TTC: Other Items (catch all)

[Amare]

And this is exactly why people cry wolf when the TTC begs for more money through fare increases. They cant even adequately manage the resources they have now as they screw around with riders through lack of proper route management.

Time and time again, throughout the city there are routes that get so screwed up its simply astonishing. I can assure people that at least 20% of the routes in this city operate with route management issues. Off the top of my head, here are a few that i'll share:

1) 44 Kipling South
2) 52 Lawrence West
3) 17 Birchmount (no the Crosstown has nothing to do with its issues)
4) 68 Warden (no the Crosstown has nothing to do with its issues)
5) 95 York Mills
6) 110 Islington South
7) 45 Kipling
etc...

The list really goes on, and on. Bottom line is, line management is atrocious at the TTC. They know it, we know it, and they know we know it but they wont do anything to address it because management couldnt care less and are inept. Heck the some of the good operators even complain about it, but they still wont address the issues. Of course there are other operators who contribute to the issue and compound it by screwing around and knowing that they'll get away with it.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

I saw this today at Main Street station.

 

[Richard White]

3) 17 Birchmount (no the Crosstown has nothing to do with its issues)

This route has been screwed up ever since they got rid of the 17C Birchmount Express in the 1990s. I take it daily and it is not uncommon to have major delays in bad weather or for the buses to arrive 10 minutes early and sit there.

During the recent schedule change the buses went from relatively empty to standing load.

More buses are needed in addition to route management.

 

[Johnny Au]

1) 44 Kipling South
2) 52 Lawrence West
3) 17 Birchmount (no the Crosstown has nothing to do with its issues)
4) 68 Warden (no the Crosstown has nothing to do with its issues)
5) 52 Lawrence West
6) 110 Islington South
7) 45 Kipling

You repeated 52 Lawrence West twice.

 

[Amare]

You repeated 52 Lawrence West twice.

Good catch! Replace that one with the 95 York Mills.

 

[44 North]

Anyone know if there's a map or dataset that gives average route speeds for surface vehicles in AM-PM rush. I guess that'd be a bit misrepresentative for a lot of routes seeing as many are so long. But it'd be good to get a visualization of throttle point hot spots across the city.

Would also be neat to compound such an infographic with ridership stats to give a heat map of passengers/speed. It's jammed all over, but let's see how jammed.

 

[drum118]

Time to move ahead with the recommendation of shifting the streetcar tracks to the west side of Bathurst St on both side of Lake Shore as well rebuilt the intersection to deal with the shifting of the tracks The last section of Queens Quay east of Bathurst be rebuilt to match the rest of QQ to the east. This can be done when TTC has to replace the tracks in 2022?. TTC refused to fund the shifting of for this area when QQ was rebuilt and that is why its that way today.

With this closing of Fleet now, TTC can rebuilt the westbound platform to the new standards.

City of Toronto closing section of Fleet Street to cars over ‘safety’ concerns

 

[jje1000]

A good interim solution for improving station safety and reducing suicide attempts?

To address the issue, stations across Tokyo and the rest of Japan installed chest-high barriers as a means of preventing suicide attempts. But platform barriers are expensive, and about 70 percent of Japan's largest and most-travelled stations do not have the platform space or structural strength to accommodate them. While there are hopes to have platform barriers installed in all 243 of Tokyo’s train stations by 2032 (at a cost of $4.7 billion), rail operators in the interim have come up alternative approaches.

Standing at either end of a platform in Tokyo’s labyrinthine Shinjuku Station, one might detect a small square LED panel emitting a pleasant, deep-blue glow. Nestled among vending machines and safety posters, the panel might be dismissed as a bug zapper. But these simple blue panels are designed to save lives.

Operating on the theory that exposure to blue light has a calming effect on one’s mood, rail stations in Japan began installing these LED panels as a suicide-prevention measure in 2009. They are strategically located at the ends of each platform—typically the most-isolated and least-trafficked area, and accordingly, the point from which most platform jumps occur. Some stations, such as Shin-Koiwa Station in Tokyo, bolster their LED regime with colored roof panels, allowing blue-tinted sunlight to filter down on to platforms.

