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

[nfitz]

You can't completely disentangle the surface and subway portions, though. The subway component has to be designed around accommodating the LRT vehicles, so the stations are much larger than one would expect from such a low ridership subway.

The platform length is shorter than the subway stations. The clearance is a bit higher in the centre, but they cheapest way to build the station is to dig a big hole. There's not much cost (if any) to making the ceiling a bit higher. Saves on fill ... which is why many of the newer stations have such high ceilings. The extra costs, if any, are trivial.

At 5,000 pph/pd, the underground segment could easily get by with single car, 20m trains running every two minutes, with spare capacity through more frequent trains. Instead we have to build them with 90m platforms to accommodate bigger LRVs. That in turn usually means stations have to be deeper to still be totally flat, longer construction and so forth.

A 20-m subway car would have a capacity of about 145 people. 30 trains an hour at peak gives you only 4,300 an hour. Even you squeezed 5,000 on, your completely screwed after 2031 as presumably ridership would continue to grow. It might work day 1, but it won't last 50 years. I'd think you'd want to design for at least 15K capacity ... which would require 70 metre platforms. 90 metres isn't that much more than that.

At 5,000 pph/pd, the underground segment could easily get by with single car, 20m trains running every two minutes, with spare capacity Frankly, if we just called the ECLRT a "subway," which most of it is cost-wise, it would never get built because its costs are extremely high compared to its ridership. But since we've called it an "LRT" it's totally ok, so there's politics and salesmanship for you.

So we call the Spadnia extension from Steeles West to Highway 7 a subway, with it's 2,000 pph/pd forecast ridership, it would never get built either?

Things are too late now, and I'm sure what eventually gets built will be an improvement on the current buses, but I highly doubt the current design represents anything like the best value for money.

It can't be too far off. There were no alternatives to tunnelling Eglinton through the centre of the city. And there's no alternatives cheaper than the current alignment from Brentcliffe to Kennedy (other than perhaps skipping the piece of tunnel at Don Mills Road and under Kennedy Road). How would we do any of it cheaper ... other than stopping the line at Don Mills Road and making everyone change to a BRT?

 

[BurlOak]

No it won't. How come the Spadina line doesn't become "obscenely crowded" whenever the Yonge line shuts down (which happens often)?

Take the peak direction rider going from STC to Financial.

The STC passenger is funnelled through Kennedy, so ECLRT is a logical route (especially if it appears on the TTC rapid transit map.

How would a similar passenger from NYC or Finch station even get over to the Spadina line. Maybe when the Sheppard West subway is built it would be a more reasonable comparison.

 

[ehlow]

When this gets built in 200 years, there'll be redundancy:

 

[BurlOak]

Well, what are the alternatives?
. . . . .
LRT is the most cost-effective option that meets all of the functional and capacity requirement. There doesn't appear to be any other logical choices, unless you are one of the spend-spend-spend conservatives who want nothing but subways.

Well considering that this ECLRT plan forced the B-D extension. This LRT plan was actually over $1B more than the alternative.

 

[spider]

Expect Eglinton to be obscenely crowded whenever Bloor-Danforth is replaced by shuttle buses for whatever reason.

How crowded will it be when the Eglinton line goes down and must be replaced by shuttle buses with no bus facility at Yonge and only one lane each way on Eglinton. Yikes!

 

[spider]

I don't think the average tax payer understands that when the LRT is up and running the City must start to modify the surface of the route at additional cost. This cost is currently quoted at about 150 million dollars as I understand it and doesn't include undergrounding the Hydro. I wouldn't be surprised if the final cost could exceed 300 million dollars or more, much more.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I don't think the average tax payer understands that when the LRT is up and running the City must start to modify the surface of the route at additional cost.

What additional modifications are you talking about?

 

[diminutive]

A 20-m subway car would have a capacity of about 145 people. 30 trains an hour at peak gives you only 4,300 an hour. Even you squeezed 5,000 on, your completely screwed after 2031 as presumably ridership would continue to grow. It might work day 1, but it won't last 50 years. I'd think you'd want to design for at least 15K capacity ... which would require 70 metre platforms. 90 metres isn't that much more than that.

It can't be too far off. There were no alternatives to tunnelling Eglinton through the centre of the city. And there's no alternatives cheaper than the current alignment from Brentcliffe to Kennedy (other than perhaps skipping the piece of tunnel at Don Mills Road and under Kennedy Road). How would we do any of it cheaper ... other than stopping the line at Don Mills Road and making everyone change to a BRT?

Gahh... I had wrote a longer reply but my browser crashed, so this will be more condensed.

Re. Train capacity, I think your numbers are off. A TR can hold 183 ppl, and the TTC acknowledges that's a conservative estimate. At that level, peak demand on the ECLRT would take about 29 trains. Designing a line to avoid capacity constraints in the year 2100 is silly; any savings which would be had then would have a NPV today of 0$.

