's not necessarily a "turn light green" issue. The primary driver of the situation is pedestrian crossing times. Even at narrow four-lane downtown intersections, pedestrians are assumed to need a minimum of 15 seconds to cross, which you can't make go away with the press of a button. Someone crossing the street can't have the light just suddenly change and be stuck facing oncoming traffic. You can press the button, but still have to wait for 15 seconds. Now maybe you can cut the total wait time down from 30 seconds to 15, but that's not really much time savings. Toronto has a lot of intersections equipped with "hold green" detectors, which keep lights from changing from green to yellow for an extra 15 seconds, but that is only about 50% successful; some times the light staying green longer just means that the last extra passenger gets on board the moment it turns red, forcing the streetcar to wait for a full cycle of the other direction it would not have had to .

It's a pretty complicated problem to solve when you have mixed traffic and pedestrians crossing streets. What may help is enforcing the concept that when the dorrs close, they stay closed. You can't come running up to the streetcar the second the light turns green and expect to get on. But operators let those people on because they file official complaints about how the streetcar left them behind. A partial solution attempted in Toronto now is to move stops well back from intersections. A stop near where I lived was recently moved 15 metres back from the corner, so people coming down the cross street can't see the strreetcar is waiting there to load people.

 

[DC83]

I don't really understand why there is a Hamilton Catch-All Thread?

Each Hamilton Transit Project should get it's own Thread..
can someone explain why this thread is even necessary?

 

[nfitz]

I don't really understand why there is a Hamilton Catch-All Thread?

Each Hamilton Transit Project should get it's own Thread..
can someone explain why this thread is even necessary?

Agreed. Probably best to close, before we have a Weston thread, a Vaughan thread, and a Timmins thread.

 

[reaperexpress]

It's not necessarily a "turn light green" issue. The primary driver of the situation is pedestrian crossing times. Even at narrow four-lane downtown intersections, pedestrians are assumed to need a minimum of 15 seconds to cross, which you can't make go away with the press of a button. Someone crossing the street can't have the light just suddenly change and be stuck facing oncoming traffic. You can press the button, but still have to wait for 15 seconds. Now maybe you can cut the total wait time down from 30 seconds to 15, but that's not really much time savings. Toronto has a lot of intersections equipped with "hold green" detectors, which keep lights from changing from green to yellow for an extra 15 seconds, but that is only about 50% successful; some times the light staying green longer just means that the last extra passenger gets on board the moment it turns red, forcing the streetcar to wait for a full cycle of the other direction it would not have had to .

It's a pretty complicated problem to solve when you have mixed traffic and pedestrians crossing streets. What may help is enforcing the concept that when the dorrs close, they stay closed. You can't come running up to the streetcar the second the light turns green and expect to get on. But operators let those people on because they file official complaints about how the streetcar left them behind. A partial solution attempted in Toronto now is to move stops well back from intersections. A stop near where I lived was recently moved 15 metres back from the corner, so people coming down the cross street can't see the strreetcar is waiting there to load people.

Yep. To add on:

Typically minor intersections can hold the green for up to 30 seconds, major ones up to 16 (though it's uncommon to have TSP at major intersections since they are the capacity constraint for motor traffic).

You forgot the 4 seconds of amber and 2 seconds of all-way red which follow the end of the flashing don't walk. So with a 15 second FDW, we're talking 21 seconds from the pre-emption call to the start of a green. Plus there's the minimum 7 seconds of Walk time, which we cannot violate either.

So basically a "turn light green" feature (which is called "phase reduction" and is in use at countless intersections in Toronto), saves only a couple seconds in most situations. It's the extensions (i.e. holding the green) that make a difference, unless there is a near-side stop, in which case it's often counterproductive as you mention.

I don't really understand why there is a Hamilton Catch-All Thread?

Each Hamilton Transit Project should get it's own Thread..
can someone explain why this thread is even necessary?

Seconded. I could perhaps see an "HSR Service Thread".

 

[CDL.TO]

I'm going to change this thread to "Hamilton service". I believe there is already another thread about the LRT and Hamilton GO-related discussions should go in the appropriate GO thread.

 

[mdrejhon]

can someone explain why this thread is even necessary?

Agreed. Probably best to close, before we have a Weston thread, a Vaughan thread, and a Timmins thread.

