Toronto Eglinton Line 5 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[TOtramz]

Surprised nothing official has been announced about this full revenue demonstration. If indeed that's what's happening, Metrolinx better announce this ASAP!

The sooner this can be done - and the LRT can open - the sooner the City can start filling in those bike lane gaps from Keele to Mount Pleasant. However, the Bathurst to Allen stretch and a short stretch east of Caledonia are expected to be deferred due to traffic studies for the former and flood prevention work co-ordination for the latter.

I highly doubt they will officially announce the start of revenue service demonstration. They will however toute their horns and bring out the champaign once it "goes to plan" and they declare substantial completion

Do you really think MX will declare the start of RSD and then a day later have to stop testing because of a minor issue? That would look so bad

 

[zang]

[… regarding buses …]

Is that really true? Including the necessary maintenance and rebuilding of the rails and the overhead cables?

Yes.

Energy-wise it's quite a bit cheaper. https://bathtrams.uk/the-most-energy-efficient-mode-of-public-transport/. Trams don't require charging infrastructure and battery replacement or regular refuelling and oil changes in the case of diesel.

Bus advocates love to point out that infrastructure costs are lower, but in reality it's a hidden cost as it gets paid for in regular road maintenance. The problem with that is buses put a much bigger strain/wear on the roads themselves. Especially when fully electric normal-length buses can weigh in the area of 20,000kg. If you have a route busy enough to contemplate running a tram, then you're going to be running many more buses on a regular basis, likely articulated buses as well (even heavier). Without things like concrete pads, you will see road indentations and potholes formed around bus stops and traffic lights, and these routes will end up requiring more frequent paving, etc. It just goes on the regular infrastructure line of the city budget instead of the public transit line. Just because the cost isn't inherently visible doesn't mean there isn't one.

Tires alone cost the TTC over $5.5m per year.

If you're going all-electric for buses, then you'll also need to purchase extra vehicles to cope with the route, as buses will need to be cycled out to charge. Though the TTC uses higher-speed pantograph charging on at least some of their electric buses so it's not taking hours upon hours (likely in the area of 20 minutes), the faster you charge a Lithium Ion battery, the faster you shorten its life. The cold winters and hot summers of Toronto will undoubtedly have a negative effect on lifespan. While the batteries are expected to average about 10-15 years (about the expected lifespan of the vehicle), you'll see at least some needing costly replacements before then.

BRTs are maybe an option, but I think that's harder to justify in a downtown core. And if you're doing a separated route anyway, why not put forth the extra capital for tram in order to lower your future maintenance cost?

We're doing all of this tram and subway maintenance at once right now, precisely because we have the first mayor in over a decade who actually wants to prioritize transit and fix the problems we've been ignoring for so long. It doesn't help that it's coming at the same time that Metrolinx is digging up the core for the Ontario Line.

The lack of funding is real enough and has been for a long time. So is the political football around announcing new investments. So given the resources TTC has and expects to have, is there really a good case for building new street level rails, and not for example dedicated bus lanes?

Yes. Overall lower costs.

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet."
–Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett

 

[jmi22]

The TTC has currently budgeted a lifespan of 12 years for their buses (down from the historical 18), and tracks only need to be rebuilt every 20-25 years, provided that they were built correctly in the first place. Couple that with the increased personnel requirements for smaller buses, and the fact that LRVs can be coupled, creating higher capacity under the control of a single driver, and building bus lanes starts to look penny wise, pound foolish.

The great thing about bus lanes, is you don't have to "build" anything, you paint a lane red and maybe throw down a jersey barrier. They are quite literally a universally adopted method of transportation planning in the rest of the world, there is nothing special in the hallowed roadbeds of Toronto that make the business case for buying a can of paint not work here.

 

[T3G]

The great thing about bus lanes, is you don't have to "build" anything, you paint a lane red and maybe throw down a jersey barrier. They are quite literally a universally adopted method of transportation planning in the rest of the world, there is nothing special in the hallowed roadbeds of Toronto that make the business case for buying a can of paint not work here.

