Metrolinx: Sheppard East LRT (In Design)

[DonValleyRainbow]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i0bhbgadcvnij0x/map_stops.pdf?dl=0

Thanks! And that's insane. Is anyone else worried about this amount of stops? It's approaching the subway spacing you find in the downtown core, yet it's in the less dense suburbs. Double whammy of additional travel time and lower ridership.

Someone has raised the point about it replacing bus service, but is it worth it? Why not compliment it with an infrequent bus like they do on Yonge north of St. Clair if you're that worried?

 

[Markster]

Thanks! And that's insane. Is anyone else worried about this amount of stops?

This thread is 82 pages long, of which I think about 80 are about the number of stops being too much.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

This thread is 82 pages long, of which I think about 80 are about the number of stops being too much.

Sorry, a bit late to the conversation. At the same time, last post was Nov. 22.

May I stir the pot?

 

[WislaHD]

Sorry, a bit late to the conversation. At the same time, last post was Nov. 22.

May I stir the pot?

I'm with you all the way on this. Way too many stops, this is supposed to be rapid transit.

 

[Cobra]

Indeed, this is a "stopfest" which is this corridor's main critic...too slow, too many stops

 

[salsa]

So someone on another thread accused this of having too many stops.

I think that accusation is BS, in my opinion. Here's how the Finch LRT EA justified it (ditto for Sheppard):

LRT stops are selected based on a balance between good local access and high route speed. The greater the distance between stops, the higher the speed of travel. There were two general scenarios considered for stop separation for the Etobicoke-Finch West Transit City Corridor:

1) LRT stops every 800 metres like a ‘surface subway’, stopping only at major intersections, with infrequent parallel bus service (e.g. every 20 minutes) servicing bus stops in between. At LRT stops, customers transfer to centre LRT platform from side of road bus stop.

2) LRT stops every 400 metres – stopping at every major intersection, and once in between, with no infrequent parallel local bus service.

TTC developed a micro-simulation to examine the impacts of stop spacing of the Sheppard East LRT. A stop spacing of 800 metres resulted in a route speed of 26-27 km/h, while a stop spacing of 400 metres had a route speed of 22-23 km/h. The wider spacing did not result in as much of a speed advantage as expected; while the LRT stopped less often, the time for customers to board took twice as long per stop (same number of passengers collected at half the stops) and the LRT still had delays due to red lights at signalized intersections in between stops (although the model accounted for possible signal priority to reduce such delays). The wider spacing scenario was not selected because the full impact of the increased speed of the LRT applies only to those walking directly to LRT stops. Those boarding local buses at bus stops in between LRT stops have a shorter walk, but a longer waiting time for service and a transfer to the LRT after a very short bus ride.

In recognition of these results, the recommendation for stop spacing for the Etobicoke-Finch West line is in the order of 400 to 600 metres, depending upon the pattern of development and the location of cross-streets, with an expected average speed of 22 to 23 km/h; this is considered to be the best balance between the overall route speed and good local access. The stop spacing may be greater at some locations for the Etobicoke-Finch West LRT due to terrain and undeveloped zones along the corridor, as well as the interchange and related roadways at Highway 400. For purposes of comparison, during peak operating conditions, the average speed of the Bloor-Danforth subway line is 30 km/h, the 36 Finch West bus service is 17 km/h, and the 510 Spadina streetcar service is 14 km/h.

Makes perfect sense to me. If you're gonna have wide stop spacing, then you will need parallel bus service which costs money to run and will be very infrequent. Ask anyone who lives between Lawrence and Eglinton station, or Bayview and Sheppard-Yonge for example. They live right on the subway line and yet they are essentially unserved by it since it's a pain in the ass to access. But of course the typical answer I hear on these forums is "just walk more". Well I have to walk about 10 minutes to just access my local bus stop, and it would be an additional 5 minutes of walking to get to a major intersection if I want to use the express bus. 15 minutes is well about what most people are willing to walk to use transit, especially in bad weather or poor health.

I would also add that closer stop spacing would encourage continuous development along the whole street, rather than just at major intersections. And also, travel analysis has shown that most riders will be travelling within Scarborough, not heading downtown therefore the LRT should really be more of a local transit line anyway.

But with all that said, some people still insist that less stops are better, just to make the LRT travel 4 km/h faster. That's about 27 minutes of travel time from Morningside to Don Mills, instead of 31 minutes with closer stop spacing. Ya, totally worth it. You saved 4 minutes, but forced many people to walk much longer than 4 minutes.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Yup. You nailed it. Speed isn't everything. Accessibility is critical.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

Makes perfect sense to me. If you're gonna have wide stop spacing, then you will need parallel bus service which costs money to run and will be very infrequent. Ask anyone who lives between Lawrence and Eglinton station, or Bayview and Sheppard-Yonge for example. They live right on the subway line and yet they are essentially unserved by it since it's a pain in the ass to access. But of course the typical answer I hear on these forums is "just walk more". Well I have to walk about 10 minutes to just access my local bus stop, and it would be an additional 5 minutes of walking to get to a major intersection if I want to use the express bus. 15 minutes is well about what most people are willing to walk to use transit, especially in bad weather or poor health.

I would also add that closer stop spacing would encourage continuous development along the whole street, rather than just at major intersections. And also, travel analysis has shown that most riders will be travelling within Scarborough, not heading downtown therefore the LRT should really be more of a local transit line anyway.

But with all that said, some people still insist that less stops are better, just to make the LRT travel 4 km/h faster. That's about 27 minutes of travel time from Morningside to Don Mills, instead of 31 minutes with closer stop spacing. Ya, totally worth it. You saved 4 minutes, but forced many people to walk much longer than 4 minutes.