It is an approach that has proven to be surprisingly effective. According to a study by researchers at the University of Tokyo published in the Journal of Affective Disorders in 2013, data analyzed over a 10-year period shows an 84 percent decline in the number of suicide attempts at stations where blue lights are installed. A subsequent study revealed no corresponding increase in suicide attempts at neighboring stations lacking such lights.

The Amazing Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

The nation’s vast rail system succeeds because of some subtle behavioral tricks.

www.citylab.com

 

[Jonny5]

The TTC has pulled all streetcars from Queen Street and replaced them with buses after the braking system on seven different vehicles was found to be damaged.

The issue was first reported at around 12:15 p.m.

Wha?

 

[DSC]

TTC Service Alerts
@TTCnotices

We are pulling streetcar service from the routes operating on Queen St. and west of Roncesvalles (501, 501L and 508) and replacing with buses until further notice. We’ve found damage to the brake system on seven streetcars on these routes. This is in an abundance of caution. 1/2

501 Queen streetcars have been replaced by buses until further notice due to track inspection. 501 Queen replacement buses are running between Neville Loop to Long Branch Loop via Queensway, Windermere and Lake Shore both ways.

2/2 - Crews are investigating causes including possible track damage making contact with the brake system. We recommend customers normally using 501, 501L and 508 seek alternative routes where possible. Buses will likely be crowded.

Last updated 1:12 PM

 

[Northern Light]

TTC Service Alerts
@TTCnotices

We are pulling streetcar service from the routes operating on Queen St. and west of Roncesvalles (501, 501L and 508) and replacing with buses until further notice. We’ve found damage to the brake system on seven streetcars on these routes. This is in an abundance of caution. 1/2

501 Queen streetcars have been replaced by buses until further notice due to track inspection. 501 Queen replacement buses are running between Neville Loop to Long Branch Loop via Queensway, Windermere and Lake Shore both ways.

2/2 - Crews are investigating causes including possible track damage making contact with the brake system. We recommend customers normally using 501, 501L and 508 seek alternative routes where possible. Buses will likely be crowded.

Last updated 1:12 PM

Is there clarity on whether they mean Queen, west of Roncy or all of Queen? The initial discussion I saw between Steve Munro and TTC PR suggested the former, but the alert reads as the latter.

If they think there is a track problem in the west end, it makes no sense to pull service off all of 501.

Either way the communication is poorly worded.

Edit: On Twitter, the TTC Alert clearly references all service to Neville. What a cluster@#$k.

 

[Amare]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the track potential defect is somewhere between Roncesvalles and Humber, that's my hunch. More specifically if we're laying bets, i'd narrow it down to the stretch between Roncesvalles and Parkside.

Either way, the whole situation is a complete mess and it may soon serve as yet another example of why the city needs to stop deferring state of good repair work. But of course our mayor likes to go around and blame the premier for this, so there's that.

 

[TransitBart]

Let's get the facts.

 

[44 North]

Sometime last year a fireball blasted out from the wheel area of a streetcar. It was on Queensway, around Colborne maybe. I posted about it here at the time. Maybe it's related. I think smallspy said it was likely a piece of brake pad.

 

[smallspy]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the track potential defect is somewhere between Roncesvalles and Humber, that's my hunch. More specifically if we're laying bets, i'd narrow it down to the stretch between Roncesvalles and Parkside.

Either way, the whole situation is a complete mess and it may soon serve as yet another example of why the city needs to stop deferring state of good repair work. But of course our mayor likes to go around and blame the premier for this, so there's that.

So when it was all said and done......they don't know what was causing the damage. It may not even have had anything to do with deferred maintenance.

They sent a couple of cars back and forth on Queen last night, including a Flexity with cameras pointed at all of the trucks, and couldn't find the culprit. Perhaps whatever it was managed to sort itself out.

The last that I heard, they will be returning streetcar to Queen after the morning rush.

Dan