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Ontario Line North of Eglinton (was Relief Line North) (Speculation)

I think you are overestimating how frequent and rapid the LRT would be, and underestimating how fast and effective a bus on the route is. I don't think the benefits of LRT are enough to make it worth that extra 5-15 minute walk. (Plus there is the accessibility concern, some people can't walk that extra 5-15 minutes)

Buses work pretty well overall presently. A bus on Royal York takes me to my destination and is fairly frequent so shows up when I need it to, which is all that I require as a transit user.

This isn't to discourage building LRTs, just that I think LRTs shouldn't come with the context of seeing lower levels of service or ignoring potential for service improvements on adjacent bus routes.
Buses actually suck. And I am from bus-ville here. I used to take a bus as a “last mile” solution. Fine. It is tragic that we have people bussing long distances on Steeles, Dufferin, Lawrence, Sheppard and Eglinton. Eg and Finch are a good start, but the situation is overall tragic for quality of life in the city. So many people spending so much time going nowhere. We are literally burning human capital.
 
Buses actually suck. And I am from bus-ville here. I used to take a bus as a “last mile” solution. Fine. It is tragic that we have people bussing long distances on Steeles, Dufferin, Lawrence, Sheppard and Eglinton. Eg and Finch are a good start, but the situation is overall tragic for quality of life in the city. So many people spending so much time going nowhere. We are literally burning human capital.
No need to convince me of the suckery of buses. I am a user of the Eglinton buses. :p

With the construction going on, I actually have opted to walk the 2km home from Eglinton Station, over the miserably stuck-in-construction bus.

The point though, is that a) not everybody can walk that distance so it is an accessibility issue; b) it is not actually efficient to walk that distance, if the bus worked, it would be much quicker. I would never have thought of walking before the construction began because that 2km bus ride was never more than 5 minutes (including wait time); c) buses actually work quite well when the route is designed well and is clear of obstacles (including other buses)

This concerns the typical "bus-to-rapid transit" for the last mile commute pattern. The people who trek along the full length of Finch or Steeles on bus are a different matter. I agree, that sort of commute pattern is not practical, but I am short of suggestions there.
 
No need to convince me of the suckery of buses. I am a user of the Eglinton buses. :p

With the construction going on, I actually have opted to walk the 2km home from Eglinton Station, over the miserably stuck-in-construction bus.

The point though, is that a) not everybody can walk that distance so it is an accessibility issue; b) it is not actually efficient to walk that distance, if the bus worked, it would be much quicker. I would never have thought of walking before the construction began because that 2km bus ride was never more than 5 minutes (including wait time); c) buses actually work quite well when the route is designed well and is clear of obstacles (including other buses)

This concerns the typical "bus-to-rapid transit" for the last mile commute pattern. The people who trek along the full length of Finch or Steeles on bus are a different matter. I agree, that sort of commute pattern is not practical, but I am short of suggestions there.
Is suckery a word? :)
 
Buses actually suck. And I am from bus-ville here. I used to take a bus as a “last mile” solution. Fine. It is tragic that we have people bussing long distances on Steeles, Dufferin, Lawrence, Sheppard and Eglinton. Eg and Finch are a good start, but the situation is overall tragic for quality of life in the city. So many people spending so much time going nowhere. We are literally burning human capital.

And what exactly is your point?

There are a lot of places where the ridership levels will never improve beyond what can be carried on a bus at, say, 5 minute headways - if we're lucky. For those passengers, it will always and forever be nothing more than a bus.

Do you begrudge them so much that they should have to walk that distance rather than have a bus?

Don't get me wrong, I hate buses more than most. (Just ask my friends.) But there comes a point at which there just can't be any better. And unfortunately, that covers a very lot of Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke (and even some of the inner suburbs). And so, guess what: the bus will have to continue to be a very important part of the Toronto transit landscape. It happens to be the easiest, and most convenient way to for those people to access transit.

And I guess, at the end of the day, this is what bothers me about transit "snobs" who feel that "subways are the only answer" or "if it isn't rail, it's not rapid transit". Yeah, I'd love to see rail-based transit everywhere. But the realist in me understands that it's simply not feasible everywhere, and so you need to run buses to those places to get people onboard. And that's kind of the point - it is a network, after all. The more you can draw people from whatever their point A is to their point B, the better. And running more buses more frequently is part of that.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
^How does vibration diminish with distance? exponentially? The further north we plan, the wider the roads get and the separation of structures and roadway improves.. Put a cut and cover line in the middle of Yonge, or Don Mills, and it is a different proposition up there than down around Wellesley.

- Paul
 
A lot of the 'rumble' is a factor of the weight of the vehicle, nature of the bogies and track and the propensity of the surrounding material to transmit the rumble or not. Modern lighter trains and LRTs transmit far less noise. Think the Flexities compared to the ALRVs, for instance.

