Sheppard Line 4 Subway Extension (Proposed)

[robmausser]

But I think it's safe to say that 'building Sheppard right the first time' would've involved building it as LRT or light subway.

Bingo.

Sheppard should have always been an on street LRT like Eglinton. Streets are wide up there, they could have done it without even getting rid of any traffic lanes.

 

[Cobra]

Bingo.

Sheppard should have always been an on street LRT like Eglinton. Streets are wide up there, they could have done it without even getting rid of any traffic lanes.

Less resistance if we knew that priority lights would be working. The city has a terrible track record on that. That's my problem with at grade, otherwise, a mixture of elevated and underground (skytrain) would have been the better option for both Eglinton and Sheppard.

That's the city and TTC problem...always gunning for extremes without considering the alternatives down the middle

 

[Streety McCarface]

Alot of this is incorrect, IIRC the SRT has the best on-time performance of any Toronto RT line. Any reliability issues with the cars are due to the fact that they were the first ones manufactured. There have been 5 generational improvements since. ICTS also doesn't have higher signalling costs assuming you aren't going to install fixed block for any new subway.

The Canada Line is not ICTS so I don't know your point there....

The costs are certainly lower if you are only using one verses 2 TBMS.

You can state that the SRT has the "best on-time" performance of any Toronto RT line without looking at statistics and I won't believe you. Here are the delay times for each subway line and the number of delays for each subway station sorted by line:

The most recent CEO's report confirms these numbers
https://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Co...cutive_Officer's_Report_March_2018_Update.pdf

The original numbers were taken from the Open Toronto, and include delays between 2014-2017(1st quarter). First off, we notice that the average number of delays per station is lowest for the Sheppard Subway, not the SRT. Second, we also notice that the average delay time per station is actually HIGHEST for the SRT by a margin of about 600 delay minutes per station. This is followed by the Bloor Danforth Line, The YUS line, and the Sheppard Line. Therefore, this statement that "The SRT has the best on-time performance of any Toronto RT line" is a flat-out lie.

Second, you cannot compare the SRT's delay numbers with other lines and say that the technology runs better as a result. If one hasn't noticed, Lines 1 and 2 are about 5* as long as the SRT, making it more prone to significant knock-on effects. It should also be mentioned that the infrastructure on Lines 1 and 2 are about twice the age of the SRT, making the infrastructure a good indicator of delays, not the technology itself. The CEO's report indicates that the TR trains are having mean distances between failures of:

Which is quite impressive. The SRT trains don't have values which is unfortunate, but it clearly shows high reliability in the subway cars (they vary month to month due to weather conditions and human interaction with the cars. Just in January, the mean distance between failures for the TR cars was around 1.2 Million km).

Vancouver doesn't give out any information regarding the reliability of the cars they have, but I can guarantee that they will be higher than what is here because it has a completely different climate.

We're talking about the Sheppard Subway, which was built with fixed block signal systems and would have used Mark II trains under your assumption. We have no experience with those cars here but we can safely say that it still would have been more expensive to build a line with that equipment because a new yard would need to be built to accommodate them, and since this is in North York, that would have been extremely expensive.

The original argument was against the Canada line's capacity, and that building trains a line that can only accommodate 2 car trains is going to be much less expensive than one with 6 or 8 car ART trains. The capacities you were originally quoting implied 6-8 car ART trains, at which point, you would be building a subway. I argued that it makes no sense to build a line with a different technology, as it would require a new yard, could not have redundancies with other lines, etc.

There's no doubt about that, but you can only use 1 tbm when the geography allows for it. The use of 1 tbm also requires that tunnels be built deeper, which may not be a feasible option with the Sheppard subway.

 

[smallspy]

The current 5 car ICTS implementation has capacities that can exceed 30,000 pphpd given the significantly faster acceleration of the LIM trains.

Nonetheless, this is all wishful thinking. Toronto transit is rarely planned with logic first.

