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Transit Inspirations for Toronto

Fred.S

Fred.S

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Got the idea for this thread from reading MehBong5's post on Korea's system. It's true that sometimes you really don't understand or fully appreciate new transit ideas or the way other places do transit until you experience them. Maybe some of those who've traveled around and taken photos of other systems could share it here and we could see the merits of using some of those ideas in the GTA.

I've been to Europe many times and always love the way public transit is integrated into their society. Unfortunately the last time I was there, I wasn't as big a transit-fan, and didn't really appreciate or photograph the systems there. However, after going to Peru this past summer, I got some first-hand experience on a south-American BRT system, which had just began operation.

The Metropolitan (El Metropolitano) in Lima, Peru is a 33 km BRT line (split into a north and south section with two branches downtown) in fully exclusive bus lanes. I found the system to be very impressive, particularly how fast it is. The same line offers both local and express service, which evens out the load considerably over the whole line.

When I saw this, I immediately thought of how great it would be if GO operated a system like this across the city on the 401. I think converting the inner shoulder and lanes to this system would be dirt-cheap compared to any rail options for a cross-town route, and express service from Peel and Durham to a few spots in Toronto (427, Allen, Yonge, 404 and STC, maybe) I would imagine could be very popular. I think this could also be good for Sheppard east instead of the the LRT, where it could branch east to the zoo and to STC.

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brainfreezed/sets/72157625510593087/
Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/brainfreezed
Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Metropolitano

5276128913_68bf5fdce7.jpg


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[video=youtube;S0oDAaWrvbc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0oDAaWrvbc[/video]

Thoughts? Anyone else go somewhere and experience an aspect of transit done better than Toronto (in my mind that's like most of Europe and Asia)?
 
Vienna has a great rapid transit system. Gets you anywhere you could possibly need to get in the city.
 
Also, it looks like it runs in the middle of an expressway so no red lights, so it truly has a fully exclusive ROW, kind of like the Ottawa transitway.

For inspiration from a city using many transit modes we can look at Hong Kong:
- Regional Heavy Rail: Serving the outer suburbs, but still comes at a high frequency using long single decked trains
- Local Heavy Rail: Expansive underground and elevated rail system to serve shorter distances
- Intermediate Capacity Heavy Rail: Where subway isn't justified, they are implementing a ICTS to serve communities that have lower capacity but still need the high speeds
- LRT/Trams: LRT in their partially exclusive ROW serving very local distances between heavy rail stops

Other than this Hong Kong also has:
- Modular station design that helps keeps maintenance costs low (tiling, panels, and floors used are similar in stations), simple design also helps to keep the system clean
- Smart cards that can handle fare by distance that helps with cost recovery of expanding transit farther out
- Major citizen outrage every time there is a delay, breakdown, etc that forces action from the transit authority
 
Thanks brainfreezed for posting those BRT pictures.
That looks like a great system.

What if all the LRT stations were glassed in like that, heated, had screen doors, and had some kind of turnstile entrance/door so people could pay at the station entrance with presto or cash.
It would make boarding times faster and keep people warm/cool while they waited.
I'm no engineer though haha, I don't know exactly how it would work.
 
Agreed. Yea it'd be great if the the transit city lines had enclosed heated stations with platform doors instead of the St Clair-style shelters, which don't do anything for cold or wind

The VIVA BRT is a start, but where they're building maybe 8 km of exclusive right of-way in 5 years, Lima built 33 km in 4, on more restricted roadways. I understand the political and social differences between here and there, but it is discouraging.

I'm not against the St Clair/Viva-style centre of the street with side platform-stops model. I think this could be cheaply implemented for buses on many avenues across the city, like Finch, Sheppard and Allen. It would just involve repainting the road and reconfiguring intersections.
 
So some of Viva is set to be in exclusive lanes: http://www.vivanext.com/rapidways

Of course, the busiest section would be Yonge St. south of Richmond Hill all the way to Finch station but plans for traffic-free lanes are sidelined because York Region is pushing for a Yonge subway extension. I wonder how they are lobbying Metrolinx now that Ford has in effect opened up the Big Move.

