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Street Car vs. Bus

LA was not known for transit but in the last couple of decades they have invested a lot in public transit. They even have a bit of a subway, but most of their network is made up of different LRT lines and regional rail. I saw pictures of the LA LRT lines and they look like large trains that can carry a lot of passengers, like Calgary's C-Train or Edmonton's LRT. These LRT platform are even like a subway where you can roll across the platform and straight onto the LRT, this is handy for me as I have two children who need strollers for longer walks. When I search around on-line and look at different LRT systems around the world I am beginning to see that this is a mode of public transit that looks attractive enough to lure some of the fence sitters out of their cars and onto public transit and it won't break a city's bank account to build either.

One city that is close to here and has LRT is Buffalo. It is a small LRT line but hopefully that city expands it soon to serve some needed nodes of activity. I visited that city's transit system a few years ago when I first moved here from Vancouver. It is a small system and I hope that city expands it.

I don't know if Toronto should invest in Low-floor LRT when the other systems that I have visited and read about are accessible without being low-floor. One item that I hope they adress for the Sheppard line is station spacing. The buses serve the area well, although crush loaded at times, and if the route becomes LRT some of these used bus stops won't have an LRT station near them. I hope the TTC doesn't lose riders because of this. Also I my family and I have an important friend who can't walk far, he is dependent on buses, uses them daily, but would not be able to walk far to an LRT station. He has lived at the same address for a few years now and can't afford to move and he is kind of set in his ways as well. I hope Transit City helps more people then it harms- their will always be someone who loses though even if every other person it TO had subway station at their doorstep.
 
Justin, if you'd been on the forum for more than two weeks you'd realize that a bunch of the people you're arguing with most vociferously have been advocating systems like the RER or S-Bahn for years.
 
GTS said:
LA was not known for transit but in the last couple of decades they have invested a lot in public transit. They even have a bit of a subway, but most of their network is made up of different LRT lines and regional rail. I saw pictures of the LA LRT lines and they look like large trains that can carry a lot of passengers, like Calgary's C-Train or Edmonton's LRT. These LRT platform are even like a subway where you can roll across the platform and straight onto the LRT, this is handy for me as I have two children who need strollers for longer walks. When I search around on-line and look at different LRT systems around the world I am beginning to see that this is a mode of public transit that looks attractive enough to lure some of the fence sitters out of their cars and onto public transit and it won't break a city's bank account to build either.

One city that is close to here and has LRT is Buffalo. It is a small LRT line but hopefully that city expands it soon to serve some needed nodes of activity. I visited that city's transit system a few years ago when I first moved here from Vancouver. It is a small system and I hope that city expands it.

I don't know if Toronto should invest in Low-floor LRT when the other systems that I have visited and read about are accessible without being low-floor. One item that I hope they adress for the Sheppard line is station spacing. The buses serve the area well, although crush loaded at times, and if the route becomes LRT some of these used bus stops won't have an LRT station near them. I hope the TTC doesn't lose riders because of this. Also I my family and I have an important friend who can't walk far, he is dependent on buses, uses them daily, but would not be able to walk far to an LRT station. He has lived at the same address for a few years now and can't afford to move and he is kind of set in his ways as well. I hope Transit City helps more people then it harms- their will always be someone who loses though even if every other person it TO had subway station at their doorstep.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, LRT is a compromise in the worst sense of the word between a bus and a subway. It's faster than a bus but significantly slower than a subway. And it's more convenient than a subway but less so than a bus.

For the LRT to be fast it can't be convenient (stop spacing is the biggest factor when it comes to speed). And it was convenient it would be slow. As you reduce stop spacing to that of the buses you will make the service as slow as a bus. That's why Sheppard East will be increasing stop spacing to 400+ metres (average of 440 I believe). That means the maximum someone would be walking would be about 220m. If you want a convenient and moderately fast service. That can only be provided by extending a subway and having a bus running on top of it....like Yonge or Sheppard today.
 
Cost Comparison of Transportation Modes

From a link at Stephen Rees's Blog:

Free download here:

http://www.sxd.sala.ubc.ca/8_research/sxd_FRB07Transport.pdf

This research has been improved by inclusion of a longer list of external costs associated with each mode. Pollution costs and the value of GHG reductions are not included in these externalities. They are things like cost of road construction and upkeep, and parking charges. The biggest change here is moving away from the average cost to park a car downtown to the average cost to park a car generally, which lets the cars look better cost wise. If our focus is narrowly on trips within and to center cities this would change back.

