TTC: Other Items (catch all)

[zang]

I was suggesting inside the gates.

I don't know why you wait outside a streetcar, that is not within paid zone of control; because said passengers aren't contained, what are you doing to do if they keep walking and refuse to acknowledge you, tackle them?

They wouldn't and you can't just pen them on the road or the sidewalk.

For streetcars, enforcement needs to be when exiting within a TTC control zone (fare paid area, TTC property), or when the vehicle is in motion. The person being confronted has no easy way to avoid the officers in those scenarios.

I’ve seen POO get on and off at streetcars at King. They’ll usually check riders to about Bathurst, then head back to king on the next eastbound.

Edited to add: the way I see it, it’s a high traffic area to catch those who’ve skipped fare at any of the numerous subway stations. No need to focus on the point of departure; focus on the busiest streetcar line in the city, where you’ll likely get many more fare jumpers than say, parking at Broadview. You’ll get those who go in bus entrances to get into the system, and those who don’t tap on onto the streetcar.

 

[Richard White]

Progress at Warden!

 

[DSCToronto]

I think this is almost the last block of King which is getting tidied up while the Church/King intersection is closed. As far as I can tell, it is for margin repairs not a full rail replacement. I think they still need to deal with minor problems between Yonge and Jarvis but they really seemed to catch most of the margin repairs between Bathurst and River and totally re-laid the rails from Parliament to Sumach.

In the fall NEXT year they will be replacing the special track at King & York - I suspect they will forget to order the extra curve (east to North) but ...

Project Track Replacement (Special Track)
Location KING ST W Near: YORK ST
Details Replacement of the streetcar tracks/rails and the underlying support materials. Work may include resurfacing or reconstruction of the adjacent road/traffic lanes.Construction
Timeline Q3 2026 - Q4 2026

 

[hawc]

Leslie Barns. 6:15 AM.

 

[DSCToronto]

Leslie Barns. 6:15 AM.

Interesting pc. Looks as though their project to concrete in all the tracks is almost over.

 

[T3G]

Interesting pc. Looks as though their project to concrete in all the tracks is almost over.

Which tracks weren't concreted in before? This is news to me.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

We are looking at Leslie, not Russell. I'm also curious about that CLRV off to the side: thought they were all up at Rockwood.

 

[T3G]

Most tracks were NOT encased in concrete. See: https://www.ttc.ca/about-the-ttc/projects-and-plans/Russell-Carhouse ":The Russell Yard upgrade project includes: Replacing all yard tracks with concrete-embedded track rail and switches."

As noted above, wrong yard

We are looking at Leslie, not Russell. I'm also curious about that CLRV off to the side: thought they were all up at Rockwood.

Only the historical ones (4001 and 4089*). There were two, 4081* and 4124, which were originally retained with a view towards possible conversion to work car. Those didn't go up to Rockwood. I'm not sure what the future holds for those - I've heard a rumour that a private individual has expressed interest in taking one of them, but I'm not sure how reliable that is.

* For the number trackers, it was originally 4081 that was supposed to be the historic car, not 4089, but somewhere along the line some difficulty occurred.

 

[hawc]

Why are they tearing up the tracks on King just west of River? They look new.

 

[DSCToronto]

Why are they tearing up the tracks on King just west of River? They look new.

Look up about 6 posts...

This is, almost, the last section of King between Bathurst and River where the TTC are using the period with no streetcar service to do (long-overdue) repairs to the margins and in some blocks, the tracks themselves. Here they are only replacing deteriorated margins.

 

[smallspy]

Look up about 6 posts...

View attachment 672311

This is, almost, the last section of King between Bathurst and River where the TTC are using the period with no streetcar service to do (long-overdue) repairs to the margins and in some blocks, the tracks themselves. Here they are only replacing deteriorated margins.

As well as the deteriorated concrete in the margins, I believe that they are also doing carstop rail replacement. The rails at stops and intersections gets worn down faster than elsewhere, so it gets replaced more frequently.

