DirectionNorth
Active Member
You want 90 second headways with TSP? Can't deal with the negative sides of that? Suck it up.
Toronto Eglinton Line 5 Crosstown West Extension | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx
- Thread starter W. K. Lis
- Start date
ARG1
Senior Member
"quite possible" doesn't mean "immediately after opening". "Quite possible" means its possible that we reach that demand sooner than later, and 30 years is a pretty reasonable timeframe to state such a conclusion. You are quite literally twisting my words right now.
Glad we agree
Well either way we aren't. Oh I would love an 80m metro line under Eglinton, however most people on this forum seem convinced that we aren't going to need that much for a long time - which is why myself and many others are pushing for 40m light metros - which guess what, have the same capacity at a similar cost.
I'm sorry but 30k pphpd is a very tough pill to swallow. Like, you're going to have to at the very least do a lot of improvements in the eastern section to reach that point.
4 minutes + significantly less time waiting for the next train on average. I have already debunked this point. Not to mention if we extend the line further east, the numbers will add up to much more than 4 minutes.
Portland and Vancouver are 2 cities that have a metro area with very similar population, very similar metro areas geographically where they have several polycentric nodes lying around in dispersed areas, that are all tied together by the regions' primary transit system. They are actually VERY COMPARABLE cities when it comes to comparing how their transit systems work in practice, and the proof is in the pudding so to speak.
ARG1
Senior Member
I did say its possible, my point was that its not practical. I said the claim was dubious, not false.
Can insert a waiting train? Which waiting train? These trains aren't going to be fully automated and unmanned, you can't just have manned trains waiting in some storage track somewhere that you can pull out at a moment's notice.
That's fair, however something to consider. When you're running a train in the median of the roadway, the roadway is still in full operation. You still need to provide time for cross traffic to pass, pedestrians to cross, and for main traffic to keep forward. Let's say you're running a train every 5 minutes, that means that the light on the through road needs to be green every 2.5 minutes to account for trains running in both direction. In the worst case scenerio we can say that the trains in both directions cross the street at the consistent midpoint between each arriving train. You can spend 2.5 minutes letting the main traffic go through, and spend the remaining 2.5 minutes on cross traffic, and cars turning left. You also have to have proper timings for every other intersection along the route. Its a challenge, but its certainly doable, and you can always modify the signal timings a bit to let a delayed train go through on a green in case there's a delay. Not much of a problem overall.
As you increase the headways however, the amount of room you have to allow for consistent green signals decreases more and more. At 3 minute headways, you're expecting a train every 90s which isn't long enough to complete a full light cycle in most situations. While it might be doable, you somehow have to time all the trains to where they meet each other at every intersection so that both trains can cross at the same green light - and this has to be done at EVERY light cycle. It is possible if you have extremely wide distances between intersections, however this isn't really the case on Eglinton. As such your options become A) Throw out the idea of TSP altogether and just let your trains bunch up and run at inconsistent headways, or B) Still push through full priority which can likely involve causing massive traffic backlogs (and there is no way this will ever be allowed in Toronto). Either way, somebody loses. This is why I use the 5 minute baseline that is provided by Sound Transit, since in general its a limitation that is caused by the rules and limitations of the North American road network, and less to do with the LRT itself.
I find this premise to be very rocky. We are building the Ontario Line which will terminate at Science Center, as has been previously established we are planning quite a lot of density on the corridor, and we are planning to grow STC even further. Even if you are right in this situation, for how long will you be right?
I'd like to see how the system works in practice on a manned system.
Its a genuine concern. Line 1 already has many problems caused by these kinds of concerns and its a mostly isolated system. Eglinton won't be.
Let's replace the word impossible with impractical.
superelevation
Active Member
Phoenix doing it should immediately make you question whether it's a good idea. Most of the LRT systems in the US move around as many people as . . . the King Streetcar (many move less!)
Clearly in a city the size of Toronto there is incredibly high east west travel demand?