At any rate, the Prius does slightly better than the tram per mile in this work. Buses, skytrain, and light rail behind them.

Of significance, we also have a cost per trip. Given that cars make longer trips generally than do busses or trams, in this computation trams do far better than the prius. This to us is significant as its not the distance that matters to the traveler, its the destination. In areas where there is a synergy between landuses and mode, as is the case in “streetcar city†neighborhoods generally, trips tend to be, on average, and whatever the mode, much shorter.

Finally, as we state in the work, this is not a definitive set of answers to the question of what mode is “bestâ€. There are too many variables, too many assumptions, and too much future uncertainty. At the same time we do believe that the work help clarify a set of issues that are quite muddy, and most often dealt with in a disintegrated way.

–
Professor Patrick M. Condon
University of British Columbia
James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Liveable Environments
2357 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC – V6T 1Z4
604 822 9291
p.m.condon(at)gmail.com
http://www.jtc.sala.ubc.ca
Click to expand...
 
drum118 said:
First off, a bus carries less riders than a streetcar.

Streetcar requires less drivers and that a large labour cost saving.

Streetcars are Green depending how you want to handle power source.

Streetcars have a smother ride.

Streetcars don't fail as much as the Orion VII do on route.

Steel wheels are prefer by most riders over rubber wheels.

Streetcars are cheaper to operate than buses.

Streetcars have a higher cost recover per rider.

Steel wheels add more land value as well increase development faster.

Streetcars will last 2-4 times longer than a bus depending how often buses are replace. TTC has been over 20 years, but other systems are moving to 12 years cycle. Some systems in the US have subway and PCC over 60 years in service today.

Streetcars can use 1 lane if on street parking remove and tracks move to the curb lane. Moving to the curb lane will have an impact how they turn onto other streets for turning.

As for labour lets look a 5,000 riders/hr.

A 40' bus using peak load of 50, you need 100 buses putting the headway 40 seconds. Will not take much to start a major bunching.

A CLRV carries 125 requiring 40 streetcars with a headway 1.5 minutes. That is 60 less drivers. When the new LRT's arrive, you will carry another 30 riders requiring 32 cars and 8 less drivers. Now, if you want to double the headway, you add a 2nd car that does not need another driver using the POP system.

Now, a driver is only doing 6hrs a day over 5 days, you need more drivers to cover the extra hrs of operation. Ratio is about 3.5/vehicle. 100 buses = 350 driver, 40 streetcars = 120 drivers for a saving of 230 drivers.

Up front cost will see buses beat streetcars hands down, but it is the back end cost where buses loose out and that this the most important area of operation.

Now you need support personnel to maintain those vehicles and more vehicles you have, more you going to need. At the same time, more supervisors will be needed to look after those vehicles on the road.

Centre of the road was chose as that is where wagons travel when horse were tied up in front of stores just like today cars. A number of systems move to curb lanes or on one side of the street as systems got built over time. Still happening today and We will see that one side operation in the coming year in a number of place in Toronto.

Riders cause a lot of traffic issue by not having their fare ready to board, refused to move to the rear. This also happens on buses also. All streetcars are high floor and will be until 2015 where most buses are low floor now allowing faster loading and off loading.

I have seen buses been block by traffic based on how they park.

I did a report back in 2004 on the 403 BRT using the figure of 25,000 riders provided by the EA and over 20 years going with an LRT from day One vs. BRT using 40', 60', double deck buses, LRT cost saving was about $250m not allowing for high fuel cost.

I did the same thing for the Queens Quay extension back in 2006 and LRT won hands down. To carries the ridership for a subway as some call for, you would only see 1 train every 20 minutes.

Buses, BRT, LRT, Subway and heavy rail all have their place. What you use depends on the ridership under true transit planning, not the whim of politicians.

Transit has been and still the whipping boy by the traffic planners and car folks as it easy to go after than those pesky cars.

Hope this help.
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What an absolute load of rubbish. A child could easily see through many of the completely false, and intentionally misleading points you made.
 
r smith said:
What an absolute load of rubbish. A child could easily see through many of the completely false, and intentionally misleading points you made.
Click to expand...
Boy are you digging some old stuff and we disagree on your statement.

I challenge you to prove I was wrong with real data
 
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