SmartTrack (Proposed)

[aquateam]

Crosstown LRT apparently has a pretty low cost/benefit ratio too. I know because I had to listen to an engineer groan on for five minutes about how no sane city would build the Crosstown.

That actually sounds really interesting. Wish he recorded it and made it into a podcast.

Of course, you could just read this report which says the same thing.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

There are cities in the U.S. that make do with 15 minute headways.

In a city running busses every 10 minutes or better (even more frequent during peak times), and subways running 110 second headways, any rapid transit service will need to do a lot better than 15 minute headways to be attractive. Especially if you're gonna charge a premium fair.

They are also more heavily subsidized than either GO Transit or the TTC. If we had the same subsidies, SmartTrack could be run at 10 minutes headways, except for the signalling issues.

Greater subsidies won't fix the problem. The tracks can't physically fit trains that can operate that frequently and offer high enough capacity. We'd need additions tracks, upgrades to signalling, corridor widening, huge upgrades to Union Station (perhaps including new tunnelling). It would be a capital intensive process. Once those upgrades are in place and service is running at 5 minute headways, I'm fairly positive that the required subsidy per passenger would actually decrease. I wish we would do it now, but we're not prepared to spend that much money on it. Maybe a project for the next generation.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

That actually sounds really interesting. Wish he recorded it and made it into a podcast.

Of course, you could just read this report which says the same thing.

I know about the Neptis report. I've listened to people on UT groan on about it for years

 

[Forgotten]

That actually sounds really interesting. Wish he recorded it and made it into a podcast.

Of course, you could just read this report which says the same thing.

Looks like we got another sucker hooked.

The guy who wrote that literally spent his life as a Scarborough RT toy train salesman and to this day still tries to sell it at every opportunity.

He has an agenda.

 

[Rainforest]

Okay. Can we agree that SmartTrack generally supports longer distance trips within the City of Toronto. Let's compare to lines with similar ridership profiles.

The least used of our crosstown subway RT lines, the 5 Eglinton Line, is expected to have 194,000 riders per day at a cost of $5.4 Billion. That's an investment of $27,800 per daily trip.

SmartTrack is proposed to move 14,000 people at a cost of $700 Million. That's an investment of $50,000 per daily trip.

Both of these lines support crosstown travel. What about SmartTrack makes it worthy of 2x the investment that Eglinton Line commuters will be recieving? Especially considering that SmartTrack will be of benefit to an infinitesimally small fraction of Toronto commuters, that it's not projected to provide travel time savings for anybody but people heading to the immediate vicinity of Union station (hence its tiny expected ridership), and when we have a backlog of dozens of other projects that would surely benefit several times more people than SmartTrack ever will.

The average trip on SmartTrack will be longer than the average trip on ECLRT. The Eglinton Line will sort all kinds of trips, short/medium/long, but the majority of them will be from the point of boarding to the nearest subway station. I assume, the average trip length will be in the 8-10 km range.

On SmartTrack, the majority of riders will either go from the inner suburbs to downtown, or from one shoulder to the other. The average trip length should be around 15 km.

Thus, the investment "per daily rider x km travelled" will be about same.

Regarding the catchment area of SmartTrack, it should be noted that a lot of downtown destinations are within walking distance from Union, if you take into account the Path that provides protection from the elements in a bad weather. Plus, the satellite downtown stations at Liberty Village and Unilever will bring some form of rapid transit to the areas that previously didn't have any.

I don't disagree that SmartTrack would be more appealing if it was designed for a better frequency; but it will be useful as is, too.

 

[Dan416]

Looks like we got another sucker hooked.

The guy who wrote that literally spent his life as a Scarborough RT toy train salesman and to this day still tries to sell it at every opportunity.

He has an agenda.

It's good to keep the writer's biases in mind, but it's even more important to examine what they're saying in an unbiased and objective frame of mind.

I think it's a great point about why we don't simply buy new Mk III trains and rebuild these curves.

