Transit City: Sheppard East Debate

[Second_in_pie]

I predict these buses will use the transit ROW where possible, but who knows?

It's not possible, unless they make the ROW huge. Since LRTs run on rails, they don't need to worry about leeway for drivers or for trains running off the median. As a result, the ROW is basically the same width as the trains. Adding busses into the mix would require the ROW to have a curb, as well as widening it at least a meter on both sides.

 

[Rainforest]

It's not possible, unless they make the ROW huge. Since LRTs run on rails, they don't need to worry about leeway for drivers or for trains running off the median. As a result, the ROW is basically the same width as the trains. Adding busses into the mix would require the ROW to have a curb, as well as widening it at least a meter on both sides.

I thought they are designing TC ROWs to handle emergency vehicles. Those run on tires, and are at least as wide as buses.

Anyway, they should at least make the section east of Progress bus-capable. Then, they retain the option to connect the Zoo and Port Union buses to the SRT Sheppard / Progress station, rather than just SELRT terminus at Meadowvale.

 

[kettal]

If the ROW is built to handle Toronto's monster fire trucks, then buses should be no problem.

 

[waterloowarrior]

Would the emergency vehicle operation be only one way/one lane though?

 

[Rainforest]

But it still should be wide enough for the fire truck to bypass an LRV, whether the LRV occupies same lane or the opposite track.

They can't wait for the whole line to be cleared of LRVs before letting a fire truck on.

 

[Dan416]

Buses running in an LRT ROW? Isn't that kinda, I dunno, redundant, and even, stupid to the point of showing poor planning? I don't know if it's unprecedented, but it sure would be new to me.

 

[Rainforest]

Buses running in an LRT ROW? Isn't that kinda, I dunno, redundant, and even, stupid to the point of showing poor planning? I don't know if it's unprecedented, but it sure would be new to me.

Well, in one small German city I've seen a busway that also has LRT tracks for carhouse movements.

Whether this is a good or poor planning - I guess it depends on the extra cost of wider ROW versus potential benefits. I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with sharing a portion of LRT ROW with a bus route, if that allows the bus to get to its destination faster.

 

[nfitz]

In Seattle they run buses in downtown through the tunnel that has their new LRT in it.

 

[golodhendil]

Buses running in an LRT ROW? Isn't that kinda, I dunno, redundant, and even, stupid to the point of showing poor planning? I don't know if it's unprecedented, but it sure would be new to me.

I've seen buses using the Spadina ROW. I think it was once when the streetcar was down or something, though I'm not sure because in my memory I did get on a streetcar after seeing buses passing by. I suppose that's not a purposely-designed situation.

In Seattle they run buses in downtown through the tunnel that has their new LRT in it.

But I guess in that case it's slightly different because the tunnel was originally designed for buses and only later retrofitted for LRT, and in any case the tunnel is more like a multi-lane underground arterial:

 

[Darwinkgo]

In Seattle they run buses in downtown through the tunnel that has their new LRT in it.

It was a bus tunnel before it was an LRT tunnel, and the frequencies the LRT runs at are a joke.

As for the LRT lanes being used by fire trucks - it is a good political cover, but I doubt the corridor size planning is done to accommodate every fire truck. Now ambulances or police cars are a different story...

 

[nfitz]

IBut I guess in that case it's slightly different because the tunnel was originally designed for buses and only later retrofitted for LRT ...

The tunnel was designed for LRT from day 1, and had tracks from day 1. Though in intervening years, they ripped out the tracks and replaced them, as what was there wasn't going to work with what they finally built.

 

[Darwinkgo]

LRT technology hasn't changed that much in the past 30 years, and the platforms were already low floor. I would hate to be the engineer who signed off on the original work as LRT capable!

If the rails were already there, why wouldn't they just buy a trainset that would work on it?

 

[nfitz]

If the rails were already there, why wouldn't they just buy a trainset that would work on it?

I don't recall the details; but the existing tunnel was only 2-km, a small fraction of the first 25-km phase of the LRT, and the 80-km of extensions they are planning.

 

[golodhendil]

I stand corrected. Here is a description of what happened, from world.nycsubway.org. Apparently nothing to do with the rail vehicles but with the actual engineering:

From 1983, when the Metro Council voted to build the tunnel, to the present day, the Metro Tunnel has always been viewed as a potential conduit for light rail. Underscoring these plans, the Metro Council voted to lay light rail tracks the entire length of the tunnel for easy future conversion from buses to trains.

Light rail tracks, lain in 1989 and 1990, are clearly visible throughout the Metro Tunnel. When the region's voters approved a plan to build a light rail system, in 1996, it was expected that these tracks would be used by the proposed system. Unfortunately, it was discovered, in 1998, that the rails are useless.

While the tunnel was still under construction, Metro Transit was given a $5 million budget to install rails, but the actual work was found to cost an extra $1.7 million, according to an engineering estimate. Thus, as a budget cutting measure, Metro reduced the amount of insulation required to keep electric current from straying. In addition, the amount of cushioning for the rails was reduced. As a result, light rail trains will never use the Metro Tunnel's rails and the region's taxpayers will spend millions more to lay new tracks in place of the old ones when and if a light rail system is ever built.

(this was written a while back, before the LRT conversion was completed)

 

[nfitz]

Only in Seattle ... those who are frustrated about Toronto's impotence in terms of transit progress would be heartened by looking at what has happended in Seattle in the last 60 years or so. Though their new LRT scheme may put an end to that.