maestro
Senior Member
How are streetcar supposed to make right turns from the right turn lanes? I thought the whole point of them being in the middle of the road is to allow greater capacity, longer vehicles with larger turning radiuses.
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New Streetcars
- Thread starter goodboys
- Start date
doady
Senior Member
For both of your ideas, there would be no more on-street parking spaces for motorists and for businesses. Less on-street parking means more parking lots. Also, cars turning would block the entire path of other cars. Turning left and right would have to even more restricted than it is now or maybe even banned altogether. Otherwise, traffic flow would slow to a crawl or even a complete stop.
With both of the streetcar tracks at each side, it would make it more difficult for streetcars to turn. And/or with only one lane in each direction for cars, it would be difficult for taxis to pick people up or drop them off... same with similar vehicles as well such delivery trucks, as nfitz pointed out.
But with the King and Queen as one-way streets (for general traffic), the motorists get better flow, but they also get to keep their parking space. The cars turning left would only have to watch out for pedestrians and streetcars, they wouldn't have to worry about opposing cars and bikes. And the streetcar turns would not be compromised as much. There would just a lot more space for everyone to manuvre on the streets with both tracks at one side, instead of the middle or at both sides in which case there would be no space.
DSC
Superstar
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The tracks on both King and Queen have been redone in last decade and were done in the new improved way with a solid concrete base below the 'ties'. They will not be moved for decades. I agree that left turns should be GREATLY reduced and the police should be more on top of illegal parking but the tracks are not moving from the centre of these street. If they ever get around to redoing tracks on Wellington, Adelaide and Richmond's they COULD go in curb lane but don't plan on seeing King or Queen that way any time soon. When they lay tracks on Cherry (2011 and 2012) they will be on the (east) side of the street so we will have a chance to see how it works.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
According to Rob Ford, streetcars are the cause of congestion on King and Queen. So let's take cars off King and streetcars off Queen and see which street goes faster.
On a more serious note, maybe we could reduce traffic congestion on King by banning automobiles on the portion between Yonge and University. That way King ceases to be an east-west thoroughfare, but continues to serve all the businesses that front onto it (between Yonge and University it's just office towers). Traffic might be reduced because when the streetcar has an advantage over the automobile, more people will end up taking the streetcar.
On a more serious note, maybe we could reduce traffic congestion on King by banning automobiles on the portion between Yonge and University. That way King ceases to be an east-west thoroughfare, but continues to serve all the businesses that front onto it (between Yonge and University it's just office towers). Traffic might be reduced because when the streetcar has an advantage over the automobile, more people will end up taking the streetcar.
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W. K. Lis
Superstar
Unfortunately, there will still be those who would insist that those rules would not apply to them:
[video=youtube;dVtuJ_0GWCU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVtuJ_0GWCU[/video]
Dan416
Senior Member
^ wtf?
reaperexpress
Senior Member
Sadly I know that's true. On Dufferin Street/Allen Road there are often people driving in the bus lanes, and in the HOV lanes north of Steeles, half the cars only have a single occupant.
However, I didn't mean that we should put "no car" and "no right turn" signs, I meant going full out and widening sidewalks and putting in bike lanes. Basically the King street transit mall proposal, but with bike lanes.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Not just here in Toronto, but even in the rest of world there are idiots who can't read but drive. This idiot driver drove into the underground subway section as well.
[video=youtube;un5UbyGRf-o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un5UbyGRf-o[/video]
brockm
Active Member
The TTC has had the technical capability to do trip planner and next bus/train/streetcar for years. GPS and on-track location tracking for on-time information was installed throughout the streetcar, bus and subway network years and years ago for Transit Control. The TTC has actively resisted releasing this information to the public -- and is still resisting opening it to the public (to the extent it's been opened in cities like San Francisco) to prevent anybody from collecting any sort of real-time performance information on the TTC network.
ie. the ATU and the TTC do not want a cunning engineer like me, sucking in their data and getting statistics like "buses are late 20% of the time, subways delays occur 5% of the time, etc." -- or worse, potentially attribute delays to specific buses and routes -- and thus, a specific TTC employee.
This is why the TTC doesn't have say, real-time network tracking available to the public like in some US cities. It has nothing to do with the fact they don't have the data. They do. They could open it up tomorrow, and let application developers pull in the data and create crazy applications for showing where a streetcar is on the network at any given moment -- like in SF. But they do not for public relations reasons.
Also fun fact: the "Next Train" information in the subway system has a perception control system. Even though the Transit Control has accurate information on the location of the train, the TTC has a policy of setting minimum next train times, that never revise their figures upward. So even if Transit Control's computers show the train will likely not reach a particular station for 10 minutes, the public monitor will just slow down time and still show "5 minutes" -- counting down 1 minute for every 2 minutes. Awesome!
epcjay
New Member
It looks if that guy did it on purpose.
Asterix
Active Member
Correct me if you know otherwise, but I thought the 'next train' times were based on location, ie when a train passes a certain physical location, it should be X minutes from the next station. Of course that assumes that the train is traveling at the scheduled speed and doesn't experience any intervening delays.
If the train is only going 30 km/h instead of the expected 60 km/h, then the 2 minutes estimation will end up being 4 minutes.
I could be mistaken though.
rbt
Senior Member
It is based on current GPS coordinates + magic sauce by NextBus (typical vehicle speed at that time/route/weather). The TTC has had (sometimes unreliably) real-time monitoring of vehicle locations since the 70's.
lafard
Active Member
yeah, they're based on physical train location. That's why they never go down, unless trains go out of service (which, I believe, is when "information not available" or "temporarily delayed" means).
I've seen the subway display 11 minutes. From my home station of St Clair West that means the next train north is at Wilson or so. Such things seem to occur at around 10-10:30am if the ends of the line are backed up as they put trains away.
I've seen the subway display 11 minutes. From my home station of St Clair West that means the next train north is at Wilson or so. Such things seem to occur at around 10-10:30am if the ends of the line are backed up as they put trains away.
Asterix
Active Member
rbt
Senior Member
I don't know how the subway timing system works. Send a message to chat_at_gtabug.org if you want to know. A handful of people in that usergroup worked for One Stop, both the software side and the hardware side; as such would be pretty familiar with that particular system.