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

[Rainforest]

For the eastern section of ECLRT, the reduction in travel time that could be achieved by eliminating 2 or 3 mid-block stops is so minor that it is not worth making any changes to the official plan. I would just keep everything as is.

On the other hand, the future "Eglinton West" section between Mt Dennis and the airport might benefit from wider stop spacing. Stops at the major intersections such as Royal York, Islington, Kipling are still needed to allow transfers from the N-S bus routes, but most or all of mid-block stops can be skipped. That would necessitate a parallel local bus service, but the increase in the number of riders taking the LRT to the airport, or to ACC, might make it worthwhile.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

For rapid transit, each stop should be well-used enough that there's no need to "request" a stop. People are willing to walk to walk much further than 500m for a service that is fast and reliable. Most people along Queen/Dundas/any streetcar line walk rather than wait at a stop, because walking is more reliable and because they can just catch a streetcar/bus if it overtakes them.

I don't know about that.

The speed upgrades you're taking about might increase speed from 22 kph to 30 kph, at most. That sounds like a lot, but do the math and you'll see that for a 5 km trip, it works out to an on-vehicle travel time savings of about 3.5 minutes.

By removing these stops, you might be making people walk another 300 to 500 metres, in all kinds of weather conditions. Personally, I'd rather shave a few hundred metres off my walking distance, at the expense of spending another 3 mins on the train. And if you do the math, you'll see that increasing walking distance by 300 metres at 5 km/h walking speed, will negate any travel times savings of the faster trains (assuming train speed increases from 22 kph to 30 kph).

In reality, given the number of lights and, and the increase in dwell times per STOP, the speed upgrades you're talking about would be lucky to increase average vehicle travel speed by a few km/h.

 

[BurlOak]

While I don't necessarily disagree with your point, the plan to have a single station at City Hall has been abandoned. The recommended route now includes stations at Queen-Yonge and Osgoode. Queen-Yonge and Sherbourne stations will be around 800 m apart.


I think it's a shame that Line 5 wasn't designed to be elevated in its outer portions like the Skytrain. Or at least grade separated at intersections so it's completely separated from traffic. I get that the outer portions were designed on the cheap before there was much funding available, but having trains stop at red lights on the surface portions is going to mess with the speed and reliability of the whole line. Toronto really needs to escape the tunnel-or-nothing mentality.

How can you say a $6B transit line was designed on the cheap, when some reports state that a fully grade-separated line could have been built for less cost.
The problem is that it was designed on the stupid, not cheap. Larger LRT was used to make tunneling more expensive. Larger LRT was also used on SRT to force conversion of the entire line for significant cost. The problem was that is was design as low floor LRT first - without any other consideration. Next was that it had to be in median unless not possible. When 2/3 of the line became grade-separated, nobody questioned the initial assumptions that it must be LRT.

 

[Steve X]

TTC said something like moving from 24kph to 28kph assuming they get all green. In reality, most riders would only see 2-3 minutes of additional travel time but ridership would be higher. If everyone continues to rider, loading time would be longer with more riders concentrated stops. It's only 3 questionable stops along the crosstown plus trains would only be permitted to run 60kph max. Calgary has their C-Trains space at like 2km apart. Some are suggesting maybe they could improve their ridership by putting in more stops. C-Trains run 80kph with absolute priority. It would make a lot of difference if they do put in a bunch of stops in their case.

Based on metrics from any other system world wide. Toronto has the closest bus and tram stops. It maybe convenient if you happen to live near the stop but it's inconvenient for longer distance travel, which Toronto is terrible at. Speed is important and Toronto seems to forget this. I'm not saying we should have a magic number for stop spacing and apply everywhere. There are however general places where it makes no sense that we have near and far side stops at intersections or have tram stops where the tram can almost be at both stops at the same time. For example on Spadina Wilcox, Harbord, and Sussex are very close. Only Harbord is needed, as the other two are close enough to it that it's literally a 2-3 min walk to the next stop. The city is full of such examples. It's why routes like Spadina or Queens Quay (Harbourfront) are very slow. Stop spacing and badly timed signals affect throughput of service.

