Steve X
Senior Member
It's not like the VIVA have removed a single car of the road! The same awful headway still exist. It's only rapid transit in the fantasy world.5 years of constructionand traffic is still as bad as ever.
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Rapparee
New Member
I'm not sure that I've seen or understand how traffic signal priority is going to work on the above ground section. Without full grade separation, isn't there a big risk that the above ground section could bottleneck the whole line?
W. K. Lis
Superstar
The suburban politicians will do their best to get the worst possible transit priority, and keep the single-occupant motor vehicle as "king or queen" of the road.
cplchanb
Senior Member
A bit tin foil hat dont you think?? I doubt any of them even know when signal priority means in real life.
Markster
Senior Member
As a point of comparison:
KW's LRT began the very first LRT related utility work in 2013, with the construction finishing in 2017. That's 4 years. (5 construction seasons) If the crosstown wants to open in 2021, then it needs to start utility work 4 years earlier, in 2017.
So yep. Construction should start this year.
Here's what to expect for the next five years:
2017: "oh there's a few random utility digs. Neat."
2018: Serious groundbreaking begins. "Traffic and construction can't get worse than this!"
2019: "oh my god it's worse"
2020: Roads begin to reopen, but you can't trust that they won't close again randomly.
2021: Roads finally start reopening for good, but some of them remain frustratingly closed for far longer than you could have possibly imagined.
EastYorkTTCFan
Senior Member
Is there a lot of utilities that they need to relocate shirly most of it would be closer to the curb lanes then in the middle of the road. I guess I could see them laing Hydro lines down the middle of the street to feed up through the ploes so they don't have to string lines across the street to supply power to them.
KevinT
Active Member
In KW they buried every hydro line that crosses the tracks, so high voltage AC couldn't fall onto DC transit power and blow the works if a car ever hit a pole. They also moved every gas, water, sewer, and telecom line out of the right of way so it wouldn't be under the track except to cross it. It was a massive job -- around 15 different companies had fibre optics that were affected... 5 years? Oh yeah, they needed it!
Markster
Senior Member
There are places where hydro lines on regular wooden poles come down a street, dive into the ground at the sidewalk, and then pop up back out of the sidewalk on the other side of the LRT, where the wooden poles continue like nothing happened. It's amusing.
Rainforest
Senior Member
That two mainVIVA routes, Blue and Purple, are very well used.
The population of the region grew a lot in the past five years. The traffic would be worse if VIVA did not exist.
Steve X
Senior Member
I'm actually referring to VIVAnext (the bus lanes). Hence the 5 year construction that I was quoting. I agree with a limited stop service does help carry people.
How many times have I seen nobody on those stations along Highway 7. Well used? A bus every 15 minutes is not considered well used. With the VIVA Pink, it's around 7-8 minutes combined. It's still not consider well used. VIVA Blue is better through. One to three people using each station is not considered well used in the BRT world. Only in terms of YRT. I know it's not the TTC.
Have the headways increased in the last 5 years? I doesn't seem like the bus lanes have removed more people from their cars.
Leo_Chan
Senior Member
It might just be a net equivalence. The population increases, then the bus usage increases, but so does car usage. Therefore, there's no visible change in the use of cars, but the bus usage definitely increased. The Crosstown will attract more riders, but it may not be enough to counteract population increase.
Rainforest
Senior Member
OK, got your point.
The vehicles are well used, they often have standing room only. But the dedicated lanes and the fancy stations may be a bit of an overkill for the relatively infrequent service they are running at present.
On the other hand, not that much time passed since the first section of bus lanes (east of Yonge) opened, and the section between Yonge and Jane opened just a few months ago. With time, the ridership might grow.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
The at-grade Eglinton East section of the Crosstown is something Toronto will regret for a very long time. The only reason LRT was suggested was due to Miller and his "great city building" propaganda like somehow the Golden Mile was a Yorkville in the making. It should be grade separated {elevated} across the entire route.
This line will only be able to have frequencies of every 4 minutes each way max as opposed to a grade separated line that could run every 90 seconds and be cheaper to run due to automation. When considering the huge cost of this project, LRT was the slowest, most unreliable, lowest capacity, lowest frequency, and most expensive system to run they could have thought of.
Anything is that TC {and very much Eglinton} was based on Miller's population estimate of Toronto reaching 4 million by 2030 but it set to cross that marker with 1 to 2 years and will probably be closer to 3.5 million by 2030. That's an extra 500,000 people not being taken into consideration in this project. The Canada Line with it's McStations will still have higher capacity than the Crosstown but be much faster, more reliable, safer, and less intrusive than this mega project.
This line will only be able to have frequencies of every 4 minutes each way max as opposed to a grade separated line that could run every 90 seconds and be cheaper to run due to automation. When considering the huge cost of this project, LRT was the slowest, most unreliable, lowest capacity, lowest frequency, and most expensive system to run they could have thought of.
Anything is that TC {and very much Eglinton} was based on Miller's population estimate of Toronto reaching 4 million by 2030 but it set to cross that marker with 1 to 2 years and will probably be closer to 3.5 million by 2030. That's an extra 500,000 people not being taken into consideration in this project. The Canada Line with it's McStations will still have higher capacity than the Crosstown but be much faster, more reliable, safer, and less intrusive than this mega project.
jaybe
Active Member
The section of Eglinton from Don Mills to Birchmount is one of the few areas of our City where a raised LRT line would not dramatically affect the city scape. That said, there are also very few cross streets along this section. With a dedicated right of way and signal priority, the LRT should be able to travel this section at a reasonable speed.
marcus_a_j
Senior Member
I noticed that tree protection fencing has been installed along sections of Eglinton east of Leslie up to about Vic Park.