Look at how many riders are on Finch, Lawrence, Eglinton, Sheppard, Steeles and on and on. The LRT ridership estimates are *incredibly* pessimistic. Seriously if any large number of people switch from the EW buses (maybe they won't because well, we made L5 slow . . .) capacity will need to be expanded.
Eglinton (as has been said here many times) is going to struggle a lot to get to 90s headways, look how slow boarding and deboarding is on a busy streetcar, the L5 trains have virtually identical dimensions and will have serious issues getting to anywhere close to subway level dwells needed for 2 min operations, much less 90s.
Expanding capacity on the CL is trivial, you order the middle cars and extend the platforms (some already done from day 1) via knock out walls etc. they are currently adding a whole new station without substantial service disruption in Richmond - it will be fine.
Of course it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be a more compelling transit experience, and we probably could have afforded to go with slightly bigger trains. Toronto has an incredibly good and compelling high frequency local transit grid with frequent buses that could (and are slowly) be made faster with dedicated lanes. The premise of transit city was to create a plan that was politcially favorable by touching most wards and costing little (which as we've seen didn't really happen). The fundamental premise was flawed, Toronto has no lack of high quality local transit service we need ways of crossing large distances quickly, the popularity of the existing subways shows it!
Edit: One last thing I think is worth mentioning, the Canada Line is ten years old and widely heiled as a success capturing more riders (in a much smaller city) than we *think* Eglinton will rapidly. That said, it's also been open 10 years and we know it's warts. I am not going to pretend to know the future, but who knows - maybe Eglinton opens and it turns out all the talk over the last few years was right and it's super unreliable or crowded. It's hard to make the comparison today!
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sche
Active Member
To people talking about increasing frequency on Eglinton using what is currently being built, including talk of 90s frequency:
As far as I know, there are no systems which can achieve 90 second headways that are not automated, fully grade separated and isolated metro style lines. (The other way to achieve very high frequencies is basically creating a traffic jam of buses, trams, or other manually driven vehicles, e.g. Ottawa Transitway downtown, but obviously that is not what I am referring to)
Fundamentally there are two barriers to higher frequencies: Dwell times at stations, which is a function of egress/ingress speed and capacity, and ability to operate extremely reliably, because the higher the frequency, the smaller the margin of error, and at very high frequencies even a delay of a few seconds on one train can cause the train behind it to catch up and have to wait, causing a cascade of delays.
This is why to achieve consistent 90 seconds while not having completely terrible reliability, you really do need a metro line that is completely grade separated and isolated from external factors, with a relatively simple service pattern (i.e. no excessive interlining or branching) to minimize potential conflicts and maximize reliability. You also need efficient passenger circulation at stations and rolling stock with lots of wide doors and wide corridors in order to reduce dwell times. With dwell times it's also important to note, all it takes is one busy station with a long dwell time to hamper frequency.
Tunneled mainline rail systems with the latest technology (e.g. Paris RER or Crossrail) max out at 24tph (150 seconds), and RER A can do short bursts up to 26tph (~138 seconds). They don't even do two minute headways.
The problem on these systems is that they are worse than metro lines in both of the critical areas of operating high frequency.
Outer sections on these lines have have conflicts with mainline rail, and are thus less reliable and more inconsistent (e.g. if an intercity train is not on time and delays an RER train). Even though the outer branches operate at much lower frequency, the inconsistency here causes some amount of variability in when trains arrive at the central section. Clearly this becomes a problem since higher frequency reduces the window when an inbound train must enter the central section, and missing this window would obviously lead to major delays, since there isn't going to just be an empty time slot right after for that train to enter the central section.
The other factor is because regional rail rolling stock has less ingress/egress capacity compared to metro trains, causing longer dwell times at central stations. Paris and London already try very hard, with Crossrail having PSDs and 3 doors per car, and RER A having trains with 3 comically wide doors per car but on double decker trains (this is compared to most mainline trains having only 2 doors per car). However, this doesn't compete with metro trains, which often have 4 doors per car, are never double decker, and usually feature transverse or at least partially transverse seating, which makes the interior circulation space wider.