And the TTC's subway is capable of 45,000+ pphpd in its current state. Doesn't mean that you'd want to ride it though.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[11th]

Bingo.

Sheppard should have always been an on street LRT like Eglinton. Streets are wide up there, they could have done it without even getting rid of any traffic lanes.

They'd have to grade-separate the line at every major intersection (Bayview, Leslie, Don Mills) to make that work; but if they are to do that, would cut-and-cover the rest be any more expensive?

 

[BurlOak]

They'd have to grade-separate the line at every major intersection (Bayview, Leslie, Don Mills) to make that work; but if they are to do that, would cut-and-cover the rest be any more expensive?

Look at ECLRT at Eglinton at Martin Grove, DVP, Vic Park. They are (were) planned as at-grade under Miller. There is no doubt that if Miller planned a Sheppard LRT, it would have been at grade at Bayview and Leslie.

 

[Sandpit]

Bingo.

Sheppard should have always been an on street LRT like Eglinton. Streets are wide up there, they could have done it without even getting rid of any traffic lanes.

Low-floor LRTs weren't really a thing back then. They had LRTs, but mostly high-floor ones like the ones you see in Calgary and Edmonton, which require much more space.

 

[Streety McCarface]

Low-floor LRTs weren't really a thing back then. They had LRTs, but mostly high-floor ones like the ones you see in Calgary and Edmonton, which require much more space.

Why did they even consider low floor LRVs for projects like the ECLRT and FWLRT? Sacrificing cheap platforms seems like a fair price to pay for ease of subway conversion, decreased dwell times, and increased train capacity.

 

[JSF-1]

You answered your own question; "Cheap". Also as an aside I would also think the surface level platforms would need a bit more space to acomodate ramp access but that may be a more superficial issue.

 

[Rainforest]

Why did they even consider low floor LRVs for projects like the ECLRT and FWLRT? Sacrificing cheap platforms seems like a fair price to pay for ease of subway conversion, decreased dwell times, and increased train capacity.

ECLRT may be a subject of some debate, as it has a long tunnel section.

FWLRT is an almost entirely surface line; it cannot be converted to subway. A "conversion" would mean just scrapping the surface rail and building a new subway line under the street; such an operation wouldn't be facilitated by any particular choice of the surface vehicle type.

 

[BurlOak]

You answered your own question; "Cheap". Also as an aside I would also think the surface level platforms would need a bit more space to acomodate ramp access but that may be a more superficial issue.

Cheap?

I would guess that Low Floor vehicles are more expensive than high floor by more than the additional platform work would be.

 

[Streety McCarface]

ECLRT may be a subject of some debate, as it has a long tunnel section.

FWLRT is an almost entirely surface line; it cannot be converted to subway. A "conversion" would mean just scrapping the surface rail and building a new subway line under the street; such an operation wouldn't be facilitated by any particular choice of the surface vehicle type.

But train space still seems like a fair price to pay. It would differentiate this type of transit from the "streetcar" type vehicles Metrolinx is ordering which might increase support for them (but that's a political issue). Nevertheless, Finch West is an extremely busy route; it makes sense to give it wider spaces and level boarding in order for passenger preference.

Hypothetical Scenario: If a subway doubles transit ridership along a corridor, then I'm going to say that a surface LRT will increase it by 1/4-1/3. 125% of Finch West's ridership (44K PPD) is 55K PPD. That's as much as the Sheppard subway. Even though the Sheppard Subway is shorter, most people taking the FWLRT are heading for the subway, meaning it could get extremely crowded in the Citadis Trains as you approach Finch West station. Metrolinx has 17 cars at a capacity of ~340 (and we all know that number is bullsh!t for regular use) PPT slated for this line. Assume there are always 3 spares, that leaves 14 cars; 7 per direction at peak times. The 11 km line will have a train every 1.6 km. Assuming average operating speed for the line is 28 km/h (it's sure to be much less than this because there are so many stops. These are the numbers quoted for the Crosstown), that means that the line will have a frequency of 17.5 trains an hour; 1 every 3.5 minutes. This means the line has a theoretical capacity of 5,900 PPHPD. It may seem like a lot, but remember, all these numbers are extremely conservative, and the route already sees 20 buses an hour during the peak times. With a likely usage increase, we'll assume 25 buses would be used, all of which are crush loaded. It would seem as though capacity is perfectly met, but remember, the numbers are extremely conservative.

