TTC: Streetcar Network

[Monarch Butterfly]

The 2 hour free transfer is great

Should be extended to 3 hours when streetcars (and buses and subway and light rail) are in a "slow zone".

 

[zang]

Should be extended to 3 hours when streetcars (and buses and subway and light rail) are in a "slow zone".

Frankly, a lot of places that use timed transfers also do 3 hours.

 

[drum118]

Frankly, a lot of places that use timed transfers also do 3 hours.

Where???

 

[zang]

Where???

I was wrong about three hours. I was tired and out of it when I wrote that last night. When timed transfers were instituted, I do however remember arguments being made by transit advocates that the transfer time should be three hours given the size of the city and the length of time needed to get from one spot in Etobicoke to a point in Scarborough could end up requiring two fares.

 

[turbanplanner]

Yes the LRV will have to wait like any driver until the pedestrian is on the other sidewalk. Its the law and it will cost that driver of the LRV to pay a $810 fine and loose 4 demerit points.

There are numerous cases where pedestrians are crossing any street crosswalk on a red forcing drivers to slow down or stop for that person or drive behind them legally. Hurontario is a bitch of a road to cross at anytime of the day as the lights are too long for n-s traffic. There are other major roads that have the same issues.

I have seen side streets or cross streets who lights are too short or too long with no traffic on them.

Are they subject to the HTA?

 

[nfitz]

Oh, have you seen Queens Quay where oblivious pedestrians stand in the middle of the streetcar ROW waiting for the light on the tracks where streetcars are usually barrelling down the corridor?

In both cases - where the trump is the (red and green) paint? That would go a long way to making it very clear to pedestrians where they are standing, and at least which direction(s) to watch.

To be fair, there aint no streetcars barrelling through this intersection....they crawl at a snails pace.

I can't say I've watched here closely recently, but with all the talk of how the streetcar crawl through intersections now, I've been watching closely, at least on 506 which I've been riding more lately. I can't see any difference in how they operate at most intersections, though it's a bit slower where there's switches and track work - which is only a fraction of intersections. And invariably that's near busy stops so the impact is often minimal, and mostly as they wait for the end of the car to get over before accelerating - and even that doesn't seem universal, I watch yesterday autos fail to overtake a 506 westbound from the Broadview/Gerrard stop, with the twist in the track and lots of trackwork. Even all the 90-degree curves (there are several with no switches on 506 from Yonge to Main) don't slow much more than I'd expect ... gosh, I'm not going to drive a car around those curves at 40 km - when I do turn at the same time as a streetcar, I'm not turning any faster (but I've got a tighter radius on the inside lane ... which yes, you can do at Upper Gerrard and Coxwell, there's plenty of space. But I wouldn't try it southbound on Broadview to Queen westbound ... there's not much space. One advantage of the new cars, is they don't swing at all over the dashed lines at the curves.

And even though I've seen here reports that streetcars aren't taking 90-degree curves in both directions simultaneously - I observed exactly that ... though there was no trackwork. I'll have to keep my eyes open at Parliament and Coxwell.

And you certainly see improvements since the time of the CLRVs. Not once have I observed anyone shouting "GET OFF THE STEPS" while the back door refuses to close. Or missing an extra two or even three lights at a busy stop (like Yonge) while everyone tries to get in and out of the streetcar, with all the steps and fare box. Loading is clearly faster; if there's a delay because the doors are slightly slower it's probably still an overall gain; and the doors seem to be faster than the rear bus doors that you see nationwide.

Yes, it would be nice to run faster through intersections and improve switches. And hopefully they can sort this out soon ... though we can see the failure on Finch of supposed modern switches, and can see every reason why TTC would be cautious to implement. Forget Spain - perhaps someone could go to Moscow and check out how their trams work in the winter! They have a 36 lines, over a 400+ kilometre network and 600 or so vehicles - all built in the the last 15 years. They run in traffic, with stops frequently only 150 metres apart, and no opportunities for cars to pass the trams.

They also operate on massively wide streets, with no two-stage crossings and pedestrian refuges. I'm amused Toronto has the slowest trams in the world, on a list that included no comparable cities. Like Moscow.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

This is a 1953 National Film Board of Canada film on Winnipeg's street railway. Not Toronto, but similar on how they handled track switches based on all the talk these days.

In this film, Paul Tomkowicz, Polish-born Canadian, talks about his job and his life in Canada. He compares his new life in the city of Winnipeg to the life he knew in Poland, marvelling at the freedom Canadians enjoy. In winter the rail-switches on streetcar tracks in Winnipeg froze and jammed with freezing mud and snow. Keeping them clean, whatever the weather, was the job of the switchman. Directed by Roman Kroitor - 1953 | 9 min

 

[drum118]

Are they subject to the HTA?

Yes

 

[urbanclient]

In both cases - where the trump is the (red and green) paint? That would go a long way to making it very clear to pedestrians where they are standing, and at least which direction(s) to watch.