Back to Eglinton, we see that Eglinton will be even worse than Paris RER or Crossrail in terms of dwell times and reliability/isolation from external factors.
Egliton's LRT trains have much fewer doors per train length compared to even Paris RER or Crossrail (Note when I say doors per car, I mean doors on one side of the car):
A Flexity Freedom car used on the ECLRT is 30.8m long, with 4 doors per car, which is 1 door per 7.7m, but two of these are half doors and not even full doors
Crossrail's Class 345 trains have 22.5m long cars, with 3 doors per car, which is 1 door per 7.5m, and all of these doors are proper full sized doors
Paris RER A's MI 09 trains have 22m long cars, also with 3 doors per car, which is 1 door per 7.3m, but all of these are really really wide doors.
To make matters even worse, the low floor LRT trains also have very narrow passenger circulation between the wheel bogies (maybe like 1m wide or something) because the bogies protrude above the floor level. This will even further impact dwell time, as it will take longer for people to disperse into the train and there is less room close to the doors for people to wait before getting out.
Because of the above two things, I think it is unlikely that even the underground section operating independently could achieve 90s or even 2 minute headways. But, the surface section does exist, and brings a whole bunch of extra problems:
First of all, the surface stops are very narrow and cramped and have only one exit, so if any of them get a considerable number of passengers, there would be crowding on the platform causing excessive dwell times.
Next, it would be almost impossible to operate a median LRT at 2-3 minute headways on a street like Eglinton without having bunching and reliability problems. A traffic light at an intersection like Victoria Park and Eglinton probably needs a signal cycle of at least 90 seconds, probably 2 minutes or maybe even longer in reality. The bare minimum is probably something like this: 30s green, enough for pedestrians to cross 7 lanes, plus maybe 8 seconds for the yellow and all red, plus say 12 seconds for left turn signals which are required because of the median LRT = 50 seconds for each street, or 100 seconds total which is probably close to the absolute minimum. To handle rush hour traffic, probably longer timings are necessary. When you have trains going through every minute or two on average (since they go in both directions), you can't really give all trains full priority simply because the frequency is the similar or less than the signal cycle time.
And finally, the crux of the surface section's problem is that the surface section introduces so many variables that could impact service on the central section, even if you turn back half or more of the trains at Laird and operate a manageable frequency on the surface section. First of all, the surface section will be manually driven, and because humans don't all drive at exactly the same speed, that introduces variability. Next are other things that could impact trip times - say a few fire trucks or ambulances cross Eglinton in front of a train, or somebody decides to jaywalk across the tracks forcing the driver to slow down, or somebody runs a red light. Signal priority also does not work perfectly. Eglinton will feature several near side stops, as well as many far side stops that are not very far from the next intersection, and because dwell times are unpredictable, it would be nearly impossible to provide consistent signal priority at these intersections, meaning some trains will still get red lights. If you are operating high frequency service on the tunneled section, there is a very narrow window of time for a train to enter the tunneled section in order to fit between trains that are turning around at Laird, and any of the above things could result in the few seconds of delay necessary to cause the train to miss that narrow window, which would immediately lead to cascading delays. Compare this to any metro line, where there are almost no possible external interference factors, or even regional rail, which only has to contend with a few mainline trains that might cause a conflict, as opposed to dozens of cars and pedestrians at every intersection for a median LRT.
Overall, given the poor circulation and low door count on LFLRV's and the extreme difficulty of operating a median LRT at the level of precision required, it would be very difficult to reliably operate Eglinton (even just the tunneled section) at something like 2 minute headways, and close to impossible at anything better than 2 minutes.
Final caveat:
As with almost any system, you can almost always increase frequency past what I describe as practical if you are fine with trading frequency with speed. If you add a bunch of padding to the schedule and made trains drive slower, that would let you speed up delayed trains to maintain punctuality. A small amount of padding is often necessary to have a functional and reliable system, but obviously doing this excessively is not desirable.