Here's my nitpick: how many people are we talking here in scenario 1? How many will realize the time savings because they live in mid- to high-rise development at major intersections and can walk to the stop vs. those who get a bit of the shaft (like you, sorry buddy) because of having to spend extra time bussing or walking to a stop?

I would argue that the total sum of benefits for more people at major intersections getting faster travel time, outweights the total sum of losses for less people living between stops and having longer travel time.

Worst-case scenario: development starts getting dense in a location between two stops. Design the LRT with enough protection to make an infill stop.

 

[ehlow]

I would argue that the total sum of benefits for more people at major intersections getting faster travel time, outweights the total sum of losses for less people living between stops and having longer travel time.

Based one what?

How did you measure the benefits to some vs disadvantages to others and make a judgement that one outweighs the other?

You'd have to know the origin & destination patterns as well as demand distributions. That's part of the EA process that these lines went through. The study looked at the amount of people, where they're coming from where they're going and making a decision on 400m or 800m stop spacing. They decided 400m was better overall.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

Based one what?

How did you measure the benefits to some vs disadvantages to others and make a judgement that one outweighs the other?

Based on measuring time benefits/disadvantages the same per minute, and the assumption that more people would be a) living at major intersections, and b) transferring from north-south bus routes at major intersections. Not many bus routes that come off of Palmdale Drive or Murison Boulevard.

Be sure to note that the EA blurb that salsa provided talks about the time benefit/cost as not make a difference for a single individual. It does not talk about aggregated benefits/costs. I'd like to see the microsim results on that before accepting that Scenario 2 is worth it.

I also recognize two weaknesses in my argument are the longer boarding times (I must concede that), and the signalized intersections between stops (we could reduce them, but this would be ammo to Ford Nation; war on the car and all that).

 

[salsa]

Here's my nitpick: how many people are we talking here in scenario 1? How many will realize the time savings because they live in mid- to high-rise development at major intersections and can walk to the stop vs. those who get a bit of the shaft (like you, sorry buddy) because of having to spend extra time bussing or walking to a stop?

I would argue that the total sum of benefits for more people at major intersections getting faster travel time, outweights the total sum of losses for less people living between stops and having longer travel time.

Worst-case scenario: development starts getting dense in a location between two stops. Design the LRT with enough protection to make an infill stop.

And how great are those benefits exactly? At most you save 4 minutes of travel time if you're going all the way from Morningside to Don Mills, based on the difference in projected average speed. Except most riders will not travel that far. The majority of their trips will be within Scarborough, but those heading downtown can either take the GO train at Agincourt or use the Scarborough subway extension instead of going all the way to Don Mills. So maybe 2 minutes should be considered the average time saved. As the EA has said, closer stop spacing provides the "best balance between the overall route speed and good local access". Many of the proposed mid-block stops already have highrise buildings, with room for more. Occasionally I take the 85 bus, and I see many people getting on or off at midblock bus stops. Alanford in particular even has a bus stop for the 190 express bus. Since travel demands on this corridor at local in nature, the LRT should conform to that.

 

[ehlow]

Based on measuring time benefits/disadvantages the same per minute, and the assumption that more people would be a) living at major intersections, and b) transferring from north-south bus routes at major intersections. Not many bus routes that come off of Palmdale Drive or Murison Boulevard.

Be sure to note that the EA blurb that salsa provided talks about the time benefit/cost as not make a difference for a single individual. It does not talk about aggregated benefits/costs. I'd like to see the microsim results on that before accepting that Scenario 2 is worth it.

I also recognize two weaknesses in my argument are the longer boarding times (I must concede that), and the signalized intersections between stops (we could reduce them, but this would be ammo to Ford Nation; war on the car and all that).

Well re: boarding/dwell time, if you have enough doors and the vehicle is aligned with the stop (level boarding) and proof of payment, and the vehicle is large enough so that it doesn't get extremely crowded, it does minimize the delay. A subway has shorter dwell time than many streetcar stops for example, despite the number of people getting on or off being much greater at the subway stop.

This also means the delay penalty per stop should be lower though.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

Well re: boarding/dwell time, if you have enough doors and the vehicle is aligned with the stop (level boarding) and proof of payment, and the vehicle is large enough so that it doesn't get extremely crowded, it does minimize the delay. A subway has shorter dwell time than many streetcar stops for example, despite the number of people getting on or off being much greater at the subway stop.

This also means the delay penalty per stop should be lower though.

Would they have had the knowledge that Flexity Freedoms were going to be used at the time of the EA?

 

[wopchop]

But with all that said, some people still insist that less stops are better, just to make the LRT travel 4 km/h faster. That's about 27 minutes of travel time from Morningside to Don Mills, instead of 31 minutes with closer stop spacing. Ya, totally worth it. You saved 4 minutes, but forced many people to walk much longer than 4 minutes.

Yup. You nailed it. Speed isn't everything. Accessibility is critical.

Totally agreed. People seem to want to turn every line into an express train to Union Station.

Seriously, we should remove half the stops to save 4 minutes of travel time for those traveling the farthest. How does that make any sense at all?

 

[W. K. Lis]

Totally agreed. People seem to want to turn every line into an express train to Union Station.

Seriously, we should remove half the stops to save 4 minutes of travel time for those traveling the farthest. How does that make any sense at all?

If the light rail trains don't get a stop request or there is nobody at the stop, the trains will not have to stop but bypass it. They would likely be stopping at each underground station.