I can't say I've watched here closely recently, but with all the talk of how the streetcar crawl through intersections now, I've been watching closely, at least on 506 which I've been riding more lately. I can't see any difference in how they operate at most intersections, though it's a bit slower where there's switches and track work - which is only a fraction of intersections. And invariably that's near busy stops so the impact is often minimal, and mostly as they wait for the end of the car to get over before accelerating - and even that doesn't seem universal, I watch yesterday autos fail to overtake a 506 westbound from the Broadview/Gerrard stop, with the twist in the track and lots of trackwork. Even all the 90-degree curves (there are several with no switches on 506 from Yonge to Main) don't slow much more than I'd expect ... gosh, I'm not going to drive a car around those curves at 40 km - when I do turn at the same time as a streetcar, I'm not turning any faster (but I've got a tighter radius on the inside lane ... which yes, you can do at Upper Gerrard and Coxwell, there's plenty of space. But I wouldn't try it southbound on Broadview to Queen westbound ... there's not much space. One advantage of the new cars, is they don't swing at all over the dashed lines at the curves.

And even though I've seen here reports that streetcars aren't taking 90-degree curves in both directions simultaneously - I observed exactly that ... though there was no trackwork. I'll have to keep my eyes open at Parliament and Coxwell.

And you certainly see improvements since the time of the CLRVs. Not once have I observed anyone shouting "GET OFF THE STEPS" while the back door refuses to close. Or missing an extra two or even three lights at a busy stop (like Yonge) while everyone tries to get in and out of the streetcar, with all the steps and fare box. Loading is clearly faster; if there's a delay because the doors are slightly slower it's probably still an overall gain; and the doors seem to be faster than the rear bus doors that you see nationwide.

Yes, it would be nice to run faster through intersections and improve switches. And hopefully they can sort this out soon ... though we can see the failure on Finch of supposed modern switches, and can see every reason why TTC would be cautious to implement. Forget Spain - perhaps someone could go to Moscow and check out how their trams work in the winter! They have a 36 lines, over a 400+ kilometre network and 600 or so vehicles - all built in the the last 15 years. They run in traffic, with stops frequently only 150 metres apart, and no opportunities for cars to pass the trams.

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They also operate on massively wide streets, with no two-stage crossings and pedestrian refuges. I'm amused Toronto has the slowest trams in the world, on a list that included no comparable cities. Like Moscow.
View attachment 708620

I'm glad you brought up massively wide streets in Moscow. These are something Toronto sorely lacks. Which plays into my overall theory against trams in Toronto. In short, (fast) trams won't fit: unless you want them to crawl like the streetcars downtown.

 

[drum118]

I'm glad you brought up massively wide streets in Moscow. These are something Toronto sorely lacks. Which plays into my overall theory against trams in Toronto. In short, (fast) trams won't fit: unless you want them to crawl like the streetcars downtown.

To prove tour theory, you need to visited various cities in Europe that have similar street width as Toronto and have no issues running trams on them. A fair number have only one lane of traffic in each direction with no parking on them while some have small parking bays either on one side of the street or both. There are a number of systems that have 2 lanes of traffic with and without parking on them, The big different is there are no turning lanes like NA.

Ride a tram in Paris, Rome, Frankfurt, Zurich, Nice, Malina, Prague and so on, you will see the big different how well those and other cities are able to run trams far better than Toronto. Cars in NA rule the road while Trams rule the roads in Europe.

 

[urbanclient]

Ride a tram in Paris, Rome, Frankfurt, Zurich, Nice, Malina, Prague and so on, you will see the big different how well those and other cities are able to run trams far better than Toronto. Cars in NA rule the road while Trams rule the roads in Europe.

I have rode trams in Europe, there is a pervasive myth that tram-lined Euro roads are always narrower than Toronto roads. That's just not true, and for 'fast' trams, it depends on your definition of fast. Utrecht's Sneltram is decently fast at 27-28 km/h, but definitely runs in more spacious corridors than that of Finch West. The mythical tram that is just as fast as a typical metro simply would not fit in Toronto street ROWs without attempted expropriation met by the wrath of NIMBYs. I can get more in depth on this when I have the time.

What you'll notice here is that not only is the intersection's curb-to-curb width wider than a typical one on Finch West, but the building setbacks and boulevards (road verges) are much larger as well. This Belgian 'stroad' is effectively much wider here. About 11 lanes wide compared to 8 lanes curb-to-curb. There is this pervasive myth that Europe's tram lined roads are always narrower than those in Toronto, but that simply is not true. The overall right-of-way from property line to property line can often be wider in Europe. In turn, these wider corridors often have longer gaps between traffic lights. Just because you wandered down a narrow Tuscan cobblestone street all starry-eyed on your honeymoon doesn't mean all European road right-of-ways are narrower than ones in Toronto (with comparable importance and traffic volumes).

This urban morphology difference partly explains why some European trams run faster than Line 6.

Note the slip / frontage road running alongside the main road in the second Belgian screenshot. There is one on both sides.

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Road verge aka boulevard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_verge#:~:text=[14]-,Boulevard:,-Detroit, Michigan;

Good find, the building setbacks and the overall corridor are definitely narrower than the Brussels example. Unfortunately, that Frankfurt section is still a bit wider curb-to-curb than the narrowest sections of Line 6's corridor. That's 2 car lanes in each direction (4 total), but Frankfurt has a notably wider median tram ROW. Just a few metres away Eschersheimer becomes 3 lanes in each direction, about 8 car lanes wide (if there were no tram ROW).

I've driven down Finch West and was genuinely surprised at how uncomfortably tight the left through lanes were in many areas. Especially where the left lane narrows near the stops.
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