As far as I know, there are no systems which can achieve 90 second headways that are not automated, fully grade separated and isolated metro style lines. (The other way to achieve very high frequencies is basically creating a traffic jam of buses, trams, or other manually driven vehicles, e.g. Ottawa Transitway downtown, but obviously that is not what I am referring to)
Fundamentally there are two barriers to higher frequencies: Dwell times at stations, which is a function of egress/ingress speed and capacity, and ability to operate extremely reliably, because the higher the frequency, the smaller the margin of error, and at very high frequencies even a delay of a few seconds on one train can cause the train behind it to catch up and have to wait, causing a cascade of delays.
This is why to achieve consistent 90 seconds while not having completely terrible reliability, you really do need a metro line that is completely grade separated and isolated from external factors, with a relatively simple service pattern (i.e. no excessive interlining or branching) to minimize potential conflicts and maximize reliability. You also need efficient passenger circulation at stations and rolling stock with lots of wide doors and wide corridors in order to reduce dwell times. With dwell times it's also important to note, all it takes is one busy station with a long dwell time to hamper frequency.
Tunneled mainline rail systems with the latest technology (e.g. Paris RER or Crossrail) max out at 24tph (150 seconds), and RER A can do short bursts up to 26tph (~138 seconds). They don't even do two minute headways.
The problem on these systems is that they are worse than metro lines in both of the critical areas of operating high frequency.
Outer sections on these lines have have conflicts with mainline rail, and are thus less reliable and more inconsistent (e.g. if an intercity train is not on time and delays an RER train). Even though the outer branches operate at much lower frequency, the inconsistency here causes some amount of variability in when trains arrive at the central section. Clearly this becomes a problem since higher frequency reduces the window when an inbound train must enter the central section, and missing this window would obviously lead to major delays, since there isn't going to just be an empty time slot right after for that train to enter the central section.
The other factor is because regional rail rolling stock has less ingress/egress capacity compared to metro trains, causing longer dwell times at central stations. Paris and London already try very hard, with Crossrail having PSDs and 3 doors per car, and RER A having trains with 3 comically wide doors per car but on double decker trains (this is compared to most mainline trains having only 2 doors per car). However, this doesn't compete with metro trains, which often have 4 doors per car, are never double decker, and usually feature transverse or at least partially transverse seating, which makes the interior circulation space wider.
Back to Eglinton, we see that Eglinton will be even worse than Paris RER or Crossrail in terms of dwell times and reliability/isolation from external factors.
Egliton's LRT trains have much fewer doors per train length compared to even Paris RER or Crossrail (Note when I say doors per car, I mean doors on one side of the car):
A Flexity Freedom car used on the ECLRT is 30.8m long, with 4 doors per car, which is 1 door per 7.7m, but two of these are half doors and not even full doors
Crossrail's Class 345 trains have 22.5m long cars, with 3 doors per car, which is 1 door per 7.5m, and all of these doors are proper full sized doors
Paris RER A's MI 09 trains have 22m long cars, also with 3 doors per car, which is 1 door per 7.3m, but all of these are really really wide doors.
To make matters even worse, the low floor LRT trains also have very narrow passenger circulation between the wheel bogies (maybe like 1m wide or something) because the bogies protrude above the floor level. This will even further impact dwell time, as it will take longer for people to disperse into the train and there is less room close to the doors for people to wait before getting out.
Because of the above two things, I think it is unlikely that even the underground section operating independently could achieve 90s or even 2 minute headways. But, the surface section does exist, and brings a whole bunch of extra problems:
First of all, the surface stops are very narrow and cramped and have only one exit, so if any of them get a considerable number of passengers, there would be crowding on the platform causing excessive dwell times.
Next, it would be almost impossible to operate a median LRT at 2-3 minute headways on a street like Eglinton without having bunching and reliability problems. A traffic light at an intersection like Victoria Park and Eglinton probably needs a signal cycle of at least 90 seconds, probably 2 minutes or maybe even longer in reality. The bare minimum is probably something like this: 30s green, enough for pedestrians to cross 7 lanes, plus maybe 8 seconds for the yellow and all red, plus say 12 seconds for left turn signals which are required because of the median LRT = 50 seconds for each street, or 100 seconds total which is probably close to the absolute minimum. To handle rush hour traffic, probably longer timings are necessary. When you have trains going through every minute or two on average (since they go in both directions), you can't really give all trains full priority simply because the frequency is the similar or less than the signal cycle time.