 

[EnviroTO]

I'm confused about the point you're trying to make.

The point is that the investment being made building the tunneled portion of ECLRT will not need significant maintenance for 40 years, much like the Yonge subway. Saying the investment is $27,860 per daily ride makes it sound like you would be better off giving cars out to people, but a car doesn't last. You need to divide by the the length of time that investment will be providing service. $27,860 / 365 / 40 = $1.90 per ride, and that assumes the ridership stays at 194,000 over the 40 years. The savings on operating costs need to also be factored in... a single driver will transport hundreds per trip and make more trips where before a driver would drive less people and due to slower speed make less trips. Quoting $27,860 per daily ride only serves to turn people against transit investments.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The point is that the investment being made building the tunneled portion of ECLRT will not need significant maintenance for 40 years, much like the Yonge subway. Saying the investment is $27,860 per daily ride makes it sound like you would be better off giving cars out to people, but a car doesn't last. You need to divide by the the length of time that investment will be providing service. $27,860 / 365 / 40 = $1.90 per ride, and that assumes the ridership stays at 194,000 over the 40 years. The savings on operating costs need to also be factored in... a single driver will transport hundreds per trip and make more trips where before a driver would drive less people and due to slower speed make less trips. Quoting $27,860 per daily ride only serves to turn people against transit investments.

All transit infrastructure is enormously expensive, and I'm certain with most major projects it would be cheaper buy all the daily users a car. Of course that's a fallacy, because it doesn't consider roads can't physically fit all this vehicles, congestion, etc..., nor does it consider that the people using the infrastructure on a Tuesday aren't the same people using it on a Thursday.

But I see where you're coming from. I could totally see Toronto Sun running the headline "Eglinton Crosstown more expensive than buying a car for all it's users". My goal was not at all to make it seem like buying cars would be better for these uses; cars weren't even on my mind. My goal was to only compare the relative prices of these investments on a per trip basis. Could've measured it per trip over 60 years and the relative cost between the projects would be the same.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

I know about the Neptis report. I've listened to people on UT groan on about it for years

Ugh. Don't get me started.

 

[Forgotten]

It's good to keep the writer's biases in mind, but it's even more important to examine what they're saying in an unbiased and objective frame of mind.

I think it's a great point about why we don't simply buy new Mk III trains and rebuild these curves.

Calling for Sheppard, Eglinton and Scarborough to be converted to these tiny trains and running a single huge city wide loop line is more than a small bias. His technology failed in the 80s and he's never let it go. He probably even called for the downtown line to be run with these toy trains too and I just missed it.

 

[44 North]

Calling for Sheppard, Eglinton and Scarborough to be converted to these tiny trains and running a single huge city wide loop line is more than a small bias. His technology failed in the 80s and he's never let it go. He probably even called for the downtown line to be run with these toy trains too and I just missed it.

Schabby doesn't even want a DRL. Apparently all we need is an underground pedestrian passageway from Main stn to Danforth GO and voila - all of Toronto's core capacity issues are solved. I'm thinking Wynne and Tory have him on retainer and he's working behind the scenes on the SmartTrack file. Or whatever file delays the Relief Line indefinitely.

That being said, the idea of shorter, narrower subways does have merit in much of the city (be it Sheppard, Eglinton, or parts of Scarboro). Doesn't have to be proprietary Skytrain tech.

 

[ShonTron]

Schabby doesn't even want a DRL. Apparently all we need is an underground pedestrian passageway from Main stn to Danforth GO and voila - all of Toronto's core capacity issues are solved. I'm thinking Wynne and Tory have him on retainer and he's working behind the scenes on the SmartTrack file. Or whatever file delays the Relief Line indefinitely.

That being said, the idea of shorter, narrower subways does have merit in much of the city (be it Sheppard, Eglinton, or parts of Scarboro). Doesn't have to be proprietary Skytrain tech.