Let's take a liberal estimation. We'll say that there's a 30% increase in usage, so 27 buses of people (~2.7K people, assuming half are articulated buses and all are crush load. A while back, the Finch West Bus was noted as one of the most crowded, but I'll assume it's just at optimal crowding standards). We'll assume trains will travel at a 70% the speed of the crosstown (19.5 km/h). We'll also assume that the capacity they're stating for the Citadis trains is 1.5* that of the fair number for flexity cars (~150 passengers), so 225 passengers per car. Finally, we'll assume the spare ratio is greater and 12 cars are available during the peak times. All in all, this means that the line has a capacity of 2,385 PPDPH. I don't know about you, but there's a huge problem if this is the case.

Cheap?

I would guess that Low Floor vehicles are more expensive than high floor by more than the additional platform work would be.

There shouldn't be any significant difference in price per passenger. Each are about 3 million per vehicle. Metrolinx is just incompetent by paying 8 MILLION DOLLARS per Citadis train and 5 million dollar per flexity.

 

[Rainforest]

But train space still seems like a fair price to pay. It would differentiate this type of transit from the "streetcar" type vehicles Metrolinx is ordering which might increase support for them (but that's a political issue). Nevertheless, Finch West is an extremely busy route; it makes sense to give it wider spaces and level boarding in order for passenger preference.

Hypothetical Scenario: If a subway doubles transit ridership along a corridor, then I'm going to say that a surface LRT will increase it by 1/4-1/3. 125% of Finch West's ridership (44K PPD) is 55K PPD. That's as much as the Sheppard subway. Even though the Sheppard Subway is shorter, most people taking the FWLRT are heading for the subway, meaning it could get extremely crowded in the Citadis Trains as you approach Finch West station. Metrolinx has 17 cars at a capacity of ~340 (and we all know that number is bullsh!t for regular use) PPT slated for this line. Assume there are always 3 spares, that leaves 14 cars; 7 per direction at peak times. The 11 km line will have a train every 1.6 km. Assuming average operating speed for the line is 28 km/h (it's sure to be much less than this because there are so many stops. These are the numbers quoted for the Crosstown), that means that the line will have a frequency of 17.5 trains an hour; 1 every 3.5 minutes. This means the line has a theoretical capacity of 5,900 PPHPD. It may seem like a lot, but remember, all these numbers are extremely conservative, and the route already sees 20 buses an hour during the peak times. With a likely usage increase, we'll assume 25 buses would be used, all of which are crush loaded. It would seem as though capacity is perfectly met, but remember, the numbers are extremely conservative.

Let's take a liberal estimation. We'll say that there's a 30% increase in usage, so 27 buses of people (~2.7K people, assuming half are articulated buses and all are crush load. A while back, the Finch West Bus was noted as one of the most crowded, but I'll assume it's just at optimal crowding standards). We'll assume trains will travel at a 70% the speed of the crosstown (19.5 km/h). We'll also assume that the capacity they're stating for the Citadis trains is 1.5* that of the fair number for flexity cars (~150 passengers), so 225 passengers per car. Finally, we'll assume the spare ratio is greater and 12 cars are available during the peak times. All in all, this means that the line has a capacity of 2,385 PPDPH. I don't know about you, but there's a huge problem if this is the case.

Well I did not follow the technical details about the Citadis cars. However, if your pessimistic estimates appear to be correct, that would mean Metrolinx didn't do a good job in estimating the number of cars needed.