And finally, the crux of the surface section's problem is that the surface section introduces so many variables that could impact service on the central section, even if you turn back half or more of the trains at Laird and operate a manageable frequency on the surface section. First of all, the surface section will be manually driven, and because humans don't all drive at exactly the same speed, that introduces variability. Next are other things that could impact trip times - say a few fire trucks or ambulances cross Eglinton in front of a train, or somebody decides to jaywalk across the tracks forcing the driver to slow down, or somebody runs a red light. Signal priority also does not work perfectly. Eglinton will feature several near side stops, as well as many far side stops that are not very far from the next intersection, and because dwell times are unpredictable, it would be nearly impossible to provide consistent signal priority at these intersections, meaning some trains will still get red lights. If you are operating high frequency service on the tunneled section, there is a very narrow window of time for a train to enter the tunneled section in order to fit between trains that are turning around at Laird, and any of the above things could result in the few seconds of delay necessary to cause the train to miss that narrow window, which would immediately lead to cascading delays. Compare this to any metro line, where there are almost no possible external interference factors, or even regional rail, which only has to contend with a few mainline trains that might cause a conflict, as opposed to dozens of cars and pedestrians at every intersection for a median LRT.
Overall, given the poor circulation and low door count on LFLRV's and the extreme difficulty of operating a median LRT at the level of precision required, it would be very difficult to reliably operate Eglinton (even just the tunneled section) at something like 2 minute headways, and close to impossible at anything better than 2 minutes.
Final caveat:
As with almost any system, you can almost always increase frequency past what I describe as practical if you are fine with trading frequency with speed. If you add a bunch of padding to the schedule and made trains drive slower, that would let you speed up delayed trains to maintain punctuality. A small amount of padding is often necessary to have a functional and reliable system, but obviously doing this excessively is not desirable.
afransen
Senior Member
Are you sure LRVs could operate at crush loads with few doors at 90s headways? There are plenty of skeptics here that Ontario Line can achieve 90s headways with PSDs and more doors due to high floor rolling stock.
fanoftoronto
Active Member
I did no twisting. Your comment stated 20,000 pphpd on Eglinton is quite possible. Am I supposed to read your mind to know you meant in 20-30 years? I know now that you meant in 20-30 years, so I will keep that in mind.
Where is your source that it will cost the same?!?
Back of the napkin calculations with 20 assumptions isn't a source. If even 1 or 2 of you're assumptions is false then the entire calculation is useless.
For example, you took some estimate from Europe to state the elevated viaduct costs 14 million euro per km when actual costs would probably be 10 times that number. On street LRT costs $90M per km in Toronto, elevated is probably $200M per km. How many more of your assumptions are wrong?
According to your point itself we have 20-30 years to figure out and make those improvements in the eastern portion when we'll actually need that extra capacity.
20-30 years to figure out proper TPS. 20-30 years to maybe get rid of a couple of stops in the surface section to improve reliability and capacity. 20-30 years to remove some of the left turn signals and provide a circuitous route for drivers to take if they want to go left. 20-30 years to decide to separate the at-grade section from the underground portion. Have Science Centre station as an interchange station for passengers to switch over from one to the other.
We have 20-30 years to learn and implement changes to the Crosstown as we see fit. By your own example, the Canada Line is looking into expanding the stations and remove seats from the trains to make provide a better pphpd. What happens in 10 years when the entire line is above the maximum pphpd possible for the CL? Expand the stations more? Guess what, even if you do, the Hyundai Rotem rolling stock cannot run at 4 train or 6 train configurations even if you expand the stations. You are fully limited to the 15,000 pphpd.
I guess the only way to find out what the actual demand will be is to wait for the Crosstown to open. If you're not going to trust the City numbers while giving no other source to back up your own claims than gut feelings and "clearly there is incredibly high east west travel demand" then we are at an impasse.
