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TTC: Streetcar Network

As more automobiles appeared in the city, the need for more traffic signal intersections were needed. In the 1950's, traffic signals were few and unneeded. They are needed now, but they also slow streetcars.

From link, this is a photo of the intersection of Dufferin Street and College Street, in 1948. Missing: traffic lights.
201321-duf-college-1948-ed2.jpg
 
Perhaps it could be upgraded to a Transit City line underground, and continue above ground along Scarlett and Dixon Roads to the Airport.
 
Northern Light said:
Steve's read is quite correct in terms of how it has slowed from the time it was initially completed as an LRT.

But there are too many stops. Not way too many; one could reasonably debate the exact number, I'd peg it as between 3-5 extra stops per direction.

None is more egregious than the Vaughan Road stop which literally only 130 metres away from Bathurst!

View attachment 303637

The presence of these excess stops has always been there in the post-LRT era.

So they no role in the slow-ing.

Only in the never fast enough in the first place.

Eliminating the worst of the worst, as above, wouldn't radically speed the line up, but should save a typical rider up to 2 minutes in each direction.

The rest is as Steve notes it.

Plus, the never ending problem of left-turning cars going in front of Streetcars......
Click to expand...

It should be a no brainer to combine those two into a single stop. You could use the two existing centre platforms and rename the stop to “Bathurst—Vaughan” or something to that effect and inconvenience essentially zero people.

9261491C-D588-4762-94D7-431E595D7615.jpeg
 
It was not my intention to re-start the inevitable discussion of number of stops - no doubt some could be removed on most routes (but not MY stops, of course!) I was trying to point out that the maim reason the St Clair (and other) streetcars are so slow is TTC schedules and lack of route management but, obviously, if one removes stops it would also speed things up as long as the TTC also changed the schedules!
 
Removing one stop on St Clair will do nothing for speeding up service.

There are 3 stops that need to be remove, but TTC didn't have the backbone to remove them before the ROW was built. There is another 2 more that could be remove now as well. Don't need 2 stops for the Gunns location when riders can walk to the loop. TTC needs a signal to get out of the loop compare to the crawl and stop/go the streetcars has to deal with these days.

Have said that, service needs to service the locals as most riders are not going end to end. Them there is the slow speed using the ROW these days when it first open.

As for more traffic on St Clair and the need for longer lights, to bad for those car drivers since they are a small number using St Clair in the first place.
 
I remember the 1950’s and 1960’s, when the PCC streetcar trains would be loading up on the nearside of intersections. They would close the doors, and if they had a YELLOW light, they would start into the intersection, and even if the cross street gets their green the second streetcar in the two-car train would roll on through the intersection. Of course, being a “street railway”, it was assumed by us that the streetcars had the priority.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, streetcar and subway operators did not have to have a MTO driver’s license. Only if they drove the buses. Today, they have to “follow the rules of the road”, including the traffic signals, which were originally designed for motor vehicles.

From Steve Munro, at this link...
Steve: Buses drivers still do this quite routinely, and it’s something of a double standard within the TTC that they get away with it. One reason riders say buses are so much better than streetcars during replacements is that the buses drive as if they are on suburban streets. If a streetcar operator tried the same thing, they would be “disciplined”. There is also the permanent slow order on any special work, and the fact that the electric switch electronics have not worked basically for three decades and are only now, slowly, being upgraded. Imagine this sort of approach to subway maintenance. Oh wait, we’ve been down that road in the 90s.

A long-retired operator I knew called this “a blushing amber”. Particularly with the new larger cars and the TTC’s focus on safe operation they are much less willing to pull away from a stop at the end of a signal cycle. After all, the “transit priority” is supposed to extend their green time. Don’t get me started.
Click to expand...

A PCC train of two streetcars of yesterday, is roughly the same length of one Flexity Outlook streetcar today. Very likely on the suburban light rail lines (Line 5 and 6, to start), a train of two Flexity Freedoms would be equivalent to FOUR PCC streetcars in length, while a train of three Flexity Freedoms would be equivalent to SIX PCC streetcars. Wonder how they would handle "a blushing amber"?

Meanwhile...
 
JSF-1 said:
If anyone is interested I have done a video looking at the Harbord Streetcar. (I have also done ones on Dovercourt and Dufferin recently as well; although I didn't post them here).
Click to expand...
I hopped to your video on the Scarborough Expressway. I was aware of the proposal but not the finer details or machinations. Interesting.
 
W. K. Lis said:
I remember the 1950’s and 1960’s, when the PCC streetcar trains would be loading up on the nearside of intersections. They would close the doors, and if they had a YELLOW light, they would start into the intersection, and even if the cross street gets their green the second streetcar in the two-car train would roll on through the intersection. Of course, being a “street railway”, it was assumed by us that the streetcars had the priority.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, streetcar and subway operators did not have to have a MTO driver’s license. Only if they drove the buses. Today, they have to “follow the rules of the road”, including the traffic signals, which were originally designed for motor vehicles.

From Steve Munro, at this link...


A PCC train of two streetcars of yesterday, is roughly the same length of one Flexity Outlook streetcar today. Very likely on the suburban light rail lines (Line 5 and 6, to start), a train of two Flexity Freedoms would be equivalent to FOUR PCC streetcars in length, while a train of three Flexity Freedoms would be equivalent to SIX PCC streetcars. Wonder how they would handle "a blushing amber"?

Meanwhile...
Click to expand...
It would be better if LRV trains don't stop before the intersection. It'll take a good 20-30 seconds for them to start up if they did so. It's actually better with farside stops as this "bushing amber" wouldn't be possible. Either they blow through a green turning yellow or they stop for red and have a full green phase to cross.
 
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