Albeit about stations and ambient noise vs. rumble, this is an excellent article:
TRANSPORTATION
06.16.1608:00 AM
GET READY FOR QUIETER NYC SUBWAY STATIONS (YES, IT’S POSSIBLE)

(pics deleted for brevity)
EVERYTHING ABOUT A New York subway station is unpleasant. The grime. The rats. The overwhelming stench of it all. Then there's the noise. Curved tile walls amplify every footfall and shout, not to mention the indecipherable blare of the PA. Eventually a train rumbles through at 94 decibels or more, announced by the whine of a motor, the screech of brakes, and the clack of wheels on steel.

Unfortunately, that's the inevitable nature of a subway system, which must be robust. “The necessary architecture of a subway has to be incredibly strong, graffiti-proof, soot-resistant, human bodily waste-resistant,” says Alex Case, an architectural acoustician with the University of Massachusetts Lowell. The problem is, that creates something of an echo chamber where, "acoustically, what happens in the subway station stays in the subway station."

Venture into the innocuous offices of the engineering firm Arup in downtown Manhattan, though, and you'll hear the quiet—well, quieter—future of the subway. Or, at least, the future of the Second Avenue line.

The line's first phase, a 4.2 mile stretch of track buried 10 stories below the Upper East Side, opens in December. When the entire line eventually opens, it will stretch 8.5 miles and include 16 new stations. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has hired Arup to make them easier on the ears.

Arup's acousticians can't set up shop in a subway station, so they built digital models of the Second Avenue subway using recorded sounds and measurements, some collected from existing stations. They'd use these models to make subtle changes to a station design, exploring the best way to minimize the din.

MTA officials would experience these models in Arup's SoundLab, a small, fabric-enclosed space with enormous curved screens and a bone-shaking sound system. Engineers fire sounds through 50 loudspeakers and eight subwoofers into this virtual sonic space, simulating the commuter experience. Sophisticated tools let them create acoustical renderings and manipulate them to bring spaces that haven’t even been built straight into your ear canals.

The Din
In the SoundLab, an acoustician pulls up a file depicting what the subway might sound like if it were just another station in New York. It's a a cacophony, with the announcer’s voice vague and dispersed. All you can think is The what train is coming? "Local track" who?


Incomprehensible announcements aren’t just annoying and unhelpful, they're potentially dangerous. The system that alerts passengers to arriving and delayed trains also tells them what to do in an emergency.

Fighting the Din?
In an ideal world, the MTA could envelop tracks in fabric or foam, muffling the sound of its machinery, its riders, its everything. But imagine how filthy that would get (San Francisco BART riders know all about that). The MTA has to work within its existing infrastructure, its regular power-washing schedule, and its tight budget.

Arup’s plan to rethink the subway begins—where else?—with the track. The MTA is investing in a “low-vibration track” using ties encased in concrete-covered rubber and neoprene pads. It nixed joints between tracks in favor of a continuously welded rail that does away with the “badump, badump” of the wheels. That's just the start.

"The big change is really in the finishes,” says Joe Solway, Arup’s acoustic lead on the Second Avenue subway project. Most subway stations are built with tile and stone, which bounce sound all over the place. MTA will line the ceilings with relatively absorbent rigid fiberglass or mineral wool—hardier versions of the pink, fluffy insulation in your attic—covered with a perforated metal or enamel sheet to keep it out of human hands. It's like a Roach Motel for noise.

The ceiling will gently curve like others in New York, but it will direct sound toward the train instead the platform. The speakers, the safety raison d'être of the whole subway silencing enterprise, will sit at 15-foot intervals, angled to holler directly at riders, says Solway, for ideal resonance and volume. Improved cables, sound-isolated booths, and greater diction by those making announcements will further improve fidelity.

Arup’s engineers won't specifically quantify the noise reduction, but say the Second Avenue line will be a “more acoustically appealing environment.” An acoustician presses another key on the computer, and the subway comes alive again. This time, the announcement is crisp and clear. Not perfect, maybe, but better. Tolerable, even.

If only the MTA could engineer away the primary reason for so many of those announcements: delays.
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/get-ready-quieter-nyc-subway-stations-yes-possible/

As for rumble, excellent study paper here:
SINAN AL SUHAIRY
PREDICTION OF GROUND VIBRATION FROM
RAILWAYS

SP Swedish National Testing and Research Institute
Acoustics
SP REPORT 2000: 25
Borås 2000

These measurements were carried out on three different types of trains: X2000, intercity, and freight
trains.
The measured vibration levels were used to calculate the distance dependent of the ground – borne
vibrations and a reference vibration level for each train type. Using results of a Norwegian study, an
empirical prediction formula was constructed.
http://schiu.com/utilidades/artigos/Artigo-MetodoSuecoPrevisaoVibracao.pdf
 
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Think the Flexities compared to the ALRVs, for instance.