Yeah, his "research" was as robust as the guys that slapped together the SmartTrack idea. Schabby (I like that!) even claimed that a tunnel from Main Street Station to Danforth GO was roughed in when the subway was built, after all, there's a big mezzanine level. He didn't understand that the mezzanine was where the fare booths used to be, and that GO Transit opened in 1967, the same time the subway was being built, as a shoe-string pilot project by the province.

 

[44 North]

Yeah, his "research" was as robust as the guys that slapped together the SmartTrack idea. Schabby (I like that!) even claimed that a tunnel from Main Street Station to Danforth GO was roughed in when the subway was built, after all, there's a big mezzanine level. He didn't understand that the mezzanine was where the fare booths used to be, and that GO Transit opened in 1967, the same time the subway was being built, as a shoe-string pilot project by the province.

It's definitely confusing why this supposedly unbiased expert would support zero rapid transit through the core of the country's largest city. I don't think it's a coincidence that he's also an advisor for the Prov. Like for Eglinton, Sheppard, and the SRT Wye - why isn't he supporting a light metro solution? Or at the very least a short section of tunneled LRT? I mean, the guy supports subways elsewhere, and all evidence going back half a century says something major is needed across the core. Yet this Metrolinx advisor claims we need nothing at all (save for some GO improvements, which is an idea that was rejected as a tangible solution over thirty years ago). His advice reeks of politics.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Interesting article on

Paris' Experimental High-Speed Moving Walkway is Abandoned
http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/...h-speed-moving-walkway-is-abandoned/#comments

Speedy pedestrian connection between metro lines was plagued by problems

At Montparnasse-Bienvenüe Station in south Paris, travelers can transfer between four metro lines. The problem is that customers attempting to make the connection between lines 6 and 13 — located under the Montparnasse high-speed rail station — and lines 4 and 12 — located several blocks north — must travel through a 600 foot-long tunnel (182 m) built in the late 1930s. Outfitted with moving walkways moving at less than 2 mph, that’s almost four minutes of travel time for those not walking.

In 2002, hoping to improve the situation, Paris’ metro agency (RATP) decided to install a high-speed walkway (video) in the center of the tunnel capable of moving people four times as fast. At 7.5 mph, it provided a tunnel traverse in less than a minute. But for all its promise, the experiment failed too often because of technical problems. On Wednesday, RATP announced that it would shut down the project and replace it with a conventional walkway by 2011.

As far as I can tell, Paris’ moving walkway was the fasted operated commercially anywhere in the world, and its success could have meant faster commutes in airports, transit stations, and large buildings everywhere. It represented a new advance in a field that has been moving at a crawl for decades, but which could have transformed the sometimes punishing act of changing lines at hundreds of major transit hubs.

Yet, it was not to be. The original speed of the walkway had to be reduced to 6 mph after customers repeatedly fell when attempting to adjust to the speed in an acceleration zone. The technology, invented by French group CNIM, was simply not up to the task of working day-in, day-out, and it was more often out of service than in operation; RATP will sue CNIM to get back some of the project’s initial 4.5 million Euro cost. The new conventional walkway won’t be exciting, but at least it will work.

The Toronto Airport, feeling a similar urge to speed up the movement of pedestrians, introduced its own super-fast walkway last year, capable of about 5 mph. Though not as quick, Toronto’s walkway uses a different technology: a “moving pallet system” in which the panel on which a person stands accelerates independently to full speed. Paris’ connection, with the exception of the 10 meter acceleration zone, operated at one, full speed and was therefore more subject to pedestrian falls and system breakdowns. Toronto’s newer system may be more capable of withstanding the crush of thousands of daily passengers, but only time will tell. If it works, subway systems with cash on hand will emulate it, because a four minute transfer between lines like that at Montparnasse is simply too long not to address.

 

[Tuscani01]

Interesting article on

Paris' Experimental High-Speed Moving Walkway is Abandoned

I actually love the fast moving walkways at Pearson. When walking along them, you even feel a breeze as you speed past everyone on the conventional walkways.