[TheTigerMaster]

I take your point about the v/c ratio charts. One issue may be that these appear have been normalised to the new vehicular capacity of each intersection, which may be lower than today. The study theorises that after LRT arrives, some proportion of existing traffic will gravitate to other routes. A different reduction is applied to different intersections. (This is described in Item 3 of each of Section 1, Appendixes III-VIII) I don't know if all traffic studies apply that premise. Taking them at face value, those v/c ratios are helpful to analyse the different scenarios or options within an intersection, but I'm not sure that they are apples to apples across the intersections. Or that they describe what will happen if traffic doesn't decline as projected.

A quote from the EA:

It should be noted that the assumptions used to generate these findings are conservative, since there were no adjustments made to the future traffic volumes based on an anticipated change in transportation modal split (shift from travelling by car to travelling on the Eglinton CLRT).

Page 27: http://thecrosstown.ca/sites/defaul...l-design-options-sections-2.1-through-2-6.pdf
​

So the EA isn't taking into account any drivers that will switch to transit. This is a smart move, as we've frequently seen that new transit infrastructure very often does not result in higher transit modal share.

 

[Rainforest]

Spotted a massive difference in the cost estimates for grade separations, according to the two recently published reports:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jrzqfHhIJoRSvVTwwKvVzCDh33dfu1ZH/view

Versus

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2017/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-109250.pdf

In the first document, they use "$" for 0-50 million and "$$$" for 100 - 150 million.

Islington comes at "$", 0-50 M.
Each of Jane, Scarlett, Royal York, Kipling, Martin Grove comes at "$$$", or between $100 M and $150 M

In the second document:

Jane 70.6 to 106.0
Scarlett 93.0 to 139.6
Royal York 187.1 to 280.8
Islington 74.1 to 111.3
Kipling 220.6 to 331.0
Martin Grove 236.5 to 354.9

Either I miss something in undertanding of those reports, or they miss something in one of the reports (or both).

Royal York, Kipling, Martin Grove (underground options) come roughly twice more expensive in the second report than in the first report.

Islington (elevated) is roughly twice more expensive as well.

Scarlett (elevated) is about same.

Jane (elevated) is actually cheaper according to the second report than according to the first.

How is that all possible?

 

[Voltz]

When reading the Business Case Analysis carefully, you'd see that they assume the speeds of the trains. Metrolinx didn't do any kind of quantitative study to determine how quickly the trains would be moving; that was undertaken in the Environmental Assessment. If what I recall from the Metrolinx BCA's is correct, they assumed all the Transit City LRTs would have 22 km/h running speeds, regardless of their location.

I'm pretty sure I remember that the actual estimated speed of the western section from the original Eglinton Crosstown EA was 30km/h

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Spotted a massive difference in the cost estimates for grade separations, according to the two recently published reports:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jrzqfHhIJoRSvVTwwKvVzCDh33dfu1ZH/view

Versus

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2017/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-109250.pdf

In the first document, they use "$" for 0-50 million and "$$$" for 100 - 150 million.

Islington comes at "$", 0-50 M.
Each of Jane, Scarlett, Royal York, Kipling, Martin Grove comes at "$$$", or between $100 M and $150 M

In the second document:

Jane 70.6 to 106.0
Scarlett 93.0 to 139.6
Royal York 187.1 to 280.8
Islington 74.1 to 111.3
Kipling 220.6 to 331.0
Martin Grove 236.5 to 354.9

Either I miss something in undertanding of those reports, or they miss something in one of the reports (or both).

Royal York, Kipling, Martin Grove (underground options) come roughly twice more expensive in the second report than in the first report.

Islington (elevated) is roughly twice more expensive as well.

Scarlett (elevated) is about same.

Jane (elevated) is actually cheaper according to the second report than according to the first.

How is that all possible?

Probably a genuine error by whoever wrote the report.

I'd trust the numerical values, and ignore the dumb "$$$$$" meter. Particularly because the numerical values have more precision than the "$$$$$$" meter, which seems to round to the nearest 50-millionth. And, for what its worth, the values on the Eglinton West LRT website match the numerical values

 

[MisterF]

I know I keep bringing this up but an at grade LRT with crossing arms at intersections would give the line the speed of a grade separated line at near the cost of a streetcar-style line. This would drastically reduce the number of grade separations. Are staff looking at this option?

 

[Rainforest]

I know I keep bringing this up but an at grade LRT with crossing arms at intersections would give the line the speed of a grade separated line at near the cost of a streetcar-style line. This would drastically reduce the number of grade separations. Are staff looking at this option?

They aren't likely to attempt that; too much interruptions to the N-S traffic given that Eglinton LRT is going to be fairly frequent, up to a car every 3 min in each direction. That means, unscheduled halts to all N-S traffic every 1.5 min on average.