Even if so, the problem could be fixed soon after the line opens, simply by ordering more cars. If each car/train has a capacity of 225 passengers; that's less then I expected, but running on 3-min headways (20 trains per hour per direction), the line still can easily handle 4,500 riders per hour per direction.

Going with high floor vs low floor would have little effect on the total capacity. A high-floor car may have 10% more space than a low-floor car of the same width and length, due to the absence protruding elements; that's about all.

 

[Streety McCarface]

Well I did not follow the technical details about the Citadis cars. However, if your pessimistic estimates appear to be correct, that would mean Metrolinx didn't do a good job in estimating the number of cars needed.

Even if so, the problem could be fixed soon after the line opens, simply by ordering more cars. If each car/train has a capacity of 225 passengers; that's less then I expected, but running on 3-min headways (20 trains per hour per direction), the line still can easily handle 4,500 riders per hour per direction.

Going with high floor vs low floor would have little effect on the total capacity. A high-floor car may have 10% more space than a low-floor car of the same width and length, due to the absence protruding elements; that's about all.

Metrolinx said the cars would be 1.5* the size of the Flexities. I'm not sure how the internal layout will turn out, however, we can easily assume the number of passengers will be proportional to that of the flexities. Metrolinx can always take cars from the Hurontario LRT project. They have 44 trains stated for that line.

Let's just hope Metrolinx's Operations bidder isn't incompetent enough to have 3 trains or more out of service at any given time (this will be extremely difficult given how likely crashes will be on this line since it's at grade, as well as SOGR, Regular Maintenance, and the occasional breakdown. It won't be easy.

The cars themselves will actually be probably more around ~260-300 passengers for a full crush load (assuming people have bags, wheelchairs are things, and people still demand a bit of personal space). Nevertheless, they're not worth triple of what the original flexity price was.

My issue really is that metrolinx is building the line with the ideology that it's going to be packed from day one, and it's going to be run as efficiently as possible (by efficently, I mean as crowded as possible). This is wrong; the purpose of building transit is to make sure it can easily accommodate everyone in a fairly comfortable manner. A train can be standing room only at rush hour, but if they don't build with expansion in mind (platforms for 2 car trains, room in the yard for more than 17 Citadis cars). Metrolinx doesn't give a damn about this, considering that they're building stations in the middle of no were, and LRT lines in Mississauga with 2.5* the number of trains despite a proportional ridership per kilometer.

The biggest benefit with high floor platforms will be level boarding and ease of movement. It also better allows for platforms to be a fare paid area. This doesn't sound like something significant, but this will allow for significantly lower dwell times, which will be imperative to Finch West's success. It will also mean there won't be lineups at Finch West station when fare inspectors will have to check everyone as they enter the station. It's a short line, and it's assumed average operating speed is going to be as low as 19 km/h. This is pathetic for "rapid transit". Either they have to get rid of stops or make boarding faster. They won't get rid of stops due to political reasons, and I'm just surprised they didn't have this foresight to begin with.

 

[JSF-1]

I remember seeing the mock-up for the Crosstown LRV's awhile ago and while the final product may be different to the mock-up I remember being some what disappointed by how the Freedom's appear to make all the same mistakes the Outlooks make in regards to seating and passenger capacity. I know that Low-Floors by there very nature heavily limit the passenger capacity and space available, we see this with both the buses and streetcars. Personally if it were up to me it would have been High-Floors since it allows far greater space for both seating and standing passengers. I mean L.A., Calgary, and Edmonton pull it off. If I'm not mistaken Ontario will be the only place in North America that will use only Low-Floors for its LRT lines and I am beginning to wonder if this will come back to haunt us in the future. Should we have just done what Calgary and Edmonton did when planning these lines? I mean its a proven method of delivering Light Rail transit. Did we try to do what we always do and try to reinvent the wheel?