Sure there's going to be a huge influx of riders on the Crosstown that were using Eglinton or other EW bus routes around that area, but you have to keep in mind, buses have a pphpd of around 1,500 - 2,000. So the initial demand of 6,000 is taking passengers from more than 3 full capacity EW bus routes and putting them on the Crosstown. This is a reasonable estimate, don't you think?
My point is that we wouldn't need 90s headways for decades. At the current 4 or 5 minute headways the Crosstown would do plenty fine.
Or increase the headways to 2 to 2.5 minutes and you get to 15,000 pphpd which is the same as the CL without even needing to expand to 3-car operation.
Sure but you're still limited to 15,000 to 17,000 pphpd limit on the CL at 1.5 minute headways. Would I have liked a full fledged subway or light metro as well along Eglinton? Of course. But I see no practical evidence without 20 assumptions that proves that a light metro would cost the same as what is being built on the Crosstown.
In my opinion, the price for an elevated eastern section with 50m long stations would cost $ 2 or 3 billion dollars higher than the Crosstown right now.
Yes it was a political move just like the Ontario Line or the Yonge north extension is right now. But when it was going through studies they estimated that an LRT was the most cost effective. Weren't there design decisions made to change the Crosstown until construction started? Science Centre station was decided to be put underground, the line was extended to Black Creek Drive an elevated line as the decisions was made to build an intermodal hub there.
These decisions were made with data, numbers, information. Do you have the pphpd of the EW buses that go through Scarborough? Do you know how many developments are being proposed with what density? Do you have neighborhood feedback during the design review process with the community? Do you have the information on how many passengers would transfer from the NS bus routes?
Spouting words without any basis or fact checking is useless.
If you're skeptical that the Ontario Line will get 90 second headways then how are you confidently stating that the Canada Line style metro can achieve 90s headways? We should limit that as well and put an even lower pphpd of 11,000 or 10,000 on that line. But according to you the CL can carry 15,000 pphpd no problem at crush loading but the Crosstown can't even get to 2.5 or 2 minute headways.
And also, I'm not arguing that Crosstown needs to have 1.5 minute headways anytime in the near future! In 15-20 years the Crosstown can handle 15,000 pphpd at 2 minute headways.
If you bothered to look at the sources I've provided the per stop ridership on the surface level is very low with some stops only seeing 50 or 100 passengers per hour. You're not going to have headway issues there based on passengers boarding the LRTs. This isn't Yonge-Bloor station. And also the LRT they are boarding is going to be only semi-full as the peak pphpd of 6,000 is only Eastbound just east Eglinton station. At Victoria Park it'll be a half this level.
fanoftoronto
Active Member
See above on the number of boardings and disembarking at each of the stations. We aren't looking at Yonge-Bloor level of crowding trying to get into these LRTs. It's not going to be perfect, but it's definitely not the end of the world.
To answer your other point, we're not going to need 90 second headways for decades! We will need 5 minute headways until 2031 according to the estimates. We can reduce that to 4 or 3 or even 2.5 before needing to majorly look at improving the signaling system, worry about the number of doors on each train, or needing a lot of trains to pad the surface section.
I will concede that the total number of doors is lower than the CL trains or the Toronto Rocket subway trains, but again the per station/stop demand is not extraordinary.
I am not going to go through and answer every single one of your "what if" scenario. It was already mentioned that in the Toronto streetcar system that delays due to traffic happens on very rare occasion. Only time will tell on how this is going to play out.
PS: I went above the 10,000 character limit in my first post so had to split it up! This is the first time I've reached this milestone! This is exciting!
afransen
Senior Member
If even one station has high transfer traffic, say at Yonge, crush loads and 90s headways are impossible with low floor LRVs.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
There are transfer points Mt. Dennis (UPX to downtown or Pearson, Kitchener GO to downtown), Caledonia (Barrie GO to downtown), Cedarvale (Line 1 to downtown via University), Eglinton (Line 1 to downtown via Yonge), and Kennedy (Stouffville GO to downtown). If they can reach an agreement with GO Transit (Metrolinx) and TTC on fare discounts, the numbers will change.
fanoftoronto
Active Member
I cannot follow your calculations. What is your 25* $9 million? What is the total original cost you're going from. What do you mean tunnels cost $500 million and surface costs $1billion? Tunnels are cheaper than at-grade?
