Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[warrens]

Feeling a sense of deja vu here after watching the later stages of Elizabeth Line development. Software was blamed for the significant delays in opening towards the end of the project.

The Crossrail people said at the time (five years ago) that a lot of the software testing they wanted to do couldn't be done because it depended on testing actual hardware which wasn't installed yet due to station build delays.

Of course, Elizabeth Line continues to have a range of problems a couple of years after opening, which is something I think we should expect to happen with Crosstown as well.

 

[urbancog]

In the tunnels, driver will close the door and initiate running but the ATC will control the vehicle between stations:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200109215906/https://blog.metrolinx.com/2019/12/09/how-will-the-eglinton-crosstown-lrts-automatic-train-control-work-we-break-down-every-major-element-in-an-infographic/

 

[nfitz]

In the tunnels, driver will close the door and initiate running but the ATC will control the vehicle between stations:

So similar operations to what Montreal started doing about a half-century ago.

 

[Undead]

I've read some concerns that the Crosstown, especially on the Eglinton East section, could be close to nearing capacity at time of opening. Is this a valid concern? Also, is there the capacity for additional Freedoms to be added to service later?

No, it's just used to discredit the choice of LRT for the corridor.

No there are some concerns if you look at the level of proposed development. It remains to be seen. Yes I imagine we could quite easily add capacity by increasing frequency.

I can see why there's capacity concerns for the Golden Mile segment of the LRT.

Currently 25,000 units are proposed. Let's assume a 0.3 parking ratio on average: that's 17,500 units, or about 31,500 people dependent on transit.

Since this area is likely to be students, young professional singles/couples, let's assume 75% of these people are working (City wide this figure is about 50%).

That's as many as 23,625 people taking the LRT. Let's be conservative and assume half of them use the LRT on any given day. Which puts us at almost 6,000 people per hour per direction during morning peak. That's about the same as the projected peak demand through the central section.

 

[Rainforest]

In the Golden Mile area, the demand will be bidirectional. Some take the westbound LRT towards the OL or Yonge, others take the eastbound LRT towards Kennedy Stn with its numerous connections.

The demand never splits evenly, but if that 6,000 pphpd splits into 4,000 westbound and 2,000 eastbound, that's still within the planned capacity.

And yes, there is room to add more trains and boost the capacity, but the city will have to buy those additional trains and hire the operators.

 

[Bojaxs]

In the Golden Mile area, the demand will be bidirectional. Some take the westbound LRT towards the OL or Yonge, others take the eastbound LRT towards Kennedy Stn with its numerous connections.

The demand never splits evenly, but if that 6,000 pphpd splits into 4,000 westbound and 2,000 eastbound, that's still within the planned capacity.

And yes, there is room to add more trains and boost the capacity, but the city will have to buy those additional trains and hire the operators.

I'm concerned we're going to see trains bunching up on the Golden Mile, street level portion, similar to what we see with the downtown streetcars. Two thirds of the line has the tracks completely grade separated and with trains flying across the line, and then they reach the at-grade, east portion where they have to start stopping at red lights/ intersections.

 

[T3G]

The demand never splits evenly, but if that 6,000 pphpd splits into 4,000 westbound and 2,000 eastbound, that's still within the planned capacity.

The planned hourly capacity for the line is 15,000 pphpd, so if the demand literally doubled, it would still be well within tolerances.

Eglinton Crosstown Backgrounder | Crosstown

web.archive.org

similar to what we see with the downtown streetcars

You are aware that the Crosstown is operating under COMPLETELY different parameters to the downtown streetcars, right? It's not even very comparable to the 512, which is the most physically similar route to the Crosstown and extremely different from the rest of the downtown network.

I honestly have no idea how you can even argue this. It would be like voicing concern over a new GO bus line because the 29 Dufferin is a slow, bumpy, sluggish ride.

 

[Rainforest]

I'm concerned we're going to see trains bunching up on the Golden Mile, street level portion, similar to what we see with the downtown streetcars. Two thirds of the line has the tracks completely grade separated and with trains flying across the line, and then they reach the at-grade, east portion where they have to start stopping at red lights/ intersections.

This is not how it works though. Let's assume the average speed of the trains is 33 kph in the tunnel / elevated sections, and 22 kph in the on-street section. That just means, the distance between trains in the tunnel section will be 1.5 times greater than the distance between trains in the on-street section.

For example, you want a train every 5 min. In the surface section, the average spacing needs to be (22 x 5/60 x 1000) = 1,830 m. In the tunnel section the spacing needs to be (33 x 5/60 x 1000) = 2,750 m.

This can be visualized as follows. Train A travels from Renforth in the eastern direction, and is followed by Train B in the same direction. Initially, both are going at the same average speed of 33 kph, and keep the distance of 2,750 m. In reality, the distance will vary when one train is stopped and the other is moving, but the average will be 2,750 m.

Once Train A passes Brentcliffe and enters the on-street section, its average speed drops to 22 kph. Train B still travels at 33 kph, and therefore is catching up. By the time Train B passes Brentcliffe, Train A will be located 1,830 m ahead.

After that, the average speed of Train B drops to 22 kph, and the pair keeps going with the average gap of 1,830 m. In terms of the time interval, it is still the same 5 min gap that existed in the tunnel section.