Dan

 

[DSCToronto]

Ah. Alright goood to know.

When you look at the incredible amount of infrastructure require to keep the streetcars running, and when you look at how disruptive it is to replace that infrastructure, I bet a few people have wondered whether it would be easier to just run electric buses. Just have crazy frequency of them to deal with the fact they carry less.

Also, am I crazy or does it feel like the new streetcars are way bigger but almost have less room inside? Feels like you could pack more people into the old streetcars. Now I know these ones are longer, but it's weird they almost feel like its a less efficient layout inside. Same with the current buses. Feels like less room to sit and stand inside. It's like those huge SUVs that actually feel smaller inside than a little VW Golf.

You seem to ignore the fact that greatly increasing the number of vehicles will greatly increase the general traffic congestion and one of the main costs of operating transit is wages - more vehicles means more operators. You also need to remember that, though streetcar tracks and overhead need repair, so does the subway and much of the time taken while King/Church has been closed was for City watermain work - that is generally and sensibly usually done at the same time. The usable space inside the new streetcars (and buses) is constrained by the fact that they were designed, as they should have been, to accommodate those with mobility challenges - the old streetcars (much as I liked them) were virtually unusable by many people.

 

[dowlingm]

Also, am I crazy or does it feel like the new streetcars are way bigger but almost have less room inside? Feels like you could pack more people into the old streetcars. Now I know these ones are longer, but it's weird they almost feel like it’s a less efficient layout inside. Same with the current buses. Feels like less room to sit and stand inside. It's like those huge SUVs that actually feel smaller inside than a little VW Golf.

This video goes into the comparative layouts. When the C/ALRV replacement was being tendered I thought 70%LF was the best choice not just for seating but also for truck design given the tight loops and steeper grades of the legacy system.

The process by which it was decided that downtown cars must be 100%LF was weird at the time. It’s difficult to not think the desire to hand Bombardier a mega order for Flexities played into this, though I am not sure this was ever proven. The more different the cars were, the more difficult to justify not tendering them as separate orders, and of course in the end after the uptown project became Metrolinx’, this became more or less the case with the Alstom order and the reworking of the 600 car contract with Bombardier to have two different customers and a lower car count. A 300+ standalone standard LRV order would surely have drawn significant interest from competitors if they didn’t have the poison pill of the downtown cars to provide.

At the same time, perhaps without the mandatory on-street car stops of the downtown system, the uptown LRVs could have been high floor - but that might have put Siemens in pole position given their existing Canadian high floor customers.

 

[APTA-2048]

This video goes into the comparative layouts. When the C/ALRV replacement was being tendered I thought 70%LF was the best choice not just for seating but also for truck design given the tight loops and steeper grades of the legacy system.

The process by which it was decided that downtown cars must be 100%LF was weird at the time. It’s difficult to not think the desire to hand Bombardier a mega order for Flexities played into this, though I am not sure this was ever proven. The more different the cars were, the more difficult to justify not tendering them as separate orders, and of course in the end after the uptown project became Metrolinx’, this became more or less the case with the Alstom order and the reworking of the 600 car contract with Bombardier to have two different customers and a lower car count. A 300+ standalone standard LRV order would surely have drawn significant interest from competitors if they didn’t have the poison pill of the downtown cars to provide.

At the same time, perhaps without the mandatory on-street car stops of the downtown system, the uptown LRVs could have been high floor - but that might have put Siemens in pole position given their existing Canadian high floor customers.

Bombardier is capable of making a high floor or partially high floor LRV. They have built some for customers in the US. I thought the push for 100% low floor cars was lead by ACAT.

 

[dowlingm]

Bombardier is capable of making a high floor or partially high floor LRV. They have built some for customers in the US. I thought the push for 100% low floor cars was lead by ACAT.

That’s true - Minneapolis was 70% LF. That was a Swift model.