Spadina does have many stops under 200m which is too close. Queens Quay spacing are 400m apart. They did remove a stop when they rebuilt the ROW. It's still slow thanks to the amount of traffic lights and TTC speed restriction not stop spacing.

I don't know what worldwide cities you're talking about. 200-300m stop spacing is pretty common in many large cities cores. If you look at NYC or Chicago, their bus stop spacing is just as close to ours. For trams, Berlin have their stops every 300m or so even on protected ROW. However, spacing in the suburbs do tend to go up to 500m. TTC treats everything as the same is the problem.

 

[W. K. Lis]

From Matt Elliott's twitter at link.

“I think somebody needs to stand up for drivers in this city.” - the new Vice Chair of the Public Works committee.

Matt Elliott added,


Toronto City Clerk @TorontoCouncil
Public Works and Infrastructure has elected Councillor Stephen Holyday as Vice Chair: http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/decisionBodyProfile.do?function=doPrepare&meetingId=11893… #tocouncil

...and others.

It will be hard for the city to actually provide better priority towards public transit vehicles with such councillors on city council.

 

[rbt]

I'd think that the outcome of such comparison will vary greatly from one route to another.

No doubt but over a hundred routes some kind of correlation would be exposed (or not). Of course, correlation != causation, but it's hard to devise a test to find causation if you don't know what you're starting with.

Many of the examples of stops which should be eliminated are on routes with some of the highest ridership in the city; the same city with one of the highest per capita riderships in North America. It just feels wrong to assume those same routes are misconfigured by default as clearly something has been done right for the culture where those routes exist.

 

[crs1026]

In reality, given the number of lights and, and the increase in dwell times per STOP, the speed upgrades you're talking about would be lucky to increase average vehicle travel speed by a few km/h.

The math and logic behind this is solid, but I wonder if there is a qualitative factor that is being overlooked.

If you have a series of lightly used stops where each vehicle may or may not need to stop, you introduce variability in the trip time of each vehicle. The schedule has to be timed on the assumption that every vehicle will make every stop. But in practice the vehicle will blow by the lightly used stops some of the time....and then have to run slower to burn up the time saved.

By limiting the stops to main intersections where there are likely to be passengers waiting for each vehicle, the timing becomes more regular and reliable, because the duration of stops is consistent.

I make these comments having used the grade separated portion of the 501 for most of my life. In theory it ought to be a lRT quality zone, but it has always been characterised by extremes of hold-on-tight racing and casual lallygagging as some operators struggle to catch up with schedule while others struggle not to get ahead of their timing. This is operationally undesirable, but it's also hugely frustrating to passengers. And it builds a culture of plodding instead of zooming.

I don't have a position on what the stop spacing should be on Crosstown, but I believe that every LRT we build should exhibit the stop-rush-stop cadence of our subways. There are places where the character of a LRT changes en route (Boston's Green Line, for instance, changes mid-route from subway to surface street car) but this is not what we are trying to build on Eglinton. In transit, you don't sell the trip timing, you sell the zoom factor.

- Paul

 

[smallspy]

The math and logic behind this is solid, but I wonder if there is a qualitative factor that is being overlooked.

If you have a series of lightly used stops where each vehicle may or may not need to stop, you introduce variability in the trip time of each vehicle. The schedule has to be timed on the assumption that every vehicle will make every stop. But in practice the vehicle will blow by the lightly used stops some of the time....and then have to run slower to burn up the time saved.

By limiting the stops to main intersections where there are likely to be passengers waiting for each vehicle, the timing becomes more regular and reliable, because the duration of stops is consistent.

- Paul

If that was the case, then shouldn't he subway's running time not be variable? Since, you know, there are no intersections with lights to worry about, and it has to stop at every station.

But in fact, that is not the case. There is over a 10% difference in timing from the busiest (and therefore slowest) time of the day to the quietest (and therefore fastest).

There are far, far more factors at play than just traffic lights and the number of stops. The TTC knows this, and takes this into account - that's why virtually every transit route in the City runs faster at 10pm than it does at 8am - and that includes the subways.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[crs1026]

If that was the case, then shouldn't he subway's running time not be variable? Since, you know, there are no intersections with lights to worry about, and it has to stop at every station.