There is already a few, of outlying GTHA communities, including the Brampton thread (which was popular for some time in the past, 113,000 views). While some other GTHA municipalities had a thread but fell quickly down the forum list due to lack of posts. For such outlying GTHA areas, discussion is scattered to a point where an area thread is warranted, especially in an era of multiple improvements starting to be discussed. I would not be opposed to closing this thread, but only if the other threads are closed too, and new forum rules clearly published (consistency). However, community precedent seems to indicate this thread is OK, especially of less commonly mentioned communities with a budding surge of proposals/plans (regional/local/car/bike/etc), and where info can be spread thin and bumped up extremely infrequently. Such threads can become preferred (i.e. democratically made popular by forum members by sheer virtue of active discussion) as it was for Brampton for many years here. For a time, avoided filling a lot of threads with tons of minor Brampton developments.

Seconded. I could perhaps see an "HSR Service Thread".

I'm going to change this thread to "Hamilton service".

I agree about making this the General Hamilton Transit thread, as I can post minor developments easily without polluting other threads. Or dissect major developments with minutae that would be distracting to a thread mostly filled about Union and Scarborough. Wouldn't you prefer I did my deed in this thread instead?

Back on topic, the SoBi bikeshare opened last Friday, in a preview of 200 bikes for early users. Kind of a public beta test, in exchange for a free extra month or two of membership, and to gauge winter demand. (this tidbit doesnt even deserve its own thread, but is perfect for a Hamilton General Transit thread).

 

[TOareaFan]

There is already a few, of outlying GTHA communities, including the Brampton thread (which was popular for some time in the past, 113,000 views). While some other GTHA municipalities had a thread but fell quickly down the

That is a thread about Brampton Transit and Zum (which is just Brampton Transit dressed up)....it is not a Brampton "catch all" thread and, as others have pointed out, discussion about other Brampton related items go in their appropriate threads (eg. GO construction, GTS, HMLRT, highways).

With so many projects touching multiple municipalities, having municipal "catch all" threads just leads to duplication of postings and discussions (as we are already seeing a bit with the new Hamilton GO station).

 

[DC83]

Still don't get the need for this thread (disclaimer I'm a Hamiltonian myself).

Just FYI there's already a Hamilton LRT thread, so BLAST network discussion should really happen there.

SoBi (Hamilton Bike Share) should have it's own thread as well.

It's about staying on topic and not mixing discussions.

If we want info on SoBi, or BLAST, we shouldn't have to rummage through pages of a 'General Hamilton Transit Discussion' thread.

So what's the point of this thread again? I just don't understand 'cherry-picking' items from other threads and plopping em in here.

 

[mdrejhon]

With so many projects touching multiple municipalities, having municipal "catch all" threads just leads to duplication of postings and discussions (as we are already seeing a bit with the new Hamilton GO station).

Fair enough.

So what's the point of this thread again? I just don't understand 'cherry-picking' items from other threads and plopping em in here.

That was done only once (your post), keeping OP credit intact.
Your photos were excellent and I wanted to highlight them, as a rare-but-appreciated crosspost exception.
(Hope you take that as a compliment! )
If you prefer me not to do that, I can avoid doing for your own pictures.

All the other posts, were either my own photos I took from my camera, or stuff from other websites (with sources cited, e.g. B.L.A.S.T. from city hall). At the time of my posting of this thread, I knew there wasn't a SoBi thread nor a thread about the well-synchronized traffic lights of Main/King. I also didn't know about the LRT thread, though I already knew of the GO construction projects thread. Some future followups I am about to post, is the ongoing conversion of one-way streets into two-way streets (like done for James street somewhere a while back) which I can't find a thread related to. Ditto for Cannon Street bike lanes -- where's the thread for that? So many threads exist for Hamilton that would be very distracting in a Toronto-centric forum. even though "Hamilton" is in "GTHA". There's a lot of Hamilton transit side issues I want to be able to post somewhere.

In other words: It may make you happy if I slot them into new threads, but could also annoy other urbantoronto.ca users if I bumped up 5 threads (including maybe 3 threads I will now need to create in the coming weeks from scratch) all at once and made those threads a lot less interesting to them, with Hamilton-related posts to catch up on these threads -- it would be unusually disproportionate from a GTHA perspective, and even moreso during a surge-posting moment. This was, thereby, my rationale for creating this thread instead, so I don't have to feel I'm annoying UrbanToronto with too many Hamilton-related posts throughout.