The Flexities weigh quite a bit more than the ALRVs - ~42 tonnes versus ~36. And since they have the same number of axles, the per-axle weight is higher as well.

When it comes to rail vehicles, rail-borne vibration can be reduced by a number of measures, such as reducing vehicle weight, resilient and semi-resilient wheelsets, improving the track structure as well as mechanical separation and isolation of the rail from the structure and surrounding paving. They missed the mark on the first one, but all of those other measures are in place in Toronto.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
The Flexities weigh quite a bit more than the ALRVs - ~42 tonnes versus ~36. And since they have the same number of axles, the per-axle weight is higher as well.

When it comes to rail vehicles, rail-borne vibration can be reduced by a number of measures, such as reducing vehicle weight, resilient and semi-resilient wheelsets, improving the track structure as well as mechanical separation and isolation of the rail from the structure and surrounding paving. They missed the mark on the first one, but all of those other measures are in place in Toronto.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
Not familiar with overall weight, but I can safely guarantee the bogie weight on the ALRVs is far more concentrated..'rigid and unsprung weight'. Even with the later 'resilient' wheels. The most telling part is the way they 'slam' through switches at intersections. So perhaps I erred in not making the distribution of weight and the 'concentration of rigid mass' more an issue. A hammer is pretty light on the handle end.
 
The ALRV's do not have bogie skirts.
ttc-4217-broadview-stn-20170622.jpg

While the Flexity Outlooks have bogie skirts.
ttc-4400-spadinaqueen-20141018.jpg

Which helps in reducing the noise. From link.

All the Toronto subway cars do not have skirts. Doubt any new (or refitting) ones will get bogie skirts.
 
The ALRV's do not have bogie skirts.
All the Toronto subway cars do not have skirts. Doubt any new (or refitting) ones will get bogie skirts.
Skirts will do nothing for 'rumble' which is transmitted through mass, the denser the mass, the higher the efficiency of xmssn.

Rumble you feel, it's "infrasonic". Down below the hearing limits. Think the movie "Earthquake". You can hear the harmonics of that, however. And that's in the region described as 'noise' (a subjective term, but whatever).

Wheelsets on modern bogies are sprung within the bogie itself, as well as the entire bogie not only suspended, but isolated with 'cushions' in many cases. Best I refer to this:
http://the-contact-patch.com/book/rail/r1114-railway-suspension

This paper also good, but translation is wanting:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/cin/2014/195752/

To 'dampen' noise with cowlings, an acoustically absorptive layer can be effective for the higher frequencies. For the lower? Think that neighbour playing hip-hop next door with a speaker system with a 'high-Q' resonant bass. All you hear is that one excited note: "Boom, boom, boom". All the soft padding in the world won't stop it. You need mass and/or surface decoupling. Or stop it at source by buying the freaking guy (or girl) a virtually non-resonant speaker system (yes, such exist, "transmission line" types for instance).
 
And what exactly is your point?

There are a lot of places where the ridership levels will never improve beyond what can be carried on a bus at, say, 5 minute headways - if we're lucky. For those passengers, it will always and forever be nothing more than a bus.

Do you begrudge them so much that they should have to walk that distance rather than have a bus?

Don't get me wrong, I hate buses more than most. (Just ask my friends.) But there comes a point at which there just can't be any better. And unfortunately, that covers a very lot of Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke (and even some of the inner suburbs). And so, guess what: the bus will have to continue to be a very important part of the Toronto transit landscape. It happens to be the easiest, and most convenient way to for those people to access transit.

And I guess, at the end of the day, this is what bothers me about transit "snobs" who feel that "subways are the only answer" or "if it isn't rail, it's not rapid transit". Yeah, I'd love to see rail-based transit everywhere. But the realist in me understands that it's simply not feasible everywhere, and so you need to run buses to those places to get people onboard. And that's kind of the point - it is a network, after all. The more you can draw people from whatever their point A is to their point B, the better. And running more buses more frequently is part of that.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
Isn't it fair to say that we have a very high ridership expectation for rapid transit (or even higher order transit corridors)? Sure, it may be idealistic to want rail on corridors like Lawrence, Jane, and Steeles, but isn't it justified? At what point do we admit that bus ridership is too high for buses to sustain? It doesn't work well on any of these corridors. Obviously building light rail or streetcars on every street is impractical and wasteful (especially since we don't live in the 20s, where transit usage on all corridors rival that of the king st streetcar), but shouldn't we accept that maybe we have a lot of catching up to do?
Also, I wouldn't say that rail is a qualifier of rapid transit, rather, grade separation (so the Mississauga transitway can be considered rapid transit, but much of VIVA cannot).
 

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