As for alternatives, I'd written a more detailed answer, but I'll just leave the TTC's capacity chart here.

I'm not the one making this chart, the TTC is. Yet because of this semantic loophole of the EC"LRT," there's no good explenation for why this guideline is being flagrantly ignored. Clearly the central portion of the ECLRT is a subway, everyone admits this, yet nobody justifies it.

 

[ehlow]

Projected peak ridership in 2031 according to the Eglinton EA will be 5400 people per hour.

http://thecrosstown.ca/sites/defaul...udies-and-major-functional-design-options.pdf

 

[nfitz]

Gahh... I had wrote a longer reply but my browser crashed, so this will be more condensed.

Re. Train capacity, I think your numbers are off. A TR can hold 183 ppl, and the TTC acknowledges that's a conservative estimate.

You can always crush more people in. But you don't design to crush loads. Yes, 183 for 23-metre subway car sounds about right ... it's actually 180 if you check the current TTC peak loading standard. However a T1 is slightly lower at 167, because you don't have people standing in the extra space where the cab and between the cars. With a 20-metre single-car train, you should be comparing to a T1, not a TR. And then, you are talking 20 metres, not the current 23 metre car. So take 167, divide by 23, multiply by 20, and you get about 145.

At that level, peak demand on the ECLRT would take about 29 trains.

If peak is 5,000 it would only take 28 with your 180 person car. It takes 30 with a 167 person car.

Designing a line to avoid capacity constraints in the year 2100 is silly; any savings which would be had then would have a NPV today of 0$.

2100? 5,000 is forecast for 2031, only 11 years after the line opens. You break that in 2032 ... you might not design for 80 years in the future ... but you do design for more than 20!

As for alternatives, I'd written a more detailed answer, but I'll just leave the TTC's capacity chart here.

So what do you propose? A partially exclusive right-of-way wasn't considered an option on Eglinton between Keele and Laird because of the width. So you either are stuck with a 2,000 capacity for mixed right-of-way ... or you tunnel. How do you save anything? They've gone for partially exclusive right-of-way for the sections of Eglinton with a wider right-of-way.

So how do you save anything? They've done the minimum east of Laird, and had to resort to a tunnel to the west, because of the narrow road.

According to that chart, at 8,000 even the non-exclusive right-of-way east of Laird doesn't work!

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Here's a more legible copy. Note that the scale at the bottom is not linear.:

Eglinton Line moves about 6,000 at peak point & peak hour, which is about half the capacity of LRT in street median ROW.

However, I still believe that the Eglinton Line subway is the best option for improving transit on the corridor. This isn't the Sheppard East or Finch West corridors where we have very wide streets that can easily accommodate LRT in street median ROW operations. If Eglinton Ave was wider, I'd scrap the Eglinton Line subway in favour of street median ROW LRT in a heartbeat.

 

[nfitz]

If Eglinton Ave was wider, I'd scrap the Eglinton Line subway in favour of street median ROW LRT in a heartbeat.

Absolutely. I suppose an alternative would be to expropriate all the properties on one side of the street ... would that be preferable?

 

[M II A II R II K]

If it's just box stores surrounded by parking lots, by all means.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

If it's just box stores surrounded by parking lots, by all means.

Yea well Eglinton between Don Mills and Mt. Dennis is not that

 

[diminutive]

So what do you propose? A partially exclusive right-of-way wasn't considered an option on Eglinton between Keele and Laird because of the width. So you either are stuck with a 2,000 capacity for mixed right-of-way ... or you tunnel. How do you save anything? They've gone for partially exclusive right-of-way for the sections of Eglinton with a wider right-of-way.

Well, first, I'd just note that the lack of alternatives isn't a justification for any given policy. For instance, it's not like we could build a surface LRT or BRT on College or Dundas, yet that doesn't justify building subways willy-nilly.

The best solution would be to increase turnover on the route. Transfers to surface-subway routes at Mt. Dennis and Caledonia as well as Leaside and Kennedy would reduce peak demands in the tunneled segment to more manageable levels. Kennedy in particular, given that ECLRT riders would be boarding there in the first place and face no transfer penalty.

If the City goes ahead and decides that, for whatever reason, we need underground transit across central Eglinton, then just build the line as a mini-metro. With high-frequencies the transfer penalty at wherever the line terminates would be minimal, and we already know that several trips will short-turn and require a transfer anyways.

You'd save money on the tunneled segment through much smaller stations, and you'd save money on the surface section by avoiding having to reconstruct the entire road.

Money could then be plowed back into service improvements which don't cost as much per rider.

An alternative would be what Neptis proposed, but I think since that would mainly be diverting existing passengers from the BD line the overall transit user benefits wouldn't be as pronounced as they suspect.