Intelligent transit priority would be more subtle; it would extend the Eglinton green signal by 5-10 sec if an LRV is going to just barely miss it, to help it actually get through the intersection. If the LRV is going to miss it anyway, then the transit control system might shorten both main cycles (Eglinton and the subsequent N-S) to help the LRV pass sooner once the next Eglinton green starts.

 

[MisterF]

They aren't likely to attempt that; too much interruptions to the N-S traffic given that Eglinton LRT is going to be fairly frequent, up to a car every 3 min in each direction. That means, unscheduled halts to all N-S traffic every 1.5 min on average.

Intelligent transit priority would be more subtle; it would extend the Eglinton green signal by 5-10 sec if an LRV is going to just barely miss it, to help it actually get through the intersection. If the LRV is going to miss it anyway, then the transit control system might shorten both main cycles (Eglinton and the subsequent N-S) to help the LRV pass sooner once the next Eglinton green starts.

Those frequencies are nothing new for an at grade system with crossing arms at intersections. The Calgary LRT has trains as often as every 3 minutes each direction at peak; in Edmonton it's every 5 minutes. There's nothing unique about Eglinton West that prevents that kind of system as far as I can tell. There can still be selective grade separations at the busiest streets, as both aforementioned cities have.

Signal priority would be more subtle but also more ineffective. The Highway 7 busway has signal priority too but buses routinely wait at red lights.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Those frequencies are nothing new for an at grade system with crossing arms at intersections. The Calgary LRT has trains as often as every 3 minutes each direction at peak; in Edmonton it's every 5 minutes. There's nothing unique about Eglinton West that prevents that kind of system as far as I can tell. There can still be selective grade separations at the busiest streets, as both aforementioned cities have.

Signal priority would be more subtle but also more ineffective. The Highway 7 busway has signal priority too but buses routinely wait at red lights.

From what I’ve heard, that setup in Calgary has really screwed up cross traffic.

 

[TransitBart]

From what I’ve heard, that setup in Calgary has really screwed up cross traffic.

It has. Edmonton too. I go there regularly. We are building something for the ages. Why we have to keep inventing ways to cut corners (or more vulgarly, cheap out) is beyond me.

 

[Voltz]

Crossing gates only speed up the LRT because they LRT provide full priority over traffic, but really the same could be done with regular traffic signals, I don't think there is a big issue with cars running red lights that we need gates as well.

But I would consider having short crossing arms for the left turn lanes on Eglinton, so there is no risk of cars turning against a red light, while straight through traffic has a green, and getting t-boned by a LRT, requiring annoyingly slow operation of trains through intersections.

 

[Tuck]

I was just in Seattle, and their light rail system has at grade sections. You can't even tell. It was amazing. They do have crossing arms - the benefit of those is it prevents cars from delaying a train by sneaking in a left turn.

This is rapid transit, not streetcars. It should have absolute priority over cars.

EDIT: A lot of the time with the streetcars on Spadina, I see them slow down even when they have a green light, and sometimes even stop. To be careful. That would be complete nonsense for a rapid transit line.

 

[jeicow]

Spotted a massive difference in the cost estimates for grade separations, according to the two recently published reports:

The Part 1 Report costs are parametric costing according to the assumption page (very high level; use cost of comparative projects to estimate) while the numeric costs are Class 4/5 according to the staff report, which are more detailed though still preliminary. I imagine the parametric costs were used to test for initial feasibility before developing the Class estimates for the options moving forward.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I was just in Seattle, and their light rail system has at grade sections. You can't even tell. It was amazing. They do have crossing arms - the benefit of those is it prevents cars from delaying a train by sneaking in a left turn.

This is rapid transit, not streetcars. It should have absolute priority over cars.

EDIT: A lot of the time with the streetcars on Spadina, I see them slow down even when they have a green light, and sometimes even stop. To be careful. That would be complete nonsense for a rapid transit line.

The 510 Spadina Line slows down at special works (track switches). It has these at all major intersections. Eglinton won’t have this restriction.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

The 510 Spadina Line slows down at special works (track switches). It has these at all major intersections. Eglinton won’t have this restriction.

That's your penny-pinching politicians at work. The TTC has been told to cut, cut, cut it's budget, and the track switches are always the first thing to be cut. Hopefully, because the Crosstown is "new", it won't have that problem. However, give it a couple of decades...

 

[Avenue]

Intelligent transit priority would be more subtle; it would extend the Eglinton green signal by 5-10 sec if an LRV is going to just barely miss it, to help it actually get through the intersection.

Horrible. Just horrible. You might as well do sharrows for right of way instead of physical separation so that it's 'subtle'.