Bunching up can happen in case of accidents / blockages, but that's a rare event, and the subways aren't completely immune either (say, some idiot decides to take a stroll at the track level).

 

[Steve X]

In the Golden Mile area, the demand will be bidirectional. Some take the westbound LRT towards the OL or Yonge, others take the eastbound LRT towards Kennedy Stn with its numerous connections.

The demand never splits evenly, but if that 6,000 pphpd splits into 4,000 westbound and 2,000 eastbound, that's still within the planned capacity.

And yes, there is room to add more trains and boost the capacity, but the city will have to buy those additional trains and hire the operators.

Sorry to nitpick, PPHPD stands for Passengers Per Hour PER DIRECTION. The capacity is 15,000 pphpd meaning 30,000 people can pass through a single point.

 

[T3G]

Bunching up can happen in case of accidents / blockages, but that's a rare event, and the subways aren't completely immune either (say, some idiot decides to take a stroll at the track level).

I will add this: the two main causes of bunching at the TTC are either blockages, either caused by one vehicle on the line being blocked either by itself or something interfering with it, whether it be another vehicle, a trespasser, a passenger with a medical emergency on board, etc. As you correctly stated, subways are not immune to this, but dealing with this problem should in theory be fairly simple if you have a quasi competent dispatcher - the tailing train would be short turned, and held in a storage track, or held by the signal lights at a station, until sufficient distance has been established between that train and the one ahead of it. This is also possible to do on the surface network, but apparently many dispatchers don't notice or don't care, and so vehicles can end up grouped together for HOURS.

The other main cause is when you have vehicles running at very, very tight frequencies and very, very heavy passenger loads. One of the worst examples of this in past years was along King Street - you had vehicles running every 2, 3 minutes that were attempting to load passengers by the front door only, an archaic and outdated practice. Add in any possible blockage, such as a car attempting to turn left, and it should come as no surprise that the CLRVs were running in 2, 3, 4, even 5 packs. While the King Street corridor is by no means perfect today, the King pilot and introduction of all door boarding on Flexitys which offer 4x as many points of entry as a front door only boarding CLRV did, means that this is not a significant concern anymore. I rarely see bunching on King these days, though the service is erratic and irregular in all manner of other ways.

With a projected 5 minute frequency on the Crosstown, if we accepted the idea that the trains are going to bunch up, we have to accept that somehow, waiting for a light cycle to clear and for people to file on through the EIGHT doorways on a 2 car train is going to take 5 minutes, but also that somehow this will ONLY occur to some unspecified cars at some unspecified sections on the line and that others will be able to sail clear on through and get stuck behind the slow ones. The idea is insulting. I don't mind a reasonable discussion about the merits of different forms of transit, but a lot of the arguments that have been put forth against the Crosstown strike me as concern trolling

 

[nfitz]

Sorry to nitpick, PPHPD stands for Passengers Per Hour PER DIRECTION. The capacity is 15,000 pphpd meaning 30,000 people can pass through a single point.

Still much higher than the 6,000 per hour that @Undead is assuming. Though lookin at their math - that's 6,000 per direction per peak - which is 2 to 3 hours, not one hour.

Looking at the original estimates - at Warden and Eglinton, it was forecast to be 2,900 westbound and 700 eastbound per peak hour; and that includes those getting on eastbound, west of Victoria Park, and those getting westbound at Kennedy.

What you'll have is a lot of people getting on and off at the same time.

Looking at the assumptions, it accounts for a population growth of 5,900 along Eglinton from Victoria Park to Birchmount. And an employment growth of 2,200.

 

[Undead]

Looking at the assumptions, it accounts for a population growth of 5,900 along Eglinton from Victoria Park to Birchmount.

A significant undercount if Golden Mile is fully built out. It's all to say the capacity concern is not "concern trolling" as some of us like to say. But hey, I'll be glad that it's not over capacity.

 

[T3G]

A significant undercount if Golden Mile is fully built out. It's all to say the capacity concern is not "concern trolling" as some of us like to say. But hey, I'll be glad that it's not over capacity.

I wasn't referring to your comment - the only reply I made to the capacity concern was thus:

The planned hourly capacity for the line is 15,000 pphpd, so if the demand literally doubled, it would still be well within tolerances.

I was replying to the "concerns" about bunching.

 

[Undead]

Yeah I know, but that term is being thrown around too loosely either way.

 

[felix123]

With a projected 5 minute frequency on the Crosstown, if we accepted the idea that the trains are going to bunch up, we have to accept that somehow, waiting for a light cycle to clear and for people to file on through the EIGHT doorways on a 2 car train is going to take 5 minutes, but also that somehow this will ONLY occur to some unspecified cars at some unspecified sections on the line and that others will be able to sail clear on through and get stuck behind the slow ones.

This does happen often on the streetcar, which is why we see bunching on the network. There will be a minor incident on the streetcar in front, and then at the next stop, the doors are held, etc. Meanwhile, the car that has been running close behind with fewer passengers is now ahead of schedule.

I'm hopeful Line 5 is a huge success and isn't operated like a streetcar on the surface section, but a couple years of Line 5 videos show that streetcar practices are carrying over. The slow, timid acceleration at intersections and frequent braking in the ROW are painful to watch.

The idea is insulting.

I'll speak for myself. I don't find it insulting when someone else's opinion on an LRT line differs from my opinion on an LRT line.