I'll go with what the mods decide to do with this thread. Also, with the huge boom of GO network and RER coming in the coming years, I kind of am wondering if a single catchall thread for all GO construction minutae makes sense -- GO Georgetown Project had its own specific construction thread! Why make it separate of the main GO construction thread, even though the ARL is the prime reason? Maybe reorg as the "GO Hamilton/Niagara expansion" thread as it is a budding megaproject over time. And "Hamilton Other Projects (than LRT/GO)" thread. Many are not interested in GO expansion updates on more than half of the GO network -- it may even be time to split that thread into separate aspects of GO construction though that has cons too. It's time consuming trying to hunt down Hamilton-related updates just in the GO construction project thread. But I don't mind excluding GO-related stuff in this thread, or even asked tp only focus on that, if this thread becomes renamed to "Hamilton Other Transit Issues (other than GO/LRT/HSR)" or "Mark's Special Hamilton Thread" as a catchall for currently non-existent threads (keeping GO/LRT to the other threads). If moderators want to revisit keeping this thread, and a decision is made to discontinue this thread, my photos can be merged into the original construction projects thread, though depending on how this is handled, I'm not sure I'd as enthusiastically comment on traffic light synchronization/sobi system/cannon bike lanes/post my own GO photography -- especially without a feeling of appreciation, and if I can't easily hunt down and compare it to my earlier photos (I suppose I could use Search to find my own posts under my username, a year from now. ) In the light of the new information provided, I yield to moderator's final decision.

Until then, I'll only consolidate my Hamilton related posts into this thread, but maybe avoid crossposting a gem like I did once (for DC83's beautiful photos). Not everyone will be happy, I know. But what of the other options?

For the mods, consider precedent and the pros/cons for the whole forum populace, when deciding an official verdict about this thread's future. OK?

 

[mdrejhon]

...

Resuming discussion:
- City votes to kill bus lanes in downtown Hamilton, 9-7
http://www.thespec.com/news-story/5268708-councillors-vote-9-7-to-eliminate-bus-only-lane/
This may hurt Hamilton's chances of LRT, as this was a possible ROW for the LRT.

I personally dislike the bus lanes, but I would vote to keep them because it is a step that paves the way for the LRT (At least my ward's councillor, Matthew Green, voted against eliminating the bus lanes -- good on him!).

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

...

Resuming discussion:
- City votes to kill bus lanes in downtown Hamilton, 9-7
http://www.thespec.com/news-story/5268708-councillors-vote-9-7-to-eliminate-bus-only-lane/
This may hurt Hamilton's chances of LRT, as this was a possible ROW for the LRT.

I personally dislike the bus lanes, but I would vote to keep them because it is a step that paves the way for the LRT (At least my ward's councillor, Matthew Green, voted against eliminating the bus lanes -- good on him!).

Big loss for Hamilton.

 

[mdrejhon]

They are removing the signage to the Hamilton bus lanes on King. Expected to be open to cars within a few days after scraping off the lane markers. Though this is slowed down by the lake effect Snowzilla (over 20cm wallopped downtown Hamilton Monday, while staying sunny in nearby Stoney Creek...)

On some better news:

-- Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne reaffirmed to Hamilton mayor Eisenberger about 100% funding for LRT. News on this is found online, including several articles mentioned in the Hamilton LRT thread. Skepticism abound though, in a good RaiseTheHammer.org article.

-- Metrolinx posted an advertisement today, in the Metro newspaper, reaffirming that Hamilton's James North GO station will still open this summer despite how late construction looks (I guess with at least temporary platforms, if the building is still unfinished). Also, tweet by Steven Dul Duca, MPP of Vaughan reaffirms it'll open on time. I guess Metrolinx will have to operate a frantic "Tim Horton Museum" pace beginning during the spring (It's still amazing how fast that new Hamilton landmark was built this year -- Metrolinx needs to copycat that) or build a temporary platform.

 

[rbt]

I read it as the province is committed to funding it provided what is requested makes sense and the price is reasonable.

If they suddenly change to demanding a tunnel through downtown hamilton and don't hit what will be busy GO transfer points then it might get bumped to the back as having poor value for capital spent.

Until Hamilton actually presents a completed plan, there really isn't anything for the province to fund. From outside, there still seems to be debate about the basics of where the route will go and what technology it might use.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

They are removing the signage to the Hamilton bus lanes on King. Expected to be open to cars within a few days after scraping off the lane markers. Though this is slowed down by the lake effect Snowzilla (over 20cm wallopped downtown Hamilton Monday, while staying sunny in nearby Stoney Creek...)

On some better news:

-- Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne reaffirmed to Hamilton mayor Eisenberger about 100% funding for LRT. News on this is found online, including several articles mentioned in the Hamilton LRT thread. Skepticism abound though, in a good RaiseTheHammer.org article.

-- Metrolinx posted an advertisement today, in the Metro newspaper, reaffirming that Hamilton's James North GO station will still open this summer despite how late construction looks (I guess with at least temporary platforms, if the building is still unfinished). Also, tweet by Steven Dul Duca, MPP of Vaughan reaffirms it'll open on time. I guess Metrolinx will have to operate a frantic "Tim Horton Museum" pace beginning during the spring (It's still amazing how fast that new Hamilton landmark was built this year -- Metrolinx needs to copycat that) or build a temporary platform.

Good to hear.