That's what makes it consistent. Every train makes every stop. Some stops may only be a few seconds at some times of day, but that's a lot less variability than not decelerating, stopping, and starting.

Line 2 Islington westbound to Kipling is no picnic at some times of day... it can be a long wait for one's train to make it to the platform at Kipling if things are bunched up ahead. But the subway train doesn't dog it all the way from Runnymede, the operators go full speed until they catch up with the ones ahead. I don't see that on 501..... travel time from Roncy to Humber was anyone's guess (and the new shuttle buses are proving much better).

- Paul

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I make these comments having used the grade separated portion of the 501 for most of my life. In theory it ought to be a lRT quality zone, but it has always been characterised by extremes of hold-on-tight racing and casual lallygagging as some operators struggle to catch up with schedule while others struggle not to get ahead of their timing. This is operationally undesirable, but it's also hugely frustrating to passengers. And it builds a culture of plodding instead of zooming.

The LRTs, I believe, will be running on headway-based scheduling. So I don't expect that we'll see situations where the trains will sit and wait for several minutes, while they try to catch up with their schedule.

Also, the subway also experiences delays for scheduling adjustments. For example, when the train sits in stations for a long time, or travels slowly between stations. When taking the subway on low-demand periods, such as early Saturday mornings, the train move noticably quicker than any other time of day.

 

[Hopkins123]

The Relief Line stop spacing along Queen is roughly the same as Line 2. We have stations on, University, Yonge, Sherbourne, Sumach, Broadview and Pape (6 Stations)

On the same stretch of Bloor, there are stations on Bay, Yonge, Sherbourne, Castle Frank, Broadview, Chester and Pape (7 Stations)

In particular, distance between Sherbourne and Yonge on Queen is exactly the same as the distance on Bloor.

The implication I'm trying to make here is that the stop spacing should be closer to reflect the greater population density in the core versus up by Bloor Street where density to the north is restricted by the natural barrier of the Rosedale Valley Ravine.

So it should also be 7 stations from University to Pape - University, Yonge, Jarvis, Parliament, Sumach, Broadview and Carlaw.

One station at Sherbourne to serve the whole area from Jarvis to Parliament is unreasonable, it should be two.

 

[Steve X]

The LRTs, I believe, will be running on headway-based scheduling. So I don't expect that we'll see situations where the trains will sit and wait for several minutes, while they try to catch up with their schedule.

Also, the subway also experiences delays for scheduling adjustments. For example, when the train sits in stations for a long time, or travels slowly between stations. When taking the subway on low-demand periods, such as early Saturday mornings, the train move noticably quicker than any other time of day.

In the tunnels, ATO will just do it's thing. Once east of Laird, the operator drives it like a streetcar. It's prone to the same problems as St Clair where lights, intersection blocked by cars, difference in acceleration/braking, operators playing games and etc. Transit priority may fail at an intersection adding to additional travel time along the line. TTC can still restrict intersection crossing to 10 km/h like the current streetcar ROWs.

 

[muller877]

In the tunnels, ATO will just do it's thing. Once east of Laird, the operator drives it like a streetcar. It's prone to the same problems as St Clair where lights, intersection blocked by cars, difference in acceleration/braking, operators playing games and etc. Transit priority may fail at an intersection adding to additional travel time along the line. TTC can still restrict intersection crossing to 10 km/h like the current streetcar ROWs.

Will they have an operator from Laird to Mt Dennis? Would save a bunch of money if the operator left the train and the computerized system took over.

With ATO central control could manage the speeds/stops to even out the headways as it travels in the tunnels.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Will they have an operator from Laird to Mt Dennis? Would save a bunch of money if the operator left the train and the computerized system took over.

With ATO central control could manage the speeds/stops to even out the headways as it travels in the tunnels.

I think even with ATO they will still have an operator on board just incase something happens so they can override it.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Will they have an operator from Laird to Mt Dennis? Would save a bunch of money if the operator left the train and the computerized system took over.

With ATO central control could manage the speeds/stops to even out the headways as it travels in the tunnels.

The SRT is automated already. So between Laird and Mt. Dennis it'll be the same. The operator acts as a guard, or pair up with a another employee to act as a fare inspector.