The link you've provided only states that LRT underground costs $250 million per km and LRT at-grade costs $100 million per km. I don't know where you are getting any of your other values from. I'm going to stipulate again, making these calculations with zero actual sources or values is useless.
And I haven't seen a credible source for any of the values you're using. Even if you do magically find all the values required to do your calculation, you are making 20 assumptions on pricing estimates. It'll cost 1/5 less to build 60m long platforms? Where is the evidence?
Going for 60 meter platforms isn't going to remove the requirement for ventilation equipment and secondary exit requirements.
Grade separation does not mean lower operating costs, what about the maintenance of the elevated viaduct? You think you build the viaduct and call it a day?
I've stated about 5 times that the pphpd limit on the Crosstown at 2 car trains at 2 minute headway is 15,000, good for decades if the numbers are accurate for ridership projection. At 3-car trains we're looking at a pphpd of 22,500 with 2 minute headways.
Speed increase from 25 km/h to 32 km/h resulting in a total time savings of 4 minutes, while also adding the hassle of going up 2 sets of escalators before you're on the platform (for elevated). Reliability we can only comment on once the line opens. Until then we'll just have to agree to disagree.
The elevated ridership projection is going to be the exact same as the tunneled. Why would there be any difference? Ridership dropped down when moving from at-grade to grade separated.
When we get to that, we use the extra 30 m long platforms to add another LRV to each train bringing the pphpd from 15,000 to 22,500 at 2 minute headways. Forward thinking enough for you?
Again, we're not going to be at crush loading with 90 second headways for decades. At typical loading at 2 minute headways we still get way more than the expected ridership on this line. 15,000 pphpd for 2 minute headways and 2 LRV trains. Expand the stations and you get 22,500 pphpd for 2 minute headways and 3 LRV trains.
Didn't you say that your skeptical that 90s headways are going to be possible for the OL? OL and CL are very similar technologies. If what you said is true, then you also have to accept that a CL type technology on Eglinton will that reach your magical 15,000 pphpd maximum capacity. The max capacity is more like 10,000 - 11,000 pphpd at 2 minute headways.
DirectionNorth
Active Member
We're going in circles now. Let's agree to end this discussion @fanoftoronto
fanoftoronto
Active Member
Yup, I'm good with that. It was an engaging chat for me between all of us. Apologies if I offended anyone. Definitely not my intention.
On more Eglinton West LRT news:
ECWE LIVE: March 30, 2022
Live meeting today at 6:30 pm if anyone wants to ask questions or join in.
Edit:
Also, last couple of days left to complete the survey on the elevated section.
Eglinton Crosstown West Extension – Elevated Section Survey
ARG1
Senior Member
Where are your sources that my numbers are wrong? At least I have numbers to back up my claims.
Its about not building lines that are incredibly silly in design right off the get go. Most people unfamiliar with the line look at it and start banging their heads on the desk.
North American Agencies CONSISTENTLY underpredict ridership numbers. The King Streetcar Pilot brought in more new riders than predicted. The various new GO services that were launched in the early to mid 2010s such as the Niagara Excursion train overperformed. The Canada Line brought in more riders than their numbers predicted. iON flew past their ridership projections, and so did the Confederation Line in Ottawa. Not trusting the agency's ridership numbers should be the status quo at this point.
superelevation
Active Member
I'll leave it at this. The planning behind TC was thin, and in the space of transit the word "prove" should not be used. This isn't maths, things cannot be proved - we need to rely on heuristics and the like. Estimates are only as good as the estimator and there is plenty of reason to be sceptical here given the projections as we've seen allow a rail route which (is supposed to be) way better to only pull in a few times more riders than a mixed traffic bus before having cap issues - that should raise alarm bells based on other transit line openings we've seen.