Richmond Hill Yonge Line 1 North Subway Extension | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

rbt said:
#1 cause of capacity reduction on Yonge is passenger assistance alarms.

#1 reason to have staff on the train is to rapidly (within a couple of minutes) determine if it's a real emergency or not, and the process for resolving it (passenger stuck in the door, medical like a heart attack, theft, or something else).

Until a computer can figure out why the passenger assistance alarm went off and begin a process which will solve it rapidly, staff will be on the train because it's far cheaper than holding up 40 trains while someone drives 20 minutes from a central location to solve a false alarm.
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Good point. But it sounds like an argument for staff on the platforms, not on the trains - and only at peak times for that matter.

(Edit: You said roughly the same in your later post.)
 
rbt said:
DRL will help temporarily but I think Yonge is going to be at capacity permanently going forward which makes reliability very important.
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DRL won't help at all. The Yonge subway extension along with the ECLRT, and SELRT will most likely erase any benefit DRL provided to Yonge. Ultimately, we will need another route downtown parallel to the Yonge route. There's no getting around this. DRL extension on Don Mills is my preferred route.
 
I'm becoming increasingly concerned about platform safety on the Yonge line. A times, the crowds are being pushed right to the edge of the platform, without inches to spare. It's not hard to imagine how a disaster could happen. I think the TTC needs more crowd control staff to limit the amount of customers on the platforms.
 
rbt:

Excellent points - all of them are apparent to anyone who uses the system with any degree of regularity.

Also it needs to be mentioned that most of the Asian systems are fairly new with little legacy baggage, designed for heavier loads and are as such "better" designed. The early systems are just getting into the phase where maintenance issues are cropping up (e.g. MTR in Hong Kong).

TigerMaster:

I think Yonge-Bloor at rush on a bad day is one shout of "fire" away from a disaster. It has very little crush space, poor routes to exits, etc.

AoD
 
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nfitz:

Yonge-Bloor has multiple exits off all ends of all the platforms.
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Yeah, you try navigating the concourse during rush when there is an "event" while multiple trains unloading at the same time, with a subpar PA system, high ambient noise, confused riders and crossflow. If something happens at say Yonge station and the platform is jammed, you literally couldn't stop riders unloading from Yonge line to keep pushing down the platform. And sorry subway musicians, but I don't think they should be anywhere at Yonge-Bloor, especially during the height of rush. Ditto charity pushers. Even the Gateway and lotto stall is questionable in how they encourage clumping.

AoD
 
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
nfitz:



Yeah, you try navigating the concourse during rush when there is an "event" while multiple trains unloading at the same time, with a subpar PA system, high ambient noise, confused riders and crossflow. If something happens at say Yonge station and the platform is jammed, you literally couldn't stop riders unloading from Yonge line to keep pushing down the platform. And sorry subway musicians, but I don't think they should be anywhere at Yonge-Bloor, especially during the height of rush. Ditto charity pushers. Even the Gateway and lotto stall is questionable in how they encourage clumping.
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It's busy, sure. But it would clear quickly in an emergency. If something happened on the Yonge line level, anyone downstairs wouldn't even be involved, as they'd go out the western exit.
 
When you have more than 1000 people in an enclosed space with all these sources of confusion, any claim of it "clearing out quickly" is rather questionable even on a good day. During an life-safety event? Good luck - you will need it. And noticed I said Yonge Station (i.e. Bloor line) in said scenario - which is not that uncommon unfortunately.

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
And noticed I said Yonge Station (i.e. Bloor line) in said scenario - which is not that uncommon unfortunately.
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Given how many staircases there are off that platform, compared to how narrow the platform is, I'd think that would clear the fastest. It's not dissimilar to Union station at platform level, and I didn't hear any reports of that having any problem clearing the last time there was a life-safety event.
 
Johnny Au said:
Another problem about 7-car trains: some stations do not have straight platforms. Some 4-year-old girl fell in St. Clair station and it was with a 6-car train. Museum station is also not straight to accommodate trains going from Lower Bay to Museum.

Platform extenders can be used as well, as New York City's MTA use them all the time, but it would not be cheap.
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I suppose this can easily be calculated (well maybe not that easy) knowing what the curve radius is and the length of the car. The gap would be larger, but I would guess by not much. The same thing applies if we try to use 8 car trains and extend the length of a few key stations to accomodate all 8 cars. There is bound to be some type of curve there just beyond the existing platform that would cause the gap to be somewhat larger than at the straight platform. I think some extra "mind the gap" signs for this portion of the platform would be adequate.
 
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TheTigerMaster said:
Metrolinx absolutely needs the cooperation and approval of the TTC and Council for these projects.
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And they'd get it. But keep telling yourself that a Council which just said no (or declined to say yes if you prefer) to most new revenue options while at the same time asking for a thousand more subways would say no to a funded subway.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
What's the problem with this? I was skeptical of Metrolinx initially, but so far they've done a wonderful job. I have no problem with them designing and building it.

And I Metrolinx does go insane, TO Council/TTC will go ahead and stop it. Remember, Metrolinx made that insane decision to not have the TTC be in charge of operation of the ECLRT? The TTC Chair stepped in and said no. Within days Metrolinx announced that the TTC would have full control of operation.

Metrolinx absolutely needs the cooperation and approval of the TTC and Council for these projects. They're in no position to be wasting $ Billions
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They really don't need their cooperation. All the power that municipalities have are given to them by the Province, and can be taken away. If the province deemed it necessary they could take Toronto's role in controlling the TTC and make it part of Metrolinx.

It's always good to work things out with cooperation and feedback, so I doubt they would do that, but it's not like they can't.
 
nfitz:

Given how many staircases there are off that platform, compared to how narrow the platform is, I'd think that would clear the fastest. It's not dissimilar to Union station at platform level, and I didn't hear any reports of that having any problem clearing the last time there was a life-safety event.
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You aren't listening. I am not talking about ideal scenarios where everyone will somehow have perfect knowledge of the physical layout of the station and will all rationally and quickly find their way to those staircases. And has there been any serious life-safety event at Union during the height of rush? I certainly don't know of any.

AoD
 
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