Kyle Campbell
Active Member
Today's daily OTrain shutdown has begun. We might add well change it so we only announce days when isn't shut down
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Ottawa Transit Developments
- Thread starter Reecemartin
- Start date
kEiThZ
Superstar
The rolling stock is an issue. If people in Toronto do what they do to subway doors daily, on Eglinton, the line will be out of service most of the time, with these vehicles.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
In Ottawa?
Admiral Beez
Superstar
That does sound a little silly. You make the doors able to withstand how the public will use and abuse them, not expect the public to change to suit your fragile doors.
denfromoakvillemilton
Senior Member
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Yeah. These events are more bad press for LRT.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Yep. Once or twice can be chalked up to user error. When it's daily, it's a Human Factors engineering problem. They haven't taken into account how these will be used by the public. Partly caused by ridiculously short dwell times at the busiest stations.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Brand new stations and systems like this should have platform doors, to avoid jumpers and to protect the car doors from damage.
mdrejhon
Senior Member
The ION LRT and the Crosstown LRT uses the same vehicles.
The ION LRT doors have not been a problem snarling the LRT, despite the U of Waterloo students scrambling on/off packed trains.
Reportedly, Bombardier upgraded the doors’ reliability after early complaints. This also includes the earlier versions of the TTC new streetcars too, which are very similar too, maybe even identical door mechanism. Kudos if true.
And da bomb actually delivered the first test vehicle(s) close to on time for Crosstown. Maybe the curse is over?
The ION LRT doors have not been a problem snarling the LRT, despite the U of Waterloo students scrambling on/off packed trains.
Reportedly, Bombardier upgraded the doors’ reliability after early complaints. This also includes the earlier versions of the TTC new streetcars too, which are very similar too, maybe even identical door mechanism. Kudos if true.
And da bomb actually delivered the first test vehicle(s) close to on time for Crosstown. Maybe the curse is over?
Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
I dunno. It is my suspicion following my lifetime of being a subway user that the average Toronto transit user is rather merciless when it comes to things like subway doors. In this aspect I imagine we are more akin to New Yorkers than our provincial neighbours.
I myself have daily fights with the doors of the new buses that swing inside (whoever designed those never rode transit in their life I am certain), I let those doors hit me just to prove a point that I hate their design.
I myself have daily fights with the doors of the new buses that swing inside (whoever designed those never rode transit in their life I am certain), I let those doors hit me just to prove a point that I hate their design.
lrt's friend
Active Member
Somebody said that a person pushed the door button after the doors had closed. This caused the doors to re-open and go into fault. The problem here is that this happened at Bayview Station where the interconnection is with Line 2. On Line 2, you have to push the button to open the doors. If the story is true, this is not abuse by a user but a technical problem with the door design.
Kyle Campbell
Active Member
It was always a technical fault, it's just been greatly compounded by OC Transpo's general mismanagement around the LRT switchover.
The winner of this should be Metrolinx. The TTC suffered and fixed Flexity issues so that Ion and the Crosstown benefit (yes different vehicles, but close enough that lessons learned from one apply to the other).
By the time Metrolinx gets their Citadis trams for Finch, we should have learned what needs to be done. The French aren't particularly gentle to their own trams I've been told, so I'm not sure what design broke down here that they shouldn't have learned over in Europe.
kEiThZ
Superstar
I would bet money that the scramble you see at UWaterloo is not close to what you see at UOttawa, given the size of the trains involved, numbers of students and the short dwell time. These faults are only happening at busy core stops and the interchanges. No faults yet at St-Laurent, Cyrville, Tremblay or Pimisi.
Kyle Campbell
Active Member
The east end load is way more distributed between Blair, St Laurent and Hurdman.
The west end load means 99% of that traffic boards at Tunney's, and the stupid decision to use side rather than a centre platform even though it's a temporary terminus means the platforms are always full to the brim, since missing a train means you have to wait twice as long because the alternate train will arrive and depart from the other platform. Thus every single train leaving Tunney's is crush loaded, which exacerbates the problem that you only need to breathe heavily it seems on the doors when they are closing to knock them out of alignment.
They should not have forced west end commuters to switch to the train at the edge of downtown and simply continued west end buses.
MisterF
Senior Member
Even Toronto is severely lacking in that department.
Streety McCarface
Senior Member
Instantaneous capacities will be lower (5-8K PPHPD on opening), but that doesn't mean total ridership won't be high, the corridor already sees 150K PPD, and that is anticipated to double over the next decade. This is actually far worse for scheduling if vehicles are built with adequate capacity because it means longer dwell times at multiple transfer stations.
We also have to remember that a Flexity freedom is between 1/2 and 2/3s the size of a Citadis, and with only two-car trains, we might actually be worse off than Ottawa from a crowding standpoint (especially since they vastly overstate capacities for LRVs). I still don't know what they're thinking opening the line with just 2-car LRV trains (when they probably need 3 car trains)
Rolling stock certainly still plays a role, it's not as simple as just adding more trains. With a lower capacity vehicle, you need to schedule operators, anticipate more delays since the addition of vehicles increases the number of points of failure in a system, platform heights and door sizes/numbers affect station dwell times, among many other things. They just cheaped out with this system. Even if they fix things in the short term, that won't stop ridership from growing.
You should still consider the size of the trains and the design of the system when making that statement. I would argue UW is a lot worse because of the lack of frequencies (leading to far more people rushing trains), the abysmal exit placement (it's so bad people from E5-7 regularly walk the tracks to get to the station and I personally walk through the ring-road fence to get to DC). The insanely small platforms, and most importantly, the fact that the vast majority of riders on the train at the time are getting on/off at UW. It's not uncommon to see a southbound train with 5-10 people fill up to crush-load capacities (200+) people at UW station during the x:30 times in the afternoon (though it really depends on the day, the weather, and the presence of a road incident).
Ottawa also got another thing right, they properly integrated their bus services with the train line. There are some design issues, yes, but overall, the system works. Had the region better-integrated bus services with the Light Rail (especially at UW, Northfield, Laurier/Waterloo Park, Central, and Block Line), you'd see even more crowded trains at UW (since it would then be a huge transfer hub for Waterloo, and would encourage more students/staff to use the train. One of the reasons iON is actually convenient for me is the fact that Conestoga mall has a bus terminal.