TTC: Flexity Streetcars Testing & Delivery (Bombardier)

[ksun]

I know lots of people who, if the weather is shite, won't walk more than 2 or 3 minutes from their vehicle or a shelter, so yeah, that would prevent them from making their trip if it is a discretionary trip.

There are certainly those people but the number will be small. (I won't go to the Kensington market because the closest transit stop is 220 meters away!) don't forget those people will need to walk to their stop, climb stairs in subway stations, and will definitely have to walk in Kensington market once they arrive. That's a lot more than 200 meters!

Conversely, I could argue that your theory would hold that every route would need but two stops - 1 at either end, and everyone would have to get to those two points. But that doesn't work either.

No, there is a degree of reasonableness. By taking transit one would be expect to walk some distance, and the line needs to stop at popular destinations to maximize its coverage. Internationally, most surface transit has spacing of at least 400-500 meters, even in more dense cities.

And following your childish counter argument, I may ask why doesn't the streetcars stop every 50 meters? There will be passengers who need to someone between Nassau and College and choose not to because they need to walk 100 meters?

Besides Toronto, please show me other cities where buses/streetcars have 80-200 meter spacing. Not even in Manhattan or Paris, where density is several times higher. I will be more convinced if you do.

 

[nfitz]

Besides Toronto, please show me other cities where buses/streetcars have 80-200 meter spacing. Not even in Manhattan or Paris, where density is several times higher. I will be more convinced if you do.

Montreal, Vancouver, Hamilton, Ottawa.

It's not hard to find 200 metre spacing on Manhattan buses either.

And streetcars stopping every 50 metres. There might be the occasional oddball stop that's 50 metres apart. But it's not EVERY 50 metres. I don't see the need to pull stuff to exaggerate.

 

[1overcosc]

There are certainly those people but the number will be small. (I won't go to the Kensington market because the closest transit stop is 220 meters away!) don't forget those people will need to walk to their stop, climb stairs in subway stations, and will definitely have to walk in Kensington market once they arrive. That's a lot more than 200 meters!



No, there is a degree of reasonableness. By taking transit one would be expect to walk some distance, and the line needs to stop at popular destinations to maximize its coverage. Internationally, most surface transit has spacing of at least 400-500 meters, even in more dense cities.

And following your childish counter argument, I may ask why doesn't the streetcars stop every 50 meters? There will be passengers who need to someone between Nassau and College and choose not to because they need to walk 100 meters?

Besides Toronto, please show me other cities where buses/streetcars have 80-200 meter spacing. Not even in Manhattan or Paris, where density is several times higher. I will be more convinced if you do.

Many of Ottawa's local bus routes have an average 200m stop spacing. There's several stretches where there's at least 8 stops in a single kilometre.

One reason why stops are so frequent is accessibility concerns. An extra 200m walk doesn't sound that bad to me or you, but for a heavily pregnant woman or a senior with a walker those 200m can be difficult.

Incidentally you've mentioned that China has stops quite far apart on their buses and subways. I know that in China, disability rights are very poor and there's often cultural biases against accessibility.

 

[ksun]

It's not hard to find 200 metre spacing on Manhattan buses either.

Do you care to show me?

One or two stops along one line that close doesn't count. TTC's entire streetcar system and many buses are pretty consistent in 200M or so spacing. Show me a similar situation where most transit lines are spaced 200 meters. London, Paris, Manhattan, Tokyo, Chicago any cities you think are comparable where a significant part of the transit system is spaced that tightly.

(pls don't respond by saying something as vague as "Toronto has its own travel pattern" etc. which essentially explains nothing).

Many of Ottawa's local bus routes have an average 200m stop spacing. There's several stretches where there's at least 8 stops in a single kilometre.

One reason why stops are so frequent is accessibility concerns. An extra 200m walk doesn't sound that bad to me or you, but for a heavily pregnant woman or a senior with a walker those 200m can be difficult.

Unfortunately transit doesn't and shouldn't evolve around the 0.5% special need people. Tell me, how many of those unnecessary stops are actually used by heavily pregnant women and seniors who simply can't walk 200M, versus those who simply don't want to work 2 minutes? On a daily basis, it is probably 99-1.