IIRC, a key TTC report on subway building ranked Yonge most justified in terms of potential ridership. (BTW: that same report may not have considered the DRL...)
 
Ed Drass said:
So some of Viva is set to be in exclusive lanes: http://www.vivanext.com/rapidways

Of course, the busiest section would be Yonge St. south of Richmond Hill all the way to Finch station but plans for traffic-free lanes are sidelined because York Region is pushing for a Yonge subway extension. I wonder how they are lobbying Metrolinx now that Ford has in effect opened up the Big Move.

IIRC, a key TTC report on subway building ranked Yonge most justified in terms of potential ridership. (BTW: that same report may not have considered the DRL...)
Click to expand...

What subways were they considering in this TTC report? Have to know what it was compared to for it to be a meaningful comparison.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
What subways were they considering in this TTC report? Have to know what it was compared to for it to be a meaningful comparison.
Click to expand...

The comparison was Yonge, Sheppard west to Downsview, Sheppard east to SCC and some intermediate points, Eglinton West to Keele, Bloor to Sherway, and SRT Extension. The DRL was not investigated. Yonge had the highest ridership projection but due to capacity constraints at Bloor and along the line was not recommended without dealing with Bloor station capacity issues, especially dwell times. The current ATC implementation project was born out of that report I believe.
 
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You got a little confuzzled with your directions there.

Anyway, seeing as Yonge is the busiest line, it follows that of the possible extensions to existing lines (Sheppard East or West, Bloor West, Danforth East) that Yonge's extension would be the most successful. You don't even need to commission a study to figure that out. Eglinton I think is a bit harder to gauge. And DRL doesn't even have an exact alignment yet. I would have supported Yonge extension to York Region far ahead of the one we're getting to Vaughan.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
You got a little confuzzled with your directions there.

Anyway, seeing as Yonge is the busiest line, it follows that of the possible extensions to existing lines (Sheppard East or West, Bloor West, Danforth East) that Yonge's extension would be the most successful. You don't even need to commission a study to figure that out. Eglinton I think is a bit harder to gauge. And DRL doesn't even have an exact alignment yet. I would have supported Yonge extension to York Region far ahead of the one we're getting to Vaughan.
Click to expand...

With the extension to Vaughan, I agree with you. However, the extension to York U? No. In my opinion, York U is a higher priority than RHC. The extension past there is only there because Vaughan wanted it. That extra bit didn't come at the expense of anything inside Toronto, so it's nott that big of a deal.
 
gweed123 said:
With the extension to Vaughan, I agree with you. However, the extension to York U? No. In my opinion, York U is a higher priority than RHC. The extension past there is only there because Vaughan wanted it. That extra bit didn't come at the expense of anything inside Toronto, so it's nott that big of a deal.
Click to expand...

Oh I support the York University extension of course. Never had a problem with that.
 
EnviroTO said:
The comparison was Yonge, Sheppard west to Downsview, Sheppard east to SCC and some intermediate points, Eglinton West to Keele, Bloor to Sherway, and SRT Extension. The DRL was not investigated. Yonge had the highest ridership projection but due to capacity constraints at Bloor and along the line was not recommended without dealing with Bloor station capacity issues, especially dwell times. The current ATC implementation project was born out of that report I believe.
Click to expand...

ATC is a stop-gap measure for dealing with crowding on the Yonge line. Even with all the 'enhancements' (ATC, new rocket cars, etc), the Yonge line will only see a 3.5% decrease in congestion by 2031.

But honestly, if they choose a reno of Bloor-Yonge over the DRL, I'm going to be pissed. Bloor-Yonge is like a fat guy in tight pants. It's obvious that he's carrying too much for the pants to hold, so what do we do? Do we buy him bigger pants? No, we already tried that once. It worked for a little while, but then he just got even fatter. Spending $1 billion on a new pair of pants again is a waste of money, especially when we can get him a treadmill (the DRL) for $2 billion. They'll both have the same effect of making the pants fit better, but one is a much more healthy and long-term option than the other one.
 
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