Boiling down the building of a BRT in place of a rail rapid transit line by reducing it to buying a can of paint doesn't tell the whole story. Yes, your start up costs will be much lower, but you need more vehicles, and more drivers to operate those vehicles, to provide the same level of capacity that those LRTs would (especially if they are coupled), and you need to replace those buses more often than an LRV, which has a lifespan of 30-40 years without a rebuild, and 50-60 years if it receives a sufficiently comprehensive rebuild.

I never said that BRTs aren't built elsewhere, or, indeed, that they couldn't work in the GTA. I am saying that BRTs are not a replacement for LRTs, and never will be. There is no logical journey from BRT to subway that skips the LRT. LRTs are an important middle ground and can carry lots more people, in contexts where subways would be considered overbuilding for the environment, such as in the suburbs.

 

[jmi22]

I am saying that BRTs are not a replacement for LRTs, and never will be. There is no logical journey from BRT to subway that skips the LRT. LRTs are an important middle ground and can carry lots more people, in contexts where subways would be considered overbuilding for the environment, such as in the suburbs.

Very interesting, this is how the greatest transit cities in the world have/do build infrastructure right? The Grand Paris Express is going to be a 95 year project, first as a BRT to build ridership, then rebuilt as an LRT 30 years later, and then maybe as a subway 35 years after that, cuz ya know, its the suburbs. Very real method of urban structuring and growth.

 

[nfitz]

The great thing about bus lanes, is you don't have to "build" anything, you paint a lane red and maybe throw down a jersey barrier. They are quite literally a universally adopted method of transportation planning in the rest of the world, there is nothing special in the hallowed roadbeds of Toronto that make the business case for buying a can of paint not work here.

Did all that paint on the Eglinton bus lanes wash away then? This photo is from a few years ago now ... perhaps it's not very water resistant?

 

[smallspy]

Very interesting, this is how the greatest transit cities in the world have/do build infrastructure right? The Grand Paris Express is going to be a 95 year project, first as a BRT to build ridership, then rebuilt as an LRT 30 years later, and then maybe as a subway 35 years after that, cuz ya know, its the suburbs. Very real method of urban structuring and growth.

You think that the Bloor-Danforth or Yonge subways just sprang up overnight?

There are lots and lots and lots of cases throughout the world where the ridership was grown organically to the point where it necessitated a change to a higher mode of transit. Just like there were lots and lots and lots of cases where the wrong technology was shoehorned in to fit a task it is not the right one to do.

Dan

 

[zang]

You think that the Bloor-Danforth or Yonge subways just sprang up overnight?

In case anyone doesn't already know, I'd like to point out that Bloor-Danforth and Yonge were both streetcar (tram) lines before being a subway. We scaled up when needed, as we should.

There are lots and lots and lots of cases throughout the world where the ridership was grown organically to the point where it necessitated a change to a higher mode of transit. Just like there were lots and lots and lots of cases where the wrong technology was shoehorned in to fit a task it is not the right one to do.

Ironically, see the Sheppard subway line, which has twice been on the bring of being shut down permanently due to low ridership. A tram line would've sufficed.

 

[nfitz]

Ironically, see the Sheppard subway line, which has twice been on the bring of being shut down permanently due to low ridership..

It was never on the verge of shut down for low ridership. On one occasion - the decade before last - TTC tossed it out as a suggestion, simply as leverage to support a 25¢ fare increase, so that they wouldn't have to do service.

 

[Northern Light]

Ironically, see the Sheppard subway line, which has twice been on the bring of being shut down permanently due to low ridership. A tram line would've sufficed.

Except that that is rather misleading.

The line which was always intended to be Sheppard West/Dowsview to STC, with phase 1 going to Victoria Park was truncated.

Willowdale station was cut entirely.

Because of the above and not intermediate stop from Leslie to Don Mills, a competing/supplementary bus service remained, and the stations weren't even complete visually to spec, missing trackside wall finishes, custom lighting and ceiling slats in many locations.

Notwithstanding the above, the service has generally run at every 5M or so, and has been full in rush hours and moderately busy off-peak.

Certainly a subway was more than the density in place in 1988 required, however, the intent was always for the line to generate greater density over time, which, it has, in spades.