Plus most heavily pregnant women CAN walk just fine. Doctors would recommend walking more. My sister in law was riding a bike two days before she delivered her baby. Pregnant woman, no matter how pregnant they, have no problem walking a few minutes. Even if can't, they shouldn't be outside by themselves at all.

In reality, I do care about those people in need, so how about reserve those stops only for those who really need it and require drivers not stop at those stops for perfectly agile people who are just too lazy and save all the 150 passengers on board a few minutes? It is like handicap parking, you shouldn't used it unless you ARE handicapped.

 

[nfitz]

Do you care to show me?

The block spacing on many of the east-west streets is about 200 metres. There are stops at each block.

They are even closer on some of the north-south routes.

Not sure the relevance of any of the other North American cities, given that transit usage is much lower there.

This doesn't match my recollection of London either. Just jumped into a part of London I know ... just check 2 stops on Malden Road, near London Road. 472 feet apart. That's 144 metres. Most stops though seem to be closer to 200 metres, to be fair. But 200 metres seem pretty common in these you claim aren't 200 metres.

 

[TOareaFan]

In reality, I do care about those people in need, so how about reserve those stops only for those who really need it and require drivers not stop at those stops for perfectly agile people who are just too lazy and save all the 150 passengers on board a few minutes? It is like handicap parking, you shouldn't used it unless you ARE handicapped.

This is perhaps the most bizarre suggestion I have read in my short time at UT. Tell me how you envision this working? Would there be stickers that people would wear? ID cards that they would show? Once we have identified people (in some fashion) I could see how it works for the driver letting someone off their vehicle (they would just walk up to the driver, show their sticker/ID and say "I would like to get off at this upcoming handicap stop") but how would it work for someone getting on....would the driver stop, and if the person trying to get on at that stop did not have the appropriate ID/sticker they would be ordered off the bus/streetcar and ordered to walk to the next non-handicap stop?

 

[salsa]

This is perhaps the most bizarre suggestion I have read in my short time at UT. Tell me how you envision this working? Would there be stickers that people would wear? ID cards that they would show? Once we have identified people (in some fashion) I could see how it works for the driver letting someone off their vehicle (they would just walk up to the driver, show their sticker/ID and say "I would like to get off at this upcoming handicap stop") but how would it work for someone getting on....would the driver stop, and if the person trying to get on at that stop did not have the appropriate ID/sticker they would be ordered off the bus/streetcar and ordered to walk to the next non-handicap stop?

Maybe ksun could show us some examples of where this system exists, since he likes comparing other cities so much.

Do you care to show me?

Now it's your turn.

 

[Johnny Au]

At least Sunday stops are being removed.

By the way, the Sussex Avenue stop should be removed, especially given that the new streetcars make that stop redundant.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

How do the new streetcars make Sussex any more redundant?

 

[JayBeeGooner]

Why should Sussez be removed? 510 streetcars stop there only if there is a request, and it's at least a 7 minute walk to Spadina station.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I walk from Sussex to Spadina Station all the time and it certainly does not take 7 minutes. Maybe 2 or 3 minutes. Even from Harbord it doesn't take more than 5 minutes to walk it up to the station.

 

[JayBeeGooner]

I walk from Sussex to Spadina Station all the time and it certainly does not take 7 minutes. Maybe 2 or 3 minutes. Even from Harbord it doesn't take more than 5 minutes to walk it up to the station.

It takes 2 minutes to walk to the Spadina platform on the Spadina line? Come on.

 

[ehlow]

You can walk south from Sussex to Harbord in 2 min. It's only 190 m.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

It takes 2 minutes to walk to the Spadina platform on the Spadina line? Come on.

Well I can walk from Sussex to the Line 2 platform in 2 to 3 minutes. I suppose walking to the Line 1 platform would take another minute or two, thanks to that long pedestrian tunnel.

Trust me, it doesn't take that long to walk from Sussex to Spadina Station. It's almost always faster to walk from Sussex to Spadina than it is to wait for the streetcar to take you to the station.

 

[JayBeeGooner]

Pfft...

The walk is 7 minutes from Sussex to the Line 1 Spadina platform, and I'm a really fast walker.

Eliminating the sussex stop won't improve travel times. Just keep it.