A tram line would be running service every 2 minutes and packed to the gills now.

****

In general, I favour the R.C. Harris school of infrastructure building. He didn't build Line 1, though was certainly involved in its conception, or needless to say, Line 2. But when he had the Prince Edward (Bloor) Viaduct built, he had a deck for a subway put underneath to save money in the future should a subway be needed (Danforth was a dirt road then), the City was barely 500,000 people at the time.

He also built the Water Treatment Plant that now bares his name, the design was approved when the City was a mere 300,000 people........he built it with capacity to serve 800,000.

Much cheaper to over-build somewhat (that doesn't mean run maximum service on day one) .....rather than under-built and have to re-build.

Putting the east end of Line 5 underground will be a hugely disruptive project, in addition, Eglinton will have been wrongly sized when the surface tracks are no longer required, and much more expensive to maintain.

The western side had to be delivered first in order to reach a yard.

So that's all that should have been done in phase 1. The eastern side should then have been built in 2 phases, entirely underground to Victoria Park, then on to Kennedy.

 

[JSF-1]

You think that the Bloor-Danforth or Yonge subways just sprang up overnight?

There are lots and lots and lots of cases throughout the world where the ridership was grown organically to the point where it necessitated a change to a higher mode of transit. Just like there were lots and lots and lots of cases where the wrong technology was shoehorned in to fit a task it is not the right one to do.

Dan

On the topic of this and relevant to Eglinton Avenue, this was supposed to be the intention with the original Eglinton West Subway. As part of Network 2011 Eglinton was supposed to have bus lanes installed to build ridership on the route. The actually subway itself wasn't supposed to start construction until 2011 (ironically around the time the EC started construction). However Etobicoke and York put up a stink that their subway was the last to be built and had the subway's construction pushed up to the 90's; a full 25 years before it was planned to be built. Not only did this skip the ridership building phase with the bus lanes, but it also forced Metro and the Province to truncate both the Sheppard and Eglinton Lines as they could not afford to build both in their entirety simultaneously.

 

[CityRider]

Study claims Toronto's TTC streetcars are the slowest in the world​

Thanks for the link! So as I suspected, this is just a clickbaity headline and saying that the TTC streetcars are "the slowest in the world" is based on a comparison of only 15 cities in the study which in the linked PDF is less than a dozen pages long. Clearly room for improvement, but by the admission of the study's own author they're not examining "each of the several hundred tram systems in the world". I realize people love to hate the TTC but "slowest compared to similarly sized networks in this limited study" would be more accurate.

 

[Mihairokov]

Thanks for the link! So as I suspected, this is just a clickbaity headline

BlogTO should have been your first indicator. This graph gets pushed around here every few weeks and it's incredibly tiresome to see time and time again.

 

[zang]

It was never on the verge of shut down for low ridership. On one occasion - the decade before last - TTC tossed it out as a suggestion, simply as leverage to support a 25¢ fare increase, so that they wouldn't have to do service.

“The potential cuts, which could kick in within weeks, are fallout from the defeat, for now, of Mayor David Miller's proposal for $350-million in new taxes.

The mayor denied the threat of reduced services amounts to a scare tactic. "We don't have the room to manoeuvre any more," he said.”

Toronto threatens to shut Sheppard subway

web.archive.org

That doesn't exactly sound like a “suggestion”. Especially when cities are legally barred from running deficits.

Tory’s remarks of shutdown during the pandemic was probably more of an idle threat, but the TTC has been chronically underfunded for decades. It’s not like it has a lot of room to subsidize inefficient routes., especially when ridership takes as big a hit as we got from COVID.

 

[nfitz]

“The potential cuts, which could kick in within weeks, are fallout from the defeat, for now, of Mayor David Miller's proposal for $350-million in new taxes.

I remember of course. We discussed it extensively in one the threads at the time.

And it was clear, from the discussion, that it wasn't on the verge of shutdown! It was a vague thought ... presented simultaneously with the solution of a fare rise.

Go back and read the discussion. I see no need in repeating 20-year old hysteria from the Globe.

Perhaps Covid was a different situation - lots of stuff was shut down at the peak.